Tony Blue

Sometimes the weird are just plain weird and undeserving of the good side to their natures. I knew a boy fitting this description. His name was Tony Blue, my next door neighbor.

I’ve heard people say Hoboken, NJ is New York City’s poor cousin. If that is true my hometown of Easton, Pennsylvania is the ex-con that showed up at two am on NYC’s front door looking to borrow money. Easton had a heyday, around the time my dad dated my mother and when the commuter train still ran between Easton and New York City. Some say it may experience a revival however even the hopeful can’t ignore the boarded-up windows, teenage girls with swollen bellies online at the welfare office and broken porch swings dangling above dilapidated verandas.

Northampton Street runs the entire length of the city of Easton, slicing it down the middle and serves as the main business thoroughfare. Most of the shops are now closed and for the last few years a small group of heroin addicts gather around the half-block between the YMCA and the Subway sandwich shop. Easton recently became famous for its poverty with people coming on Sunday drives just to count for sale signs.

At Christmas, a seventy-five foot statue representing a bugler heralding the third reading of the Declaration of Independence sits dead center in the town square. Every Christmas the local council re-faces the statue with white painted plywood planks and lights the top with a red and yellow metal flame. The Town Hall’s unofficial claim that the structure is the world’s tallest Christmas candle remains unchallenged for the last one hundred years. So people come to see it as well.

The long summer between graduation and college, I found work on the second floor of one of the red-brick Georgians on the old end of Northampton Street as a Stringer for a local news Editor in a one-room daily newspaper. The small shop downstairs sold Crayola Crayon T-shirts, coffee mugs with pen and inked renditions of historic buildings and local artist’s oil paintings of the Long Bridge to New Jersey. At Christmas, they sold snow shakers with the Christmas Candle surrounded by carollers and cosy lit shop fronts that formed a semi-circle in the globe. Even though I lived next to him most of my life, that summer was when I first met Tony Blue.

Tony’s family moved to Easton in 1971, I was five. His father was an alcoholic who disappeared from social events soon after their arrival then reappeared two years later. It was also around that time Mrs. Blue began doing the neighborhood ladies ironing to make ends meet. I remember my mother scanning the house for things to put into Joan Blue’s ironing bag. It was the women of Easton’s way of supporting their own. By the time our country was celebrating its bicentennial Tony was ten, the same age as me, and kicked dogs for a living.

Tony was in my grade but he attended Mrs. Mertle’s class on the third floor of Hay Elementary School. Six other students from two different grades shared the classroom with Tony. Our fifth grade class passed them on the way to music every Wednesday morning. The girls would sneak peeks at him through the windows that looked out on the hall. The boys told stories up and down the stairs about the time Tony punched ‘Fat Albert’ Grant, our rotund PE Teacher, in the stomach until Mrs. Mertle would shush them and tell us all to be quiet. The door to their room read ‘Specials.’

Twenty years before Mrs. Mertle taught at Hay Elementary School, my parents were young and Easton was a good place to live. Close shaved High School boys looked like heroes and carried their girlfriend’s books around wearing white Letterman sweaters. Girls in electric pink poodle skirts with hair done up to ‘there’ met in the soda shop on the Square when jukebox music still spilled out onto the sidewalk. Back then people on Northampton Street shopped; men tipped their hats to the well turned-out ladies, while Boy Scouts actually helped senior citizens across the street. By the time Tony Blue was kicking dogs, the jukebox in Stan’s Soda Pop Stop hadn’t played Rock Around the Clock in over fifteen years and Easton no longer resembled the white Christmas scenes portrayed in those little plastic snow globes.

I have a vague recollection of that Easton. On occasions, my grandmother took me on the bus into the square for lunch at Woolworth’s Food and Drug. We sat in a red leather booth, her with her club sandwich and me with my cheeseburger plate; although I was more interested in studying what was inside the balloons stuck to the wall above my head than my lunch. The waitress would pop a balloon of your choosing at the end of each meal and if the folded paper inside produced a blue spot you were awarded a banana split. You’re a lucky dog; she’d smile, growing up in a place like Easton. I’d grin back at her through hot fudge and cherry toppings.

The Easton Daily was a respectable rag and I was lucky to get the work. Louis Donatelli, the Local News Editor, gave me a job as a favor to my dad who sold him all his used cars and my Uncle Ben, who ran Easton’s only auto service center, would fix them. He insisted I called him Louis. He said this would break down the barriers between adults and children that a middle class upbringing like mine had welded into my character. He was right. We had been deep into July before I was comfortable not calling him Mr. Donatelli.

As it happened, my first day of work was the hottest of the summer and, as luck would have it, the office air conditioner had broken down. Louis wore a lot of Old Spice so Carol Deangelo, our heavyset blond receptionist, mercifully took it upon herself to call an electrician. Our busy little office had close to twenty people working in it at any given time. Writers and photographers came and went most the day and those of us not working on our own assignments were forced to sit at one of the empty desks in advertising and subedit the stories about to go to press. Louis would look down at me through black-rimmed bifocals while sweat beads formed on the tip of his nose and warn, Let one mistake slip and you’ll be subediting for a month.

The two women who made up The Easton Weekly’s advertising department were local divorced sisters in their 40’s from the Southside. They chewed Wrigley’s Spearmint gumand smacked it off their teeth all day long. I sat between them, their ping-pong chatter, matching Aqua Net hair buns and unrefrigerated tuna fish sandwiches, for a week. I was determined, at least for the next five days, to be the best subeditor The Easton Daily had ever seen.

By three o’clock people sat on the windowsills just to breath. Shoes and socks had become unnecessary clothing. Panes painted shut for years were pried open with letter openers and the pong of fish and aftershave began to take its toll on moral. Finally, Carol Deangelo took the call we’d been waiting for and with a grin she put down the receiver, raised both thumbs and yelled over her shoulder over to Louis’ desk. “Electricians here!” The room erupted.

As the office door opened, I knew him instantly. My next door neighbor Tony Blue walked in with his tool belt and wooden electrician’s box. His jet black hair still shoulder-length and pulled back under a faded red and white Philly’s cap. I felt myself slump down into my chair.

I hadn’t seen Tony much since the 10th grade when he left high school to learn a trade in the VoTech classes out in Palmers Township. His parents separated by then but Mrs. Blue still lived next door to us, so I received unsolicited updates on his progress from Mom and my Aunt Bell who lived in the house on the other side of the Blue’s – two doors down from us. Before graduation, he spent the last year or so living with his dad in one of the tar-shingled, half-a-doubles just over the free bridge in New Jersey while he apprenticed at Ealer Electrical Supply. On the odd Sunday my younger brother Charlie would spot him leaving his mother’s house after dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Blue finally divorced in 1984 when Mr. Blue moved to Philipsburg, the same year we graduated high school. Mom said Joan thought Mr. Blue was still sober, as far as she knew.

As neighbors go the Blues were quiet. Our family of six, with three boys to their one must have seemed obnoxious while our cousins, the other Chambers to their right were all girls and probably just tolerable. Tony, who was their only child, was talented I thought at one thing and one thing only; creating trouble for himself without muttering a word. Dad decided he was weird early on and then a week wouldn’t go by that he didn’t point this out. That Blue boy, I’m not so sure about that weirdo kid was Dad’s cadence, his fall-back dinner conversation and his general feeling about Tony.

In the early days, my brothers invited him Saturday bass fishing on Bushkill Creek. Dad and the boys went every weekend in the spring and on their very first trip he went missing for over eighteen hours. Search parties scoured the back alleys of our neighbourhood all night long and I could hear Mom on the front porch beneath my window consoling Mrs. Blue. “He’s fine just fine, Joan. He’s probably just throwin’ stones down at the A&P.”

Tony was found twenty miles up on Sullivan Trail past Belfast at Hartman’s Two Family Restaurant the following morning. It was only April and frost still settled along the riverbed in the morning but Tony walked through the night in a T-shirt and jeans and fell asleep under an upturned rowboat. The fishing tackle my brothers lent him was found two days later in a garbage can on the road halfway to Belfast near the Tatamy Inn.

At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning he sat down at one of Hartman’s family-sized dining tables on his own and ordered a steak dinner and a hot fudge sundae – at the same time. When it came time to pay, Tony told the waitress he had to go the bathroom. Ned Shook was watching and immediately called the Tatamy police. Ned Shook, who owned Hartman’s with his older brother Kenneth, had always been the brother folks liked a little less. Ned held on to Tony literally by the skin of his neck for a full twenty minutes until Mr. and Mrs. Blue arrived. Later, the waitress told the officers when they asked her if she’d found it strange a boy was eating all by himself she’d shrugged, ‘I hadn’t thought nothin’ of it at the time.’ Tony was two weeks outside of eleven years old.

It took my mother the rest of the summer to convince my brothers to invite Tony fishing again. That’s about the same time I remember Dad began describing Tony as weird. It probably would have never occurred to me he was but Dad began saying it all the time – just matter-of-factly. Eventually though Tony started coming to play pool on our back porch with my brother Jay. Sam, my oldest brother, refused to take part at first, no matter how much dad threatened him. You see it was Sam’s fishing pole found in the trash can in Tatamy and Sam was very serious about his fishing.

