Coming of age in a simpler time
I grabbed the rope hanging from the old willow, swung high in the air, let go, and with a savage war cry, cannonballed into the swimming hole, sending a geyser of water high into the air.
“Good one,” Evan yelled when my head bobbed up amid spreading ripples.
I climbed out of the water, shook the water from my hair, and plopped down in the shade next to Evan on a blistering August afternoon.
Evan Schultz and I were best friends. Some people said we even looked alike except Evan’s hair was the color of dark chocolate, not blond like mine.
“It ain’t fair,” I said.
“What ain’t fair?”
“It ain’t fair the Yankees always win.”
“They ain’t goin’ to win this year,” Evan said. “We got the best pitchin’ in the league. And we got Bob Feller. Ain’t nobody can hit his fastball.”
“Joe DiMaggio could hit it. He hit it clean out of the park against Feller.”
“Maybe so, but he ain’t playin’ no more. He got married to Marilyn Monroe.”
Evan paused before continuing. “My dad says she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. He’s got a magazine with her picture in it.”
Evan lowered his voice. “And she ain’t wearin’ nothin’ at all.”
“Does your mom know?”
“Yeah, she got really mad and told him to throw it out. But he didn’t. I found it under the workbench in the garage. Want a see it?”
“Sure,” I said.
Evan and I sprang to our feet, pulled our jeans on over almost dry Jockeys, slipped on our Keds and T-shirts, and scrambled up the creek bank.
“It’s Saturday. Won’t your dad be home?” I asked as we cut through Miller’s cornfield heading toward the village.
“He went to the barbershop. He always stays there listenin’ to the ballgame on the radio.”
Our village was little more than a dusty hamlet in those days. It was rumored to be the site of an ancient Indian burial ground although no evidence was ever found to confirm such a supposition. But at twelve, I cared little about Indian legends. The only Indians I cared about that summer were my Cleveland Indians, and whether or not they could win the pennant by vanquishing their old nemesis, the dreaded New York Yankees.
When Evan and I reached the village, we raced one another up the street to Evan’s house. As we entered his garage, we found Evan’s father tinkering with a tabletop Philco radio. He greeted us in his usual friendly tone, “Hey, fellas, what’s up?”
“Nothin’,” Evan answered, shrugging his shoulders trying to be nonchalant. “Thought we’d listen to the ballgame,” he added.
“There’s a rain delay down in Washington. Gave me a chance to come home and replace a burnt out tube in the radio,” Evan’s father said.
After a few moments, he asked, “How’s your mother, Jack?”
“Fine,” I answered. “She got a job down at Mr. Reynolds’s law office.”
“How does she like it?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“Well, I’m sure everything will work out for the best. It usually does. There that ought to do it,” he said as he replaced the last screw on the back of the Philco.
“Let’s go in the house and see how the Indians are doing.”
He picked up the radio and ushered us out of the garage. Evan glanced at me, wondering what to do. Then we trudged after Evan’s father toward the house.
The remaining days of summer passed quickly. By Labor Day, the mid-day heat had abated so that the annual Methodist Church picnic was held in comfortable weather under sunny skies. Evan and I sat together at a picnic table covered in red-checkered gingham. We nearly finished our third hot dog and as many bottles of Hires Root Beer apiece when Evan said, “Let’s go over to my house and listen to the ballgame. Nobody’s goin’ to miss us ’round here.”
“Who’s pitchin’?” I asked.
“You know, Lemon,” Evan said with a look of disbelief.
“Oh, yeah. I just forgot, that’s all.”
I shoved the last of my hot dog into my mouth, nearly choking, and washed it down with what remained of my Hires.
“You’re supposed to at least chew it,” I heard a voice say.
I looked up to see Jewell standing a few feet away. She was wearing a white cotton dress with small, red roses. A red bow held back her golden hair. I had known Jewell all of my life, but I hadn’t seen her since school let out for summer. She looked different somehow, taller, more like…, well, more like a girl.
