The Summer of Promise & Enterprise

quiescent:

One entry found for quiescent.
Main Entry: qui·es·cent

adjective Etymology: Latin quiescent-, quiescens, present participle of quiescere to become quiet, rest, from quies

1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest

2 : causing no trouble or symptoms

- qui·es·cent·ly adverb

I'm half in love already.

three wishes

Little Rat calls Squirrel to ask for advice about blonde girls since (sadly, obviously) his own brunette sister doesn't know the first thing about real girls. You know what I mean, just like real girls with blonde hair. Girls who are pretty he says as we drive to the library. I overlook this slight in light of his serious desperation and the amount of time he spends fighting his new nemesis: acne. He shakes his head. I almost cry.

Summer vacation is practically here. Yearbooks arrived last week and Little Rat carries his around everywhere, flipping between the grainy picture of her small, sweet face -- smack dab in the middle of a row of B's-- and the front cover where she wrote (purple pen, mildly bubbly cursive):

You are a pretty cool guy.

Computer class was fun!!!

Maybe we will have some classes together next year.

Have a great summer!!!

Squirrel gives him sound advice. She is a good best friend to me and this means loving Little Rat as much as I do. Oh, just be yourself she says and then listen to him describe her blonde hair, and how he can't dislodge her from his brain, no matter how time he spends watching cartoons or mowing the lawn. Since the year is about to end, Squirrel and Little Rat decide that he should start by asking her if she's coming back to CHS next year for tenth grade? Does she have any plans for the summer?

Summer. Little Rat knows that it is do or die now. That vacation will be long and lonely with only a 2x2 picture and a generic inscription to keep him company. When he hangs up he is resolute. I ask him what he's going to do and he recites the lines that Squirrel suggested; words, she assures him, sure to work on even the hardest-hearted blonde. He looks out the window for a minute, quiet. I just wish I could give her the moon so she'd know he says. He turns on the radio.

*

After he died, she put her skillets and quilts in storage and moved to Jerusalem -- about as far away from where she began and where she'd been in between. We all loved her more, if that's possible, for this display of grit; this proof of true pioneer stock in today's day and age. From around the world, we watched happily as she found friends and carved out a life of her own after so many years of smiling through truly hard, sad times. The State Department issued a warning: AMERICANS GO HOME. We worried a little, but pointed out to each other that you can get hit by a bus, crossing your own street. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go, whether you're standing on the banks of the Sugar Creek or the Jordan River. She called early on a Sunday morning, not with flight arrival information but with the request that we send her a party dress. Oh, I wish you could see this place in the spring, sweetheart. The desert comes alive.

*

We are dancing barefoot on the wide wood planks of the porch to Gillian Welch who, as he points out, (craning his neck back to look in my eyes) is strangely, strikingly beautiful with her buck teeth and knob knees.

Oh me oh my oh.

Look at Miss Ohio.

She's a-runnin around

with her ragtop down.

She says I wanna do right

but not right now.

There is the smell of the sea lingering in the air, mingled with pipe smoke and a little leftover rain. People are drinking whiskey, laughing softly, dancing. Someone throws a glass off the roof next door. It shatters in the street below but no one even looks. When I breathe in his shoulder, it is cotton and spice and sweat on his collarbone that fills my nose.

With your arm around her shoulder

a regimental soldier,

Momma starts pushing that wedding gown.

You say I wanna do right

but not right now.

His lips are the tiniest bit cold by my ear when he whispers. I'm sorry about today. I wish I could always love you as much as I love you right now. There are things to say but it doesn't seem the time. I look over his shoulder into the black sky where planes fly in circles over the water, tracing and re-tracing their holding patterns, waiting to find the firm promise of the Earth below.

Yeah I know all about it,

so you don't have to shout it

I'm gonna straighten it out somehow

Yeah I wanna do right

but not right now.

fine line between

nice & kind

wish & hope

hear & listen

dream & delusion

him & me

famous last words

John & Lacey were going out when school ended in late May, just before the start of hurricane season. A few days before she left for Europe I spent the night at her big downtown apartment and her parents took us bowling at the their Club. She was an phenomenally good bowler, even as a seventh grader, and I can still see her so clearly, standing there in perfect concentration, her purple shirt tucked into her gap khaki skirt, her socks rolled down until they touched the tops of her own red bowling shoes. Prim is a good word for her. Sweet. Nice. She thought we were best friends. He's going to be so lonely this summer. Take good care of him for me.

1989

On summer evenings, Jim mows the lawn after dinner and Nadine pulls weeds from the flowerbeds laid out along the front of the white house. Three small kids chase each other around the front yard. They love the dewy dampness between their toes, the spring of the earth as it pushes back against the meager weight of their cartwheels. Once the grass is mowed into rows of green velvet, Jim pushes the mower back in the garage and the kids run out from the house, fresh from the tub, and buckle in. Nadine follows. She leaves the door unlocked.

At Dairy Queen they order Mr. Mistys, the sweetest mix of ice and syrup that paints their small mouths immediate, raspberry blue. Jim takes a drink out of each cup before passing it to the back seat. I have to make sure its not poison he says and the kids yell Daa-aad! Nadine likes the salt and sweet of chocolate and peanuts together and takes quick, neat bites against the melty pull of heat and gravity.

They drive to the edge of the small town, past the high school, along the Snake River, through the stand of Russian olives, until they are in the hills and sagebrush. There is nothing but the sky and the colors of the desert--the muted greens and browns and golds--and the sound of small mouths taking it all in, drinking it down to the last drop.

write

I have no ambition and far too much imagination for my own good. This doesn't look great on a resume.

I am committed, however, to finishing my book in the next two months. I will give it to my mother and Squirrel to read and Oprah, too, if she'd like a copy.

Welcome to the Summer of Promise & Enterprise.

I need to find a job.