Within Close Range - The Phone at the End of the Hall

The phone at the end of the hall, right next to my room, occasionally came to life in the middle of the night; its merciless metal bells clanging, resounding off the tall walls of the winding front steps and down the long, carpet-less hallway leading from one end of the upstairs to the next.

Startled from my dreams and tormented by its unanswered ring, I'd crawl over whichever dog or cat was hogging most of the bed that night and shuffle toward the noise, hoping to get to the phone before another blast of the bell pierced my brain.

Fumbling for the receiver - and words - I'd already know that the only kind of news that comes in the middle of the night is usually bad.

Or at least not good.

And if I was answering the phone, that meant that Mom and Dad didn't, and I was about to be made the reluctant messenger.

Sleepless in the hours that followed.

Anxious to hear the garage door rumble and footsteps - two sets.

Hoping the anger and the lecture had happened on the ride home and details would come over a bowl of cereal in the morning.

Happy everyone was back home and in bed.

And all was quiet again.

Within Close Range - The Universe Upstairs

Mom and Dad’s bedroom suite was on the first floor of the house in Shoreacres (at the southern end of everything) allowing them to frequently escape to its sunlit, coziness and away from the five, wild seeds they chose to sow. 

This left the entire second floor almost entirely adult-free, except for the occasional laundry delivery from Mom and the less occasional drop in (more like official visit) from Dad; usually the unfortunate result of winter restlessness or weekend thunderstorms keeping him from the golf course.

We’d only know of his plans when we heard, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”  sound from below, at which point all present would scatter from the kid’s TV room to our respective bedrooms, where each of us would begin a frenzied attempt to hide all clothing, toys, towels, glasses, plates, books and general shit we’d left strewn everywhere.

Depending on his level of bother, Dad might only scan the surface of the bedrooms and bathrooms. It was something each of us quietly prayed for as he passed dressers, drawers, desks and closets, cluttered and crammed with quickly concealed crap. If Dad’s heart really wasn’t in it, he might demand some dusting and vacuuming, to be inspected later (which would likely not occur), and then disappear below and we’d half-heartedly obey before returning to reruns, twitching on each other, and/or littering.

If our luck went a.w.o.l. (to a place that didn’t smell of dirty laundry and dog breath) and Dad was disgusted and determined to delve further by sliding open a closet door… an entire Saturday afternoon would be spent re-folding, re-organizing, re-inspecting, and re-revising.

And finally,  promising the impossible - to keep our rooms clean.

Other than these brief and infrequent invasions, the upstairs was our universe, our private world of fun and games and funny voices, where Jim’s rolled up socks turned into stink bombs of such infamy that as soon as you saw him take off his shoes… 

… you ran.

You ran as fast as your stockinged feet along a polished wood floor could take you.

It was also where fuzzy, red carpeting assisted you in shocking a sibling repeatedly one moment, then turned to molten lava, the next; where the chairs and tables became bridges, and the convertible sofa, an island, where captives and carpet monsters fought to the death in battle after battle.

In the universe upstairs, sloped-ceiling closets and dark crawlspaces - too-small-for-adults places - became secluded hideaways where we could bring pillows and posters, flashlights and favorite stuffed animals, and write secrets and swear words on the 2 x 4s and plaster board; and listen to Mom in the kitchen, until the heater or ac switched on and the great metal shafts filled with air and filled our ears with rumbling.

At the very top of the back steps, behind a tiny door (not more than three feet square), was a favorite, secret, upstairs place. 

Just inside, above the small door, Jim built a spaceship’s control panel from old electrical outlets and switches found in the basement and the barn. With Mark as his co-pilot and a vivid imagination as his rocket fuel, he would rally us to climb into his crawlspace capsule. 

I’d sit back in the darkness, surrounded by boxes of memories -  Mom’s heirloom wedding dress at my elbow and Christmas decorations as my seat - anxious for the countdown.

Excited for blast off.

For leaving the earth far behind.

Calling to his co-pilot to flick switches Jim had labelled with a big, black magic marker, then moving his hands up and down his own duct-taped controls, I’d hear the sputters and rumbles of Jim’s vocal-powered rockets.