Most of my friends had crushes on Tony – but not me. “Isn’t he cute?” My nine year old cousin Barbara would bleat, looking out dreamily onto the back porch at my brothers and Tony playing pool. Barbara was my Aunt Bell’s and Uncle Ben’s youngest daughter of three girls. I had brothers, but girl cousins, my mother maintained, filled whatever hole was left when girls grow up without sisters. I was never aware of any holes in my childhood and my girly cousins did little more than irritate me. Jane was the oldest. She and Sam were the same age, both born in May -five days apart. I think my mom and Aunt Bell liked being pregnant together because my youngest brother Charlie and Aunt Bell’s middle daughter Emily were born in the same year, less than a month apart too. Jane was a bookworm and studied all the time. It paid off too because Jane went to Brown on full scholarship after graduation and had begun her master’s degree by the time I started college. Emily, a full year younger than me, was constantly over at our house and Barbara; well she just followed her big sister everywhere. Their favorite spot was our kitchen breakfast table staring out through the screen doors onto the back porch. It was my job to entertain them when they were over- a job I loathed. I just wanted to play my Grease albums in my room but the girls couldn’t see Tony from there. Even on the days he wouldn’t come over we were in the kitchen because the thought of missing Tony in case he happened to drop by was too much for Emily and Barbara to bear, so I got stuck in the kitchen baking pound cakes with Mom and Aunt Bell. I was never much into girl stuff, like I said I had brothers. Sometimes Dad and Uncle Ben and the neighborhood dads would take over our pool table on Friday nights and the boys would be kicked downstairs to the TV room or out onto the back patio. But most nights they were there, playing Sam’s Steely Dan records, drinking cokes, sneaking smokes, and shooting pool or playing cards with whatever stray neighborhood kid was knocking around outside our back door.

My cousins were mesmerized by Tony but they weren’t the only ones. Most of my girlfriends crooned over his curly shoulder length black hair, warm skin and faded blue eyes. By thirteen he wore white T-shirts and drew elaborate tattoos on his forearms with felt-tipped pens. Dad caught Charlie with a Chinese dragon smoking a cigarette on his thigh one Thursday just before wrestling practice and he caught hell for a week over it.

I’d usually be out on the back porch playing my records on the family console when he’d come over. Sam would always yell at him, “Hey Tony, what the hell? Just come in why don’t ya?” I’d get up and gather my records watching Tony out of one eye stare at his shoes outside the back door as I exited into the kitchen with the women. To say he avoided me was an understatement. One time I heard Jay tell Tony how to find our bathroom so I timed a meeting in the hall as he came down the stairs. He stopped dead on the last step when he saw me. I would have settled for a get the hell out of the way, Chambers but all he did was stare with his mouth wide open and when I moved forward to speak to him he jumped aside and passed me on the left. Humpf was all he’d said; all he ever said to me directly until that hot day in June at the Easton Daily. I’d often wondered if it wasn’t my brothers who scared him off talking to me, God knows what they said to him during pool. But that wasn’t news; they were always threatening boys on my behalf. One winter Sam stuffed Mark Bender’s head into the snowdrifts on the Anderson’s front lawn for hitting me in the back of my head with a snowball. At school the next day he had two black eyes and an apology for me.

I didn’t care if Tony didn’t speak to me but he never spoke to anyone else either so I didn’t take it personally. But there was something about him, I had to admit, something about the way the trouble he caused was only for Tony. He never bragged or wangled an accomplice. He never hurt anyone and always took his punishments on the chin and boy could Mr. Blue could dish it out, but what was between them, Tony wouldn’t find hiding under rowboats down by the river.

In the two years after Tony took off to Hartman’s he was caught breaking-an-entering at the abandoned Ribbon Mill on North Thirteenth Street, he’d run away from home for nearly three days during Christmas break and been suspended from school half a dozen times for minor infractions. The worst was when he was accused of taking a box of Walkman’s off the delivery truck down at the Radio Shack at the Palmer Park Mall. All Franny Shook had to do when the police came into school that Friday was mention Tony’s name. The officers marched into Mr. Markovick’s art room, handcuffed Tony and took him down to the 7th Street precinct. Two police cars were parked in front of the Blue’s house that following Saturday morning but found nothing. They eventually did find the box of Walkman’s in Franny’s older brother Vince’s apartment but the two of them blamed it all on Tony and in the end it was Tony that was suspended for two weeks from school not Franny. I knew Franny was lying and when I saw him at school the following Monday I told him as much.  He told me to mind my own business and shook a fist in my face and if it weren’t for my brothers he would have probably clocked me right there in front of Mr. Horner’s third period English class.

Joan was a wreak sitting beside her husband. Mr. Blue’s face was boiling red as they sat together swinging slowly on their front porch swing while the Easton Police searched through their home. It was humiliating to watch so instead neighbors did odd jobs around their houses all the while keeping an eye on the latest developments. Mom and Aunt Bell brought Joan and Mr. Blue glasses of lemonade and plates of cookies and sandwiches all morning long while my brothers and their friends kicked the football absentmindedly up and down our street. All of us secretly hoped the police found nothing. It was too much for me to bear. I went into my room and turned my record player up to the highest setting. When dad knocked on my door he didn’t yell, he just pushed his head in my room and put his hands over his ears, smiled and winked.

They brought Tony home Saturday night. The police agreed to drop the charges for a two week in-school suspension. His dad walked him up the street from their Oldsmobile after he picked him up from the precinct with his belt deliberately wrapped around his hand and his long pasty arm wrapped around Tony’s neck. He made it obvious to everyone on our street what he was about to do and my brothers called it ‘Dead man walking’. Mr. Blue always trooped Tony to the house like that after what my mother referred to as Tony’s little indiscretion. Someone always alerted the others, “Dead man walking!” they’d yell back and forth through the house to one another.  But this time was bad. You could tell Mr. Blue had been humiliated, and even though no one believed Tony had been part of it and that the Shook brothers were no good anyway, Mr. Blue was still going to beat the hell out of poor Tony that night. My brothers raced to the windows and waited for the Blue’s front door to slam, as it always did. I overheard Mom and Dad discussing Tony that night after dinner in the family room. Mom said Mr. Blue was simply showing off to the neighbors, that parading Tony up the street like that was mean spirited, no matter what he’d done- or not done, she was sure to add. But for some reason Dad stuck up for Mr. Blue; probably a Dad thing. “A little humiliation is good for him; damn little else seems to work with that weirdo kid!”

Normally after the front door slammed shut Tony would usually emerge for pool two or three days later with his Philly’s cap pulled forward over his eyes as far as it would go covering up any one of his fading bruises. This time, we didn’t see Tony for over a week.

One thing about Tony, he always faced his punishments – he just took it. You had to respect him for that. That’s what Sam said one day after he caught a glimpse of Mr. Blue smacking Tony on the backside with a paddle down the back cellar off the alley between our houses. Sam was walking the last bag to the garbage cans Dad already set out on the street for Monday morning collection. He heard a sudden thwack and it made him jump, he looked down to see an open basement door, Tony bent forward, pants down and taking the full weight of his father’s strength as he swung that wooden paddle, like Mike Schmidt driving another homer. Sam shook when he described what he’d seen to Dad. “He wasn’t even crying. He just looked over at me standing at the top of the stairs. He never made a sound.” But that was Tony. In some ways it was pride as if what he was doing was payback for something. As if being bad was all he had and he did his best at being his worst.

His parents were useless, even at thirteen I could see that. His Dad, in and out of jobs, was gloomy and drank too much. Pop would invite Mr. Blue to pool with the other Dads on our back porch and he’d show up stinking of hard liquor. Tony’s Mom was quiet as a mouse and was one of those people whose eyes glistened when you spoke to them. She did very little to draw attention to herself. Joan managed to live next door to us for over forty years and never once changed her hairstyle – not even a ponytail, like the rest of the ladies did when they hung laundry on their lines; it was always that same brown square bob. The Blues struggled through life; they seemed just to get by. It was as if they were either holding their breath or trying to catch it. They walked around heavy or too tired to move as if they had more than worry on their minds. They seemed terrified of something, something right around the corner. The night of my fourteenth birthday we were to find out what that was.

Tony had a brother. A fact Joan Blue hadn’t shared with anyone until he came to live with them that summer before we entered high school. The eighth grade had been tough for Tony. He was in detention most every Saturday for things like eating his lunch under the bleachers or the gymnasium and playing the drums in the band room when he should have been in PE. I’d deliver marked reports for Mr. Fiorelli to the office and there would be Tony sitting in Principal Stanley’s office getting an earful about this or that. Whether or not he deserved it, I think the Stephen Lacey Middle School administration just thought it was easier to incarcerate Tony than let him go to class.

One Saturday I was working in the school newspaper’s office when Tony walked by the door. We printed the monthly edition the last weekend of every month, and this was to be my turn to man the press. It took all morning to set, print and fold all four hundred copies of The Hall Press into the classroom mailboxes for distribution around the classrooms Monday morning. A shadow whizzed by the opened door. I thought it might be Janitor Joe who was always handing out soft caramels to the kids but when I looked up Tony stood facing me in the doorway. His mouth open, he just stared for a few seconds like he wanted to say something and when I raised my hand to say hello he turned and ran off down the hall, his sneakers squeaking off the freshly mopped floor.

At the end of the eighth grade Mr. Blue started a new job. He wore a suit when he left the house and Dad said Mr. Dean across the street didn’t see him drinking down at the club anymore. Everything seemed better that June we were going into high school. The dark cloud that hung over the Blue house seemed to lift, even Tony seemed lighter. He hadn’t been in detention the whole month of May leading up to graduation. I even thought I’d heard him whistling in his yard mowing the grass one Sunday. And for the first time since the Blue’s moved to Spruce Street, Mom and Dad were invited over to their house for a barbeque. You could hear Dad’s vast laugh over the hedge mixed occasionally with Mr. Blue’s short bursts of snorting and their combined cigarette smoke hung like fog around the pagoda lights in our yard. Tony spent that night at our house and Mom, in trade, fixed hot dogs, potato salad and strawberry shortcake for the kids. I invited Jenny Gordon from down the street for a sleep over and we spent most the night in my room listening to John and Olivia singing that their chills were multiplyin’ into our curling irons while the boys played pool on the back porch. Jenny’s crush on Tony was well known in the neighborhood to everyone, it seemed, except Tony and between songs she’d climb on the porch roof outside my bedroom window in her see-through nightgown trying to catch his attention. Jenny was a terrible exhibitionist. She would have purposefully chosen that sheer nightie for that very reason – to stand on my roof with the decking lights shining through to her Christmas red underwear. I told her not to bother, that she was wasting her time.

