Safe Bet?

Believe it or not, I'd never bet on anything before in my life. I mean, unless you count the time I played poker with a bunch of my dad's work buddies at a company picnic. Dad had meant for me to lose my shirt and learn a lesson about gambling but, instead, I won big. The men were NOT pleased, nor did they find it amusing that a teenager beat them fair and square. That was the first time I learned that men, and grown-ups in general, do not like to lose to a fifteen year-old girl.

Sometimes you just get a lucky feeling, and I had that feeling on the fourth of July after my sophomore in high school. My parents had decided to let me go out on a nearby lake to watch the fireworks with a new friend I'd met in drivers' ed. She was a rocker and a stoner, wickedly intelligent and very rigidly anticonformist. My parents, however, only knew about the wickedly intelligent part and my mom thought her mom was "neat" so she trusted her completely.

It was when we stopped by my house to ask my parents about the lake trip that we first heard the news; the neighborhood association was raffling off a used car today and tickets were ten dollars apiece. I just felt lucky, I guess, and insisted that my friend walk the half-mile up to the pool house to buy a ticket. On the way, we ran into other friends. Everybody thought I was completely nuts wasting a perfectly good ten-dollar bill on a slim chance at a car, but I trudged on in the heat and we approached the table and bought a ticket.

Then, we headed off to the lake after following the neighborhood parade down the street. Driving to the lake took about an hour, but it was well worth the time. At sundown, the fireworks began over the lake and the view from the boat was spectacular. Once the party died down, my friend's parents drove us to a nearby convenience store so I could call my parents and let them know I was on my way home.

My dad answered the phone and told me I had won the car. At fifteen and possessing only a learner's permit till I turned sixteen, I was now the proud owner of a 1976 Ford Granada. My friend and I jumped up and down like little girls on the side of the fake 7-11, screaming and waving our hands in the air.

It was light blue and looked pretty worn, even more than it should have been. There was no sheen on the paint as if it had been out in the salt air at the sunny beach for months. When I walked up to the neighborhood association house the next day to pick up the keys, the guy who had sold me the ticket smiled.

"A lot of folks were hoping for a second car and bought a lot of tickets. They were awfully mad when they heard you were only 15 and didn't even have a driver's license yet. But I think it's great. You took a chance and you won! With only one ticket.”

I can't believe it!" I replied.

My dad and I took it in to the shop to see what needed to be fixed. After about $600 dollars worth of repairs, it was road ready.

In the suburbs of Houston where, at the time, there was no public transportation system, a car meant freedom. It was a ticket to any place you wanted to go, a place to smoke cigarettes without adults noticing, and an entertainment system which required just a gallon of gas for a couple hours of riding around endless streets, free of traffic, in subdivisions and neighborhoods where no one would hear you sing along with the radio at the top of your lungs. It also meant you could have a part-time job farther away from home and earn more money. All of my best car memories involve my closest friends at the time.

A car is a beautiful thing and a dangerous thing---a fact my father
knew well. When I went to college, he refused to let me take it with me for fear that friends would pile into it one night and we’d do something stupid. That, I can tell you, was a wise move on his part.

Instead, my ten-dollar car remained parked outside the front of my parents’ house until a drunk driver driving on the wrong side of the street hit the car so hard that it was pushed over the curb and across the lawn into the neighbor’s driveway. My dad actually paid the junkyard collector fifty dollars to tow the car away.

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

A quiet Saturday spent in the yard, playing by myself turned into a marvelous game of imaginary play with two neighbor children, a brother and sister, and their GI Joe and Barbie figures. We moved our game from the place where the two yards met kitty corner to the dark, brown-carpeted family room of their house. The shag carpet became the jungle, the story spinning out of control as first the curtains were drawn and then the lights were turned off in order to create the perfect mood for our action-adventure tale.

Suddenly, in the middle of our play, we heard a shrill bell chiming somewhere outdoors. It was a familiar sound, and one that spelled out an uncertain fate for me. In these days before cell phones and beepers, my parents called me home with an old-fashioned bell. It was mounted outside our front door and would go on to be mounted in front of three more houses before my parents divorced and sold their last house together, resigning the bell to a box in a storage unit. When the bell rang, the only thing of which I could be certain was that my mother wanted me home. I didn’t know whether it meant I was in trouble (often), due for a surprise (rarely), or my assistance was needed. I just knew if I didn’t come the first time it was rung, there’d be trouble for sure.

