Stubborn
Winter into spring stories of growing up
by
Charlie Close
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Charlie Close on Smashwords
Stubborn
Winter into spring stories of growing up
Copyright © 2011 by Charlie Close
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Table of Contents
An excerpt from Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage Work and Family
Dedication
For Kathy, who waits for spring every year.
Stubborn
The Red Stack
invitations
in a neat stack
snowflakes falling
When he turned six Morgan had a big birthday party and he was allowed to invite anyone he wanted. This was a party for a big boy. Up until now only members of his family had been invited for his birthday.
Morgan and his mother made up invitation cards decorated with black marker and glitter which said, ~~~You are cordially invited to the birthday party of Morgan Ellis~~~ Morgan applied the glue very carefully and sprinkled on a liberal amount of glitter. Mother did all the writing. Mistakes with the marker could not be corrected and there were only so many cards.
“Who do you want to invite?” she asked. “We should put their names on the cards.”
He had not thought about it until now. It was one thing to say that he could invite anyone and another thing to invite particular people.
“How about your sister?” she said. “I’m sure she would like to come.”
He shrugged. “Sure.” He didn’t think that counted as anyone. She was going to come anyway.
“Ross is invited, isn’t he?” asked Mother.
Ross was Morgan’s best friend. Of course he was invited. “Yeah, invite him,” he said, and Mother opened one of the cards and printed “Ross” in big letters on the line where the invitee’s name was supposed to be written.
Once Ross was invited other people sprang to mind, nearly everyone in his kindergarten class. There was Max and Sam, and Samantha, and Rudy, and Melissa, and Robert, and Bryce, and Liz, and Rose. His mind went up and down the rows of desks. At each desk he thought of the person who sat there. His eyes rolled back a little as he imagined that person at his party, watching him blow out the candles. If he liked the image he told Mother the name so she could make a card. If it didn’t feel right he kept the name to himself.
One of the names that didn’t feel right was Katie. They sat in desks side by side. They talked a lot. Katie was nice. He liked her. But she always wore long stockings and shiny black shoes. He did not like that. It bothered him for reasons that he could not explain that her legs were usually white or navy blue instead of leg-colored. Therefore he did not give her name to Mother. Instead he decided to invite the twins, Betsy and Bobbie. He was pleased with himself that he had turned one rejected invitation into two new invitations.
By the time they were done Mother had written out more than a dozen cards and put them in red envelopes. They made a thick stack. The next day Mother put him on the school bus with his lunch and the stack of envelopes and told him to pass the envelopes out.
Morgan took care of the envelopes on the way to school. He kept them close to his lap where they could not accidentally get loose and scatter across the floor of the bus. When he got to school he hung his coat on the hook in the coatroom and walked the envelopes to his desk.
He realized then that he did not know when would be a good time to pass the envelopes out. The teacher started lessons right after the bell rang and there was no good time to interrupt the class. The envelopes started to feel awkward in his hand. The one on top was smudged a little bit from the moisture that built up on his fingertips while holding them.
The bell rang for mid-morning recess. Morgan took it as an opportunity to hand out the invitations. He hung back while the other kids left and put envelopes on the desks of people he invited. Then he went to recess himself.
After the class came back inside there was the sound of tearing envelopes. Morgan did not watch. A couple of his classmates found him later and told him they would be happy to come. The other invitees did not say anything because they did know the etiquette of accepting an invitation to a birthday party.
When Morgan came home Mother asked how it went.
“Good,” said Morgan.
“Did everyone accept your invitation?”
Morgan shrugged. He didn’t really understand the question.
“Do you know who’s going to come?”
“Everybody, I think,” said Morgan.
Mother looked at Morgan carefully. He could tell that something wasn’t quite right, but he didn’t know what it was.
“Okay then. I’ll plan for everyone to come. Go change into your play clothes, please.”
The party came two Saturdays later. Mother and Morgan spent the morning getting ready, setting out colorful plates and napkins, blowing up balloons, and using scissors to make curly streamers.
The guests started to arrive in the early afternoon. Cars pulled up and a mother or a father would get out with one of Morgan’s classmates. Mother exchanged pleasantries with each one, letting the parent know when to come back. Every classmate carried a present, who handed it to Morgan. Morgan said thank-you and put the present on the table nearest the front door.
The boys and girls were all well dressed, some of them even better than at school. Morgan had never seen so many white shirts, bow ties, and pony tail holders. Betsy and Bobbie looked especially charming. They wore matching overcoats, matching blue dresses, and matching hats. They also wore, Morgan noticed, matching navy blue stockings and shiny black shoes. His attempt to exclude stocking-wearing girls had failed. He thought of Katie and wished he had invited her after all. He didn’t care anymore what she would have worn.
The party was a big success. Everyone got plenty of cake. They played games like ring toss and pin the tail on the donkey. Morgan got to open almost twenty presents in front of all his friends. He found that it took a long time to open so many gifts when everyone was watching him.
Parents started arriving later in the afternoon and kids left one at a time they way they had arrived. They thanked Morgan and Morgan thanked them back. When the last parent and child had left Mother handed Morgan a big paper sack and told him to put all the leftover plates and plastic forks in it.
“And pick up all the wrapping paper off the floor, please,” she said.
“Okay.” Although he thought it was unfair that he should have to clean the house on his birthday, he did not complain.
“Happy birthday, son.” She moved leftover cake into a plastic container with a wide knife.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Trampoline
two
feet of snow
on the trampoline
February.
Streetlight.
Bouncing.
“Cinnamon, get down from there.”
The shape of the girl was almost entirely hidden by the layers of clothes. She wore a heavy wool jacket over ski pants that were tucked into faux fur-trimmed boots, a red woolen scarf that wrapped around her neck three times, oversized fluffy earmuffs, and a hat that had started out as a beret but was now pulled down to look like a soft football helmet. As she bounced up and down, the orange streetlight by the side of road reflected off her eyes and threw moving shadows on the bit of her cheeks that showed through the scarf. If not for that, there would have been no evidence she had a face at all. The bouncing and the frigid breeze made a lock of her hair flutter.
Her father was not dressed as warmly. He wore jeans, indoor moccasins, and a flannel shirt over a T-shirt. He had just come out the back door into the yard and he didn’t intend to be here long. “Cinnamon,” he repeated, “I want you to come down from there right now.”
Cinnamon continued to bounce on the trampoline and did not answer.
“Cinnamon,” said her father, this time with more bass in his tone.
And this time Cinnamon answered. “No!” she said, and she jumped higher and pulled her knees up further with each jump as if to emphasize that she was still jumping.
Dad stood at the edge of the trampoline with his arms crossed, both as an expression of his seriousness and to keep the wind from whipping into his skin. He started to think that owning a trampoline wasn’t such a good thing if it could be used like this to defy parental authority.