her house doing homework, no TV, no phone calls. It would be a dull Sunday.
Good time to catch up on my notebooks, she thought. Sometimes Harriet liked to sit down and reread a volume or two to see if she’d failed to report anything of significance. Now she resolved to go all the way back to the first time she’d met Annie, aka Rosarita Sauvage.
Harriet brushed her teeth, dressed, and went down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Morning light slanted in from the street-level windows in front and the snow-covered garden in back. She poured cornflakes into her favorite bowl and reached into the fruit bowl for a banana. On the counter beside it, she spotted a letter in Ole Golly’s unmistakable back-slanted handwriting, with the dark and light strokes of a chiseled calligraphy pen. It must have arrived in yesterday’s mail, she thought. Why didn’t anyone tell me? She ripped the envelope open and read.
Dear Harriet , Ole Golly had written,
I can no more explain falling in love than I could explain how to breathe. Both are involuntary and both are essential. Poets have pondered the subject for centuries .
Mr. H. L. Mencken edited a superb dictionary of quotations, grouped by topic rather than author. The entries for love run a full sixteen pages. I will leave you with just this one, from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Whoever lives true life, will love true love .” As ever,
Catherine Golly Waldenstein
P.S. Promise me that you won’t grow up too fast. I want our baby to meet you when you’re still my Harriet .
Harriet read the letter three times before she poured milk on her cornflakes. That’s really no help, she thought, lifting her spoon to her lips. It certainly doesn’t explain Annie’s older man.
Annie met her the next morning in front of her door. “I called you yesterday and your mom wouldn’t let you talk. What’s up with that, H’spy?”
“I forgot to leave her a note when I went to Janie’s on Saturday.” Annie shrugged. “At least she was worried about you. My mother wouldn’t have noticed that I was gone. She’d be too busy writing some play.” Harriet’s jaw dropped. “Your mother’s a playwright?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” Annie snapped.
Harriet looked at her sidelong. Now there were two topics she was dying to broach. Which was less likely to set Annie off, she wondered, her mother’s career or the older man? Annie stepped up on one of the wrought-iron rails that fenced off the trees on the sidewalk and balanced along its length. “Follow my steps, H’spy. First to fall off is a double- l loser,” she said, in her best imitation of Marion Hawthorne.
A thick, swirling snowfall began at the end of the school day. Mr. Grenville was reading a scene from the end of act three of Romeo and Juliet , and worked himself into such a frenzy as Juliet’s furious father that the teacher next door, Miss Munson, knocked on the wall and yelled, “Quiet!” The whole class dissolved into giggles.
Mr. Grenville looked affronted. He stretched out his arm and read, “Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!” in more modulated tones. The bell rang and the students tumbled noisily out of their chairs. Mr. Grenville sighed the deep sigh of the misunderstood.
The sidewalk was white with an inch of new snowfall. Annie and Harriet tried out different gaits, leaving strange-looking footprints by dragging one foot in a zigzagging line or walking on tiptoe. At one point they walked back to back with their arms linked, leaving twin rows of chevrons, like this:
“Let’s go to the tree stand and see what Balsam and Douglas Fir do when it snows,” Annie said.
“They get snowy,” said Harriet.
Annie poked her. “You know what I mean. Do they put up tarps? Take in the trees? We haven’t been there all weekend.”
“We couldn’t,” said Harriet, sensing an opening. “You had to go to that Hanukkah thing with your aunt and uncle.” Her tone was distinctly pointed.
“And
Good time to catch up on my notebooks, she thought. Sometimes Harriet liked to sit down and reread a volume or two to see if she’d failed to report anything of significance. Now she resolved to go all the way back to the first time she’d met Annie, aka Rosarita Sauvage.
Harriet brushed her teeth, dressed, and went down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Morning light slanted in from the street-level windows in front and the snow-covered garden in back. She poured cornflakes into her favorite bowl and reached into the fruit bowl for a banana. On the counter beside it, she spotted a letter in Ole Golly’s unmistakable back-slanted handwriting, with the dark and light strokes of a chiseled calligraphy pen. It must have arrived in yesterday’s mail, she thought. Why didn’t anyone tell me? She ripped the envelope open and read.
Dear Harriet , Ole Golly had written,
I can no more explain falling in love than I could explain how to breathe. Both are involuntary and both are essential. Poets have pondered the subject for centuries .
Mr. H. L. Mencken edited a superb dictionary of quotations, grouped by topic rather than author. The entries for love run a full sixteen pages. I will leave you with just this one, from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Whoever lives true life, will love true love .” As ever,
Catherine Golly Waldenstein
P.S. Promise me that you won’t grow up too fast. I want our baby to meet you when you’re still my Harriet .
Harriet read the letter three times before she poured milk on her cornflakes. That’s really no help, she thought, lifting her spoon to her lips. It certainly doesn’t explain Annie’s older man.
Annie met her the next morning in front of her door. “I called you yesterday and your mom wouldn’t let you talk. What’s up with that, H’spy?”
“I forgot to leave her a note when I went to Janie’s on Saturday.” Annie shrugged. “At least she was worried about you. My mother wouldn’t have noticed that I was gone. She’d be too busy writing some play.” Harriet’s jaw dropped. “Your mother’s a playwright?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” Annie snapped.
Harriet looked at her sidelong. Now there were two topics she was dying to broach. Which was less likely to set Annie off, she wondered, her mother’s career or the older man? Annie stepped up on one of the wrought-iron rails that fenced off the trees on the sidewalk and balanced along its length. “Follow my steps, H’spy. First to fall off is a double- l loser,” she said, in her best imitation of Marion Hawthorne.
A thick, swirling snowfall began at the end of the school day. Mr. Grenville was reading a scene from the end of act three of Romeo and Juliet , and worked himself into such a frenzy as Juliet’s furious father that the teacher next door, Miss Munson, knocked on the wall and yelled, “Quiet!” The whole class dissolved into giggles.
Mr. Grenville looked affronted. He stretched out his arm and read, “Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!” in more modulated tones. The bell rang and the students tumbled noisily out of their chairs. Mr. Grenville sighed the deep sigh of the misunderstood.
The sidewalk was white with an inch of new snowfall. Annie and Harriet tried out different gaits, leaving strange-looking footprints by dragging one foot in a zigzagging line or walking on tiptoe. At one point they walked back to back with their arms linked, leaving twin rows of chevrons, like this:
“Let’s go to the tree stand and see what Balsam and Douglas Fir do when it snows,” Annie said.
“They get snowy,” said Harriet.
Annie poked her. “You know what I mean. Do they put up tarps? Take in the trees? We haven’t been there all weekend.”
“We couldn’t,” said Harriet, sensing an opening. “You had to go to that Hanukkah thing with your aunt and uncle.” Her tone was distinctly pointed.
“And
Similar Books
