Dating : Lake of Fire Part I

When I told my parents about my longtime crush on my friend, Abby, I didn’t think it was that bad. It seemed a real possibility with all the girl dolls I had. Why wouldn’t they be interested in each other that way? They spent all that time together and enjoyed each other’s company. That is all I saw of my parents’ marriage and all it seemed to be.

I also wanted to make Abby a sandwich and make sure she had enough to drink. We also fought over the number of smooth stones we found in the creek the same way my parents fought over the green paper that deposited into their account. We even wrote numbers and dollar signs on them in black marker. She paid me when I was a cashier when we played store, and she bought plastic produce.

We fought once over why the bunch of purple grapes costs more than the grapefruit, “Well,” I said, “because there are more of them.”

Abby started to cry. She only held two stones in her hand and needed two more so she could make fruit salad for our picnic outside. I grabbed one of the fake receipts my mother had pulled from her purse for this game, and said, “Oh, look! I found this coupon on the floor. If you use it then you should be able to get both,” her face softened and smiled.

“Really?”

“Yes, really, hurry though it expires in ten seconds!”

Mom hadn’t been to the store for fruit yet, so we ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the blanket in the yard instead. Under the shade of the magnolia tree, I told Abby I loved her. She said she loved me too. My mother’s only response to this tale was, “That’s nice,” but then at church the following Sunday I saw two women holding each other crying in the lobby. They had taught my Sunday school class and moved around bible characters on the felt board. There didn’t seem to be anything illicit in that, but they were asked to leave. I stopped playing with my dolls after and stuck to more grown-up games.