“We were called Blossoms then. The Queen and her six Blossoms.” She stuck out her tongue and made a gagging sound. “You believe it? Sounds so quaint now, doesn’t it? Well, it is a problem, isn’t it? What were they supposed to call us—the Queen and her six Losers? So silly. But then—I’ll tell you, Stargirl—then I took my role as a Blossom quite seriously. Quite seriously.” She broke out laughing. “Ha! To the point of unseemliness, my mother would say. She had to practically rip my gown off my body when I went to bed that night.”
She sat herself on the edge of the table. She looked about—and suddenly she was no longer in the kitchen, she was in the parade, waving, smiling, blowing kisses. Dootsie and I applauded. Betty Lou returned to the present, looked at us. “You know, you haven’t lived until you’ve basked in the adoration of the people.”
As Betty Lou busied herself at the oven, my thoughts went back to the Mica High prom about this time last year. Any regrets, Leo? Do you wish you had gone with me? I’m sure you’ve heard all about it by now. That crazy Stargirl showing up in a chauffeur-driven bicycle. Dancing with herself, then all the guys. And the bunny hop. Leading them off the lantern-lit tennis courts into the dark. Here’s the truth, Leo. Until the bunny hop, I was doing fine. I was enjoying myself and my schoolmates, putting you and your rejection of me aside. But out there in the dark, the farther we got from the music and the light, the more I thought of you, and it occurred to me that maybe I could work a little enchantment of my own. As we moved deeper and deeper into the dark I wished—I willed— that something magical would happen, that the hands I felt on my waist, if I danced through the darkness just right and just long enough, would become your hands.
But of course they didn’t. When we came back to the light and I looked, it was Alan Ferko behind me, not you.
By now Dootsie had made herself disappear. She does that if she thinks she’s not getting enough attention. She stood in the corner, eyes squeezed shut, noiseless, still as a floor lamp—Cinnamon visible as usual on her shoulder.
“Where’s Dootsie?” Betty Lou said with a wink.
I looked around. I looked straight into the corner. I shrugged. “Don’t know. She must have disappeared again. Looks like she took Cinnamon with her this time.”
Betty Lou called, “Dootsie? Are you here?”
Silence from the corner.
“How does she do it?” said Betty Lou, wonderment in her voice.
“It’s a gift,” I said.
“Do you think we’ll ever see her again?” Betty Lou said worriedly.
“When she’s ready,” I said.
Betty Lou nodded, relieved. “Good. So then, tell me about the rest of the Dogwood Festival.”
I told her about it all, painted her a picture as best I could. In the meantime, the smells of roasting turkey breast and tofurkey (yes, tofu turkey—I’m still a vegetarian) filled the house. I thought I saw a nose appear in the corner just long enough to sniff.
When I finished, Betty Lou again gazed out the window. “Do you think I’ll ever see another Dogwood Festival?” She turned to me. Her eyes were gleaming. “Do you, Girl of the Stars?”
I wanted to cry. Across the kitchen table we squeezed each other’s hands. “You will,” I told her, not sure I believed myself.
Betty Lou checked the big pot on the stove. “Uh-oh. The potatoes are ready to be smashed and Dootsie the Super Potato Smasher is nowhere to be seen.”
“I’m here! I’m here!” Dootsie came bursting into visibility, Cinnamon hanging on to her shoulder for dear life. “I’ll smash ’em!” She started pulling off her shoes.
She had to be talked out of doing it with her feet. She had seen a picture of winemakers stomping grapes. Then she had to be talked out of letting Cinnamon stomp.
At last the potatoes got smashed, and the dinner was eaten. I took Dootsie home. The last thing she said when I hugged her good night was, “I wanna do a festible!”
May 26
So we had the Dootsie Festival today.
Like the Dogwood Festival, it began with a parade. Dootsie appointed Cinnamon Grand Marshal and herself “Boss Queen.” She was wrapped in dish towels. She seemed to think this was glamorous. She wore her mother’s high heels and a white plastic comb in her hair that she called a crown. I pulled her along in a little wooden wagon. She smiled and waved to the crowd (about ten parents) along Ringgold Street. The Grand Marshal sat on her shoulder.