Joan was over with Mom a lot that early summer. Aunt Bell, who lived on the other side of the Blues and Mom were friends since elementary school and they wound up marrying two brothers from the popular Chamber’s family. The Chambers family business was in cars. There were six brothers; all sold, bought or fixed automobiles. Dad took over the Car Barn at the age of twenty-two and younger brother Benny two years later inherited the family garage. Mom and Aunt Grace took Joan in as their own when the Blues moved to Spruce Street and the three of them had since met for coffee at alternating houses. The one thing my mother found most puzzling after Tony’s brother arrived. “All those cups of coffee,” she’d say on more than one occasion, “and not one mention of what was about to happen.”

It was a Sunday afternoon at the end of July, and a car pulled up outside the Blue’s house. As it was after dinner most of the neighbors on our street sat either on their front porches or caught the last of the weekend sunshine in their yards. Kids played Kick the Can down the block and the dads smoked over at the Dean’s across the street. The moms that weren’t inside catching up on laundry for the week ahead sat on foldaway chairs on their porches knitting or crocheting. The car was fancier than most parked on our street and the men smoking on the Dean’s lawn moved towards it like moths to a flame.

A woman in a brown suit and a teenage boy got out and walked towards the Blue’s front door. The boy had curly black hair coming out from under a brand new Philadelphia Philly’s baseball cap and wore a forty-five on his game jersey. He lugged a large purple and white striped suitcase, a knapsack was slung over his shoulder and he struggled with a couple brown shopping bags under his right arm. He looked overloaded but the woman who walked next to him made no attempt to lighten his load.

The late day summer sun was still hot, and the smaller children jumped through sprinklers in bathing suits while the older kids played tag through the alleys behind the houses. The neighborhood filled with the hollow mix of children’s laughter, neighbor’s chatter and a distant lawn mower or two. Jam jars and lids accumulated on the steps of the front porches for firefly collection later that evening. So went the summer evenings of my youth. Even though the residents of Spruce Street appeared engaged with the normal goings on of a Sunday summer’s evening, all eyes were fixed on number forty-five, Mr. Tug McGraw.

I sat painting a picture of Duchess, my cousin Barbara’s large grey Ragamuffin cat, in a watercolor book on the tarmacadam across from the Blue’s front steps. That lazy cat laid in our yard most evening’s sprawled and motionless until dark. Not even the occasional dog sniffing around the hedges would disturb Duchess off our lawn.

The boy in the Philly’s cap passed directly in front of me. When he caught my gaze I felt myself gasp. They passed so quickly that I was in disbelief of what I thought I saw. The woman seemed to take no notice of me even though she could have touched me if she tried. She carried a black briefcase in her left hand, and some files tucked under her arm on her right and looked out of place on our street next to the water sprinklers, swimsuits and shirtless men smoking in flip flops. My hand went to my mouth involuntarily and stayed there; I don’t think I blinked for over a minute. As they climbed the seven stairs to the Blue’s front porch, the boy looked back at me over his shoulder and smiled, then turned back to Mrs. Brown Suit who readjusted her grip on her briefcase.

The neighborhood kids crept in like bandits from all corners of the block by the time the two strangers knocked on the Blue’s front door. It was then I realised I hadn’t seen Tony or his parents all day. They went to the Catholic Church downtown and we went to First Moravian on Tenth Street but we’d usually see them around after we came home from lunch at Grammy Chamber’s house. To the people sitting out on their lawns on an early Sunday summer evening, number forty-five was just a kid in a baseball cap. To me, he was someone I already knew.

The men at the car, women on their chairs and the kids filling every space in between waited for someone to answer the door. Mrs. Brown Suit knocked again, louder this time and she also tried the bell. Anyone of us watching could have told her that the bell didn’t work and that Mr. Blue wasn’t handy. But we just let her press and repress that broken bell; the street murmur reduced to a few babies crying here and there and the lawn mower a street or so over had since ceased mowing.  I sat motionless. The boy looked over his shoulder for the second time – his eyes, the shape of his face.

In as much as it was interfering; it was also comforting, nice even to grow up surrounded by people who knew you, knew your family and knew your story. That’s the way it was then – safety in numbers I guess. It must have been unnerving to Mrs. Brown Suit that all activity around her had all but stopped on our street while she waited for Mr. Blue to answer his front door but if it did she didn’t let on. She just stood in her pressed double-breasted suit facing the screen door, pressing the broken doorbell.

Almost a minute went by until the inside door finally opened. Mr. Blue stood there with a nervous grin. He slowly opened the screen and greeted his visitors by shaking Mrs. Brown Suit’s hand like a man then put his hand on the boy’s head and twisted his baseball cap a full 360 degrees. As he quickly scanned the audience in the street, Mr. Blue caught a glimpse of my Dad and Uncle Benny standing by the woman’s car. Dad waved and stepped towards the sidewalk. I’m sure Dad was hoping for an introduction but Mr. Blue quickly ushered in his guests, waved once more to the prying crowd, smiled and closed the heavy door behind them. The only sound on the street was the wheeze of air as it slowly released from the spring on the screen door as it shut.

The single conversation around our dinner table, around all the dinner tables on Spruce Street Monday night, was about the Blues. Dad reported the woman in the suit left around ten o’clock that evening and then over meatloaf added, “Mr. Blue and I waved to each other this morning, just like normal.” Dad shrugged to Mom and shovelled in more mashed potatoes.

Speculation flew around our kitchen like Mayflies. Mom pointed out the obvious. “He’s probably Joan’s sister’s son, with that dark hair and skin.” That Mom wasn’t sure Joan even had a sister didn’t seem to matter all that much to her theory. Sam and Jay agreed the kid had to be a friend from juvenile detention, when Tony was mixed up last summer with the Shook brothers and those Walkman’s at Radio Shack.

Dad scoffed, “Tony didn’t go to juvenile detention last summer, you idiots, he went camping – Camp Haven, for two weeks up in the Poconos!”

“Sam you’re so full of shit.” Charlie chuckled to himself, focused intently on rustling peas onto his spoon with his thumb. At which point, Dad reached across the dinner table and smacked Charlie across the head.

“Don’t be vulgar, Charlie.” Charlie was genuinely startled, and until that very second I don’t think he knew he had swore. At that point, Sam and Jay exploded into fits of laughter and a minute later Dad smacked them both too. By the time Mom got up to clear the dishes, Jay was giving Charlie arm burns and Dad had beaned Sam two more times.

I just sat and watched out through the shutters of our kitchen window across the alley into the Blue’s house. People moved back and forth behind Joan’s lace curtains. I smiled for Tony. Not because I was the only one who knew who the boy was but that at the very least he had someone besides his parents to talk to at dinner that night.

It was late Tuesday afternoon before Mom tried a second attempt at visiting Joan. She and Aunt Bell, over-confident with oatmeal cookies, had had no luck on Monday. “Boys love oatmeal raisin!” Aunt Bell exclaimed as she and Mom left the house only to return moments later empty-handed. On the porch next to the others. Mom answered me quickly when I asked if the Blue’s weren’t home where she had left the cookies.

As they hadn’t any luck, come Tuesday I was her accomplice. It was my fourteenth birthday the coming Saturday and my mother suddenly couldn’t remember if she’d invited Tony to my party or not. Either way, she said, she’d call in just to be safe. “I mean, all the neighborhood kids and most of your eighth grade class are coming. I even invited some of Sam and Jay’s friends from the high school and of course,” she smiled, “most the neighborhood parents would be there too.”

“Maybe his little friend will want to come too?” Mom plucked as she burped the Tupperware container and walked out the back door in front of me. My mother was a master manipulator and the elected president of the Easton PTA for five years running. She knew everyone in Easton and everyone knew her and when she wanted to make your acquaintance you had little say in the matter.

She’d made an iced lemon cake, one of her signature goodies, and made me carry it. We went out the back door and across the alley, through the latched gate, up the stairs and onto their back porch. Rocky, the Blue’s Toy Poodle, was already going off his head running back and forth at the back door even before we knocked. Rocky had an odd way of getting around. His left back leg never seemed to touch the ground when he ran but rather hung in mid-air, waggling useless. I always guessed it was probably from being kicked too much. He had his uses though, if it wasn’t for Rocky, very little by way of noise would have ever come out of the Blue’s house.

Mom kept peering in through the back window under the shade of her right hand. She saw a few Tupperware containers untouched on the kitchen table including hers and Aunt Bell’s cookies from yesterday.

“Oh,” she said. “They must be out, there’s the oatmeal raisin.”

When she knocked directly on the glass Rocky went ballistic. He spun on Joan’s grey kitchen tiles like a top. Rocky’s hind end floated higher than his head and both legs disappeared off the floor shooting out behind him. He looked like a helicopter waiting to take off. Delaying another minute or so, Mom proposed we leave the cake on the porch with a note – like she’d done the day before. She pulled a notepad and a pen from her apron pocket and wrote.

