A clank and the wheeze of an engine outside brought a quick clatter of feet down the steps. I heard the front door being opened, hastily. For a moment there was a kind of cosmic pause, a suspension of all sound, and then the barest breath of disappointment.
The door closed, and someone turned the lock. Then someone’s footsteps went back through the hallway, past the Christmas tree, up the stairs, and retreated to someone’s bedroom.
The pattern had begun after breakfast. Every little sound from the street outside might be the mail carrier, and if it was, he might be carrying a letter congratulating a certain high school senior on her acceptance to one or another university.
It was true that he might also be carrying a letter of rejection, but as the day wore on and the mail didn’t come, the contents of the letter began to seem less important than putting an end to the suspense. For of course the prospective student was by no means the only member of the family with an intense interest in what the postman might bring.
Traffic along the front hallway was so intense that at one point there was a close call: One person who had darted out to check the mailbox and was whirling away in frustration nearly collided with another who, sensing the open door, had sprinted over to see what was what.
“Argh!”
“Sorry!”
“Anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Argh.”
When you are strung on tenterhooks, it’s not much consolation to know that tens of thousands of other people are in the same position. High school seniors all over the country are going through these agonies. Many will wear a groove in the floorboards as they repeatedly check the mail; many more will pace their rooms furiously as they wait for colleges to notify them by email. And, it appears, even if you’ve already secured a place at a decent school, the suffering of waiting to hear from your top choices doesn’t diminish.
“He’s here! He’s here!” I heard myself yell, almost before I registered the blue cap moving across the front lawn.
“Oh, gosh. OK. Um,” said the young student, making a feint toward the door, shying away, then moving forward again. Should she get the mail? Should I get the mail? Should we just let it lie there, waiting? I was doing a dance of my own, putting out a hand toward the door handle, pulling it back, wondering if, by opening the door, I’d be supplanting her.
“Why are you guys jumping around like that?” asked the girl’s brother, who hadn’t heard.
The mailman came up the porch steps. We could see him through the front door window, standing with the sun behind him as he sorted magazines. Unable to bear it, I flung open the door.
“Here you are,” the fellow said, handing me an armful of mail as casually as if it did not contain nitroglycerine.
“Thanks,” I said, and dove back into the house.
Together, with pounding hearts, we flipped through the thick stack of mail: “Christmas card … Christmas card … dentist’s bill … magazine … catalog … nothing.”
We looked at each other. Nothing. Nada. No letter.
Yet.
The next day, it seemed, the pacing would resume.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