I found my voice, “What’s that you’re wearin’?”
Jewell put her hands on her hips and spun around.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” I said.
Evan stood up quickly. “Let’s go, Jack.”
As I got up from the table, Jewell asked, “Where are you going?”
“Over to Evan’s and listen to the game. We’re playin’ the Orioles and Bob Lemon’s pitchin’.”
I thought of inviting Jewell to come with us, but Evan must have read my mind and blurted out, “We’d ask you to come, but baseball ain’t for girls. You’d just get bored.”
“I like baseball,” Jewell said. “But I don’t want to go anyway.”
“Let’s go, Jack!”
As we walked away, Jewell called after us, “See you in school tomorrow, Jack.”
I turned to see Jewell smiling and thought that maybe going back to school wouldn’t be so bad after all.
However, the next day I found school to be as tedious as ever. Not that I worried all that much about school anyway, for the Indians were in first place ahead of the Yankees and closing in on the pennant.
At lunchtimes, Jewell sat on her favorite bench in the schoolyard with her girl friends eating egg salad or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The boys wolfed down the contents of tin lunch pails and small milk cartons before jumping up to play catch.
The girls, being careful not to get caught, intently watched the boys tossing their baseball back and forth. When I came near, the girls whispered to one another and giggled.
Girls are silly, I thought. But still, there was something about them. They were…well, I didn’t know what they were, but there was definitely something….
On Saturday, two weeks after school started, the Indians clinched the American League Pennant by beating the Detroit Tigers by a single run. Evan and I were ecstatic. We were lying on the floor in Evan’s front parlor listening to the old Philco when the last out was called. We leapt to our feet and jumped up and down.
“We won! We won!” we yelled in unison.
Evan’s father sat in his over-stuffed chair next to the radio laughing, obviously pleased at our exuberance. Evan’s mother hurried into the room drying her hands on a dish towel. She was a diminutive woman whose stature belied the authority commanded by her voice.
“What’s all the shouting about?” she demanded as she brushed back a stray strand of brown hair from blue eyes.
“The Indians won the pennant. We’re goin’ to the World Series.” Evan yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Sounds like all the Indians are in here.”
“They’re just excited,” Evan’s father reassured his wife. “They’ll settle down in a minute.”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” Evan’s mother said, shaking her head as she made an about-face and returned to the sanctum of her kitchen. “I’m sure they can hear you all over town.”
Many years later, I remembered that the Cleveland Indians won the pennant in 1954, but what remains vivid in my memory are the events at school the following Monday.
Evan and I scrambled to our assigned desks on opposite sides of the classroom just as the morning bell rang. Miss Applegate, our usually punctual teacher, was not yet in attendance. Miss Frances Applegate was a stern, though kindly woman, her short-cropped brown hair showing but a touch of gray.
After a moment, the door opened and the class fell silent. Miss Applegate entered with a new girl and ushered her to the front of the classroom.
“Class, this is Angelina DiMartini. Angelina is from San Francisco.”
I was mesmerized. The girl with long chestnut hair stood poised in a blue pleated skirt and white blouse. Her dark eyes glistened as she looked at the rows of freshly washed faces staring up at her.
Miss Applegate directed the new girl to an empty desk at the rear of the classroom. As Angelina carefully made her way between the rows of students, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was without a doubt the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
At morning recess, usually first out the door, I held back and followed the new girl at a safe distance wondering what I could possibly say to her. But in the hallway before I could muster up the courage to speak, Jewell invited Angelina to sit with her in the schoolyard.
“Where’s your glove?” Evan asked.
I realized I had forgotten my baseball glove and dashed back into the classroom to get it. In the schoolyard, I played catch with the other boys, but I missed a few easy throws and had to retrieve the ball when it rolled to where Angelina and Jewell sat. On my third missed catch, Jewell picked up the ball at her feet.
