Vercelli

Luis Santos considered himself an observer of the human condition. Others might have called him a recluse or a nosy bastard, but he preferred “student of nuance.” It sounded nobler. Less pathetic.

He had once been a substitute English teacher. Then a bookstore clerk. Then, for a few years, a nighttime security guard at a luxury condo. Now, semi-retired, Luis mostly stayed home. He lived alone. No pets. No children. His brother called once a month from Arizona, always with news of someone Luis barely remembered. His phone rarely rang, except for spam.

In the quiet suburb of Glenwood Park, where little happened beyond lawn mowers and recycling bins, nuance was everything. Luis had all the time in the world to notice how Mrs. Halber kept her roses pruned at waist height, or how the Hendersons’ teenage son had taken up slam poetry, audible through thin summer windows. He watched. He recorded. He noticed.

And then she moved in.

Vercelli.

The name fit her like a silk glove — old-world, elegant, faintly intimidating. Luis had only heard it once, when the UPS man shouted, “Package for Vercelli!” over the fence. He immediately wrote it down in a notebook reserved for important matters like cable bill tracking and dreams about wildfires.

From the second she moved in next door, Vercelli inhabited her yard like a sun deity. She wasn’t just in the garden — she dwelled within it. Tending to flowers in gauzy white sundresses, lounging in a woven chair with fat novels splayed open on her belly. She glistened. She was mythic. Luis wanted to be the straw she nibbled on so carefully as she sipped her sun tea.

Luis began watching her in earnest. Not lewdly, he assured himself. Just... appreciatively. As a man might study a statue in a museum — with reverence, with curiosity. She waved at him once, calling out, “Hey there!” in a voice that rang like a wind chime. That wave rewired his neurons.

She’d waved again a few days later. She even smiled.

And so, naturally, he began writing letters.

Dear Vercelli,

When you tend to the hibiscus, the flowers bloom with envy.

Yours,

L.

They were tasteful. Poetic. Luis slipped them under a loose plank in the shared fence. Not all at once — he didn’t want to overwhelm her with his affection. Just one or two a week.

And she changed.

Or so he thought.

She smiled more broadly when she saw him. She waved with both hands one morning, as if delighted. She even laughed, tossing her curls like a Mediterranean sprite. Luis felt himself coming undone with possibility.

Dear Vercelli,

Your laugh ripples through me like water. I have never truly thirsted until now.

Yours always,

L.

By week five, he was convinced she was responding. She spent longer hours in the yard. Sometimes barefoot. Once, she twirled — literally twirled — to shake a bee off her dress. Surely that was a private performance. A shared language of flirtation.

Luis began fantasizing in depth. He imagined her approaching his porch one evening, a letter in her hand, eyes glowing with mischief. He’d step aside to let her in. Offer wine. Bach would be playing. She’d confess: she’d read every note. Felt every word.

He took to dressing up just in case. A pressed linen shirt, fresh deodorant. He even bought a fedora that he believed lent him a Hemingway-ish allure. It had been years since he'd worn anything but sweatpants and house shoes. He didn’t mind the change.

Then, one Monday afternoon — when the sky was a belly of clouds and the air hung damp with pollen — something shifted.

Vercelli was not in the garden.

Instead, a man appeared.

Stocky. Shaved head. Wearing mechanic's overalls with a patch that said “DENNY.” He stood in the middle of her yard holding... papers. A stack of them. Luis squinted. Letters. His letters.

He ducked inside like a spy shot at mid-mission. From the shadows behind his blinds, Luis watched. Denny stood there for a moment, reading one aloud. His lips moved. Then, shaking his head, he knocked on Vercelli’s sliding glass door.

She appeared, towel around her neck. Smiling. Then frowning. Then taking the letters and reading. Luis pressed his ear to the wall as if he could suck sound from plaster.

Vercelli covered her mouth. She laughed. She doubled over laughing. Denny gestured wildly, miming some kind of theater — dramatic sighs, a hand on his heart, then mock-swooning.

Luis, suddenly slick with sweat, backed away from the window.

She wasn’t receiving the notes.

Denny was.

Every single letter, intended for Vercelli, had been intercepted by her boyfriend, who apparently worked nights and, by bad luck or fate, accessed the garden from the opposite side where Luis had been slipping them through the fence.

The plank — the holy plank — was closer to Denny’s entry point.

Luis sat down on the floor and stared at his own reflection in the glass coffee table.

He looked like a man who’d written love letters to another man by mistake.

And worse — he’d been encouraged by what he thought were replies.

The doorbell rang.

Luis opened the door to find Denny holding the now neatly rubber-banded stack of letters. Vercelli stood behind him, arms crossed, eyebrows raised in mild amusement.

“Hey, bro,” Denny said. “Just thought you’d want these back.”

Luis tried to speak, but his mouth was doing something unhelpful — quivering, maybe.

“These are beautiful, man,” Denny said. “Romantic as hell. If I were a lonely widow with a porch swing, I’d be swooning.”

“Thank you,” Luis mumbled.

“I mean, the part about the hibiscus?” Denny held up a page. “‘They bloom with envy’? I read that one to Vercelli. She snorted iced tea out her nose.”

“I’m sorry,” Luis said, truly meaning it.

“No harm done,” Denny said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re just... you know. A passionate guy. But maybe next time, knock on a door instead of writing epistolary erotica to a stranger’s boyfriend.”

Vercelli gave him a little wave — the kind you give a deer caught raiding your garbage. Kind, but distant.

When the door shut, Luis stood in silence, still holding the letters. The room was very quiet. Bach was still playing faintly from the speakers.

He sat back down, fished a pen from his pocket, and scrawled on the topmost letter:

P.S.

Turns out even goddesses fall for guys with socket wrenches.

Then he poured himself a glass of wine, turned off the music, and — for the first time in a month — did not look out the window.