I was
truly happy for them both. Really. My sister Jen was getting him, and he was
getting my sister, and I wished them the best. Truly.
“Ouch!” I
jerked.
“I’m
sorry!”
The girl
behind me moved the curling iron a bit away from the side of my face as I held
up the hand mirror to see the progress. My stylist, a friend of the maid of
honor, had an abnormally dark tan, a pretty spattering of freckles, and full
lashes thick with mascara. Highlighted chestnut ringlets, hourglass silhouette,
pencil skirt, and 2-inch heels combined with a carefree Georgia peach accent,
musical laugh, and genuine interest towards those around her.
I felt
like a second-rate peon next to such perfection.
I put down
the mirror and glanced to my right. Jen was bending over the full length mirror
putting on some last minute lipstick before the bridal photo shoot. She looked
. . . she looked like a bride. Breathtaking. My stomach flip-flopped once. He
would be smitten. He already was. But he would be smitten all over again. I
could almost see his grin stretch from ear to ear. Or maybe he’d cry. Either
way would be so him.
I held
back a sigh and looked forward. Reality. Reality was this church nursery. The
slight smell of baby powder and Clorox wipes not quite abolished by hairspray
and perfume. Reality was the rocking chair I was sitting in, needing a
professional to do my hair because I had no idea how to make it wedding-worthy
on my own.
Reality
was that this room represented my humdrum life, and I was happy with it. I was.
It was Jen’s day to shine.
“Who’d ya
get a text from?” one of the bridesmaids asked Jen. My sister had grabbed her
phone from her purse and flipped it open.
“Who d’ya
think?” replied another bridesmaid, raising her eyebrows. They giggled.
Jen’s
face, still bent over her phone, glowed. “Aww, look at what he said!”
The
bridesmaids gathered around the phone and read the text out loud: “Hey, I’ve
got an idea! Let’s get married today!”
“Isn’t
that sweet?”
“He’s so
cute!”
“What’re
you going to say back?”
“You two
were just made for each other!”
I held up
the hand mirror again and looked at the warm ringlets piling high on top of my
head. Was I to be a poodle or a moose?
~*~
Jennifer
and I grew up as the Stern girls. Sometimes we begged Mom and Dad for a little
brother or sister, but neither wish was granted, and we remained a small middle
class family of two parents, two children. I was the oldest. Jen was a year
younger.
The summer
I was to enter first grade, our parents pulled us from Northridge Christian
School on the outskirts of our California hometown.
“One day,”
according to Mom’s telling of the story, “I realized that I wanted to see my
little girls more! So I went to your dad, and he said, ‘Well, if you want to
homeschool, let’s pray about it.’”
“And God
said ‘yes’!” we liked to chime in.
Mom would
smile, “Yes, He did. And I haven’t regretted one minute I’ve gotten to spend
with my two lovely girls.”
Thus began
our life as homeschoolers, a culture of its own with common experiences, shared
camaraderie and unique trends and fads.
Mom got us
involved right away with the Joyful Noise homeschool group. Once a week we met
with other families for a day at the park, plus there were tons of field trips
and co-op classes.
It was at
one such field trip that I first began to take notice of those unnamed,
unspoken, unintelligible creatures that change every woman’s life eventually,
if one is so lucky.
In other
words, I noticed my first boy!
Jen and I
were dressed in bonnets and calico cotton dresses, ready for our historical
adventure into the 1800s. As Mom parked the car, I spotted my very best friend
Luanne. She was 7 like me and wore a high collar white blouse tucked into a
full, blue paisley skirt with white eilette on the bottom. Mom had met Mrs.
Sparks, Luanne’s mom, at Jazzercise, and they had been delighted to find a
fellow kindred spirit in each other.
Next to
Luanne, pulling on Mrs. Sparks’ hand, was Joey. At 4 years old he was the kind
of child that adults describe as “all boy.” In other words, he was wiggly,
stinky, and lacked any sense of decorum. Wherever Luanne went, Joey went.
“It’s the
buddy system,” Mrs. Sparks would say with a smile as Joey pulled Luanne off to
the short red slide or the baby swings or to the green caterpillar crawling
along the sidewalk just waiting to be picked up. Joey could never stay still
for two seconds together, and sometimes I wished the buddy system would go away
so Luanne and I could have grown-up conversations by ourselves.
We jumped
out of the car and joined the other homeschoolers on the curb. The Andersons
were there. They didn’t have any girls my age, but they had a boy a year older
than me. His name was Michael.
Inside the
gate, a lady gathered us all together and talked to us about John Sutter and
the gold rush. Then she led us over to a long wooden box with water running
through and showed us how the miners would pan for gold. She said that often
miners would think they had found gold when really it was fool’s gold.
Michael
piped up. “The Bible says that people who say there is no God are fools.”
Michael
was so smart. Probably the smartest boy in the whole homeschool group.
After
panning for gold, we walked around the fort. Luanne, Jen, and I dipped candles
into hot wax, ran a carding comb over a wooly sheep, and watched a blacksmith
pound iron that had been heated in a fire. At noon, we sat down to each lunch
in front of the general store. I scooted next to Luanne.
“Want my
sandwich?” Joey asked from Luanne’s other side. He stuck his peanut butter and
jelly sandwich in front of my face. Purple goo dripped from the side and landed
in the dust.
I tried to
be polite, I really did. But it came out as an emphatic “no!”
“Are you
sure?” He pushed the sandwich close to my nose.
“Ugh!” I
pulled back and almost lost my balance.
Luanne
pushed her brother’s hand away. “Joey, stop playing and eat your sandwich.”
She
sounded so mature. I wondered if I would sound so grown-up if I had a younger
sibling. Jen didn’t count.
Joey made
a face and scooted a couple inches away, taking a bite and looking down the
sidewalk. A show was just beginning.
It was
Michael. Mom called him a ham, but I thought he was fun. Smart and fun. He was
strutting across the boardwalk with a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth.
“Hey
there, folks,” he said, smiling to the other kids and tipping his straw hat as
he walked by. The girls giggled, and the boys laughed and pointed. He passed
Joey, who tried to trip him with an outstretched hand, but Michael quickly
sidestepped him, passed Luanne, and then stopped right in front of me.
Off came
his hat over his heart, and he bowed deeply. I could feel the heat rising in my
cheeks and I let out an impulsive giggle. As he rose he wiggled his eyebrows
and with a cowboy accent said, “Howdy-do, pretty little lady.”
“Michael,
come eat your lunch!” His mother’s shrill voice interrupted the flirtation.
He
sauntered back down the sidewalk, his thumbs hooked in his pockets.
Michael
Anderson had just called me a pretty lady.
Right
before he joined his mother, he looked back at his delighted audience, winked
in my direction, took a confident step backward, tripped over the horse trough,
and landed seat first in the mud.
My friends roared. Parents admonished us to be kind. My cheeks reddened and my breath
caught. His mother scolded Michael good, and he ate his lunch in conspicuous
silence. The rest of the day I avoided looking at him, too embarrassed for him
because of the tongue-lashing and dirtied backside. Still, when I could, I
stole peeks at him. He was the cleverest, most agreeable boy in the whole
world.
I, Trisha
Mae Stern, was smitten.
This is really good, Michelle! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Carilyn! It's not done but I figure if I don't post some now while I have a blog that is somewhat relevant, it might forever stay on my computer!
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