“You’re gonna hit us,” Jewell yelled as she threw the ball back, which I caught only in the nick of time before it hit my head. I was looking at Angelina who was returning my gaze. I opened my mouth about to speak but words did not come.
“Hurry up, Jack,” Evan called, “The bell’s goin’ to ring.”
I threw the ball to Evan just as the bell did ring, signaling the return to class. Evan sprinted up to me, and together we followed the girls back into the classroom.
At lunchtime, I sat with Evan and the other boys as usual. I opened my lunch pail but then quickly closed it, stood, and started across the schoolyard.
“Where’re you goin’?” Evan asked.
Intent on my mission, I didn’t answer. I was determined to talk to the new girl who had disrupted my world.
All morning, I had sat in class rehearsing what I was going to say. I was so distracted that I didn’t hear my name when Miss Applegate called on me.
“Jack,” Miss Applegate repeated loudly snapping me into the present.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Could you read the third paragraph for us?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stood, my book in hand. I peered at the page trying to find the passage.
“Willy jumped to…,” I began.
“The third paragraph on the next page if you please, Jack.”
I felt my face redden. I turned the page, but I was lost. Miss Applegate, realizing my confusion, told me to be seated.
“We’ll come back to you when you find your place,” she said. “Will you continue for us, Jewell?”
I was thoroughly flustered. However I soon regained my composure and returned to the immediate task at hand. I resolved that I would talk to Angelina no matter what, even if I choked on my own words and dropped dead from a heart attack, an outcome I felt was a definite possibility.
At lunchtime, as I marched across the schoolyard, I felt confidence building in my chest, the same confidence that I had at bat, determined that another pitch would not cross the plate unscathed.
I stood squarely in front of the girls, but I looked only at Angelina. I felt my throat tighten. My mind went blank, and everything I had carefully rehearsed evaporated. I only managed, “Hi, I’m Jack.”
The girls stared at me for a moment but said nothing. Angelina’s lips parted into a demure smile. “Hello,” she said, “I’m Angie.”
That afternoon, I ran home right after school, burst through our front door, dropped my baseball glove on the floor, and ran up the stairs to the bathroom. A few weeks before, I had bought a jar of Butch Wax in hopes of taming my unruly mane. I dipped my fingers into the oily pomade, took a gob, and rubbed it into my hair. I combed and brushed the congealing mess this way and that until I achieved some semblance of order with but a few rebellious strands refusing to be coerced into place. I regarded my reflection in the mirror. Why girls liked hair that looked so weird was beyond me, but that’s what the man on the radio promised.
I heard the front door open and close. I ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and ran into the kitchen just as my mother set a bag of groceries on the table.
“Hey, mom.”
“Hey, yourself.”
My mom was a strikingly beautiful woman. Long, blond hair cascaded to the middle of her back, and her eyes flashed a blazing blue when she was happy but turned violet when she was angered.
“How was school to…? Jack, what have you done to your hair?”
“Do you like it?”
“Well, I…,” my mother searched for words to hide her astonishment.
“You certainly look…older.”
I raised my chin striking a mock heroic pose, “You think so?”
“Definitely. But you might consider not using quite so much wax,” she said. “Get yourself some milk, and there are Oreos in the bag,” she added as she took off her coat and left the room, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
When my mother returned, I was sitting at the kitchen table. I had devoured half of the cookies and was washing down any remaining crumbs with a second glass of milk.
“I think I’ll go upstairs and wash my hair,” I said.
My mother smiled. Her blue eyes sparkled.
The next day, I didn’t play catch but rather sat talking with Angelina and the girls. This continued the following day and the day after. Soon only Angelina and I sat together at the far side of the schoolyard. My initial shyness had vanished. Angelina was so easy to talk to, not like other girls. She had but one flaw, which I discovered on a warm fall afternoon as we walked home from school.
“How can you be a Yankees fan,” I blurted out in disbelief at the heresy coming from Angelina.
“Simple,” Angelina said, “Joe DiMaggio’s my neighbor.”
