I had planned this morning to write about the circumstances surrounding my father's death, but instead, I painted my toenails. Vagabond Mauve. Planned to write about one--pick one, any one--of death's little catastrophic moments. Perhaps the bit when I wheeled him out into the little maze of courtyard--into a late spring sunlight he hadn't tasted the likes of for a year or two now--and he pinched all the dark chocolates with both hands, between his thumbs and middle fingers--fingers with minds of their own--crackling all the little papers, scrabbling for the ones with the soft centers. The box kept sliding all around the little steel tray. This wasn't the first time I'd brought him chocolates--we'd been through 40 Father's Days together for heaven's sake--the whole damn box had soft centers. In the end, I had to put one in his mouth; I had a plane to catch and time was running out. I broke the raspberry cream into little pieces, but he choked anyway. I don't mean to be glib about all of this. It's just that it was so late. And I'm just so mad about those chocolates.

I've never used nail polish before, but this morning seemed as good a time as any to get on with it.

All of us girls are out on the front porch on this hot, idle, July morning--the first day of a long weekend. My nieces are painting everyone's toenails. All three girls have clear-plastic, see-through-type, make-up kits--with broken zippers--full of polish; they're city kids and have developed a mild addiction to the stuff. The youngest is just nine. She's painted her left toenails with Sheer Chartreuse, her right with Black Magic Glitter. It pleases me to see she's getting on with her life at such an early age; it's taken me 50 years. My mother's choice would be Scarlett O--her signature color when she was in her 20s, mostly because of the book. She confessed once she thought to name me Scarlett, but my father put an end to that. I first read Gone with the Wind when I was 12, curled up in the big brown plaid chair on the screened-in porch of the house I grew up in.

It's clear in my mind because I had to drag myself up from that chair that evening to help my mother bring more food out from the kitchen--we ate all our dinners on the porch at the big old pine picnic table. I carried the platter of sliced tomatoes--Big Boys from my father's garden--ice-chilled, sloshing in vinegar and salt and pepper the way he liked them. I walked slowly and deliberately, despite the fact that Atlanta was burning. My father laid the palm of his hand--with some slight pressure--on the middle of my back and asked why I was wearing a bra; I certainly didn't need one. My brothers ducked their heads and didn't stop eating their corn on the cob until they reached their elbows. If I shed any tears, they fell onto the platter and nobody noticed. Salt is salt. As it turned out, my father was right. I gave it eight or nine years and then I quit the habit entirely. But that was 1970 and times were what they were.

Last summer, it was earrings. We all went out to the mall and pierced, collectively, seven more holes. I got a diamond stud made of glass. I asked the salesgirl, not woman, although in years she might have qualified, if she thought I was too old. She took a cotton ball and dabbed my ear with alcohol and said I wouldn't feel a thing. She was wrong; as I said, not a woman. The infection didn't clear up for months. I should have gone with the 14K gold number like the first time around. But I wasn't footing the bill then.

And the summer before, my nieces tattooed a rose decal just about one inch to the left of my collarbone, on that small soft place where my therapist tells me to tap lightly when I am feeling anxious. It was kind of a trial run. I was a lot younger then and thought I might like the permanent kind. Over the course of the weekend--after several swims at high tide, neck-deep in the clam flats off Cousins Island, after the heavy sweat that comes from standing too close to the booth of fried dough, after several long, cold showers--it shriveled up and the little pink petals flaked off, one little petal at a time, under my fingernails. A small, but necessary loss; a permanent tattoo was out of the question.

It seems every year we do something just a little unconventional, something frivolous, something just for fun. In celebration. After all, it's Clam Festival. And we like to think eccentricity runs in the family.

It's just a small town event, really. Crafts and clams. Music--local Maine talent for the most part. Although the Friday night parade attracts tens of thousands. And, of course, the carnival comes to town. For eleven years now, since the summer after my father died, my family has come here to celebrate this little village ritual. Over the years, it's taken on major holiday proportions. No one can remember exactly why this event has surpassed even Christmas as the yearly family get-together of choice. I think my sister's behind it all--you can't keep her off the Tilt-A-Whirl. Although she's slowing down a bit--has to wait a couple of hours now, after her lime rickey and clam roll in "crumbs," before she queues up for the Gravitron. I'm a "batter" girl myself, but I know how she feels. There are people out there who don't exactly approve--all the dust and dirt kicked up at the carnival, the noise of fire engines and fireworks, the litter, the crowds, all the by-products of any good time. To say nothing of the smell of cotton candy and sizzling hot sausage sandwiches. And they have a point, I guess. But my family likes to think of it as good, clean fun--although "clean" may be too strong a word. We can party just about anywhere--take it on the road. We're pretty easy to please.