I made my apologies and said I’d return as fast as I could though I knew that I couldn’t promise this. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the bell, imposing and grand, hanging next to the front door. It was a heavy brass bell, decorated with scrollwork and capped with an angel. A handle attached to one side by a lever was to be pulled down over and over again to get it to ring so loud it could be heard half a mile away. I could know my mom wanted me home no matter where I was. It could be heard easily indoors or out, and probably struck most of the neighbors as very odd, though few made comments about it. Looks were usually sufficient.

Today, my mom called to me before I went inside and told me to meet her on the back porch. There, on the concrete slab underneath the deck, my mom had set up a chair and the all-too-familiar gold nylon bib, a salon-style coverall that shielded you from stray hairs during haircuts. I had left my neighbors’ house with hair below my shoulders. I would not return there that way.

“But why?” I asked. I was having fun and didn’t really think I needed a haircut.
“Summer’s coming,” she said, and got to work.
I could see my image reflected in the glass of the sliding doors of the family room. Inch after inch came off of my head, until it was hard to tell whether I was a girl or a boy. I began to sob softly.
“There,” my mom said, “now you can go back and play.

I took one long look at my shorn self in the glass, then ran off to my neighbors’ to return to our adventures with Barbie and GI Joe.

When I stepped into their family room, the boy called out, “What happened to you?” I have never forgotten the looks on their faces when they saw me. It was as if I’d been in an accident and they were gape-mouthed in horror at my appearance.

“My mom cut my hair,” I explained. After that, we tried to pick up where we left off, but the momentum was gone. Today, that bell sits in the basement of my house in the same box my mother packed it in when my parents divorced. And there it shall stay for all eternity if I have anything to say about it.

Bionic Girl

On the way to school that day, the first day of school, I thought I got lost. It seemed to take forever to reach the big four-story building, and even though my parents had taken me on a dry run the day before, I was sure had missed a turn somewhere and was now lost in the tree-lined streets of a new neighborhood in a new town on the way to my fourth elementary school and my first day of fourth grade.

As I approached the enormous building, the streets were deserted. Even the crossing guard had left her post as it was way past the start time of the school day. Whatever parents had walked their kindergarteners to school were long gone and I entered the building feeling very small and alone.

After asking a passing grown-up in the hallway, I made my way up to the fourth floor to my fourth grade home: Mrs. Rothenberg’s room. She was very thin, but her belly protruded declaring her status as a short-term teacher who would soon leave to replace a class full of children with one of her own.

“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, I think this is my class,” I said.
“I don’t think so, sweetie. We’re only missing one student and that’s a boy,” she replied.
I sighed, looked down at the floor, and then asked, “What’s the boy’s name?” dreading the answer, especially in front of the whole class.
“Brett Baron,” she answered.

I sighed again, whispered, “That’s me,” and stood there in front of twenty strangers feeling very naked while she fell over herself apologizing.

I’d gotten used to this kind of thing. My father had picked out the name from a book, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. The main character was in love with a woman named Lady Brett Ashley. Every little girl I met named Brett in the '70s had been named for the same character. A few months later my father would introduce me to his new boss: “This is Brett.” Thanks to my “Dorothy Hamill” hair, my flat chest and tomboy clothes, he thrust his hand out to me and fairly shouted, “Hello, young man.” From then on, I think my father introduced me as his daughter, Brett.

Years later, I’d walk into my high school English class and scrawled over all of the blackboards find my name listed with about six men’s names and details of the relationships with each. Pity my mother never told me that Brett was a nymphomaniac because the man she loved was left impotent by the war and could never make love to her. This was a most embarrassing way to find out, surrounded by a class of high school freshmen who found the fact very amusing. Again, I felt naked.

But, on this day, years before I received men’s dorm applications, football applications and dated two guys named Brett, I stood naked before my class, waiting for my teacher to find a seat for me. All eyes followed me as I sat down. This was a small town, and instead of blending in as I’d hoped, I’d just been singled out in the worst way possible. So I did what anyone would do in my situation: I came up with an imaginary life. What better way to deflect attention from having a boy’s name than to come up with something extraordinary to make you stand out in a good way: I would be bionic.

I loved the “The Six Million Dollar Man” and had a huge crush on Lee Majors, the star of the show. Dreaming of his superhuman powers, I crawled out of my parents’ bedroom window and onto the garage roof one day, ready to jump into a snowdrift on my driveway ten feet below. Unfortunately the neighbor called my mom and informed her that I was trying to commit suicide or run away, so my fun was short-lived.