Hi Joan, sorry to miss you again, just a reminder: Helen’s birthday party is Saturday and Helen can’t remember inviting Tony – He’s very welcomed, and so are you two, too! -Vic. P.S. The cake is lemon. P.P.S. Starts at 7pm- smiley face!!! Mom always wrote smiley face instead of just drawing one.

I thought to myself as we made our way back; confectionary bribery only worked with apologies. Cake had no power over something like this.

 .           .           .

Saturday came, and Mom buzzed through the house coordinating deliveries like a pro. Chairs and flatware from Davidsons Rental Hire, Pork barbeque and potato salad from Hoffman’s Deli on the corner of 12th and Northampton, rolls from Easton Baking and pretzels and potato chips from Charlie’s Chips and Dips. Mom was a born party planner and handled every detail seamlessly. She bopped around the house to her Bobby Vinton records and sang out orders to the people around her. She had Jay unfold chairs and setup tables in the backyard. Sam raked leaves and clipped hedges while Charlie pulled weeds; I blew up balloons. Dad enthusiastically manned the drinks stations under strict warnings not to spike the orange Creamsicle punch she had prepared earlier that day. “They’re just kids, Hec!”

Mom had heard from Joan by Thursday afternoon. She was secretly happy to learn from Aunt Bell Joan hadn’t called anyone else but her. In the phone call, Joan said very little other than she was sorry for her late response. She thanked Mom for the baking and yes, Tony would be delighted to come to the party. Delighted? Mom caught herself. Mom brought Dad his lunch every day to the Car Barn and that Thursday Mom relayed what Joan said earlier. Spitting through half a hoagie and hot coffee Dad laughed, “Tony’s never been delighted about anything in his life, that weirdo kid.” On the phone, Joan re-confirmed the time as seven o’clock and hung up, making no mention of their young house guest to the great disappointment of my mother.

I spent that week thinking about Tony and what I thought I saw. I thought I saw Tony. Who I was sure I saw was Tony’s brother – his identical twin. Could it be? But how could it be? Dad always said thank goodness there was only one of him. Won’t he be disappointed? “That boy’s gonna’ give his poor mother a heart-attack. All that trouble-making! Weird kid, that one.” Dad would chuckle to himself like he’d never said it before. I wondered about the boy too, the twin. Where had he been and why now, after fourteen years?

No one else in my family or the neighborhood, for that matter, seemed to notice anything on Sunday but a boy and a woman so I decided to say nothing. All week I watched a rotation of lights across the alley at night. The Blues kept their unused rooms dark so two maybe three windows in their entire house would be lit at any given time – better in my pocket than theirs Mr. Blue had been known to say. By contrast, our house looked like an ad for the Ealer Electric Company; our place was always lit up like a Christmas tree. Most evenings the Blue’s television would be on in their front room, and aside from Tony’s bedroom, only one other room had any lights on that week. It was Joan’s sewing room, the middle room next to Tony’s.

.           .           .

What was she thinking? If there was a worse time to introduce Tony’s secret brother, it was at my fourteenth birthday party. It must have been after nine o’clock; the party was in full swing. Mom had outdone herself. She and Dad sat perched back to back on the grass skirted stools at Dad’s self-created ‘Adults Only Tikki Bar,’ positioned under the pagoda in the backyard with Uncle Benny and Aunt Bell, Fred and Margaret Dean and most of the other parents from the neighborhood.  Dad added the ‘Tikki’ when he found some Hula skirts in the Halloween box in the attic crawl space. He hung them around the wooden bar stools he and Sam borrowed from Joe Fritz, who ran the Lions Club on Belvedere Street. Mom wore a fluorescent orange and black striped mini-dress and was on her third gin and tonic. Dad wore beige swimming trunks, an oversized canary yellow and coral Hawaiian shirt he bought in Sea Isle City on a golfing trip with Mr. Dean two summers back, sunglasses and an embarrassingly long string of bleached-white Puka Beads around his neck. Dad was the only one, it appeared, honoring his ‘Day at the Beach’ theme he had Mom handwrite on the back of each printed invitation. They were handsome together; Mom’s smile and Dad’s thunderous roar and whether I liked to admit it, they were fun. Looking at them, in their element, I wondered who the party was actually for.

Since the parents had laid claim to most of the backyard, the kid’s party had taken over the rest of the house and back porch became the epicentre. Dad covered the pool table in anticipation of this happening and placed a piece of plywood over the top. He also got the boys to help him move it ‘out of harm’s way,’ against the far wall and under a trifecta of protest from my brothers. Especially Sam, who kept kicking the air and whining about what he was supposed to do all night, surrounded by babies!  Dad put his foot down and Mom quickly turned it into a second snacks and sodas station.

My friends had all arrived together, in approximately the same outfit, Teresa Hamill, Tammy Farr, Melissa Grant and Angela DiSilvi, my girlfriend circle. We weren’t the ‘it’ girls, we weren’t the nerds, we weren’t the sportos and we weren’t the yobs. We were the middle-popular, the anti-cheerleader and the sort-of good lookings. And apparently tonight we were the white mini skirt club.

Angela was the first to say it. “Oh God, you guys, look at us! If it weren’t for my gold boots, we’d be a bunch of nurses.”

“Who cares about it, Ang, can’t do nothin’ bout it now.” Melissa gave Angela a quick smile while blowing Juicy Fruit bubble gum through her hot pink lips. She looked past us when she spoke, fixing her dress and checking out some of the boys in Jay’s class who had already arrived.

“Yeah, well, I look mod.” Melissa struck a pose like Cher and swished her long brown hair from side to side, snapped her fingers. We laughed and Tammy leaned in to us. “Looks like Jenny’s on the lookout for you know whoooo.” Tammy sang the last ‘o’ out high, and pointed behind us with raised eyebrows. At that moment the disk jockey Dad hired played the Bee Gees. Barry Gibb sang Tra-g-edy, when the feelings gone and you can’t go on, and we all pivoted in our heels and knee high plastic boots until we laid eyes on Jenny Gordon.

Jenny was the only child of Hal Gordon, the Pastor of the Easton Presbyterian Church. Pastor Hal, as he liked to call himself, was currently on his second wife. He married Anita Suarez after a six month placement in Mexico shortly after divorcing Jenny’s mother Dawn – and after twenty-three years of marriage. He made a public apology to his ‘flock’ at the eleven o’clock service one Sunday soon after he asked her to move out of their family home, the corner redbrick at the end of our street. He claimed ‘full responsibility for the divorce’ and if there was anyone to blame it wasn’t Dawn. She was a terrific mother and a worthy companion but, he supposed, Some Jellos just don’t set, no matter how long you leave em’ in the fridge.

Jenny Gordon was fifteen going on thirty-three. I liked her; most people did. From babies through to kindergarten, we were inseparable. But you know how things go, she went to school first and we made other friends but we still got together now and then. I think she liked looking out for me, and when I was old enough to realise the gender balance in my home was in favour of the boys, I’d wish Jenny was my sister. She was one year ahead of me in Jay’s class but blessed with the body of a woman’s since she was nine years old and last month when she turned fifteen she wore a bra-two-sizes too big for her to the Sophomore Prom. What she did with the extra space between skin and cup was between Jenny and her God, and apparently most of the boys entering the junior class at Easton area Senior High School.

It was coming up 10 o’clock; the dads danced with each other’s wives on the lawn and almost the entire graduating class of the Stephen Lacey Middle School packed themselves into the various corners of our home. The nerds played quarters in the kitchen; the cool kids spiked the punch on the back porch, and the sportos hung out by the back gate. People spilled out onto the alley between our house and the Blues. Mike Amato and Kevin Bower, first picks for Easton High School’s Senior autumn football team, sat with Jay, Sam and Sam’s friends, Fooze – Fred Wentz, Lambo– Bill Lambert and Chucky Miller.  The starting senior football squad camped out on Dad’s pool table most the night and talked almost exclusively to Jenny Gordon and Samantha Coyle. Sam’s friends called him Champ, partly because our last name was Chambers and partly that he was the senior starting quarterback for the Easton Bulldogs.

Packs of kids moved through the house holding red plastic cups topped with little paper umbrellas full of Dad’s un-spiked Creamsicle punch. Some danced in the yard by the DJ’s table and occasionally someone wished me a happy birthday but mostly people showed up to celebrate our graduation from middle school into high school.

Patti Hanley and her ‘it’ girls arrived late to make an entrance. When they saw the older boys were already talking to Jenny and Samantha they headed straight to the Junior Tropical Oasis, our drinks bar, to set up shop for the night. Dad put up a sign and explained it to us kids in a pre-party meeting. “You let your friends know the Tikki bar is for adults only! I mean it! I don’t want to see any of your snooty little friends sitting at that bar.” He pointed to his grass-skirted masterpiece. “I’ve made you kids a perfectly nice Tropical Junior Oasis.” Displaying the cardboard sign he’d made, Dad conjured the Hula and with that danced off in the direction of his evening’s oasis to cut limes and oranges.

I watched them, as Patti momentarily considered the adult bar – wondering if anyone would notice if she slipped their beautiful selves in amongst the adults, but thinking better of it, headed to the alternative. Patti Hanley had always considered herself above the rabble her age had limited her to during school and I’d heard years later, unsurprisingly, she’d married a much older man in lieu of graduating business college.

The disc jockey ran through most of the Gibb brother’s selections and put on something to slow things down. Doctor Hook was telling us what to do when You’re in love with a beautiful woman when Joan Blue walked through a pack of wrestlers at the back gate, smiling from ear to ear with Tony on her left arm and his identical twin brother on her right.

