Dating : July

Sunlight slanted through the canopy of trees high above my head, mottling the ground beneath my feet in alternating shifting patterns of light and shadow. The grass pressing to the palms of my hands and my bare calves was cool but prickly to the touch, and I unconsciously reached down to itch at my irritated skin even though I knew my mother would berate me for doing so later, rubbing soothing calamine lotion onto my legs before she tucked me into bed with a kiss.

I heard the loud trill of a sparrow’s call ring out directly above me and looked up involuntarily to catch sight of it before it flitted away; sparrows so rarely came this far from the city, and whenever they did they flew away so quickly we never got the chance to get a good look at their plump, fluffy little bodies and mousy, white-flecked plumages. I scrambled backwards and looked up excitedly — and got a faceful of blinding sunlight the moment I did.

I squeezed my eyes shut, throwing a hand up reflexively to block the worst of it from my eyes. The motion painted a five-fingered shadow across my face, syrupy golden light filtering in the gaps between the digits and striping my skin in black and gold like a tiger’s. Once my eyes adjusted to the blaze I lowered my arm, blinking little squinting blinks to get the bright green spots out of my vision. I’ve lost the sparrow.

Disappointed, I looked down again, my neck aching from the uncomfortable posture I had subjected myself to so as to catch sight of the elusive sparrow. Something leaped out at me as I did, making me jump backwards with a shout. In a split second my mind streaked back to the fairy tales my parents read to me every night, stories of naiads and water-dwelling nymphs with long, stringy green hair and skin the color of lilacs. But instead of the pond fairies my father said lived in the creek I saw a familiar gap-toothed grin and two dark braids so short they stuck out on either side of the head they belonged to, like Pippi Longstocking.

“Gotcha!” she laughed, her smile cutting a dimple into her right cheek.

She was the girl next door, the only girl next door for miles and miles, and thus my sole playmate over the summer and on afternoons once preschool was over. She was my best friend in the whole wide world, and the only person I wasn’t too embarrassed to share my drawings with. Mom and Dad had to say they like them; they wouldn’t ever tell me if they hate them. But one fateful day when I showed her my rendition of Strawberry Shortcake and she told me I ought to make her hair green instead of red and that her feet were too big and proceeded to help me fix it, an inexplicable sense of trust was cemented in me. She won’t ever lie to me, no matter what.

“Don’t scare me,” I said petulantly, crossing my arms as my heart rate settled back into some semblance of normalcy.

“What were you looking for?” she asked, sitting down on the grass. The bright red pleats of her checkered skirt made a startling contrast against the yellowing turf.

I sat beside her. “I heard a sparrow.”

“Really?” Her eyes went wide. “Did you see it?”

I yanked up a fistful of grass, the clods of dirt wedging themselves underneath my fingernails and staining my hands in brown streaks. “No.”

“We never see them.” She busied herself braiding three long weeds together — or she would be, if she knew how to braid. She was twirling them together in an erratic array of twists in what she called a braid instead, knotting the end in a satisfied sort of way even though the whole thing fell apart as she did. Then she tied it to the ear of her doll, a threadbare old rabbit that was coming apart at the seams and only had one brown button eye. But she loved that doll, more than anything. She never let go of it, not even to eat or sleep or play. Wherever she goes, Miss Daisy the Rabbit goes with her.

“Miss Daisy says we have to play dragons now,” she said, standing up. Dry yellow grass stuck to her dress, spiraling down one by one onto the ground when she turned, her skirt swishing around her knees. “And you have to be the dragon.”

“Fine, but tomorrow we have to play pirates, and I want to find the treasure,” I said.

“Fine!” She flounced away, grabbing a twig from the ground and running behind a tree. I ran in the other direction, heading for the creek where my lair was, nestled between two boulders at the bank. I sat cross-legged on the ground, heaping pebbles in front of me to make an impenetrable fortress that even Miss Daisy the Rabbit couldn’t cross. Grinning to myself, with adrenaline and excitement pumping through my veins, I lay in wait…

***

I kicked my legs in a futile attempt to go higher, the thick sturdy rope of the swing hanging over the creek biting into my palms as I gripped it tight. The setting sun turned the murky water beneath my sandaled feet to brutal gold, gilding the crests of the tiny ripples that bloomed on the surface like flowers. I tucked my legs in as I swung backwards, then splayed them out again when it carried me forward in a high arc, so high I felt like I had wings, and if I let go I’d fly weightlessly into the burgeoning sunset instead of splashing down into the muddy creek.