Now you can’t just go around telling everyone you’re bionic. You have to come up with a good story: a car accident with serious injuries. Then, you need to choose someone who will believe you. Someone who already talks to you a bit and might be willing to listen to stories about your many operations. I found such a someone and began to spin my tale. For about a week, she seemed to believe me. I beat her at arm wrestling, could climb the monkey bars in record time, and was fast in the sprint we all had to do for the President’s Physical Fitness Test: the 50-yard dash. It was this test, initiated by John F. Kennedy, which was to be my undoing, however.

The last test of the physical fitness challenge was known simply as the 600. This was a race against the clock as you had to finish in under three minutes or so to get your certificate. I never, ever finished in less than four minutes. In fact, I was usually the last or the second-last person to cross the finish line. It was then that my new friend remarked to me, “If you’re really bionic, how come you don’t win the 600?” I believe I said something about not wanting to blow my cover, and walked away. We never spoke of it again. She was kind, at first, not mentioning my “powers” to anyone, but a year later as I prepared to move to another state and yet another elementary school, I overheard her remark to someone, “Yeah, she said she was bionic when she first came here.” I guess that was better than the other way I was known at Muhlenburg Elementary: the girl who farted in the library.

The Princess and the Knight

The yellow school bus pulled up across from the cornfield and picked me up as my parents waved goodbye from the burnt-out grass of the backyard where my mom was also growing corn that year. The bus hummed and chugged along the spare, suburban landscape which soon gave way to greener, more lush views as the trees and creeks of the surrounding forest came into view toward the end of the forty-five minute trip.

I’d never been to camp before and, though this was day camp, I was a little nervous. I didn’t know anyone on the bus and had no idea where we had traveled. The camp was a couple of buildings at the base of a big hill, which seemed to me a mountain at the age of seven. Creeks criss-crossed down the hill, finally meandering into a pond on level ground near the main building.

Camp began innocently enough: hikes up the “mountain”, songs around the campfire, finding newts under rocks in the woods. One day, in the main building, all of the counselors were presenting us with a talk on safety or something and I noticed a particular counselor paying a lot of attention to me. I think that’s the first time I remember seeing him. It was a bit unnerving, but in the end I liked being stared at so I smiled back at him, dimples and all.

After that, he began showing up in places where my group was stationed: arts and crafts, hiking, cooking, the pool. He always smiled a lot at me, patted me on the back, and called me by my name often as if I were the most important camper in the place. I was his princess and he was my knight in shining armor, or at least that’s how I felt.

At the pool one day, the day that one of my campmates chose to show me that she had proudly grown a full moustache of pubic hair –evidence that her period was soon to come, he and a bunch of other counselors were at the pool with my group. Somehow, and I’m still not sure how this happened, he ended up carrying me around the pool the whole session as a man carries his bride across the threshold. The other counselors, teenaged boys and girls, began joking with him.
“When’s the wedding?” one boy asked. The others smiled and laughed. I beamed from ear to ear, excited that all of these older people even knew I existed. When my group left the pool, my knight got permission for me to stay an extra half hour, and I swam around with him and the other counselors for the whole time feeling like the princess of the camp.
A few weeks later, on a field trip, we were all on the bus when I began to feel sick. My knight came over to my seat at the back of the bus to check on me. He asked if the pain was “here” by touching his hand between my non-existent breasts, right over my sternum, and said it must be heartburn. I don’t know if it was the touch, or the knowing smile, but that was the first time I felt uncomfortable around him, and the first time I realized that maybe a seventeen-year-old boy shouldn’t be taking such an interest, especially a physical interest, in a seven-year-old girl.

On the last day of camp I had to say goodbye to my newt. He’d been found a few weeks earlier under a rock and had been brought to live with Sal, my friend’s salamander, in the science cabin in a terrarium with rocks and mud and water. I knew I’d miss him terribly and soon after my parents would try to compensate for the loss by buying me a newt at a pet shop. Sadly, he expired on the way home in the car as it was a hot day and we had no air conditioning.

