It Burns a Lovely Light
Read It Burns a Lovely Light Online
Authors: penny mccann pennington
Penny McCann Pennington
Copyright 2013 Penny McCann Pennington
Original copyright TXu 1-697-031
May 30, 2010 under the original title, THE SIMPLICITY OF THE WINDOWS
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Cover concept by Penny McCann Pennington and Daisy Venners
Ebook Cover design and formatting by
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First Fig, by Edna
St. Vincent Millay
For John.
Each day, I fall in love with you all over again.
And for Alex, Daisy, John Philip and Sally,
The loveliest lights in our lives.
My candle burns at both ends. It will not last the
night.
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light!
First Fig
, by Edna St. Vincent Millay
It frightens me, how much I have forgotten about you. But I can still feel your spirit. You were beautiful. And when we were together, I was beautiful, too.
July, 1970
Williams Air Force Base, Arizona
It was rare to see fathers at the Officers' Club pool. As fighter pilots on an Air Training Command Base, they were usually too busy training
or flying their jets. But on what threatened to be the hottest day of the summer, as Farley James looked toward the fourth grade on yet another new base, her father announced that he was taking his family to the pool. Maybe he felt
bad, since he was flying out tomorrow for a month. Or maybe he just knew that Farley and William hadn't made any friends yet.
William looked up from his book. "I didn't think dads were allowed to use the pool."
"Only on special occasions, professor," said Jack, reaching across the breakfast table for the catsup bottle. He put catsup on everything, even his eggs.
Farley's mother, Pauline, took her time spreading strawberry
jelly on her toast. "Jack, half the boxes aren't even opened yet."
He waved his fork at the piles of pans, dishes, table linens and silverware lining the countertops. "Sheets are on the beds, Farley's movie star dolls are back on her dresser, William found his disease books, and
the TV is plugged in. All the important stuff is done."
"They're not dolls." Farley had to get that in. "They're 'collectables.'"
Pauline cut William's sausage into bite-sized pieces, her knife and fork making delicate clanking noises against the plate. "You guys go ahead. I won't feel better until we're completely moved in."
"No way." Jack winked at his wife. "'Us four
and no more,' remember?"
'Us four' was Pauline's favorite saying. She was a firm believer in the 'tick-tock- the-game-is-locked' approach to families. To her, it meant that the four of them really only had each other. That no matter where
in the world they were stationed, as long as they were all together, they were home. Which was more than fine in Farley's book. Over the years of moving from base to base, most of her friends had had at least two or three brothers or sisters.
They shared bedrooms - often with a line drawn down the center - and fought over stuff like clothes and bathroom time and second helpings at dinner.
Jack pulled Pauline's chair toward him and made a big show
of getting down on one knee. "Come on, gorgeous. Let's go have some fun."
She thumped him on the head. "Oh, for crying out loud. Everyone finish your breakfast and we'll dig out our bathing suits."
Farley smirked. As if she ever said 'no' to him. As Veda Marie - her mother's friend from way back - loved to say, 'Pauline would jump straight into the sun for that man.'
With pictures and curtains yet to be hung, no one had to
yell to be heard in their new house. But William couldn't help himself.
"Mom, I can't find my Speedo!" he screamed, digging a finger into his ear.
"Hold your horses," she called from down the hall. "I know where it is."
Ever the Air Force wife, Pauline had packing and unpacking down to a science. For William's sake, each new house had to be as similar as
possible to the one before, from the placement of the furniture to the board games on top of the hutch. Bath towels were always on the center shelf of the linen closet. Socks and underwear went in William's top drawer, shirts in the next, followed by shorts and long pants, with pajamas and happiness cloaks in
the bottom - everything folded 'just so.'
No matter where in the world they lived, the kitchen windowsill was never without freshly planted citrus trees in terra cotta pots.
Pauline would save seeds from fresh lemons, limes, and grapefruits, and push them into potting soil. Within weeks shiny green leaves would emerge. She cared for each plant until the next transfer, only to give them all away and start over in the next house.
Farley opened the cardboard box labeled in black Magic Marker:
Private Property of Farley James
Snoop At Your Own Peril
Usually she saved this box for last, after everything else
had been unpacked and put away, because it contained the finishing touches that would turn four white walls into 'Farley's Room.' But she seemed to recall packing her swimsuit in there.
She took care in removing each item: a smooth, flat rock from a creek in Colorado, her diary with the broken lock, a worn copy of E.L. Konigsburgs's
From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
, her cork bulletin board - all cleaned up and ready for new memories - a rumpled
Plan
9 from Outer Space
poster, and the Chunky Bar she stole from the snack bar last year but had been too guilty to eat.
She found what she was looking for underneath her
autographed picture of
The Sound of Music's
Christopher Plummer in his Austrian escaping-over-the-mountains get-up. Holding her breath, she wriggled, tugged, and squeezed into the shiny yellow one-piece. Forget happiness cloaks. All a girl really needs is her lucky bathing suit to fly.