She was trailed by three attendants, walking—no wagons for them. Two were little girls from the neighborhood. The third was a black Lab named Roscoe. I told Dootsie it was a boy dog, but she didn’t care. Roscoe wore a pink crinoline ballet skirt.
The rest of the parade consisted of a boy with a turtle, a little kid on a tricycle, a marching band (two ten-year-olds playing a harmonica and a kazoo but mostly goofing off), a three-foot-high Darth Vader, a grandmother holding the hand of a wide-eyed toddler, and a teenager doing wheelies on his skateboard.
After one block, the Boss Queen called, “Parade’s over!” and we all returned to her house to have the festival.
We had attractions galore: bake sale, fortune-teller, penny pitch, stroller coaster. And of course a lemonade stand. I even gave a ukulele concert.
The Grand Marshal tried to get some shut-eye in a bicycle basket, but tiny hands petting kept him awake.
I’m sure everything was being watched by Betty Lou, though I couldn’t see her.
The festival was hopping when I saw him on the sidewalk out front. The face from the Dumpster. Betty Lou’s porch. The caramel apple stand.
He was talking to the lemonade vendor, the Boss Queen herself. They were chatting away. She poured him a cup of lemonade and he dropped a nickel into the cash register (her Babar cereal bowl). I kept my eyes on his hands, expecting one of them at any moment to slip into the bowl and take something out. I wondered if he was chatting her up to distract her. I wondered if the moment she turned her back he would snatch the bowl as he did the donuts and the caramel apple. But the only thing happening was talk. He was gesturing with his hands, telling her a story. She was laughing and saying things back to him. In fact, they were having such a great old time that suddenly I felt a twinge of jealousy that Dootsie—my little Dootsie—was so instantly smitten with this new boy person.
My impulse was to stride right over there and reclaim my territory, let her show him who her best pal was. But I hesitated. I had seen him so clearly three times—three times stealing (well, two—or can you steal from a Dumpster?)—that I felt I must be as memorable to him as he was to me. But when he looked up from the lemonade table and his eyes drifted in my direction, he didn’t seem to recognize me. He had black hair that flopped down to his eyes and over his ears. His skin looked as if it had been toasted in the Arizona desert. Even at a distance I could see his eyes were blue.
He pulled a pair of sunglasses—shoplifted, no doubt—from his pocket and put them on. I saw Dootsie’s hands shoot out and heard her exclaim: “Me! Me!” He put them on her. She let him, I thought. She wouldn’t let me put my earrings on her. She stood up. She strutted down the sidewalk. She turned and looked straight into the sun. “Dootsie!” I called, but he was already there, turning her face aside, taking the glasses, scolding her for looking into the sun. I was outraged. Hey, I wanted to call out, I’ll do the scolding around here.
He held his hand out. They shook. He was saying goodbye. Please don’t hug her, I thought. His hand went to the top of her head and mussed her hair. She laughed. He walked up the street.
I followed him.
Even now I’m not sure why. I stayed a block or two behind, on the other side of the street.
It was a long walk, back through downtown, past Margie’s Donuts and Pizza Dee-Lite and the Colonial Theatre and the Morning Lenape Building and the Blue Comet diner and the Columbia Hotel and over the canal bridge. When he came to Produce Junction he veered into the parking lot. Boxes of fruit and vegetables were on display outside the door. He snatc
hed two lemons as he breezed by and headed on down Canal Street. He stuck one lemon in his pocket. He broke the other one and started sucking on a half. Just watching him, my spit dried up. I walked faster. He was breezing along in his shades, more swaggering than walking, sucking on his lemon, spitting seeds into the street like he owned the world. I felt my bile rising. I was still twenty feet behind when he turned toward a small gray cinder-blocky building on the canal. The side facing the canal was open like a garage. Above the opening a hand-painted sign said IKE’S BIKE & MOWER REPAIR. Ike was bending in the dirt outside, pulling the cord on a mower and cursing every time it didn’t start. The boy went around the side and up two steps to a back door.
