Summer-izing

Brenda has a formidable foe. In her wispy fairy princess dresses, she’s facing an Amazon. Her arguments have to be beefed up. She has to take strong positions, or she’ll look like a wimp. There are late night conference calls – she had to buy another phone. Mitchell wants her to get a Smart Car. She needs something snappy, he says, something to attract attention. Something cool. She’s facing the coolest thing there is. A gay, black woman who wears African costumes, and for all they know, does voodoo.

Adele has been playing with the candidate’s hair, doing it this way and that. It reminds Brenda of Hillary during Bill’s first term, when he put any rebuke of her down to “they don’t like her hairdo.”

Mitchell is a wreck. How could this have happened? His shining little teacher, the bright light he was holding out to everyone, has been eclipsed by a dark star. Mercy Alexander has continued to appear on national TV. Just a snippet here and there, not enough to warrant equal time to her lackluster opponent. Who is it – some teacher, right?

The cabal have been shepherding Brenda around to AARP meetings, school auditoriums, shopping malls, restaurants, any place where there are people; any place that will serve as a platform from which to deliver her platform. She’s never alone. Every minute, she must be talking, even if it’s to one middle-aged lady in a grocery store.

She comes home late at night and falls into bed in her underwear. In the morning there’s make-up all over the pillow. To play the good guy, she’s been eating bad food, and now she needs that make-up, because her face is breaking out.

Jason keeps his distance. So does Zeke. They’re two bachelors living with a slightly ill house-mother who takes all of her meals, including breakfast, out with other people. Jason does the laundry and sends the dresses to the dry-cleaner.

There are more dresses now. Adele has perked up the wardrobe with brighter colors and more substantial materials. Mercy Alexander is so showy; it makes her look in control.

Zeke is having a great summer vacation. He’s researching Smart Cars for his mother. He wants her to get the smart fortwo passion cabriolet because it has a soft top and side roof bars, that come off to make it a convertible. He wishes his family had something to trade in the “cash for clunkers” program.

The Shapiro household has closed around the space once occupied by Sheba, now only a voice on the phone. Sheba is getting along just fine with her two roommates. Camp is doing its job, which is to make the camper appreciate home. The inmates bathe in a dammed-up stream, down a path through the woods, where stones define a pool that they share with water snakes. There, the campers soap themselves. Sheba has experienced one such bath and vows she will never take another.

The campers play softball, perform plays, do arts and crafts, have camp fires… Sheba and her cronies keep aloof from all this. They scan the boys for possible intrigues. But there is no one there half as intriguing as the boy who isn’t: Phoenix Wagman.

Rowena, the professor, has googled him on her phone. There wasn’t much, but they found his website, which opens with a marijuana leaf. The girls are planning something. They whisper about it while they’re making beaded necklaces, standing in the outfield, toasting ’smores...

We don’t have to guess what they’re saying, because fortunately for us, I am what’s known as “the omniscient narrator”, and I am inviting you up to their room during rest period after lunch.

The door is locked. The girls have achieved this privilege by complaining to the head of the camp, old Aunt Manya, about counselors breaking into their rest periods, waking them up, asking them inane questions.

One of the questions was, “What’s that I smell?” after which the room-mates smoked on the floor beneath an open window. It’s the professor’s pot. Rowena has everything. Rosalind is learning so much from her. Her parents would be proud.

Rosalind is the chief beneficiary of the professor’s enlightenings. Sheba knows a lot of this already.

Rowena’s big head of kinky hair (kinky’s a compliment now, you know) is bent over her cell phone. She’s reading from the site, which the three girls have come to worship at their fire.

It’s a worthy site. Full of poems, drawings, little essays, even videos. Phoenix is an artist – everybody has their good points – and his art is totally devoted to the killer weed. His father has never been to his website, but his mother has, and thinks he has quite a talent. If only he could channel it in some legal direction. She was the one who took him home from jail that time.

Rowena is reading out loud. Sheba is leaning back against the wall under the window. Her eyes are closed. She’s lost a little weight since she came here and looks even more grown up. Rosalind’s long hair is in a pony-tail. It’s hot. She’s stretched out on the floor.

“It was worth it to see their faces.
They couldn’t believe it was me,
Dangling a joint on my lip-tip
Not caring the cops could see.”

That is, in fact, a poem the poet wrote in jail, when young. Not so young to excuse it, but it rhymes, it meters, and that lip-tip shows promise.

Sheba doesn’t think it’s so great. Sheba doesn’t think Phoenix is anywhere near as fascinating as the others do, but he’s hers, and she owes her high standing to his existence.

The ritual recitation over, Rowena’s thumbs jump around the keyboard. She looks up.

“I’m sending our message,” she says.

“3 chix want 2 meet u halfway - interstate mall carousel - wed 4pm”

Rosalind gasps yet again. Rosalind is a good girl. Any girl whose big crime is talking back to her mother must be a very good girl indeed.

Sheba giggles. This would beat all.

Only a minute goes by before Rowena shouts, “He’s there! He answered.”

“Shush!” warns Rosalind, who has learned to keep her mouth shut.

“What did he say?” demands Sheba.

“3 x half way = half + one all the way which one will wed at 4pm?”

Now they all giggle; they’re girls. None of them wants to be the “one”. But none of them wants not to be, either.