Hugging my big, Pooh Bear, I’d watch our fearless pilot, in the beam of a dangling flashlight, lean back and call to his unlikely crew through the cup of his hand, “Hang on! Here we go! Ten… Nine… Eight…”

Jim’s rumbles would begin to rise.

“Seven… Six… Five… Four…”

I could feel the crawlspace shake and rattle.

“Three… Two… One… BLAST OFF!”

I’d giggle and squeeze that silly, old bear and close my eyes to see the fast-approaching cosmos…

And I’d float in the infinite black.

In the sea of stars.

Until Jim shouted, “Meteors!” and all hell would break loose in our top-of-the-stairs cockpit.

Rescue usually came in the form of the hallway light cutting through the cracks and the dark - and the meteors - and Mom calling, “Dinner!”

Or much, much worse…

Dad calling, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”

Eva Can't Sleep with a Lion in Her Room

illustrated by Ananda Di Benedetto

Within Close Range: The Me I've Come to Be

About a month ago, along with my good friends, Jodi and Mike, I entered the world of Toastmasters. I did so not only to confront an old demon, public speaking, but to have the rare opportunity to see an audience's reaction to my short stories.  Although nerve-racking, I'm confident my writing and my voice will grow from the interaction and exchange.

If so, I might just try my hand at podcasts.

The following is my first Toastmaster's speech, voted best of the day.


Nonna and Papa were first generation Italian Americans who grew up in the same immigrant neighborhood on Chicago’s west side, Both came from very large families, totaling 22 children, but when they married, they had only two: James and Arlene, 

James is my father. 

My name is Anne Celano Frohna. I am the third and favorite of five children born to James Vincent Celano, Jr. and Mabel - but don’t tell her I told you - Charline Lemmon. 

By the time I was born, Papa’s custom tailor shop, Celano’s, was considered the finest of its kind in Chicago, having dressed the city’s most well-to-do men - from Moguls to Mob bosses - for decades. It was located along the city’s famed Michigan Avenue, once known as the Miracle Mile for its high-living splendor. 

Born on a farm in Missouri, Mom’s family was early pioneer stock from Germany, Scotland, England - and most heartbreaking for Nonna - NOT Italy. 

You see, Arlene’s four, children are full-blooded Italian. My two brothers, two sisters and I are what Nonna used to call her “Bridge Mix” - a chocolate-covered combo of nuts, fruits and creams favored in her ever bountiful cupboard of candies. 

But tainted as our gene pool was in her eyes, we’ve always considered ourselves Italian - at least in our emotions, devotions and appetites.

We hardly knew Mom’s family, just Lottie, her only sister, and her husband Joe and their four children, But barely, They lived in Springfield, Illinois and for Mom, that was at the opposite end of the universe from the one she and Dad had created along the prosperous north shores of Chicago. 

We did make a trip down to Missouri in the seventies to pick up a Palomino pony from her sweet Uncle Howard. There, we met a few of Mom’s family. Some were very kind, others, as tough as their lives had been. 

Mom and Lottie had it tough too. Especially during those early years of uncertainty, of being on the streets, far from their roots, begging for food, frightened for their Mom.

At 17, after graduating from an academy which she paid for by working a soda counter at night, Mom headed to Chicago where her blonde hair, slate blue eyes and classic features led her to become a very successful model; which she followed with an equally successful career as a businesswoman during an era when sexism was sexy.

And then she met Dad and gave it all up.

Such an unlikely pair. 

Dad was Nonna and Papa’s Golden Boy: a charismatic, social, spoiled, risk-taker, who preferred the golf course to the lecture hall and “the deal” to a full day’s work. Dad had a big heart, a big ego, a quick wit and a penchant for trusting the wrong people. He also had a good deal of trouble with fidelity, yet his adoration of Mom was confusingly constant. He wanted his family to have it all and gave most generously… even when he knew how heavy the cost would be.

Mom had worked her entire life - not only to survive but to succeed, not only to grow, but to become someone entirely different than the Mabel of her midwestern youth. 