I called, “Hey!”
He looked up, his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t speak, just waited. He didn’t remove his sunglasses. The longer he stood there, the more uncomfortable I became that he could see my eyes but I couldn’t see his.
I came closer. “Why did you take those lemons?” I said. “Why do you steal things?”
No answer. No expression. I felt if I could tear off his shades I would find two cold blue stones. He tossed the half lemon away and shoved the whole other half into his mouth. He worked it around and his lips puckered, and suddenly he spat a seed at me. It bounced off my chest. He stood there chewing with his mouth open. I thought I saw a tiny sneer on his lip just before he opened the door and went in.
May 28
I finally have a name for the boy, the lemon thief. Perry. He doesn’t look like a Perry to me, but that’s what he told Dootsie his name is. He also told her he sleeps on the roof on hot nights. And he fishes in the canal. And sometimes he swims in it even though no one is supposed to.
Dootsie told me all this as we were having lunch at the Blue Comet. The treat was on her—some of it, anyway. With her profits from the festival—$11.27—she insisted on taking me to lunch.
“So,” I said, “what else did he say?”
She licked ketchup from a French fry. “I don’t remember. Stuff.”
“I saw you laughing.”
“Yeah. He was funny.”
“And nice?”
“Uh-huh.”
When she finished licking the French fry clean, she started in on another.
“If all you want is the ketchup,” I said, “why did you order French fries?”
She sighed, trying to be patient. “Because you can’t just drink ketchup, you goof.”
We hung around downtown for a while, then we went to Margie’s for afternoon dessert. Dootsie got plain-with-sprinkles, I got chocolate-glazed. As we sat down Alvina came barging through the door. She waved at me. “Hey, wacko. Do anything wacky today?”
Dootsie whispered, “Is she gonna beat you up?”
I whispered back, “I don’t think so.”
“Is she gonna beat me up?”
“She’s not going to beat anybody up. Relax. Eat your donut.”
Alvina took her books into the back and came out with her broom. “You’re not gonna sit here the whole day nursing that one donut, are ya?” she said.
“Maybe I am,” I said. “You got a problem??” I might have even snarled.
I felt Dootsie rising beside me. “Yeah. You got a probum?” She was snarling. Red and blue sprinkles fell from the half-eaten donut that she wagged in Alvina’s face.
Alvina stared stone-faced—and quick as a lemon thief, she tore the half donut from Dootsie’s hand and popped it into her mouth.
Dootsie howled. “Margie! She stole my donut!”
Margie called from the counter, “Good grief. You’re three immature babies over there.” She plucked another plain-with-sprinkles from the rack and tossed it our way. “Here. Now shut up, all of you, or I’ll kick you out.”
I caught the donut and gave it to Dootsie, who stuck her sprinkle-crusted tongue out at Alvina, who went off sweeping.
When Alvina finished her sweeping, she came and sat at our table.
“I don’t like you,” said Dootsie.
“Dootsie,” I said, “be nice.”
But Dootsie was rolling. “When I get big enough, I’m gonna beat you up.”
Alvina looked at her across the table. Her face was as stony as ever. I have known her for months now and have never seen her smile. And yet something was there, under the surface, behind her eyes, on the edge of her lips, something softer, something little. Her hand slowly formed a fist and slowly came across the table until it stopped a quarter inch in front of Dootsie’s nose. Dootsie’s eyes crossed as they followed it in. Tucked into the fist was the elegant pink nail on the little finger.
Dootsie jerked back—but only to protect her new donut. She held it behind her chair. She was not the least bit afraid of Alvina. Their eyes were locked into each other’s, but they showed neither fear nor hatred. Their stares were more probing than clashing. Dootsie brought her face forward until it was again in front of the fist. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and, still staring up into Alvina’s eyes, closed her teeth slowly, gently, on Alvina’s knuckles. Alvina did not pull away. Dootsie did not bite down hard. Something was happening that I didn’t understand, and somehow that made it all the more special. I looked at Margie. She was staring, openmouthed, the coffee urn in her hand poised above a cup. When I turned back, Dootsie was releasing her bite and Alvina laid her hand flat upon the table.