I must have been the first to see them or at least understand what I was seeing. She was carrying a small gift, impeccably wrapped with polka dots and a green bow – my favorite color. I was on the lawn furniture with my friends on the back patio. By stupid luck Jenny Gordon had just joined us with two other girls from Jay’s class. She wanted to know if I’d seen Tony.

Rod Stewart just finished singing Do ya think I’m sexy when the DJ decided to take a ten minute break. “Well hey, Okay cats, Zee-J is takin’ a little break, but don’t you worry your pretty little heads about it none, I’ll be back in a flash with the mash.” Zee-J was a dark black man, fat and did the twist when he spoke and sweated uncontrollably under a beret knitted in all the colors of the rainbow.

“And I gotsta’ get my hands on some of dat groovy orange punch-o-la, Yowl!” Zee-J winked his left eye conspiratorially at some of the hockey girls that had been dancing close to his table but they missed his inference, punch-o-la! They just stood, hands on hips and waited for the music to begin again.

“So hang in there and be cool, kitty cats. Oh yeah, and hey, a big shout out to da’ birthday girl! Helen,where you at girl?” Zee-J looked for me over the heads in the crowd. He grabbed the spotlight which until that moment had been shooting straight up in the air, like the Bat-Signal for students graduating the eighth grade of the Stephen Lacey Middle School, and turned it into the crowd. People shaded their eyes and immediately began to shout at Zee-J. Too bright! Turn it off! A sea of teenagers highlighted in white began to point Zee-J towards the lawn chairs – towards me.

“She’s over there!” Someone yelled and the spotlight found us on the wooden lounges, three of my friends sat on one of the long seats in front of me, Jenny and her two friends sat on the others. Just then Tony, his mother and Tony’s twin brother found us. I looked helpless into the light staring back at Zee-J.

“Well hey there white mini skirt, there she is! Take a bow my pretty little thang.” I stepped down to the patio off the chaise. Joan Blue took my hand and kissed me on the cheek. She opened my hands and placed the polka dot present in them.

“Happy Birthday, Helen!” Joan shouted into my ear, but the music had already stopped. I winced. Everyone clapped. I stared at Tony and he looked at his shoes. He wanted to be anywhere but there and so did I. My stomach churned. People began to notice him and my eyes darted around the yard. Most of the chatter quietened to a low murmur. That boy and Tony…Wait. Is he…Wait …huh? The applause dropped away to a few claps here and there. Then the crowd caught up.

God, it was incredible how much they looked alike, I thought. I couldn’t help but stare too even though I struggled to keep my cool. But try as I might I couldn’t avert my gaze. My eyes moved mechanically back and forth between the two of them. Someone gasped, and when I turned my head I found Jenny. Her mouth opened to the floor, eyes popped. In the sudden still, someone dropped a glass and it shattered on the stone patio. Suddenly, Joan yanked my hand she had been holding and pulled me in towards her. Her face was electric. “It’s Okay, Helen. Helen, it is! It is really Okay.” Her eyes were wide and they glistened in the sharp light of the spot light still turned on us. “I know this must be… uhm, odd but, Oh Gosh, she pauses and looked down at her hands that were wringing an imaginary apron, this, this was a mistake.” She whispered so close I could smell the Listerine on her breath. “I made a terrible mistake here didn’t I, Helen?”

Joan’s whole body shook; her teary eyes became pools in the intense light. I assured her it was fine even though I didn’t know what it was. “It’s okay.” Was all I could think to say and I said it over and over again.

Until that moment I’d been avoiding the other, him and it was becoming obvious.  Tony looked at me when I spoke to his mother. His teeth were clenched and he furiously tapped his right foot. He stood tense but reduced, with his hands jammed into his jean pockets. The sweat crept out beneath his armpits and soaked his clean white T-shirt. Without words he shook his head in surrender and looked back down at his red leather Nike high tops. My heart broke for him. I tightened and with a newfound courage forced myself to turn to Tony’s brother and put out my hand in front of me to shake his. Most of the party had ceased and were thoroughly engrossed in the tragedy unfolding in front of them. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Helen.”

Without hesitation he said as he took my extended hand, “Pleased to me meet you too, Helen. I’m Frank.” He smiled. It was the same smile he offered me on the steps six days ago. He took my outstretched hand. His palm was warm, and he held mine longer than it took to shake it. Oddly, I felt like I’d just spoken with Tony Blue for the first time in my life.

Frank and I looked over to Tony. He was still considering his shoes. Is he green? Or was it just the lighting, either way he looked like he wanted to vomit.

“Okay, so here… we… go… people, you know the words, sing it with me!” The DJ stood on his chair, waved his arms in wide circles to enlist the crowd’s help in singing me the Happy Birthday song.

Hap-py birthday day to you, Hap-py birthday day to you,

Hap-py birthday dear Hel-en! Hap-py birthday to youuuu!

Mrs. Blue was the first in and she sang so loud I had to move away from her. The dam burst and her tears started streaming down her face; she looked back and forth and beamed with pride between her two sons as she belted out the words. I began a scan of the crowd for my parents. Where the hell were they? Why didn’t they help me? I mean my mother was the type of woman specifically invented to control this sort of public humiliation. My eyes fell on Dad; he was singing Happy Birthday with his arm around Uncle Benny, swinging his mug of beer and clearly enjoying his Adults Only Tikki Bar. Mom, Aunt Bell and Mrs. Dean, on the other hand, were nose to nose.

I started to sway, the song ran long. I looked at Frank and he’d joined in singing Happy Birthday with Mrs. Blue, he smiled like the new kid in class – unsure of why exactly he should be smiling. Jay and Sam stood at the windows on the porch, faces pressed up against the screens. Their hands were on top of their heads; their mouths moved and formed the words to Happy Birthday as far as I could see. In less than a minute they would push through the screens ripping through a gaping hole to help me off the ground. Dad would call it only ‘minor damage’ and wouldn’t scold either Jay or Sam for doing it or make them pay the seventy-five dollars for new screens. Later, Dad would tell them he was proud, proud of them for caring so much for their little sister that they had to tear holes through the house to show it.

My stomach felt funny and I could no longer hear what people were singing. I turned around; Tammy and Angela were statues, Theresa’s hands covered her eyes but for some reason still sang happy birthday. By contrast to everyone around her, Jenny was smiling. Maybe she couldn’t believe her luck, two Tony’s.

The singing faded, and I was at the bottom of the ocean. Lights spun around my head in flashes of color then I remember Tony above me looking down. His eyes were anxious and he was speaking to me but I couldn’t hear what he said. His mouth moved slowly. His lips were wet. I thought he said, Helen. Then nothing.

  .           .           .

When I woke up, I was in my bedroom. The bedside table lamp was on and so was the overhead light. It was bright and I tried to blink the room into focus.

“Turn that damn overhead light off, Hec, I told you it was too bright!” My mother sat on the side of my bed; she held my left hand.

“There she is.” Dad moved in next to Mom, smiling. “How are you, kitten?”

I’m okay, I said but my head throbbed. “Can I get some aspirin?”

“Hec, aspirin!”

“Yes dear.” Dad winked at me and disappeared into the hall to get aspirin from the bathroom. Since I saw him last he’d found a straw hat and wore it sideways on his head. Outside, Zee-J finished his break and began to play all the hits; he did his best to get the crowd going again. Gloria Gaynor crackled through the speakers and assured us we would survive and it seemed to work, so Zee-J played it twice. The heavy beat had Dad rolling his hands. He pointed up towards the ceiling, Saturday Night Fever-style, as he exited my room.

“So, you met Frank, eh?” Mom grinned, but most of her good humour was down to gin.

“Yeah, I met him.”

“What a mess, I mean Joan’s a mess. Honey, I think she hadn’t thought through what she was doing, I mean I think she thought she was doing something nice.” Nice? For who?

“I’m so sorry about this whole thing, Helen. But everything seems okay out there, I mean he’s just down there talking to people and…” Dad arrived back with the aspirin and a Dixie cup full of water.

“Joan feels terrible. She’s waiting down on the stairs to talk to you.”

“Wait, what? No! Noooo way, Dad!” I sat up in bed to take the pills, my head pounded. The questions came. What was with that fucking Joan Blue? Why God, why tonight? Where was Tony? My head found its way to my hands.

“Nobody died, Helen.” Mom always had a way of making our problems better by pointing out something else far worse, which may or may not have been relevant to our particular problem and usually wasn’t true. Charlie: I hate milk. Mom: Consider yourself lucky, Charlie, kids in Africa only have coconuts to drink.

Yeah. Dad mindlessly agreed then interrupted, “It is strange, though, Vic, come-on, this kid showing up now. I mean really weird, and he is a little bit creepy too, don’t you think?” Mom interrupted, “Hec, you are not helping.”

Dad shook off the buzz he visibly enjoyed and cleared his throat, “Ahem, I’m sure it’s a good story, though and one that we’ll all know all about soon enough, but the positive side is Tony has a brother and yes, your  mother  is correct, no one is actually dead.” Dad had clearly forgotten all the times he’d thanked God personally that he’d made only one Tony.

“Where is Tony?” I wasn’t sure if I’d said that out loud or I was still thinking it until Mom answered me.

“He was here, but…” But what? I asked not with words but outstretched arms.

“Buut…” She looked at Dad, “But I think he left.”

“What do you mean, left?”

“What I mean is he left the party, Helen. He and Joan had some words just after you fainted and she…, he ran out the back gate.” Mom removed the yellow afghan that Grammy Chambers knitted and began to fold it to a small, perfect square.

“And she what?”

What?

“You said she. What did she do?”

