Not going to talk much today. Am going to write instead. That’s what I’ve done all morning. But when I write something I’m especially keen on, I like to share it. Unfortunately, there’s no one home but a drowsy baby and some drowsy cats, so I’m going to share it with you.
What the Ambrose family did have, though, was a daughter. She was about Johnny’s age, and her hair was very long, the color of red leaves in the fall. She was pale and lithe and she never seemed to stop moving, and she laughed all the time, and she and Johnny enjoyed each other. Sometimes, Johnny wondered if she enjoyed enough for the both of them. He always felt slow and stupid around her and despite his best efforts, he never quite felt like he could keep up with her. He didn’t think that anyone really could.
That was the one and only connection between the Ambrose and Gardner families: a son and a daughter who had been together – enthusiastically on Joanne’s part, shyly on Johnny’s part – for the sum of six months now. Even though they were only two houses apart, the Ambrose family was still metaphorically on the wrong side of town from the Gardners. There were no dinner parties together, no outings, no afternoon coffee, or tea. There had been one stiff dinner together, two months ago. It had ended with a blustering, red-faced Gene Ambrose shouting loud opinions about the New York Yankees, while Anthony Gardner had quiet opinions about the Boston Red Sox, and then Gene had gone home and stomped around the house, and Anthony had stayed where he was and repeated a number of his same opinions to his family, which included Glenda and Susan, too embarassed to care, and Johnny who thought both the Sox and the Yanks were lousy.
In other news, if you want to have true peace in your home, then dig around until you find a CD of proper Gregorian Chant (which your mother has kindly bought from a local monastery and sent to you) and play it. Alternate with a pretty CD called “Emerald Isles,” and you can’t go wrong.
Happy writing. Take care.