I also had to say goodbye to my knight. As the school bus approached my house for the last time, I got out of my seat with my little knapsack and made my way to the front of the bus as the cornfield filled the windows across the aisle from me. He walked me to the door, then stood in my path as I approached the stairwell that led down it. He asked for a kiss, on the lips, as the toll for leaving the bus. I looked toward the bus driver, but he stared straight ahead as if he didn’t hear what was said. I looked to the other counselors, but they were talking amongst themselves. No one was waiting in my back yard to pick me up. I hesitated, feeling intensely uncomfortable and trying to figure out if there was a way out of this kiss. Finally, since “no” seemed too hurtful and the bus driver seemed ready to move on whether I got off the bus or not, I gave in and gave him a peck on the lips. He smiled broadly as I got out of the vehicle feeling I had done something wrong. The moment my feet hit the grass, I ran all the way to the door and inside the house, never looking back at him, but feeling his eyes on me the whole way. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I’d stolen a lollypop or lied to my teacher, and so I never mentioned a word about him to my parents.

Dime Luck

"Aw, c'mon. You know you don't have anything else to do at 6:30 on a Friday night?"

She had me there. She being my colleague, Danica, a Science and Art teacher at a small alternative school in Manhattan. Yes, I was young enough to go out dancing or to a concert or a party on a Friday night, but, No, I didn't have any plans that would begin that early. And so I said yes to the most important question of my life because I felt guilty for saying no and thought that perhaps there might be a cute guy at the party.

The party itself was a chips and beer reception for an art display her former NYU professor was having on Broadway. I lived about three blocks away and really had no excuse for not coming out that night, especially so early that nothing else would be going on. Dressing quickly and casually in my roommate's baggy jeans, lovingly autographed by her day care students in her college days, I rushed out the door and down the street to the bar. To call it a bar is to be very generous. Really, it was a dive: the kinda place where people carved their names into tables, peed on the floor in the bathroom and drank beer out of pitchers because it was cheap while knowing full well that the most the pitcher and glasses had had was a rinse in between servings.

Hanging out with Danica, her new boyfriend, and a friend from her NYU days, we joked and laughed and enjoyed the cost-free fare. Soon after, Danica and her man exited and I stayed behind talking to her college friend. We had both been recently burnt by dates who lied or didn't reveal girlfriends. A guy with beautiful brown eyes--I'm a sucker for beautiful brown eyes--walked by with a chair on his head. He put it down at a large table crowded with young people who were not in our party, then sat. I stared at him, off and on, for about twenty or thirty minutes, not having the guts to go over and talk to him.

Then I unwittingly provided him with an opportunity. We were still trashing men and their dog ways, still drinking mugs of beer. In the fashion of the time, I furiously snapped my fingers in agreement as my new drinking buddy provided me with a particularly good diss on men in general. You know, the triangle snap. The diva snap. The queen snap. Enter: the new man. He walked up and said,

"Do you need a light?"

"No, thanks. I don't even have a cigarette," I replied to the man at whom I'd been staring.

"Well, you snapped your fingers, so I thought you needed a light." He smiled broadly. "If you want a light later, just snap again."

He returned to his seat. I glanced over from time to time. Then, I did it. The diva snap. He came over and sat down. We talked easily, the four of us: the cute guy, his friend, my new drinking buddy and me. Before I knew it, the beer was asking me to exit and I rushed off to the bathroom, leaving him alone with my new pal. "You know, if you don't ask her out, you're an idiot. She's been staring at you for the past half hour," my new bud eagerly prodded.

When I got back to the table, we made plans to see the Doors movie the next night. Dream guy was waiting for some other friends to come, so when my new drinking buddy left, I stayed and waited with him. We talked and talked, eventually moving to a table further back in the bar. I found a loose floorboard when we moved.

"Maybe there's a treasure buried under it, like in the movies," I suggested.

"Let's check it out," he answered.

Under the floorboard, we found a dime.

"If a penny gives you one wish, a dime'll give us ten." I was in a romantic mood and he was all for playing along.

We each made five wishes. Of course, we kept them to ourselves, otherwise they wouldn't come true. After his friends arrived and we talked some more, it was time to walk me home.

I lived on a pot block, but you had to walk through a heroine block to get to it. When we safely reached my block at the end of the alphabet in Alphabet City, a few pot dealers began to follow us, staring him down. They were just looking out for my safety, but dream guy didn't know that at the time and was a bit freaked out.

Arriving at my door, he spoke.

"You know, one of my wishes was that I would get to kiss you tonight."

"That was one of my wishes, too."

We kissed --a magical kiss--and said goodbye, and the rest is our family history.

