Within Close Range - Candied Abandon

It was a new found freedom, riding a bike through my cousins’ neighborhood, unattended by an adult, or an older sibling.

The streets were busier.

And bigger.

Well beyond what our secluded, little subdivision had to offer.

Even groovier still was the fact that Gina, Mary and I were headed, unattended, to Nonnie and Papa’s apartment a few miles away.

The furthest I’d ever ridden my bike was two blocks over.

I always welcomed time spent with Nonnie - not only because I was an obvious and wisely-chosen favorite - but because visits invariably meant two things:  an ever-delicious something simmering on the stovetop in an old, enamel-coated, cast iron pan that looked as if it had cooked a million meals and I hoped would cook a million more…  

and candy.

Coffee candy, toffee bits, circus peanuts, caramel nips.

Just behind the child-height cabinet doors was a world of plastic and glass containers filled with a stunning variety of sugary delights which would have made Willie Wonka very, very proud.

And the confections extended far beyond the kitchen cupboard, for this was a house of hidden treats easily discovered in bedside tables and T.V. cabinets, in pockets and purses and small tin boxes filled with tiny, hard, raspberry-shaped sweets. 

Creamy. sugary, tart perfection.

In large tin boxes, crammed with powdery, crescent-shaped, jammed filled, freshly made cookies that melted in your mouth and left powdered-sugar fingerprints everywhere.

I’d regularly make my covert rounds through the apartment, beginning in the living room, where I’d climb up on the long, deep, velvety sofa and quietly lift the lid off a porcelain box on the gilded, mirror-topped table.

Following my greedy reflection in the mottled, gold looking glass. 

Seeing no signs of remorse for more than my fill of butterscotch and Bulls-Eyes.

Circumnavigating the well-vacuumed wall-to-wall that day, I scanned the living room horizon for a glimmer of red, green, gold, or silver wrappers through thick, crystal candy dishes.

And was not disappointed.

Halloween and the other less candy-related holidays were coming and Nonnie’s larder was especially bountiful.

Sugarful.

Hopped up on sweets and the even sweeter taste of pedal-powered independence, it’s little wonder why, when Nonnie told me she had something to give me for my birthday and showed me a beautiful, porcelain doll, I wanted to take possession of it.

Immediately.

Nonnie refused, at first, insisting that she bring it to Aunt Ar and Uncle John’s when she and Papa came later. But as an obvious and well-chosen favorite, my sugar-induced swagger won her over and she wrapped the doll in an old towel, put it in a thick, white plastic bag and handed it to me.

Hesitating.

Frowning.

She followed us out the apartment door.

Her tiny, slippered feet shuffling at my heels all the way to the elevator.

As the automatic door glided shut, I hugged the plastic bag and lowered my eyes to the now descending floor, avoiding Nonnie’s last pleading look.

Knowing she’d likely be watching from her living room window three stories up, I very carefully placed the reluctantly released gift into the metal basket of the borrowed bike, grabbed a handlebar and, with what I determined to be an air of rogue nonchalance, attempted to kick my leg OVER the center bar that boys have on their bikes for no apparent reason.

I fell short.

Knocking the bike on its side.

Spilling the fragile contents of the basket.

Mary and Gina, both straddling their bar-less bikes, each with a foot on a pedal and a look of fleeing in their eyes, were stunned silent and slack-jawed. Like a terrible accident at the side of the road, neither could look away from the body in the bag.

Even though the sight of it was truly dreadful - a total nightmare - it was nothing compared to what my eyes were about to search out.

Nonnie, three floors up, bearing witness to it all.

Witness to my fall.

My failure.

She shook her head and crossed her arms. Her eyes never once leaving me, refusing to budge from the window of her velvety world of gild and glass, of lacy figurines and candy-filled cabinets, of obvious favorites and grave disappointments.

Of which I was now the latter.

With the sugar-buzz busted and my confidence shattered like the small, doll’s head, the procession home was silent and somber.

Completely out of character, Nonnie never uttered a word about it to me that evening (helped by the fact that I avoided her like a tiny, Italian Plague), or, for that matter, in the years to follow.

I can still hear her silence today.