The swing creaked as I tucked my legs in again, streaking backwards. I tilted my face up to watch the sun trace its slow path downward, leaving a stain of red on the clouds in its wake. The wind of a fast-approaching evening cooled my cheeks and whistled in my ears as I flew higher and higher with each swing. My hair whipped around my face, the breeze catching it between its frivolous fingers and tossing it back and forth. It smelled like wet earth and summer.

But however loud the wind was, it still didn’t mask the loud crash I heard ring out suddenly behind me, making me jump. I nearly slipped off the swing, quickly dragging the heels of my sandals into the dirt below me as I swung backwards to lose momentum. The swing slowed, then stopped completely. I turned without standing, knuckles still white on the ropes. I stared at the neighbors’ house, where the crash came from. As I watched, I heard another crash, then a loud bang, one not dissimilar to how it sounded when my baby brother knocked over his highchair in one of his tantrums.

I heard a yell, a familiar deep voice raised in a shout, then a few more bangs. He was always mad, always shouting and making those noises almost every day. I remembered something I read once, about a haunted house and ghosts that made people mad and throw things around, made lights flicker and floorboards creak. That must have been it — the neighbors’ house had a ghost in it. Their house must have been haunted. I had to tell her today when she came out to play. Maybe she could find the ghost and they could be friends, and she could tell him to stop making her dad so mad all the time.

I jumped up from the swing, excited. I’d never seen a ghost before, and I was sure she hadn’t, either. And once I went back to school after summer I could tell all my friends about it. I’d be the only person in kindergarten who’d seen a ghost.

I gazed at the neighbors’, waiting expectantly. I couldn’t wait to wait to tell her my realization. We hadn’t talked about ghosts before, and I wondered if she knew what they were. If she didn’t, I could get out my ghost comics and we could read them together and decide which kind of ghost lived in her house. Casting one quick glance back at the now-quiet neighbors’ house, I ran to my own house, sprinting up the steps to my room and quickly digging out my comic stash. Seizing the best ones, I ran back downstairs and back to the swing, breathless and excited, clutching my comics and waiting for her to come outside.

But she didn’t come out to play that day…

***

“Come on, let’s play!”

She shook her head, lips turned down in a pout as she turned away from me. “I don’t want to.”

“But why?” I followed her as she began to walk towards the creek, arms crossed and brows furrowed. “You didn’t even come outside yesterday, and I was waiting for you. Why didn’t you come?”

Her face clouded with confusion, a sort of distant, detached look replacing her earlier adamancy. “I don’t know,” is all she said, continuing to stomp towards the creek. I ran ahead of her, turning to block her path. “But I waited,” I said. “I waited all night and all morning. I was still waiting when you came outside today. I’ve been waiting here since yesterday.”

This was, of course, untrue, but the lie was worth it; she looked chagrined, the confused, dazed dejectedness slipping off her face. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh.” She looked down, hiding her face, clutching Miss Daisy to her chest. She said nothing for a few seconds, and just when I thought she was about to relent and come play at last, I heard her sniffle. Alarmed, I stepped closer to get a look at her face, just in time for her to dissolve into tears.

“What happened?” I asked, putting a cautious hand on her shoulder, not knowing if she would push me away if I tried to hug her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, through her tears. “I don’t want to hide under the bed anymore, I don’t want to take Miss Daisy and run away to the closet…”

Her words turned into a jumble of sobs after that, and I couldn’t catch anything. I stood beside her awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Finally after a few minutes I blurted out, “Your house is haunted.”

She looked up at last, her tearstained face reflecting the afternoon light. “Wh-what?”

“Your house, it’s haunted,” I informed her. “I found out yesterday, when I was outside on the swing. I think you have a pollygist.”

“A what?”

“It’s in my comics,” I said sagely. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

As we began to walk together towards my house, my eyes fell on a splotch of purple on her arm. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to it. “It wasn’t there before.”

She looked down, that vague confusion suffusing her features again. “I… I think…”

I gasped. “It’s the pollygist! I read that they do that — they paint your skin red and blue and purple and it hurts because they’re mean. It happened to the family in ‘Haunted House on 13th Street’.

