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The glue on the back of the Post-It isn't holding up as well as it should. Given how she's been moving it from book cover to book cover, sometimes back again when the choice felt particularly ridiculous, this isn't much of a surprise.
Hoping, betting and praying that it won't fall off is probably expending too much energy instead of going right ahead and swapping it for a fresh one, but, in the end, it seems to be clinging onto the volume she picked for him well enough.
She hasn't bothered with wrapping paper for fear it might embarrass him.
The little note, in all of its neon glory, however—that she couldn't resist:
If you're reading this, Rupert... you shouldn't be.
A smiley face would have been going too far, but boy was she tempted.
*
She remembers driving into school obscenely early one Tuesday morning last month, fully believing Snyder had scheduled a staff meeting at that hour on purpose to fuck with pretty much everyone under him. But what felt like insult had turned out to be a typo, and both she and Rupert ended up being the only ones not catching it before venturing outdoors not long after the crack of dawn, mere weeks before the end of the school year.
These days, they do it for fun, for the company, and for something akin to rebellion.
Like she said, it's obscenely, gratuitously early.
It's too early for conversation, that's for sure, but maybe not for something else.
"Let's do something," Jenny says. She fiddles with her sunglasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose.
Rupert's mouth is a malleable word-gargling machine that's out of quarters, until he finally finds the proper words to get himself running again, like an adorable automaton.
"Quite. Um. What would you—?"
She asked him to show up early, nurse their coffees together or something, and he said yes.
"Anything!" Behind her sunglasses, she squints at nothing.
He doesn't speak, merely blinks at everything but her.
She shrugs and says, "Boring as this is, I have to go prepare for an exam, since I'm here anyway."
Her tone softens it somewhat, as does the long, straight look she levels him with over the rims—head tipped forward, letting her glasses slide back down.
She walks him to the library doors, and catching a glimpse of the small smile he still has on even as she walks away isn't an accident.
*
From: Jenny Calendar ([email protected])
To: Rupert Giles ([email protected])
If you're reading this, then you've finally given in and not only figured out how to decently use this thing but you're also using it as it was intended. A computer's good at connecting people, Rupert! Embrace all that the internet has to offer!
Right now I'm laughing at the implication you're corresponding with more than just me. I'll spare you the jargon and casual lingo in case that's not true. I don't want to scare you off.
I hope you enjoyed the book. Nice end of the school year present, huh?
Tell me how you liked it in September!
*
From: Rupert Giles ([email protected])
To: Jenny Calendar ([email protected])
Dear Ms Calendar,
I wouldn't know where to start where corresponding in this fashion is concerned, but I'll endeavour to make it brief, if nothing else.
The reason for your interest in exchanging messages in this manner escapes me. Quite frankly, there are easier ways, some of which involve far more tangible methods of conveying ideas to someone, such as the entirely more reliable and accessible telephone and postal services, where these ideas might not disappear into the ether unchecked, never to be found again.
Furthermore, the etiquette in this type of communication has been difficult to ascertain. The length and frequency of these messages are as yet vague concepts. On my side, I confess being entirely devoid of a solid method of research in order to breach this information gap.
Whereas the internet holds many mysteries, an envelope and a receiver do not.
Finally, what remains is the ever-present possibility of this contraption blowing up as I am drafting this missive, a possibility unique to it, as it's an unlikely occurrence when, I can confidently declare, one is using ink on a piece of paper one has the intention of mailing by handing over to a very nice person intent on delivering it.
Overall, the experience it's startlingly unsettling.
I do believe I might be starting to enjoy it.
Best regards,
Rupert Giles
*
From: Jenny Calendar ([email protected])
To: Rupert Giles ([email protected])
Letters get lost, too, Rupert, and whatever you may believe, I am not about to stick around my house waiting for your call.
(I'm glad you're liking it.)
*
She finds a Post-It stuck to her front door mat: I see your point. (I did enjoy it.)
*
If he'd asked her about it beforehand, she would have said she had no intention of incorporating e-mail into their interactions, much less on an almost daily basis, but she has to leave Sunnydale over the summer, can't be helped—family business (a blessing) and some time for herself (a retreat).
It's complete luck that she has a computer handy at all while she's away, but it's easy to log into her e-mail account, check any messages, then log out, and if those messages consist of one from Rupert among those from her coven and her family (and if she answers his first each time), then so be it.
It might as well be as if she's waiting around for him to call.
She's pretty sure he doesn't see it this way, though. For him, it's probably exciting and different, and still so very new, with just the right amount of frustrating piled on top of the whole experience to keep him coming back for more.
*
From: Jenny Calendar ([email protected])
To: Rupert Giles ([email protected])
Aren't you going away anywhere over the summer?
If you do, you have to tell me about it!
Try finding a computer. It's easy to log in somewhere else. Be careful of viruses and to log out once you're done.
How's Sunnydale?
*
From: Rupert Giles ([email protected])
To: Jenny Calendar ([email protected])
Dear Ms Calendar,
Before we proceed, please explain "viruses."
Best regards,
Rupert Giles
*
The tape'll kick in the moment he presses the button on the machine. It always does. You have one new message!
It would hiccup only the once, if that, before Jenny's voice, overly articulating each word precisely, would kick in: "Rupert, don't be a drag. I'm humouring you, as you can see, with a telephone call. Too bad you weren't home. Got your e-mail, but I'd rather not give you a lecture on your machine or send a Computers 101 tutorial that you'd need explained anyway. I'm back in a couple of weeks. How did you enjoy the book?"
*
It's nowhere near the start of the school year when she drives into Sunnydale. In fact, she's back within a month, and they have a sit-down talk about internet safety well before she chickens out of having it at all, although she does nearly giggle herself into a coma beforehand thinking about all the ways it could go wrong.
Throughout it all, he doesn't blink away from her face once. She almost misses wearing her sunglasses.
He might be overwhelmed by the end of it, enough that she can't count that he'll still be looking her in the eye after Labour Day, but he's also read through her present twice and, that same night, sends her something very much like a book report in e-mail form, so she takes that as a good sign that viruses and internet creeps and online pitfalls in general aren't going to dissuade him from this.
She was sort of hoping it wouldn't. Hoping, betting and praying about it, in fact.