A Mark is Born

We met in seventh grade Biology over hydra and planaria, the fascinating little monsters with the power of regeneration and the mystique of Greek mythology. Sunshine was pretty, shapely, mature-looking with long, fringed, blonde hair and dressed in cool, tight bell bottoms with a tight sweater outlining her maturity. I was a boxy, flat-chested, "shortie" (about 4'8" and the recipient of that nickname in 6th grade) and looked far younger than my 12 years. She could've walked into high school unnoticed and I into a fourth grade class. What bonded us was that no one else in class cared to be partnered with either of us.

She looked like a girl who'd had experience, had a reputation for dating older guys, came from a single-parent family on the wrong side of the avenue (no tracks there) and was considered poor. I was weird according to my yearbook "greetings" and was a girl trumpet player with an eccentric family of vocal non-conformists who'd attended 5 elementary schools in 7 years. Sunshine was kind to me and that was all I required of a friend having been an outcast for all of 6th grade in a school where everybody's dad was a doctor or lawyer, and often moms were, too. My family didn't believe in "keeping up with the Jones'" and took pride in their working class values.

We graduated from mere lab partners to hall partners and soon I spent the night at her house in the older section of town. She lived in a great, old house with all the early century details. It was then the plan must've begun to be hatched, and then that I began my life as a mark.

The next day, we walked the streets of downtown, coming to a stop at the city jail where her ex-boyfriend was "staying" for a few months. He'd be getting out soon, in fact later that day, but we arrived in time for visiting hours and there ran into his current girlfriend in the sunny, orange room with large tables where loved ones sat with sodas and newspapers while they awaited the arrival of the felons. A couple minutes later, he joined us, wearing a green military jacket. The three happily discussed plans for the couple's upcoming wedding while I listened, caught up in the notion of being part of such an adult conversation. One snag, though: weddings cost money, as do newlyweds' apartments. Having been locked up this year, he had neither the money or a place to live with his bride-to-be. He needed something, he said, "to flash" in the face of his future mother-in-law so she'd consent to the wedding when he saw her this afternoon.

Would I be able to help out? Now being 12, and a VERY naive 12 at that, eager to please and a sucker for lost causes, I agreed to go to the bank and withdraw $150 from my bank account. The money had been saved over several years, the accumulation of five and ten dollar gifts from various relatives, especially my grandmother. Sunshine and I went to the bank which was conveniently located across the street, withdrew my money from a very early prototype of today's ATM machines, and returned beaming from ear to ear. The ex-con was released and he, his girl, his ex-girl and I headed for Sizzler where he treated us to a late lunch with my money. The young couple seemed to be on the right path, headed toward mom's house to share the great news, and promised to give me back the bulk of the money the next week after impressing his mother-in-law-to-be with the stash.

About two weeks later, Sunshine and I no longer spoke in class or in the halls. My money was never going to be returned and my mother, guardian of my bank account, had received the statement. She questioned me and the whole tale spilled out. It was my mom's objective to teach me responsibility by giving me access to the account, but she hadn't counted on my being conned by pros. After explaining that Sunshine had never been my friend, just someone who saw me as a means to an end, my parents tried to assure me that everything was ok and that they weren't angry. They cautioned me to choose my friends more wisely in the future.

About a month later, I received a phone call from the replacement girlfriend, the bride-to-be. She was pregnant and needed $100 for another abortion (she'd had one a few months earlier). They didn't know anyone else with that kind of money so they'd asked Sunshine for my phone number which she freely gave them. I replied that they'd already spent every cent I had. She said bye and hung up without so much as a "thank you" or "we'll be paying you back".

When I graduated from 8th grade a year and a half later, hopefully a year and a half wiser, Sunshine wrote in my yearbook, "Stay sweet as you are."

Three I-Love-You's, Two Omissions: One Real Thing

A check had bounced in her brand-spanking-new checking account. A friend had written her a check in return for cash. Then his check bounced, and so did one of hers. Her mother, the guardian of the account, opened the statement with horror.

"You, young lady, are getting another job."

She had worked at McDonald's my sophomore year. Her father forged her birth date on a copy of her birth certificate because she really wanted to work and was only 15. It worked and she spent many days at the register and in the drive-through box, enjoying her free meals with each shift. She loved McDonalds. Then, she had a brief stint as an Avon lady. She had a lot of fun, but was not really much of a salesman so that ended after 3 months. Now, she had to get back in the working game. Babysitting wasn't going to cut it with mom this time.