“Oh, um well, Tony yelled at Joan when you fell, that’s all.” Yelled? “Okay, Helen, all right, he blew his stack, okay? He was the first person to you, I mean when you faited. By the time we got there, Tony had you; I mean he was holding you, tapping you on the cheek, stroking your hair and calling your name. You weren’t waking up so Tony got mad, I mean really mad at Joan and he yelled at her, told her off. And that’s all, honestly.”

Held me? That’s all? I felt queasy. “What did he say?”

“Oh Helen, let’s go down to the party, your girlfriends are asking for …”

“What did Tony say, Mom!”

“All right, all right.” Mom straightened, faced me. “He told her she probably killed you, her and her stupid surprises. He said he never wanted this, never wanted him. He said you’d probably never forgive him, even if you did wake up. He said he hated her, hated them. His own mother! That’s when he ran off.”

“He said more than I ever heard him say in his whole damn life.” Dad was talking to no one in particular. He faced the open window with his arms crossed; he was still looking down onto the lights in the backyard.

I turned back to Mom. “So let me get this straight. Fake Tony is down there at my party whooping it up, and the real Tony has disappeared and I’m just supposed to go down and pretend it was all okay?”

Mom ignored my sarcasm, “It is okay, Joan says Mr. Blue has gone after him, apparently he wasn’t too happy with Joan either when he left to find Tony.” She raised her eyebrows at Dad.

“Yeah, no shit!”

Helen! Dad shot me a look but was still distracted; he lent onto my window sill and peered outside; his rear swung to the music. Dad was restless, and I could tell he wanted to return to the Tikki bar. Regardless of what happened, there was still beer downstairs.

“What exactly happened after I passed out?” The thought of the answer terrified me now.

Mom and Dad exchanged a look then Dad spoke. “Well, I picked you up and brought you up here. Doctor Grant was at the party and he came up to look at you and…”

“No Dad! I mean what happened at the party? And what about that goddamn brother of Tony’s? What are they saying about him?”

“No vulgarities, Helen.” Dad swore like a sailor but couldn’t abide it in his children.

“Helen, that’s all till tomorrow. We’ll talk about it then. Everyone’s agreed. Agreed? Who agreed?

“All your friends are still here; everyone but Tony and they’re all having a great time.” Mom stood up, decisive – straightened her dress. “I think you feel okay. How about you go back downstairs and join the party honey – your party.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, yes we are.” Mom looked over at Dad seeking support. “I’ll talk to Joan and arrange a chat tomorrow; she’ll understand.” She’ll understand. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing but they stood united, Mom and Dad, and wanted me to go and have fun, Dad coughed, even if it killed me.

 .           .           .

In the coming weeks, before high school started I did my best to avoid Frank and Tony. I took a part-time job down at Miller’s Sweetcorn Hut. During the late August harvest, the Miller’s took on high school students to husk corn in their pop-up sweetcorn kiosks set up all along Sullivan Trail to keep up with the passing trade. Angela, Jenny and I were stationed in the main year-round veg stand by the Shop-Rite plaza, across the road from Rita’s Italian Ice Shack. Teresa and Tammy were assigned to the first kiosk a mile down and poor Mel was stuck with Karen Day and Jill Everett, two of Patti Hanley’s best friends, in the last stand two miles down by Braden Airfield.

Three pick-up trucks shuttled fresh-picked corn all day long; the first from the fields to the kiosks for husking and the other two delivered the husked corn orders all around Easton and her outlying counties. It was a three and a half week husk-a-thon, and it kept my mind off Tony and Frank and the utter humiliation of my fourteenth birthday.

The Miller’s Sweetcorn Hut was air conditioned, and besides the layers of callouses growing on our palms, we enjoyed the work. Owners Jenna and Greg Miller liked us and gave out fresh lemonade all day long and a free baker’s dozen bag full of sweet corn at the end of every shift. Dad went bananas when I came home with corn after my first day.

“Free sweetcorn! Holy shit! Those Millers are super people aren’t they, hun?” Dad yelled in through the new porch screens to Mom shucking my corn ears on the back porch – she didn’t think it was right I should do it especially after taking a look at the open sores on my hands, and she was still feeling bad for me since the party. The boys already started football practice for fall term so that left Mom on husking duty. When I told Dad, I thought I got the same free thirteen ears of corn every night if I wanted he ran over and kissed me on top of my head. When he left the backyard to put the corn water on the stove, he mumbled something about Greg Miller qualifying for the Car Barn’s secret family discount on his next pick up truck.

Even Tammy and Teresa had an oscillating fan in their corn kiosk and a Jimmy’s Hot dog stand within walking distance. But poor Mel, two miles away from any food shop, she had to husk corn for four straight hours in an eight by twelve foot hot- box then shovel old corn husks into Glad bags for the other four. Every day, she looked forward to a warm lunch, Karen and Jill’s girlie whispers and their vacant snotty gossip which was almost exclusively about Tony and Frank Blue.

According to my brothers, Tony was a no-show for pool the week after the party. I was grateful the boys never mentioned Tony’s affectionate outburst for me, something that would normally have given them endless hours of harassment material. Frank was in and out of the house all week, helping his new mother with odd jobs and going on drives with Mr. Blue in their Oldsmobile station wagon to do the shopping. Dad was always trying to sell Mr. Blue a new car, telling him things like Oldsmobile’s were gas guzzlers but Mr. Blue stuck to his guns. He probably still drives that old car.

I’d get home from work around five-thirty; Mr. Miller dropped us all home at night in the back of his pick-up truck. He’d let me off in front of my house and Frank would be sitting on the porch most nights listening to his Walkman or reading his Sci-Fi comic books – we’d wave, exchange glances, smile. Even though they were identical, I didn’t seem to have much of a problem telling them apart, not like Dad.

“Holy crap, Hun, can you tell those two apart? I sure as hell can-not!”  Most dinners involved my dad declaring how dumbfounded he was by Frank – in one way or another. To me, they were just different.

One evening, as I jumped out of the pickup, I saw Frank playing handball in the breezeway between our two houses. I waved, and he waved back. The last time I spoke to him was at my party six days ago when I shook his hand. Hi, he said – I said hi back. I searched for something light to say but all I came up with was, “So how do you like your new family?” Ugh. Pretty sure I visibly cringed after I’d said it. It was too big a question; I was certain. Still, if it was, Frank didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged his shoulders and kicked the handball he’d been bating against the houses with his foot into the cellar stairwell. “Score!” Making a half-hearted ‘goal’ with his hands he laughed a little; said it was okay so far, better than his last family he supposed. Really? Physically relieved I hadn’t said the wrong thing I continued, less daring this time.

“Well, the Blues are really, really nice. Everyone just loves them…” I was overselling and floundering, so I decided to make it worse.

“How are you and Tony getting along?” Frank looked up a little startled this time, forced a grin, shrugged and told me Tony had been away since Monday so he wouldn’t know but was coming home that day so he guessed he’d see him later. Frank said that his new parents thought it might be easier for everyone to take baby steps, so Tony’s been up at camp in the Poconos all week.

Talking to him, I thought he could be Tony. It was the first I’d felt confused by them, his black curly hair and the way it fell around his face, just like Tony’s. And his smile, the way the right side of his mouth curled a little higher than his left, two dimples too – was Tony playing a gag on me? But then I remembered; Tony doesn’t play gags and hadn’t spoken to me directly (while I was conscious) in the nine years the Blues lived on Spruce Street so there was no chance in that happening.

“I see,” was all I could think to say. I downshifted, and asked if he was excited about starting high school. He said he was although his last school was an all-boys school and that he never went to school with girls. I laughed, and immediately regretted it. Sorry. No, it was okay, he said, it is funny. I’m just glad you’ll be there. He smiled. But it wasn’t the same unfamiliar smile as before, he seemed nice, warm, and I smiled back. Sure I said of course I will.

I had so many questions; it was all such a puzzle his being here. None of the adults had said much to us kids. I wanted to hear it from Frank and Tony, wanted to hear their side of it – how they were doing with all this. I mean it was huge wasn’t it? Finding out you’re not an only child after fourteen years? And that you have an identical twin! I kept seeing Joan Blue on Aunt Bell’s veranda wiping the snot away with her hankie from last Sunday.  Poor Mrs. and Mr. Blue, no wonder he’s so, well quirky I guess.

With Tony MIA for almost an entire week and Frank spending most of his time with Mrs. Blue, nobody was talking about things. Time, they needed time, Helen. My mother’s voice was in my head but I could only wonder what it must be like for Tony and Frank. I imagined some lady in a brown suit springing Charlie on us and Dad slamming the door in her face, yelling after her; three’s enough lady thanks anyway!

As we said our see-you-laters, a blue van that read Camp Lake Hawthorn pulled up and Tony got out carrying a green camouflage backpack. A tall, healthy looking man wearing khaki shorts, hiking boots and a yellow Camp Lake Hawthorn T-shirt jumped out to help him, handed Tony his sleeping bag. They shook hands. I couldn’t move. Held me, calling my name?

As the long summer days went on, I was increasingly attracted to Tony and began to look for reasons to accidently to bump into him. I’d also started becoming friends with Frank. But as no one had laid eyes on Tony for over a week, I hadn’t hatched much of a plan. Now he was walking towards me, us – me and Frank.

 .           .           .

True to her word, Mom arranged that chat with Mrs. Blue and me on Sunday after church let out. Mom sat in too and to avoid any more awkward encounters, as Mom had referred to me meeting Frank, she held a meeting on Aunt Bell’s veranda. Having Aunt Bell there made it sociable, Aunt Bell had a way with the small talk.