Trusting few, befriending fewer. 

She found her way - her own way - with a unique blend of curiosity and cynicism about everything. 

This unusual pair had a tumultuous energy which brought both great joy and sorrow into our lives.

But I am who I am because of it. Because of them. 

And even though this particular gene pool has its dark and powerful undertows, I think that the me I’ve come to be is a good thing. 

So here I am, with my husband, Kurt, and our two daughters, Eva and Sophia, We came here from Wisconsin six years ago and bought a house on five acres up Williamson Valley. 

It was time for a change.

To shake off the grey.

Our happy, little home on our windy, little hill is something akin to the Island of Misfit Toys, but add to it a regular stream of wayward animals -  and people - and thrift store finds faded, sagging and stained, but solid, well-loved and wonderful to be around.

And quirky, musty, dusty, one-of-a-kind things, by painters and woodcarvers and artists with needles, by masters of words and masters of song, dabblers and travelers and dawdlers alike telling their stories with every stroke, every weave, every weld, every word,

I’m a storyteller too.

I’ve been one my entire life.

I even managed to make a living at it, writing and editing for newspapers, magazines, museums and publishing companies around the Midwest, retelling histories, exploring nature, writing about people and ideas, traditions and innovations.

I started writing professionally after I earned my B.A. in Sociology - a degree so utterly useless in the real world that I figured a Master of Arts in English would surely rocket my career into deeper poverty and obscurity.

I received my diploma in the mail, at the beginning of a two year stint I spent teaching English in Japan, in the little farming town of Shintomi, on the eastern coast of Kyushu. I recently wrote a book about the experience called “Just West of the Midwest.” 

It’s a comedy… mostly. 

You can see read it on my blog: dogearedstories.com, where I ply my penniless craft and fill the pages in order to feel like me I want to be, the third and favorite child of Jim and Cherie Celano, born into this world a couple months early on the fourth of October in 1963.

Within Close Range - Dad

Dad’s been gone a little more than five months.  

Actually, Dad has been gone for years. 

Several ignored strokes, until the last big one about fifteen years ago, made sure of that. I think the doctor’s last count was seven different incidents - each one leaving in its wake a little less Dad. 

Motivation was one of the area’s of the brain that had been most severely affected. As was his ability to read and write. His peripheral vision was also shot. 

So he sat. 

And eventually he lost sight of everything that made him tick, gave him purpose, he was good at.

I watched the frustration in his once playful eyes when things weren’t clicking in his quick and clever mind, and quietly mourned the lengthening shadow of darkness and void that would eventually smother the once strong light and turn his weaknesses upon himself and others; until his needs pummeled Mom and his words became brutal.

Jim took him in and centered his life on his new twenty-four hour ward; the once powerful figure who now missed the toilet and couldn’t find focus; who spent the days crying and the nights wandering. By the time we placed Dad in assisted living, the shadow was growing darker and the void, wider. Conversations were now repetitive communications driven by a series of questions he’d ask again and again. 

Always about family, living and dead.

It became impossible to steer him away from this endless loop because it was all Dad had left to hold on to. It was the only way he could be more than a figure in the room, struggling for thoughts, for words, for loved ones, for himself.

His body remained strong for his years and history, but that didn’t surprise anyone. Dad had always been a natural athlete with a small, fleet build and a bold swagger. Yet however strong his heart might have been, his muscles and mind began to atrophy after all those years of sitting, doing hours and hours of nothing. And after a while, his skinny, sinewy legs (which had hiked a thousand miles of fairways and greens) twisted weakly beneath him; while cherished faces and times and places steadily stepped into the darkness.

Rare became the instants, during my all-too-brief, long-distance visits, when I saw that certain twinkle that came to his eyes when he was pleased, or about to be funny… or silly, or sweet.  

Dad’s wheezy, cartoon dog laughter was something, however, that endured and could happily be summoned to the great relief of everyone hovering uncomfortably in his small room scattered with pictures of loved ones, now mostly strangers.