Picking up the phone, she dialed her friend Stacy's number. "They always are hiring," Stacy said of her place of employment, the movie theater at the strip mall down the road. And so it began...late nights, increased freedom, spending money in earnest. And first adolescent/adult love.

Paul was taller than her, younger than her, dark, handsome and went to Catholic school. An usher, he looked dashing in his black and white vest and cummberbund. They flirted, then dated, then stopped dating, then the night of her surprise eighteenth birthday, he came back to her and they began dating again. Of course, he had no idea how she'd suffered without him those months when they were apart, but then he didn't know her secret: she was in love with him --- lay- yourself- on- the- railway- tracks- to- stop- the- train- to- save- his- life love. Sadly, just two weeks later, she left for college. They spoke on the phone about once a week and some time in October they made plans to spend the night together and lose their virginities. It was during "the planning" conversation that she blurted out the three little words, which she meant with all her heart, which she had felt for over six months, and which she regretted when his response was something to the effect of, "Don't tell me that." Now at that point, a sane person would have stopped speaking to the boy entirely, but being completely in love, immature and the only virgin in her college suite she thought she'd take a chance. She told him that she lied, that she only said she loved him because they were going to sleep together. And then she met him that weekend, lost her virginity, had him brag about it to his friends and then he began dating a friend of hers a couple weeks later while she was back at college.

About a year later, during summer vacation, she moved back home for the summer and had another job at a local family restaurant. Again, there were late hours and lots of opportunities for flirting, but it wasn't a coworker with whom she fell in love. It was a coworker's brother, Michael. He wasn't her type. He was blonde, red-skinned (tanning beds) and blue eyed. Most people thought he was very good looking. She just thought he was very charming, vulnerable, interesting. And he was. It was obvious, even to her mother, that they were falling in love. But, having been crushed by love the first time, she didn't even answer him when he said he thought he was falling in love with her. And, as it turns out, it didn't matter. She spent most of the next three years in love with him even though the relationship didn't last the summer. They attended the same college and ran into each other from time to time. She was unable to have other relationships because she was still in love with him. He took advantage of this fact and would see her occasionally when it suited him. Everyone warned her because he was a major player on campus with a palpable reputation, but she'd met him when he was back home and vulnerable and thought she knew another side to him. Everyone thought she was an idiot, even him, but she couldn't help herself at the time. She never told him she loved him, but he knew. Everyone knew.

Finally, her senior year at a club opening some friends were having, the spell was broken. She was approached by a Greg, a friend of a friend at the party. It was at that moment that she discovered her friend XXX had secretly had a thing for her. The big tip off came when XXX said something to the effect of, "I can't believe I've been in love with you all this time and now you're just going to sleep with Greg." XXX was wrong. She didn't just sleep with Greg. After dating for a time she fell in love with him and then slept with him. And, for the first time in years, she stopped thinking about her last love, Michael. This guy was also not her type: more blue eyes (not her thing), skinny and putting on the charm full speed. He claimed to have actually fallen in love with her because his friend XXX, who was in love with her, described her so favorably. She fell, not because Greg was charming and not because he was supposedly in love with her, but because he was vulnerable, intelligent, sensitive and creative. Sadly, in the feelings department, he was a major poser. Within weeks he was cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend. They got back together briefly a few months later, but then she received a call from her sister that his ex has just gone to spend the night at his house, according to a note she left her roommates. Her sister and his ex lived at the same dorm. "Fool me twice, shame on me," she thought, and spent the next several months pushing him out of her mind to no avail. Although she never told him she loved him, he knew, as did everyone else--even her coworkers at the elementary school where she taught. He came back to her twice, asking for another chance, over the next two years. Wisely, she resisted. He'd killed her love for him with his betrayals, but they did remain friends for about five more years.