Margie’s voice broke the spell: “Alvina. Back to work.”
Alvina grabbed her broom and headed for the kitchen in back.
May 31
When I tried to do my mind wash today, a smidgen of me would not evaporate away. It was those stone blue eyes behind the sunglasses and the lemon seed bouncing off my shirt. For today at least, I guess I flunked Elements of Nothingness.
June 4
FIELD TRIP:
MAIDEN’S LEAP
She stood here, the Lenape girl.
She was only thirteen or fourteen, the legend says.
Here on this high bluff overlooking the ramshackle remains
of the old steel mill
famous in the Revolution for making the best
cannon for George Washington’s army.
Of course it wasn’t a steel plant then,
just forest,
maybe rocks.
She stood here and then she jumped…
well, perhaps leaped, since this is a
poem and leaped feels more poetic
than jumped.
In any case, down she went to her death,
thirteen-or fourteen-year-old Lenape girl,
because her father would not allow her to marry
the boy she loved.
Standing here, I wonder things.
I wonder if she started way back there and
came running and practically flew
off the edge.
Or did she come slowly, like a trickle of water
across a tabletop that seems to pause
at the edge, gathering itself
before spilling?
If she did stand here and wait—why?
What was she waiting for?
Was she giving time one last chance
to save her? Happiness one last chance
to happen?
Ha! Easier to rearrange the stars than
a father’s mind.
Did she look down?
Did she look out?
What did she see?
Did she see his face? The boy’s?
Did she see him wave to her, call to her
from far away? Did she see the two
of them running, laughing across meadows
of chicory and Queen Anne’s lace, flowers they knew
by other names?
And his name—did she say it?
Did she shout it from the blufftop to
all the earth below?
Or whisper it, for his ears only
to hear?
One thing for sure—it comes clearly now:
she was no
t looking down.
This I know.
June 5
Homeschool is out!
At high noon I celebrated by joining you for smoothies at the mall. Strawberry-banana, of course. Your favorite. We sat together at the last table and talked and sipped. I told you the latest with Dootsie. You brought me up-to-date on your friend Kevin and my friend Dori Dilson and our friend Archie. You told me you’re looking forward to summer vacation. You told me you applied to colleges in Pennsylvania, since now you know this is where I am. You said you think of me every day. You said you sometimes go out to the enchanted place in the desert and take off your shoes and sit there like we did that first time. Only you don’t meditate. You’re not at all interested in erasing your self or me. Oh no. Just the opposite. You close your eyes and you remember. You focus and you concentrate and you remember harder than you’ve ever remembered in your life, and pretty soon you’re sure you can feel me there, sitting cross-legged across from you, smiling at you, Cinnamon in the space between us. You experience me. You relive us. You’re so happy. And then so sad when you open your eyes and realize I’m not really there. That’s when you miss me the most. Desperately.
Tell me I didn’t imagine it, Leo. Tell me that even though our bodies were in separate states, our star selves shared an enchanted place. Tell me that right around noon today (eastern time) you had the strangest sensation: a tiny chill on your shoulder…a flutter in the heart…a shadow of strawberry-banana crossing your tongue….
Tell me you whispered my name.
June 12
Last night’s dream…
Milk run. Bottles rattle in the racks. Headlights swing through the darkness. There… someone in a Dumpster…head down, rummaging…looks up, eyes gleaming like a surprised fox’s…but it’s not that boy Perry…it’s you.
June 15
I keep thinking about Charlie at the cemetery. Sitting there day after day. Talking to Grace. Remembering. Dozing off. I think he must hate the absolute certainty: knowing that every time he awakes from a doze, she’ll be there. Every time he arrives in the morning with the aluminum chair, she’ll be there. She’ll never again be in the basement looking for the canned peaches. Never again out in the backyard chatting with Mrs. So-and-So, the neighbor. She’ll never be anywhere but there.