Rarest was the sound of his strong, steady, low voice, which throughout my life would sing in my ear when he used my pet name, or make my heart (and feet) leap when he hollered, “Anne Elizabeth!” The years had made it weak and weary; a whisper of a voice, ever shaken by unaccountable emotions. 

I remember when I last heard Dad. 

It startled me because it had been a very long time since he’d sounded so alert, so vigorous, so alive. 

It happened during our regular Sunday phone call. Jim, at the other end of the line said, “It’s Nonz.” and handed Dad the receiver. I don’t recall a word of what was said. All I heard was a forgotten voice, which until that very moment, I hadn’t felt such ache for. 

It startled me and left me speechless - and anxious - to hear Dad speak again.

But Dad never did.

Yet in that flash, in those few words, he was once again my wings, my warden, my beacon, my banker, my mentor, my tormentor, my knight in shining armor. 

And everything felt right.

And then it didn’t and I cursed myself for not plucking the ether of that very brief moment and stealing those words to stuff deep in my pockets, where I’d keep them to remind me of the Dad he used to be. 

The Dad who’d gather us beneath the covers of their queen-sized bed on stormy nights, when thunder rolled across Lake Michigan like a mighty wave and lightening set a gnarly, old oak outside their wall of windows afire with its flash of silver-blue light. In our small tent of sheets, with our heads tucked close together, he’d tell us ghost stories (while Mom helped us count the seconds between the lightening and thunder), or make us giggle with a gentle tickle, until the seconds ascended, the storm was passing, and we were brave enough to return to our own beds upstairs. 

The very strict Dad who, after raising five children who excelled at bad behavior, gradually mellowed and raised the white flag in the form of a hanger he’d found in a closet, draped with some stuff we grew on the bluff and planned to smoke later. Hanger in hand, he walked into the family room where three-fifths of us were lounging and asked very calmly what he was holding. One of us answered with remarkable composure, “That’s pot, Dad.” 

After he questioned its reason for hanging, Dad reached for a bud, gave it a squeeze and said, “It’s not dry yet.”  He then walked to a nearby table, hung the harvest from the shade of a lamp and left the room without another word.

But Dad had a temper that no one liked seeing, which sometimes got violent and scary, when all that charm and good looks disappeared behind a mask of unreason, and we were left angry, helpless and confused about how a man so loving and generous could have such potent demons.

But then I got older and my very own demons got bolder, as most people’s do.

And the Dad I choose to remember is the one that no matter how mad we were at each other, by the end of the day, he’d always say, “I love you.” 

Except for the time I threw an unforgettably, unregrettably fun costume party: “The Best Little Whorehouse in Lake Bluff.”  

Dad first heard the theme of my party that night from fellow country club members whose children would be there. He was livid. Yet he never tried to stop it. He simply refused to speak to me for days following. 

Passing me in the kitchen. 

Averting his eyes. 

Until one day, I broke the silence, begged for a word, pleaded for a lecture.

Eventually, he gave me both.

Along with a hug of immeasurable comfort.

Even as Dad’s words and mind stopped giving, his hugs were endlessly rich and generous. 

If I close my eyes, I can still feel them. 

It helps me remember Dad when he was vivid and present. A powerful presence. A stubborn dreamer, a cocky, passionate schemer who pursued his passions head first, wholeheartedly, sometimes very foolishly, with great success and equal failure. 

His greatest achievement  - a bountiful life, not only in the hearth, but in the home; where he fostered dreams and fledglings’ freedoms, until off we flew to face our own big dreams and our own demons. So, I’m grateful for the moments I told Dad that I loved him, talked to him about nothing, apologized for everything, and thanked him for the lives he set in motion.

Even though he wouldn’t remember any of it by the time our visit was over.

It’s why some Sundays, I didn’t - couldn’t - pick up the phone. 

But love is in the giving - in the moments Dad heard, “I love you.” So, Sunday would roll round again and I’d answer the phone and tell him different stories about our faraway lives.  And in between the questions and tears, I‘d fill his soon forgotten moments with love and laughter, and long distance hugs of immeasurable comfort.