Mrs. Blue stayed in her chair when Mom and I walked through the door. I could see she wanted to jump up and hug me, apologise relentlessly or ask for forgiveness but she stayed put. She had a mix of anxiety and exhaustion on her face. I’m sure the situation at home was taking its toll. We sat together, me and the ladies – the Spruce Street inner sanctum, enjoying warm scones and Aunt Bell’s homemade raspberry jam. Last year’s, Aunt Bell was sure to point out. Aunt Bell’s pantry was famous on Spruce Street and thanks to the long arms of the Easton Area PTA; she had a few jars for sale in the A&P and the Shop Rite gourmet sections respectively.

Mom was the first to break the ice. “So how’s Tony and Frank, Joan?”

Surprised at the direct question but visibly relieved we were getting down to business Joan put her uneaten scone down and drew a breath. “Well, this isn’t easy on them, or any of us I guess.” Joan turned to me, swallowed her courage and sat forward in her chair. It was her moment.

“Helen, I just wanted …to apologise to you personally for last night.” I was just about to say it was okay, once again, when she put her hand up.

“Please, please let me finish, dear.” I slowly nodded. “I’ve been worrying all night over what I did, did to you – forced on you and on your birthday.” Her face was sad; she put her hand on mine. “To everybody, I suppose the two boys mostly, but springing Frank on you like that.” She shook her head, took out a hankie from her pants pocket but didn’t use it; she just held it in her hand. This time everyone but I leant in to console her and again she asked us to wait. She had something to say.

A Mrs. Boyer had phoned her in May. She was the original caseworker Mr. and Mrs. Blue had when Tony was placed with them at the age of sixteen months. Until then, he and his identical twin brother were living with a foster family in Clinton, New Jersey. Mrs. Blue was thrilled – twins! She remembers Mr. Blue even teared-up when she told him the news. Can you imagine Mr. Blue crying? She continued. But there was a catch. Mrs. Boyer explained frankly that another family wanted the twins as well and they were the agency’s first pick; the Blues were the agency’s backup family. Backup family? Yes, Mrs. Boyle explained to Mr. Blue when he asked for clarification during their second meeting in their first home as husband and wife – a single-family, three bedroomed Cape Cod in Bethlehem Township.

They had been trying for a baby for three years until Mrs. Blue’s tests came back fine but Mr. Blue’s had come back negative, a lack of potency. He took it hard; he was never the same man again. So when we signed on with the agency, we were almost four years married. All our friends were already on their second baby by then she explained. We were desperate. He started drinking then and I thought the baby would change things. So we agreed to wait to see if the twin’s new family would settle – we agreed to be second choice.

Mrs. Boyle explained; the agency gave the first family six weeks during their ‘cooling off period’ and all Joan could think of were those beautiful black-haired boys. So black in fact the hair looked blue she said to Mom with tears beginning to well in the corners of her eyes. Mrs. Boyle had given her a photo of them at the second meeting at their home. Joan pulled it from her dress pocket and set it gently on the table in front of us. It was a color Polaroid; the edges were beginning to show wear.

The two babies sit together. The baby on the right has his hand on his smaller brother’s shoulder and is reaching towards the camera with his other hand. Both are looking up at the photographer and laughing. They have on matching blue striped suspender pants with white button-down short-sleeved shirts. You can tell they are amused at whatever the photographer is dangling to get them to smile for the picture. They are beautiful – happy together.

How confusing it would be for those sweet little babies to have to change families again? How terrible. But at night she prayed, prayed so hard that it wouldn’t work out with the other family. She couldn’t sleep a full night for six weeks straight she said. In her heart she knew they were the better parents for the boys and felt God would forgive her for praying against the agency’s first pick couple.

Then on the last day of the six-week deadline, Mrs. Boyle called. It was dinner time. Joan and Mr. Blue had already resigned themselves to not getting the boys and were looking at other agencies. She asked Joan if they were both there to take her call as it was urgent; she was working on a deadline and needed an answer right away. Joan was excited, she yelled into the receiver without waiting for her question. Yes, of course, the answer is yes, we’ll take them! Mrs. Bolye paused and told Joan she had misunderstood. The agency was only offering one of the boys, Tony. The other family, well they preferred Frank.

We didn’t know how to answer her. She was not a nice woman then, she said quieter in Aunt Bell’s direction and added softer still that not much had changed. Joan smiled at us for the first time since she began her story. Her hankie was soaked with tears. Aunt Bell had to excuse herself to go to the ‘ladies room’ and Mom cried openly into her apron. As a child, I didn’t fully understand Joan’s story for the tragedy it was, that was until she finished her story.

So she rang us, out of the blue in May, like no time had passed. Joan stared through us while she spoke, focused on no one in particular. She cut to the chase, seems as though Frank’s first-pick family had preferred girls after all.

 .           .           .

To be fair to Jenny, she immediately backed off her affections for Tony for the sake of our friendship. I hadn’t asked her, in fact, I hadn’t said anything to anyone about how I was feeling about Tony but she had seen him, she was right there at the party behind me, smiling. She would have seen him holding me, calling my name, like Mom had said, and she wouldn’t have been the only one.

During our lunch break on our third day at Miller’s Sweetcorn Stop we were sitting under the weeping willow tree at the edge of the parking lot eating our cherry Italian ices when Jenny blurted out something she probably wanted to say all week.

“I just want you to know, Helen; I’m not cuttin’ anyone’s sandwich.”

“Excuse me, whaaat?” I smiled big at Jenny and Angela, revealing the interior of my mouth, teeth, gums and tongue stained a bright pinkie red from the cherry ice. Angela burst into a full thirty seconds of hilarity, and Jenny just shook her head.

“Tony, I mean. You can have him.”

I thought about Mrs. Blue’s story. Suddenly I felt angry. What a mess. Mom had pegged it the night of my party. Brothers ha! They should have had a shared life, like my brothers, giving each other arm burns and looking out for one another. But no, because of that agency and their ‘first pick family,’ Tony and Frank hate each other and now I’m in the middle of it somehow. I felt bad for the way I treated Frank that first night, bad for Tony. I couldn’t tell anyone any of it either. Mrs. Blue had sworn us all to secrecy. So, I just smiled back at Jenny. “He likes you, Jenny, not me.”

But I did like Tony, I liked him a lot. Maybe because I knew he liked me, I wasn’t sure but it made me realise it or maybe I liked him all along. I don’t know, but I liked him just the same, the only way a fourteen year old teenage girl can like a boy, instantly and with an achy heart. My sleep was delayed for hours by dreams of him taking me in his arms to kiss me. I’d never been kissed by a boy, minus that peck on the cheek by Jimmy Palioli in the sixth grade but that didn’t count, he’d been dared to kiss all the girls in the class that day and even then most of the girls got one on the lips.

I thought I might enjoy being kissed by Tony. To be honest, I was never a girl that boys tripped over to kiss. I wasn’t like Jenny and her constant string of boyfriends, or Ang who had the same fella since she was twelve. No, boys liked me, sure but I was their pal never their gal. When Mom told me what Tony did that night at my party, after I passed out, I felt something deep down, hope maybe. It was just this whole thing with Frank; he was becoming a distraction, for so many reasons.

.           .           .

I liked going to work every day and by the end of the second week Mr. Miller had made me supervisor of the corn huskers, not just in the main shop but all three kiosks. My first order of business was to get a oscillating fan down to the Braden Airfield stand for Mel, but the other girls thanked me too and I made sure the trucks took coolers of iced lemonade to all the kiosks throughout the day. Mr. Miller asked if I might want to work after school beyond the summer. I said maybe, that I’d let him know.

He called me ‘Little Miss Blueberry Pie’– Have you got the husker’s schedule for me yet, Little Miss Blueberry Pie? I wasn’t sure why, maybe because it was blueberry season or maybe because Dad had already promised him his secret family discount.

They were a nice couple, farmers. They never had children, but they worked hard and treated their employees like family. Friends and relations were always coming in and out of the shop and most of their afternoon was filled with visitor chit chat on the shop floor.

By Wednesday on my second week, out of the clear blue, Mrs. Miller called me up front. She said I had a visitor and he would like to speak to me. As I walked from the backroom brushing the endless corn husk hair off my T-shirt and apron I hadn’t seen him standing behind the cash register. I looked around the shop floor at all the other customers but didn’t recognise anyone.  Mr. Miller was talking with another farmer who had just delivered that week’s peaches so when I looked at Mrs. Miller she nodded in the direction of the register. Frank Blue stepped out from behind the counter.

“Oh, hello.” My greeting was more surprised than glad to see him.

“Hi Helen! I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you at work?” I looked over towards Mrs. Miller who had been inching backwards away from us. She smiled, winked at me and turned to help a customer by the potatoes. “No, no, I mean, if my boss doesn’t mind it was okay I guess.”

“Dad wanted me to get some sweet corn for dinner so I thought I’d say hi while I was in here.” I hadn’t even noticed him holding a white paper shopping bag with the Miller’s Sweetcorn Hut hand painted logo of a smiling ear of yellow corn wearing a red bandana and sitting on a grey picket fence.

“Well… Dad’s waiting in the car, so I’d better go. We’re stopping over at Rita’s too to bring some lemon ice back for Mom.” I thought it was good he was already used to calling them Mom and Dad.

“Okay, it was nice to see you…” Frank stepped towards the counter instead of away and placed down his corn.

“Actually, Helen, I was hoping you might want to go to the movies with me?” He waited for me to say something and I wasn’t sure if I had but it must have been an awkwardly long time until I opened my mouth that Frank began to talk again.

“It’s okay; I was just thinking because the Empire Strikes Back is just out and well, don’t worry, like I said I just thought you might want to.” He grabbed his bag of sweetcorn with one hand and slid it off the counter. “Well bye, I… I’ll see you at, around the house.” He smiled and lifted his free hand to wave. He was almost at the door when I finally spoke.