She looked intrigued. “Really? It does hurt…”

“You have a pollygist,” I said firmly. “I knew it! Once we read the book we’ll know all about it and how to make friends with it. Maybe then it’ll stop banging and smashing things.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she looked marginally more cheerful. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Is it in your room?”

I nodded. “I’ll ask my mom to give us ice-cream and sandwiches, and we’ll read them with Miss Daisy.”

She beamed at me, all her tears and woes forgotten, and together the two of us made our way across the yard and into my house to eat ice-cream and sandwiches and read comics together…

***

Summer began to wane, the long days no longer as long as they’d once been and the air turning steadily cooler with every passing day. But things like chilly breezes and dwindling days were inconsequential to me — my mind was more occupied with who got the most treasure (colored pebbles and flowers we picked up at the swing) yesterday and why my baby brother was wailing in his crib all the time.

We were lying in a cool swatch of grass, one the trees high above shielded from the worst of the sun, its branches splayed wide overhead like a protective mother shielding her child with her arms outstretched. We were recovering from a particularly exertive game of pirates, one that ended in a tussle over who got the treasure. I had lost, which meant I was the worse for wear between the two of us — there were twigs in my hair and dirt on my overalls, and the grass had stained my knees green.

There were more of those oddly-colored splotches on her arms, and when I pointed them out and asked her whether she had managed to locate the pollygist yet, she didn’t reply and merely shrugged in a vague sort of way.

“I think it’s the ghost that makes your dad so mad all the time,” I said.

She turned to look at me, her hair a vividly dark spill against the green grass. “Really?”

“I think so.” I lifted an arm, and from where I was lying it seemed disembodied, a floating limb detached from a torso and pointing towards the sky, visible through the gaps in the foliage overhead. “We read those books, remember? Maybe it makes him mad and that’s why he yells.”

“I don’t like it when he yells,” she said after a short pause. “It makes me scared, and it makes me hide under my bed. Miss Daisy says I shouldn’t be scared, but I am.”

“It’s okay if you’re scared,” I said, dropping my arm and sitting up to look down at her. “I get scared sometimes too.”

She was beginning to smile. “Scared of what?”

“Fairies,” I said promptly.

She giggled. “But fairies are pretty and cute! And they have magic wands and quick wings like hummingbirds, and they wear little leaf slippers.”

“Not the ones my mom and dad tell me about. Those are mean and scary and kidnap people who come into their territory. And my dad said that there’s one that guards the creek here, so if we’re bad and don’t respect the stream she’ll come get us.”

She laughed again. “I think that’s nice. It’s like the creek is her baby, like how your mom takes care of your baby brother.”

“But they’re still scary,” I insisted.

“What else are you scared of?” she asked. She was clutching Miss Daisy to her chest, blinking up at me. I shrugged. “Hippos.”

She burst out laughing for the third time, her grin wide enough for me to see the gap between her two front teeth. “Hippos? But they’re cuddly and fat and sweet!”

“Not when they open their huge ugly mouths,” I said obstinately. “And my mom told me they can run as fast as a person, and they’re really strong and angry all the time. Like your dad.”

She sobered at the analogy, only nodding as if in agreement. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

A long few minutes went by, and the only sounds I could hear were the trickling of water in the stream and the trill of birds in the trees. I could smell baking bread, the mouth-watering aroma coming from my house. No wonderful smells ever came from the neighbors’ house.

“Do you like it at home?” I asked finally.

She paused — then shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t like it at home. I wish I lived with you at your house with your mom and dad.”

“Me too,” I said. “We could go to school together and I can introduce you to all my classmates and we can come home in the bus together.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “It sounds so fun. Or we could go to Paris instead.”

I frowned. “What’s a Paris?”

“It’s a place really far away from here,” she explained. “It’s in another country. I heard my dad talking about it the other day. My aunt lives there, but we’ve never gone to her house before. She called it the city of lights.”

“Wow,” I said, awed. “That sounds amazing.”

“Yeah,” she agreed wistfully.

I lay back down beside her, blinking up at the sky. “We could go there now,” I said. “You can bring Miss Daisy, and I’ll bring all my books and sweaters. We’ll take a plane.”