Within Close Range: The Double Date

Home from college and my dance card empty, as usual, Jean has ignored my pleas and arranged a double date with her latest boyfriend's best friend. So, I’m making my way toward the kitchen to rehydrate my bone-dry nerves before they arrive. Dad’s in the den, sitting in the swivel chair with his back to the windows, pretending to be engrossed in a book. He’s also pretending not to see me as I slow and look his way.

I know he isn’t happy about this evening. With boys ever at the heels of Chris and Mia, he takes great comfort in my being almost invariably dateless. 

But really, is he finding “The Gardener’s Dictionary,” so captivating that he can’t even look up at the sound of my way-too-high heels perilously skidding across the floor? 

Unbelievable.

And what about Mom, still hovering in the kitchen, without a purpose in sight. 

For God’s Sake! This isn’t my first date! 

I just need to keep moving, rein in those jitters, drink my water, and think happy thoughts… But how can I think happy thoughts when each step on this godforsaken brick floor - now dangerously slippery, thanks to my newly lost ability to swallow - feels like burning coals on my wish-they-were-bare feet?

In the dark of the corridor between the kitchen and the den, I can see Dad slowly swivel his chair around to face the oncoming headlights bouncing off the dimly lit walls. He’s quietly watching the car make its final turn toward the front circle. A swivel further left, he can see Jean and the two, young men get out of the car and step onto the flagstone patio just a few feet away. 

The doorbell’s ringing.

Dad’s not budging.

My stomach is lodged in my throat and I’m confident in nothing ahead, but there's no turning back now. Damn it, Jean, I have no choice but to answer the door, do I? 

I see Dad is fake reading again (that book might as well be upside down)… and still no eye contact. What the hell? 

Can’t suppress eye roll. 

(Must, however, suppress the urge to regurgitate all the fucking water I drank.) 

Take a deep breath, Anne, and turn the knob. 

Yikes. Coming out of the dark, Jean’s smile is gigantic. She needs to dial it down, though. She’s freaking me out, a bit. 

Lame handshake. What’s his name, again? Looks like he wants to be here about as much as I do - Crap!  I hear swiveling. Dad’s up and heading this way.

He’s passing… No hello. No teasing Jean. Unheard of. 

Really? Not a word? And why are you stopping at the hallway dresser and pretending to rummage for something in the top drawer? Nice sham hands, Dad. But now you’re empty-handed and hesitating. 

Whatta you got for your next move?

OUCH. Focus, Anne! Jean’s struggling to fill the mind-bendingly awkward silence. 

But I can’t take my eyes off Dad. Especially, because he’s heading this way again. Don’t look, gentlemen, those eyes are dark, brown windows into his potential fierceness. I can almost hear the growl as he passes our fidgety huddle. Keeping his fixed glare, swiveling like the chair, at both males until he disappears. 

Time to go. 

“Good Night, Parents.”

I can hear, “Have a wonderful evening,” coming from the kitchen. Not a syllable from the den.

I hope the night sky can hide my humiliation. 

Is Dad really peeking through a crack in the curtains (he just closed to hide behind)? Even from here, I can read ”She won't be marrying THAT one,” on his face.

Can’t suppress eye roll.

To Be a Tree, illustrated by Ananda DiBenedetto

Within Close Range: Rocky

There are varying stories as to how you came into our lives, but with one common theme: you came to do what you were paid to do, harm, but ended up finding a friend in Dad, and a family - who took you in like so many strays - the scarred, the scared, the loners, the cast aways, the lovable losers, whom we often snuck into our home and hearts: Oscar, Tut, Spike, Missy, Tigger, Barney, all of whom easily settled into life among a variety of other domesticated, wild and human wards which Mom quietly embraced and Dad not-so-quietly tolerated.

You were certainly one of the most colorful and memorable.

As humans go.

You didn’t stand very tall - about the same height as Dad, but stood twice as wide, heavy with muscle and hair, apart from your head, which was always shaved bald.

You moved and spoke slowly, deliberately, dutifully - except when it was just us kids around. Then you’d shadow box and dance back and forth in an imaginary ring, reciting your poems of triumph and strength, with a smile ear to ear and a hint in your eyes, if we’d chosen to see, that your words were just tales.