“Yes. I mean okay, yes, that, that would be fun.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah sure. I’d love to see the new Star Wars movie.” My brothers had already gone with my dad and without me and unless I could convince my girlie cousins to see a boy’s movie I sure wasn’t seeing it anytime soon.

“Okay, that’s great! How’s Friday? There’s a six-thirty show at the Cineplex at the mall; my mom could drive us?” My heart was pounding and I thought the red-faced man at the counter with his jar of apple butter and half-basket of yellow delicious apples could hear it. What he was listening to was our conversation and when I said yes he gave Frank a little congratulatory nod.

“Okay, well I better get back to work.”

“Yeah, I better go too, so Friday?”

“I’ll be home by 5:30?” I said it more like a question.

“I’ll knock on your front door at six then.”

“Okay, Frank.”

“See you then. Bye.”

“Bye.” I raised my hand and waved as he turned and ran outside to the Oldsmobile waiting in the parking lot. I could see him looking back towards the store through the long front windows of the hut before he hopped into the back seat of the station wagon still holding the bag of corn, the silhouette of Mr. Blue sitting in the front seat stayed facing to the front.

When I walked back into the stockroom Angela and Jenny were holding hands and spinning in circles chanting my name. Mario Rizoli, the Miller’s handyman who was fixing the back sink and whose moustache covered most of his lower lip stood behind the two of them chuckling. His tanned arms crossed and leaned up against the wall, Mario was clearly enjoying the fun. When I walked in his over-sized greying moustache started twisting over his words. “Ata-a-girlie girl, Helen!”

Angela was first to me. She grabbed a hold of my arm and pulled me into their whirling circle. Laughing, they spun me around the Miller’s stockroom. We tripped over piles of corn husks and jumped over crates of naked corn ears. Mario had begun to clap to the music. Mr. Miller’s FM radio which was permanently set to KIKN Country – 98.2 FM, Plays all the hits worth playin’ all day, every day, crackled out John Denver’s, Thank God I’m a Country Boy. Jenny had my left hand and Angela my right.

Circling and circling, I told them I was getting sick. “Stop…stop. Stop!” Jenny let me go and Angela and I landed in a soft pile of corn husks. Dave, the Millers twelve year old nephew had just finished sweeping and we nearly knocked him over with us. Everyone was laughing when Jenna came in. Her face was stern and her arms crossed.

She was a small woman; her skin permanently tanned from the sun. She wore the same white cotton sunhat she wore every day and often I’d wondered how she managed to keep it so white with all that digging and cleaning. Girls! She said curtly. All five of us immediately stopped laughing and turned in her direction. Angela was still giggling when Jenna wagged her finger.

“I am surprised by you…” Ang stopped giggling and the smiles drained from our faces. Dave visibly shook and Mario, who hadn’t moved off the wall since I came in the room, just seemed disinterested. He took out the sandwich he’d brought in for his lunch and began to eat; ignoring the small bits of lettuce and bread getting stuck in the hair above his lip.

Jenna squared off in front of me. “…yes, appalled by you Helen, for not telling us about your hot new boyfriend!”  The room erupted.

On my way home that evening in the back of Greg Miller’s pick-up truck I thought about Tony. What would he make of my date with his brother? Why did I even care? He never spoke to me and for that matter never told me how he felt about me. And as far as he knew I knew nothing about his little scene on the patio – his little confession, so really, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, right? I asked myself and thought to put it to the girls – get their opinion but they were busy nursing each other’s callouses.

The high hum of the engine erased any need to speak so our ride home was usually silent. The late summer sun was warm and the gust off the moving air whipped my long hair around my head in constant circles.  Stuff Tony! I thought. Served him right too! I can go out with Frank, I assured myself. We’ll have fun. Besides it was my first date. Sure, I don’t like Frank that way but he’s nice and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie. Greg turned the truck onto route 41 and opened up the engine. I settled lower into the cosy hay bed. And stuff my brothers too for not taking me with them to the movie in the first place! I did love that Hans Solo.

I tried to ignore my parents arguing, about me. “Hec, you are driving them and that’s that!” Mom yelled at Dad through the bathroom door. There was a long silence. “Did you hear me Hec?” Dad finally answered with an “Mmmm hmmm.” A moment later, Mom tipped her head into my room.

“Dad’s driving you kids to the movies tonight, alright?” Mom asked me like I had a choice in the matter. “Mom, Mrs. Blue said she’d drive us.”

“I know, dear, but I’d feel better if your father were there. Joan said it was fine.” Yeah, like she had a choice in the matter too.

“Wait, Dad’s not going to be at the movies with us?” I’m nervous. I hated being rushed but I only had half an hour to scrub the smell of corn off me, brush all those sticky husk strands out of my hair and get dressed for my first date with anyone, ever! I couldn’t believe it! Finally.

Oh, why is she coming in? I didn’t have time for all of this. And, why is she sitting down on my bed?

“Nooooo, Helen don’t be silly. He’s just going to wait in the car.” Oh gee, thanks, Mom.

“Hel-en, your boy…friend’s… here.” Charlie stood in my doorway shaking his behind and thinking it was hilarious. Suddenly Jay walked in too.

“Helen your date is downstairs.” He’s serious, too serious. He stands up against my bedroom wall stiff as a board. Then Sam’s head alone appears in the middle of the door jamb – just floating at half Sam’s normal height. His hand comes into view and grabs his long dirty blond curls and yanks on them, as he pulls his head it lifts slowly, a good four feet. When his head reaches the top of its ascent it says, “Helen, may the force be with you tonight.”  The three of them explode with laughter and start jumping around my room; lightsaber fighting on my bed and beeping and clicking out R2D2 and C3-PO impressions.

“Get the hell out of my room you idiots!” I was raging. Mom stood up and grabbed Charlie by the collar. “Outta here you little fool. Leave your poor sister in peace.” She swept all three boys out of my room with extended arms. The boys left slowly, walking like robots and laughing at one another’s incredible impersonations.

Mom followed but turned back before she closed the door. “We’ll go downstairs and keep Frank company until you’re ready. Take your time, honey.”

I don’t know why but I kept running through the night that Tony arrived home from camp and caught Frank and me out front together talking – talking about him.

When Tony saw us he was still standing at the curb, the camp’s van had already pulled away. Before he returned to the van his driver had waved to us and then turned to Tony. He must have been one of Tony’s councillors because he had a nametag on. It was large, and I could see his name was Glen. He stood in front of Tony for a few minutes talking – both hands were on Tony’s shoulders. Glen smiled a lot and did most of the speaking. Tony mostly listened. What struck me was that he was listening and occasionally he’d even laugh! He seemed to be following every word of whatever instruction Glen was giving him. He wasn’t looking at his shoes, and he wasn’t unhappy.

Before he returned to the van Glen gave Tony a hug. His tanned, muscle-toned arms wrapped around Tony’s much smaller body like a bear and lifted him three feet off the ground, Tony’s arms at his side. Tony was still waving when the van disappeared around the corner onto Gardener Street.

It was the first I saw him since the night of the party. When the van had well and truly gone, he turned and looked over at us. He stayed another moment then hitched up his backpack and walked in our direction. Tony was smiling.

When he reached us he slowed. His smile replaced with apprehension; he looked at Frank, eyeing him. Tony squinted against the evening sun which revealed a faded purple ring under his left eye. My heart pounded. Was that eye for me? It felt like my feet were cemented to the tarmacadam.

“Hi Tony, how was camp?” Both boys ignored me. I felt the tension between them. I switched over to Frank. So different, I thought. When they were together like this, it was obvious. Tony was strong. Even though his frame was small now, I could tell he would grow tall and fill out like Greg one day. On the other hand, Frank was thin, the weaker. He must have been the smaller baby in the Polaroid. I had noticed the child on the right was bigger than the other baby. Not fat, but broad, like he could handle himself– capable, confident. He had his hand on his brother’s shoulder. As if to say Hey, this is my baby brother and I’m going to take care of him – he needs me. That baby on the right must have been Tony.

Suddenly it became clear why I’ve always been attracted to Tony. He was the older brother. The one nature selected to care for Frank, like my brothers looked out for me or Charlie. But it didn’t work out that way for them. Tony never had anyone to care for and Frank had no one to look out for him. Both were robbed of their birth rights, their right to each other.

Was it because of me that black eye? No, this wasn’t about me at all, thank God. It was about them. This was for them to fix, to find a way to make up for lost time. I was in the middle of nothing, nothing that had much to do with me.

.           .           .

We’d gone to the movies, Frank and I. He was a perfect gentleman that night. He’d bought me my ticket, a tub of buttered popcorn and a grape soda. We ran into Patti Hanley and some of her ‘it-squad’ in line at the concession stands and they ended up sitting two rows back from us. A few well-timed peeks over my shoulder confirmed that I would be considered in a whole new light come senior high school.

I think we both new I liked Tony, although I never said anything. It was my first and only date with Frank Blue but I hadn’t regretted it since, and I don’t think Frank did either, at least he never told me otherwise. When high school started, everything went back to normal. Angela and I and our friends, Jenny Gordon, Jay and Sam, Tony and Frank; we all filled the roles we were meant to play and planted the seeds for our futures.

But here I am, shrinking down in my swivel chair, my heart still pounding.

From my seat I see him. He looks like I imagined he would. Tall and straight, naturally gracious…kind, just like the baby in the Polaroid. And now when he spoke it was with confidence. Mr. Donatelli joked with Tony, a small crowd gathered by the door around him. I wasn’t sure when he spotted me, but the minute he had he made a b-line over to advertising.

 End