Her senior year, while she and the man above were apart between the two times they were a couple, she met a very nice young man at a dance club. He was an aspiring fashion designer. Earnest, funny, sweet, wonderful: that's how she'd describe him. They had a very healthy relationship as he was actually her first boyfriend who was a real friend. They would probably have stayed together for a very long time except for one little detail: this guy turned out to be a guy her best friend had had a crush on the year before. She should have known because he was short (like the crush) and his name was the same as the crush's name, but University of Texas had nearly 50,000 students and she was sure there was more than one Beau in the business school. She'd never met him, her friend's crush. By the time she figured it out, they were already a couple and her friend began losing it. He told her he loved her, and said she didn't need to say it back if she weren't ready. Wanting to make him feel as loved and comfortable as he'd made her feel, she returned his "I love you" only to realize she didn't mean it as the last word came out of her mouth. When the time came that she had to choose between her best friend (and roommate of four years) or him, she had to force herself to look into the future and see whether or not they would still be together. If so, then losing her friend would be a sacrifice, but the right sacrifice. Intellectually, they weren't compatible, and she knew it would eventually end, but probably not for a long time. Breaking up with him was the only option. She did, and she never looked back. The friendship is still going strong, like family, 18 years later. It was a good, but very hard, decision. Hating herself for breaking his heart, she avoided him at all costs so she wouldn't give him any false hope. He was mature, thoughtful and kind and he never deserved to be tossed aside. But, true girlfriends can't let a man come between them, and she wasn't going to let him tear them apart. Years later, her friend apologized for making her sacrifice this one healthy relationship.

Then, one night, thousands of miles away in New York City at a dive bar during a reception for a friend's professor's art show, she met him: the one. Something about his beautiful brown eyes led her to stare at him. He noticed and eventually came to sit with her. After talking for about five straight hours, they found a dime under a loose floorboard in the joint. They passed it back and forth, making 5 wishes a piece, one for each penny in the dime. At the end of the night when he walked her home, he said one of his wishes was that she would kiss him. She confessed that one of hers was to do just that. They kissed, it was magic, and they said goodnight. They saw each other three times that week, and then were inseparable after that. When she went home to visit her parents that spring break from her teaching job, she told him she loved him on the phone. She meant it, and unlike the last time she said it and meant it, she didn't take it back. Fifteen years, two children, one house and two careers later, they are still in love. As he told their youngest when he inquired about whether mom and dad would live together in the same house forever (lots of divorces around--he was curious), "Mom and dad will be together forever." The real thing.

It Was All New Madrid's Fault

April in Missouri: time when it should be getting a bit humid and the warm sun should force you into shortsleeved shirts. Instead, snow was falling at an alarming rate. Cars began to pull off to the side of the highway and people trudged out into the snow, leaving their cars behind. My father saw an exit ahead through the near-blinding onslaught and made a decision to brave the ramp and leave the highway. In a minute, we would be entering New Madrid, pronounced MADrid, a tiny little town with a very impressive history. For it was here, years ago, that the biggest series of earthquakes on record in North America shook the New Madrid Fault.

The tiny town had but a few buildings along its main street in the 1970s. Due to the weather, the small inn in town was completely full. The only place to stay was the American Legion. I didn't know it then, but I was about to experience the most incredible oneness, the greatest collective peace, that I would ever know.

According to the plaques on the walls, this town and the fault named after it were famous for a series of earthquakes in December of 1811. The biggest of the earthquakes, an 8.8 on the Richter scale, changed the course of the Mississippi River. The three biggest quakes were above 8.5 and the series of quakes continued into 1812. Luckily, the area was sparsely populated so fatalities are believed to have been very low.

Dark wood paneling covered the walls and plaques and trophies were strewn about the mantels and shelves. Sports teams, photos of Army companies, and benefit picnics were dutifully inspected by me as I attempted to amuse myself during the long night. Everyone was unbelievable kind, and the people of New Madrid filed in to cook food for our large crew. Pasta was on the menu for dinner, boiled in pots big enough to boil small children as I remember thinking.

The legion house was filled to the brim with weary travelers who were underdressed for the sudden change in temperature. At once, blankets of army green were produced and what seemed like a hundred or more cots filled the main hall. We sang songs together, watched the weather reports on the local news and shared stories over coffee and hot cocoa. The next morning, before the roads were passable, we shared a delicious breakfast of white cream sausage gravy and biscuits--my first ever. I fell in love with the dish, the town, and the beautiful spirit of the group of people who were one happy family for one lovely evening and morning.

When it was time to leave, I wasn't eager to get on the road again. Melancholy at the prospect of leaving this warm and peaceful family, it's possible I may have asked my parents if we could stay. I remember pouting and dreading the return to my "regular" life. With the heavy snow weighing down the branches along the main street, the town and the legion looked like a magic castle out of a snowy white fairy tale---one I'd hoped would never end.

The Love Cake

Every year of my childhood, and just about every year of my adulthood, my mother has baked her famous (in our family of four) Devilsfood Cake with Mocha Icing and Coconut Topping. Of course, we never call it that. For us, it's simply Birthday Cake, and if you don't get one made for you when you come to visit, you feel slighted. This cake is the quintessential demonstration of my mother's love for us, and it is eaten in copious quantities until someone gets the sense to cut up and pack up the rest of it in foil and put it in ziplock bags in the freezer.