“Like the ones we see flying so high every day?” she asked excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to go in one.”

“Me too,” I said, already imagining it — the two of us, somewhere far away, apart from all the sadness of her home and her father. “I think we’re old enough to live by ourselves,” I went on. “Miss Daisy can cook us dinner and we can play all day and have sleepovers every night.”

“Yeah!” She laughed, clapping her hands together. “It sounds like so much fun. When can we leave?”

“I’ll ask my mom and dad,” I said. “Maybe they can come too.”

We scrambled to our feet, dusting grass off our clothes. “Last one to my house is a rotten egg!” I hollered, and, both laughing, we ran towards my house to ask my parents if we could run away to Paris tonight…

***

I watched the big truck in the driveway load my whole life into cardboard boxes, watched the unfamiliar men in matching shirts and pants and hats whisk away everything that made the house home and squeeze it into the back of the truck, folding everything away into neat little squares.

I was helpless against the riptide of activity that swept the house, my parents running around frantically and my brother crying in my arms and the men folding away busily. Slowly but surely the house emptied, and when the last box was loaded into the back of the truck all I could do was look around at the stark walls and scrubbed floors and echoey rooms. It didn’t feel or look like my house anymore.

My dad loaded the car with suitcases and backpacks and baskets, and my mom was talking to the men standing at the truck. My baby brother was fast asleep in one of the baskets in the car, oblivious to everything.

I was standing a little ways away, and standing with me was my best friend in the whole wide world.

“Bye,” she said.

“Bye,” I replied.

“When will you come back?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I told her. “Maybe for visits, though.”

“Oh.” She looked sad. “Summer won’t be as fun anymore.”

“Yeah. But you’ll be okay without me, right?” I asked. “And you won’t be scared because I’m not there.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Oh, yeah — I got you a present. Like a going-away present.” I dug around in my pocket and produced an oblong little metal object swathed in tissue paper. “Here.”

“What is it?” she asked curiously, unwrapping it and holding it up.

“It’s a whistle,” I told her. “Just blow into that little thing at the front and it’ll make a noise. And whenever you do I’ll hear it. So if you’re scared, just blow the whistle and I’ll come to protect you.”

“Wow, thanks!” She looked at it in amazement before lifting it to her lips and blowing hard. It produced a high-pitched trill, not unpleasant. She lowered it again, smiling. “I feel braver already.”

“Good,” I said. “I promise I’ll come from wherever I’m going if you blow it.”

“Thanks,” she said again, smiling at me.

I heard my dad call my name.

“I have to go now,” I said. “Bye.”

Her eyes were bright. “Bye.”

I turned and ran towards the car, my sandals kicking up dust as I did. My dad patted my shoulder as I stopped, smiling down at me and telling me we’d drop by to visit every once in a while. I nodded, and just as I was about to get into the car I heard her voice call, “Wait!”

I turned to see her running too, only she was running towards me. She stopped a step away, breathless and wide-eyed. “I have a present for you, too,” she said. “Here.” She thrust something lumpy and soft into my arms. I looked down, and a single, very familiar brown button eye gazed back.

“Miss Daisy?” I stared at her. “But — you love her! And she’s your bestest friend!”

“No, you’re my bestest friend,” she said, dimpling at me. “And she’ll keep you safe and make sure you don’t get into trouble wherever you’ll be.”

“I’ll take care of her,” I said, still reeling. “I promise.”

“Good,” she said, and threw her arms around me. I hugged her back, feeling her hand clutching the whistle and my hand clutching Miss Daisy. I’d never hugged her before, and it was nice. She smelled like cut grass and summer and home, and the moment stretched out into molasses, slow and sweet.

“I won’t ever forget you,” I said when we finally broke apart, and she nodded. “I won’t forget you, either.”

I turned around in the backseat as we drove away from our house forever, and standing in the middle of the road was my best friend, watching us go. I heard the faint trill of the whistle ring out as I saw her grow smaller and smaller, then disappear entirely. But I didn’t turn around, watching the place I’d grown up vanish slowly, swallowed up by unfamiliar landscapes and roads and cities and people.

Long after all familiarity faded, I clutched Miss Daisy to my chest, remembering and resolving never to forget — and understanding finally why her previous owner had never let go of her.