We're still on the porch, shooting the breeze; the craft booths are open but the carnival doesn't start up 'til noon. My mother has gone inside to make tunafish sandwiches. We all agree, nobody makes tuna salad like she does--it's the milk. My sister and I are talking parties, in the way people our age are apt to do when they are at one. The girls are old enough now to hear. They may, or may not, be doing the same stuff yet, but they're thinking about it. The year after college, the year I went out west, I stripped off my jeans and my Mexican embroidered peasant blouse and my turquoise bracelets in quite a few places. Lived in twelve or so, I recall, in just the first three years. I moved around a lot, shifted gears. One 4th of July, I spent the night in a bullpen. We'd been dancing in the dust at the rodeo, by the light of fireworks, to a local band called Ride the Sky. We might have been drinking some beers. I recall my boyfriend taught me how to spit. My oldest niece, Maggie, my goddaughter, the one who looks like me, says I was probably smoking pot. My sister gives me one of those looks--eyebrows raised, head cocked, shoulders shrugged--she's saying, not asking, whadda' ya' gonna' do. I tell my niece she might be onto something there. But we didn't call it pot; we called it dope. Dope for dopes. She smiles. Falling in love, falling out, falling back in. It was like trying to crawl up a steel chute. Or push a rope. My father told me don't come home. And I didn't and that worked out pretty well. When I did come home, I brought a box of chocolates and a husband. Things turned around then.

We try to do it all. But no matter how early we plan supper, no matter how early we start burning up the dogs and burgers on the grill, slice the pickles, put the chips in the basket, we're always late to the fireworks. My sister and one of her daughters have birthdays right around this time so we're always rushing around trying to find where we hid the presents, and the frosting is running down the sides of the cakes hidden in the shed, and two or three old friends show up on the front porch for a chat, and time gets away from us. The one year we actually made it all the way to the park down Mill Street was the year of the fog. I'm not sure we noticed. Some of us make it to Latch String Park, savor a soft-serve on the benches, but most of us are content to celebrate right on the front lawn, singing patriotic songs and lighting up the sparklers and snakes-in-the-can I stock up on down at Old Orchard Beach. In the old days, we set off cherry bombs and Roman candles that an old friend used to mail me from Wyoming in a L'eggs egg, but he moved away and no one seems to miss the noise. One year, when I was just a child and still learning, a Black Cat exploded in my ear; I cocked my elbow just a little too late. We were out on the gravel driveway, between the house and the barn, and my father cuffed me on the side of my head. It didn't bother me much. If a firecracker had exploded in my brother's ear, my father would have done the exact same thing. Some nights now, we even stay up past ten o'clock; the neighbors never complain. But eyes get bleary, fingers get burned. And this year, in this first--of what may be no more than one--summer alone in this house, in the burn of the street lamp, I hear the asphalt smoke.

I've had to let some of the upkeep go. For awhile there, last winter, just after my husband left, it seemed I was managing all right. Got an extra half cord of wood in for next season, patched up the bulkhead. But now. Phew! I'm practically living out of my car these days--what with the commute down to school and my mother and my friends all up and down the coast. Friends with more commitments, easier I go to them. And I've always been up for a road trip. So I traded in the sedan with the all-leather seats for a '92 wagon. It's given me nothing but trouble, but it's eased the cash flow problem and I like the color--Red Ripe Tomato. Although earlier this spring, I did spend a long, early-season afternoon cleaning up the flower beds. It used to be my husband's job--he has a green thumb, like my father, but he always wears gloves--and I just plain tried too hard. Got too much earth under my fingernails and exposed too many roots and bulbs, and a late frost put me in my place. I gave the rhubarb to my next door neighbor but didn't pick the asparagus, and the stalks got all tall and seedy and ashamed of themselves. Like some gypsy children on the edge of town, watching a parade, might wonder--if they could get to that place--why they had not been chosen. Some days I know how they feel.

In the old days, when my nieces were very little, we never strayed far from home. I recall one Saturday night when Maggie must have been about four and Lucy would have been just two. Sleeping accommodations are always catch as catch can. Maggie was on the floor, on a mattress by the open window. Lucy, across the room, standing up in her crib. The grown-ups, out on the lawn beneath the window. If we stand just so, we can catch a glimpse of the fireworks between the two big sugar maples at the corner of the yard. As the fireworks exploded, filling up the night sky, a little voice drifted out and down.

"Oh, Lucy, I see red. It's very pretty."

And from near darkness on the other side of the room, very softly in reply, "Ohhhhh."

"Now there is big green like Kermit."

"Ohhhhh."

"And yellow like Big Bird."

"Ohhhhh."

"Lucy, I see silver. And gold. Like a rainbow. When you get big like me you will see them too."

"Ohhhhh."

For several years afterward, although she tried her darndest, my sister was never able to see the fireworks from that window.

This year, the two older girls will wait two hours in line to ride the Zipper five times and walk home, late at night, by themselves. Becky is still too young to go. But she's the youngest and has never cared much one way or the other--she plays a mean game of Scattegories. Tomorrow, everyone will line up for the annual photo by the Crazy Bus--the only ride quite a few of us are up to now, even before clams. My mother will spend quite a bit of time down under the tent at Memorial Green--my father used to play the banjo, and you can't hear Doc's Banjo Band in downtown Boston. And later this evening, we'll all walk out on the sand bar to watch the tide come in over our freshly painted toenails.


© 1999 Harvard Summer School. Comments.
Last modified Fri, Jan 21, 2000.
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