A Telegram

MAY 1962, SMITH COLLEGE, EMERSON HOUSE, NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Two weeks after I played Claire at Longwood, I was at Smith waiting for an afternoon chemistry lab to get started, when a girl from Emerson House came in and told me that I had received a telegram. She had seen it when she had gone back to the house for lunch. I instantly cut the lab, ran as fast as I could along the path under the trees back to the house, burst through the door, found my telegram on the front hall table, and tore it open.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, “YES! YES!” I was jumping up and down in the hallway. The house matron came out of the kitchen. “Fiona, a young man must have proposed to you. That’s the only thing that could make you so happy. Congratulations!”

From The Tennis Player from Bermuda