Outfitted in a white girdled swimsuit that seemed to be made expressly for her, Pauline stuck her head in Farley's room. With her blue eyes, long white-blonde hair, longer legs, and slim waist, she was prettier than any movie
star - with the possible exception of Audrey Hepburn. Not that Pauline cared; she stood firm in her belief that beauty came from one's ability to love. Of course, Farley knew this was something only an attractive person could say with
a straight face.
Pauline pointed to her daughter's rear end, where the fabric had already ridden up. "Don't you think that's a little tight on you, hon?"
'Hon' was a Pittsburgh word. Pauline grew up there, until
she fell in love and got married and had 'us four.' She didn't use other Pittsburgh words, like 'Stillers' instead of Steelers, or 'yins' - the Pittsburgh version of 'ya'll.' But 'hon' stuck.
"It must have shrunk over the winter," said
Farley, blushing as she tugged on the back. "Or maybe I'm getting fatter."
"You're not fat; you're big-boned." Pauline opened Farley's closet. "Where's that striped two-piece we picked out in Mesa?
That was adorable on you."
Her mother did have a point about the two-piece, but Farley wasn't taking any chances today. Only her lucky bathing suit would do for the first high dive of her life.
The Officers' Club had recently installed a high diving board. Farley heard about the new board from Ben Porgie, a sixth grader with a severe dandruff problem - and, as William pointed out, an inability to chew
with his mouth closed. Ben and his parents stopped by the previous night for a Meet and Greet. Meeting and Greeting was a big part of military life, and Farley was all for it, particularly if they brought fried chicken or lasagna.
The Porgies had come bearing a platter of pigs-in-a-blanket
and a giant canister full of Chubbie's Potato Chips. Captain Porgie carried a sweaty glass pitcher of whiskey sours. Jack put Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on the reel-to-reel and Pauline loaded up a tray with ice, highball
glasses, an alabaster ashtray and a can of mixed nuts. Then the adults disappeared out to the patio.
Once Ben Porgie started raving about the new high dive, there was no stopping him. He leaned in and talked fast and low, as if he had a
dark secret to tell. Farley smelled potato chips on his breath.
"It's only been up for three weeks," he said, licking his lips. "Already, Steve Dorfman had to be rescued by a lifeguard
because his dive turned into a belly flop."
Farley nudged a concerned looking William with her elbow. "No wonder, with a name like Dorfman."
"That's not funny," said Ben. "He needed
mouth-to-mouth and everything." He shoved a handful of chips in his mouth and looked Farley up and down. Mostly up; Farley was a head taller than Ben. "How old are you, anyway?"
"Ten. I'm mature for my age," said Farley,
modestly. She overheard her mother telling Aunt Claire this during one of their Sunday night after-the-rates-went-down phone calls, and it made her proud. She
did
do a lot of reading.
"You're big for your age, too," said Ben.
Biting into her pig-in-a-blanket, she made a point of chewing with her mouth closed before she spoke.
"Gee, nobody's ever told me that before."
William beamed up at Ben. "Farley can do a back dive
and everything!"
Ben continued, as if William wasn't there. "Good thing you're ten. No one under ten is allowed off the high dive. It's too dangerous
because..."
"Because," William piped in, squinting through his glasses, "the wrong dive from that high up can cause whiplash or abdominal trauma. That can lead to hemorrhaging, which often goes undetected.'" He
scratched behind his ear, staring at his shoes. "And of course, there is always the spleen...."
Ben's mouth fell open. Farley saw chips.
"William is really smart about some things, especially
medical stuff," she explained. "He's going to a private school off base."
William pumped his fists to his chest, hero style. "A school for amazing super-children!"
William had an uncanny talent for memorizing indefinite
amounts of medical information. At age four, he could reel off the names of every bone and major muscle in the human body. At five, he used his mother's eyebrow pencil to write the four key tissues found in animals - Epithelium,
Connective, Muscle, and Nervous - on the wall next to his bed. These days, he enjoyed reciting the primary symptoms of whatever disease Pauline could come up with while she helped him dress. Unfortunately, he couldn't fully comprehend most of what his mind so easily absorbed.
After weeks of tests at John's Hopkins puzzled doctors concluded that William's abilities were a 'fluke,' a 'phenomenon.' Of course it was William who defined his condition best: His mind was 'way too full of some
things, and not nearly full enough of all the rest.'
That night Farley lay in her bed, too excited to sleep. She pictured herself leaping off that high dive.
...climbing out of the pool after a
casual-yet-picture-perfect back dive...kids crowded around, wanting more...what's your name...would you do that dive again...come to my sleepover party...be my friend...be my friend.
From the empty dining room of the Officers' Club, Farley and
her family watched the laughing, screaming swimmers on the pool deck. A teenage boy with whitish blonde bangs hanging in his eyes pretended to pull a girl toward the water, while the girl made a big show of resisting his efforts.
"This part is always the worst," said Farley, trying to sound laid-back. "I don't know one single soul, and no one knows me."
Pauline tucked a strand of hair away from her daughter's
face. "It never lasts long, hon. Just keep that beautiful smile on your face and the rest will take care of itself."
"You should do what I do," said William. "On the first day in a new school, I walk
really
fast, like I have somewhere
important to go. Even though I never do!"