And if you haven’t procured it for your summer reading, perhaps I can tempt you with an excerpt?
Thanks ❤️❤️❤️
Candyland is crumbling.
I walk down Penny Lane with my eyes squeezed almost shut so I don’t have to see it deteriorating in the late afternoon sun. The exterior paint is peeling, and a second-floor shutter is hanging by a thread.
And that is not even the worst of it.
You can tell the owners' priorities, though. The large front lawn and back garden are a glorious explosion of wild roses, sunflowers, begonias, sweet peas, nasturtiums, marigolds, geraniums, and carefully maintained rows of tomatoes, peppers, baby eggplants, alongside every herb imaginable.
I should know. I helped plant them.
Oh, Candyland.
It’s the last split-level home in a development conceived by an eccentric Renaissance man rumored to have gone to India to study transcendental meditation with the Beatles.
We never found out if that was true, but it was enough to sell Joey and me on the place. We’ve lived here for over forty years. How is that even possible and why hasn’t anyone figured out a way to freeze time?
When she was in elementary school, our daughter Jasmine (now known as Chef Jazz), made us a wooden sign in painstakingly drawn red and white striped letters after overhearing a classmate’s mother sarcastically call our house Candyland because, as Jazz told us, we let her eat junk food and stay up late. It’s still outside on the front lawn, weathered and splintered, but it still makes me smile.
Jazz originally wanted the sign to read “There Are No Rules at Candyland.” Her teacher telephoned me, clucking and clutching her politically correct pearls when I laughed. I never stopped wishing I had that version of the sign instead.
Now Candyland sticks out like a toothless old woman in an intimate lingerie shop, nestled between bright rows of outrageously expensive brand-new townhomes that Joey and I joke are made of LEGOs.
As I patiently jiggle the loose door jam, our dog Chester hears me and comes running. "Go get Daddy, Chester," I tell him through the mail slot.
Chester tries to put his tongue through the opening instead.
I stick my hand in for a kiss and he obliges. If only the world could be this way.
I'd text my husband, Joey, but unfortunately, he has a twenty-year-old flip phone with the ringer permanently off. He proudly testifies it's because he's a hippie, which is great, but honestly, I think Joey's late hippie heroes, John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, would have embraced technology and called him a Luddite.
"Joey!" I call his name through the mail slot and bang on the door simultaneously. My efforts are met with a series of ear-piercing barks and whimpers.
Great, now Chester decides to bark.
Finally, Joey hears me and shouts, "Be right there!"
"Oh, good job, Chester, what a genius you are," I tell him.
"Hey, Linda," Joey says, opening the door. He kisses me and hugs me.
We're still sweethearts.
Joey doesn't look his age. He's built like a teenager with a full head of long, salt-and-pepper hair, and he dresses the way he did in college—jeans, sneakers, and classic rock t-shirts he buys at shows.
Joey gives me another kiss.
"How was your afternoon out? Was lunch any good?"
"Both were fine," I reply, not looking him in the eyes.
"Really?"
"Okay, I'm lying; it was awkward. I don't have anything to say to my former coworkers anymore. I've been retired for over a year, so I'm not used to being social anymore. Why, oh why, do I still get invited to these things?" I make what I hope is a grumpy face.
"They miss you," Joey remarks, ruffling my hair.
"Well, I don't miss them."
But in a way, I do. I had a cool job at the Museum of Art where I was probably the last art major to be employed steadily with benefits for forty years. My coworkers were all art lovers like me.
And okay, I must admit these lunches are an excuse to leave the house and eat in a restaurant with someone other than Joey. Since we retired, we've been together around the clock. Not that there's anything wrong with that, although I'm finding it a little scary that the longer I stay in the house in my pajamas watching television all day, the less I feel like getting dressed and going out. I understand how older people become agoraphobic.
"What's the plan for tonight, Joey?" I ask, rubbing his back and leaning into him. "Anything good on television, or should we just listen to music? Meanwhile, something smells amazing. What are you cooking for dinner?"
"You and food," Joey says, smiling. "I'm making ravioli. No television. Bob and Marcy are coming over. Hey, that reminds me. Let's go to the kitchen because I want you to taste my sauce."
A groan escaped me – still full from lunch, and ugh, Bob and Marcy Garber. I should be used to it by now, but honestly, I don't want to be around them tonight.
It's the same reaction I've had for decades.
We met Bob and Marcy in college and hung out mostly because our cooler friends were busy with free love or following the Grateful Dead. Joey and I always found them dull, but somehow, we ended up being each other's best people at our weddings—probably because none of us ever left Philadelphia. Bob and Marcy live in an apartment complex around twenty miles away.
When we were younger and raising our daughter, we drifted apart and maybe saw Bob and Marcy only a couple of times a year, sometimes even at our yearly Christmas party. But once we all retired, suddenly they text and show up for dinner all the time.
I guess it's okay. It kind of feels like all our other friends are either dead or barely living somewhere in Florida, anyway.
https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/leaving-candyland-robin-slick
No comments:
Post a Comment