To camouflage the things you’d seen, the things you’d done.

Or hadn’t.

Alone in the world, raised on the streets. Third grade was as far as you went. You fought to survive, then fought on demand. Why you chose to do that with your hands…

Was it the only praise you ever got?

While the real you, the softhearted, curious, clever you, sat in your room with your best friend, Sgt. Alex, a white-haired German Shepard, making art on found canvases, drawing faces and things that I can only hope gave great comfort and meaning.

Just as each word I write.

A reason for being.

Misaligned and alone you arrived in our world and made me remember you standing there in your sleeveless white t-shirt and rolled-up blue jeans above ankle-high army boots. I can still see you leaning against a rake, on a break from yard work Dad asked you to do. Picking at the teeth that still remained with a homemade toothpick from the nearby woodpile, sipping from a giant water jug from the back of your beat-up truck  (where it looked as if you kept your life), you’d spin glorious tales of overseas battles and prize-winning bouts, heroic deeds and days of glory to a curious, young huddle who believed every word from your kind, but busted face.

I’m not sure anymore if any of them are true.

But it hardly matters.

Because you were you, a sweet, gentle soul who used your imagination and your art to color the truth of your life and the bad things you did for the sake of the dollar, for food for your dog and bread for the table - not stories for kids who marveled when you chewed glass, flexed your biceps and showed us your gold and shiny, giant red, white and blue championship belt (which I once saw you wear while you dug a post hole), while living in the greenhouse office at the edge of the bluff, at our house in Shoreacres.

Dad gave you other choices, away from the violence, a place at our table where, for a time, we gave thanks together and looked out for each other. To me, you were Ferdinand, that sweet, big bull who given the choice preferred to sniff flowers than fight in the ring.

Gone from home and home then gone and times ahead when Dad couldn’t even help himself, you quietly disappeared.

But not from my mind.

Which still sees flashes of your bright, happy drawings of people and places, from moments that mattered. The film in my head of your boxer’s stance and boxer’s dance. You with your stories of whatever glory that might hold our attention or conjure a gasp, or a laugh, and a moment to be anything that you wanted to be: the prize fighter, the daring Marine who leapt from planes, the artist, the poet, the good citizen who saved a woman and confronted a gang. 

But no matter who, the you that I knew was loyal as a dog when a friend was true, creative, imaginative, humble and compassionate, who only ever wanted to sniff flowers beneath the old cork tree.

Within Close Range - The Neighborhood

Just northwest of Chicago, in Deerfield, Illinois, King’s Cove was 1960s, middle-class suburbia, where Good Humor trucks jingled past weedless, well-mown lawns and small, tree-filled lots; where neighbors were friends, your best friends were neighbors and school was the next block over. 

Our house in King’s Cove was an unmistakable yellow, like hard-boiled egg yolk, as was the wood grain panelling on the side of the Grand Safari station wagon after Mark, a paint can and a brush were left unattended. And even though it was small for seven, it never felt crowded - except in the one, tiny bathroom we kids shared, where on school days and Sunday mornings it became a wallpapered box stuffed with limbs.

All tangles and toothpaste.

The basement of the house was the biggest indoor space we had to spread out in, but it came at a price. My bare feet were regular magnets for misplaced thumb tacks; just as misplaced gerbils and local field mice, who disappeared beneath laundry appliances and behind walls, regularly added “tiny, rotting corpse” to the already odd, underground bouquet of funky-smelling fabric softener that invaded the nostrils the moment my feet hit the cool, cement floor.

The basement was the first place we headed each summer when tornado season arrived and the local siren sounded, sending kids scattered across the neighborhood scurrying to their homes. Mom would shuffle everyone down the wooden stairs where we waited for incoming reports. With the tv and radio competing to be heard, I’d stare out the small, grimy, ground-level window, fearing the changing shapes in the clouds, the silence and the still.

Comforted by the sight of Mom doing something as ordinary as ironing.