This cake is the kind that is served and stored in the pan it is baked in. It stays incredibly moist for as long as it's kept properly covered, and freezing only makes it creamier and yummier. When a slice is taken out of the pan, you must scrape the fine layer of moist crumby residue from the bottom of the pan and lick it off a knife or, more often, your finger. The frosting is too good, and there is never enough on the cake for your liking because it just begs you to overindulge. If you're lucky, your piece is dripping with soft, sugary coconut and you eat the piece slowly with a fork so as not to miss a single moment of the experience by rushing to finish.

I always knew that this cake was baked with love, and no one else in the world makes it, to my knowledge. The recipe was a relative's and now it's just as much a part of our family as each of us. But, it wasn't until my mother gave me the recipe for the cake that I realized how much love went into it. The cake itself starts with a custard base--you know, like those cakes with pudding in the mix--except she makes the chocolate custard from scratch using unsweetened dark chocolate and milk and eggs. Then, after cooling the custard, you make the cake batter. After the cake is in the oven, you have to make yet another custard variation for the frosting which also starts with milk and unsweetened chocolate, but also requires a tiny amount of instant coffee flakes to add the mocha touch. This is why we always had instant coffee in the house even though nobody drank it. Finally, after chilling the frosting, you carefully spread it on the very moist cake, sprinkle generously with coconut and carefully close the lid of the cake pan. We had one special pan for just this cake as long as I can remember. Mom still uses it, and it has sliding metal lid which seals in the moisture without causing it to mold or otherwise spoil.

The cake takes a couple hours to make. I never realized this until I got the recipe. So far, I haven't had the nerve to attempt to make it myself. I don't think I'll do it as well, and I know I can finish the whole cake myself without mom here to stop me by freezing some of it. Sadly, my children hate mocha anything and my husband and children all hate coconut. I guess I have to be content to assist her when she makes it for my birthday. Because of the cake, my birthday is now officially anytime I get to see my mother. If I visit her in February, it's my birthday. If I visit in April, it's my birthday. I feel very lucky, and very loved, when I eat my special birthday cake, and no other cake stands a chance against it. In all the fancy restaurants in cities in North America and Europe I've never had a better chocolate cake, and I'm sure I never will.

Fading Fictions

How quickly childhood passes. It's so cliche, but as my young ones grow what everyone said about it being over in a minute is too true. I vividly recall all of my imaginations from my childhood, but mourn the day they stopped being real to me. Like the Velveteen Rabbit (one of my childhood faves) many things were real to me and I hope that I never forget them.

Like...
...the time that I dug a hole in my backyard in Whitefish Bay and I swore I saw the inside of a Chinese restaurant and a waiter passing by...

...the time I kept three metal milk crates stacked on their sides under the canopy of trees in my backyard where I housed my invisible rabbits...

...the time I dreamt I woke in the morning to see a round, glass-topped picnic table with an umbrella over it strewn with candy for my birthday...(this one was so real that when I awoke for real that morning I looked immediately to the center of the room and was sorely disappointed to find there was no table)

...the time that my neighbor pretended to be himself and his twin brother in his bedroom window and I believed he had a twin...for that day...

...the time that I took my "baby" to the department store and believed that I had fooled people into thinking she was real when a clerk remarked about how beautiful she was...

...the time I was on punishment and I believed my bed was a boat and leftover Halloween candy was my rations and I was sailing away on "Old Betsy" for good...

...the time I collected treasures in the department store (tags, paper clips, buttons, whatever fell on the floor) while my mom was shopping and tricked myself into believing this was what I went shopping for that day...

...the time I let myself believe that the babysitter thought my stuffed dog was real...(I kept his pom -pom nose and the bee attached to his tail covered with my arms as I snuggled him)

...the time I convinced myself, and my mom, that someone had taught me how to make whipped cream out of regular milk...(my mom actually let me try this out, though she knew it would fail)

...the time I invented my own goddess and religion and thought that believing in her would make her exist...

...the time I bought dishes at a garage sale and sheets at the department store so that my room would be my own apartment...

...the time I hid in my closet and pretended to run away, convincing myself my parents would never know better...

Ahh, youth. If I had that imagination today, I'd imagine that days had 36 hours, sweets and fats made you lose weight and that no girl would ever break my sons' hearts.