I’d watch through the murky, grey glass for the dark sky to lighten, for patches of blue; impatient for the all-clear to sound so we could return outside to play in the warm puddles and wet grass and the neighborhood could return to its routine.

When the basement flooded one spring, I sat in the center of the well-worn staircase looking down at Jim and Dad, who were calves-deep in water, surveying the damage. I could see Dad was mad. I could also see my Barbie's Friendship Airplane bobbing in the water behind him.

All I wanted was to soar above the flood, on starched, white wings, like the Flying Nun. I loved Sister Bertrille, her wanting to make things better, put things right… every week. 

I wanted to be like her, especially the flying part. I wanted to fly over the watery mess at the bottom of the steps and make things better. Then I wanted to soar above my house and neighborhood, over the trees and the schoolyard.

Dipping.

Diving.

Happy to be free. Happy to be a winged me.

Until a “Damn It!” landed me back on the basement steps, watching Dad hover angrily over the sputtering sump pump. 

Smelly or sumberged, our little, yellow house on Fox Hunt Trail had all that I knew and all that I needed.

It had a treehouse in the backyard where my best friends with the rhyming names, Cherie Dusare and Lynn Bubear, and I hoisted the ladder, shut the trap door and began  first true friendships, formed by first experiences. 

No longer contented by blanket and thumb, or going quietly unnoticed there in the middle.

Mrs. Paschua, my first grade teacher noticed me and arranged a meeting. We walked through the woods to Sherwood Elementary together, hand in hand, just Mom and me. I stayed in the playground, hanging by my knees against the cool, metal, dome, looking upside down at the sullen, September sky, wondering what I’d done.

Mom returned a short time later and we turned home. I had troubles with certain sounds. My teacher thought Mom might be the reason; a foreigner, perhaps. But Mom was as alien as apple pie and I just talked funny. 

I secretly loved the thought of someone thinking I was different… foreign.

It made me feel special.

Hard to do as one of five.

Sherwood Elementary thought I was so special that I was taken out of class each week and sent to speech therapy where they worked to make me sound the same as all the other children in my small, familiar world of well-worn paths to homes of friends and monkey bars, past quiet schoolyards and cracked sidewalks with faded hopscotch squares. 

But that was okay because this was my neighborhood, where the Jaynes’ sloping lawn turned to a sledding hill and the Beak’s patio and mossy garden pond came alive in the shade of the summer trees. I liked to sit on the small, stone, vine-covered wall and watch big-eyed frogs, chipmunks and bright orange koi go about their business of being beside the small, trickling waterfall, in the dark, green garden of this house just one street over. 

I’d disappear in the shade and quiet stirring, until Mom took my hand and we walked home, past the house of Amy and Abbey, the dark-haired twins at the end of the block who dressed the same and made me wonder what it would be like to see another me… be another me?

First thoughts everywhere.

Cherie Dusare and Lynn Bubear and I once snuck into the Dusare’s paneled living room a few houses down from my own, tip-toeing and giggling all the way across the shag carpeting. Socks and static electricity sparking already heightened senses. There, next to the hi-fi stereo, among the Dusare’s vinyl collection, sat a Three Dog Night album, the cover of which was to give us our first glimpse of a naked man.

Several, in fact. 

Cherie knew exactly where the album was in the long, low cabinet with the accordion door. She grabbed it, held it close and scanned the room. My heart was beating through my crocheted vest.  

This was my apple.

I took my first bite.

Thanks to dim, red lighting and well-placed fog machines it was little more than a nibble.

My guilty conscience, however, flourished, as we crept out of the Dusare’s home that day and returned to the sanctity of the treehouse with our shared secret and peaked curiosities. 

Years later, I learned that the band had been wearing nude body stockings. My seven-year old imagination, however, will never know the difference - about the album cover, our house, or my neighborhood, where musical trucks and men in white hats will always sell Chocolate Eclair bars with solid, milk chocolate centers; where I will always be keeping up with Jim hurrying to school on that small, treed path, or up in the treehouse of my yolk-colored home, singing favorite songs with first, best friends. Happily taunted by the neighbor boys below.