“You live next door to Joe DiMaggio?”
“My mother and I lived down the block.”
“How come you moved here?”
“My mother died last winter, so I had to come live with my grandmother,” Angelina said, grief lingering in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not able to think of anything else.
We shuffled through the first fallen leaves of autumn beginning to cover the sidewalks beneath maples that lined the village streets. I maintained a respectful silence for a few minutes before asking, “Do you know Joe DiMaggio?”
“He came to see me when…. My mom and him were friends.”
“And Marilyn Monroe? Did she live there, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wait ’till I tell Evan.”
“Evan? Is he a fan of Joe DiMaggio?”
“Oh, no. He’s an Indians fan like everybody else, but his dad’s got a magazine that’s got a picture of….”
I stopped when I realized I shouldn’t divulge a secret, any secret, but especially not this secret to a girl, and especially not to this girl.
“You mean the picture of Marilyn Monroe naked?” Angelina asked.
I nodded. “You know about that?”
“Of course,” Angelina said with feigned sophistication.
“You seen it?” I asked.
“No, but I know all about it.” Then after a moment, “Is she pretty?”
“I ain’t seen it either,” I confessed, “but Evan’s seen it.”
As we shuffled through the red and gold leaves, Angelina asked, “Think Evan would show it to me?”
I felt my throat tighten and an uneasiness in my chest. “I don’t know….”
The following afternoon, Angelina and I didn’t walk home. Rather, Evan, Angelina, and I sprinted to Evan’s house to watch the first game of the World Series in New York between the Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants on Evan’s new Magnavox. We burst into Evan’s house through his back door and dashed through the kitchen to the parlor.
Once there, Evan quickly turned on the Schultz’ new television, which took a moment to warm up before the voice of announcer Jack Brickhouse filled the room soon followed by a flicker on the black and white screen.
Evan and I quickly plopped down on the carpet in front of the television. Angelina remained standing.
“Here, lay on the floor,” I said.
Angelina looked uncertainly at the carpet.
“It ain’t dirty,” Evan reassured her.
“Here,” I said as I scooted over making room between Evan and me.
Angelina knelt, carefully straightened her skirt, then lay between us, rested on her elbows, and looked up at the screen.
The score was tied at 2-2 until the top of the eighth inning when the Indians put men on first and second with no outs and Vic Wertz, the Indians’ slugger, came to the plate.
Evan and I were beside ourselves with anticipation.
“Now we’ll show ’em,” Evan said, pounding his fist on the carpet.
The three of us watched as Wertz stood poised at the plate in total concentration as the Giants’ reliever, Don Liddle, hurled a fastball that Wertz took high in the air, deep into center field. What happened next became baseball legend. Brickhouse described the action:
There’s a long drive way back in center field…way back, back! It is…. Oh, what a catch by Mays!…Willie Mays…just brought this crowd to its feet…with a catch…which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people. Boy!
For years afterward in movie newsreels and on television, I would see again and again the most famous catch in World Series history. The catch I failed to witness on that autumn afternoon while lying on the floor next to Angelina DiMartini.
As Wertz came to the plate, I glanced at Angelina, but she was not looking at the television. She was looking at me, our noses nearly touching. My mind went blank. I became lost in Angelina’s dark eyes. She leaned toward me and closed those eyes as our lips touched.
Eons passed before Angelina and I returned our attention once again to the television to see the runner on second advancing to third but failing to score on the play. The next two batters were retired leaving the score tied until the bottom of the tenth inning when Dusty Rhodes hit a three-run homer to give the Giants the victory.
The New York Giants went on to sweep the most successful team in American League history in four games. The Cleveland Indians had bettered their archenemies, the New York Yankees, only to be overwhelmed by yet another New York team.
By late Saturday, it was over, the Indians vanquished. My attention turned elsewhere. Visions of Angelina increasingly invaded my thoughts and remembering her simple kiss sent shivers down my spine.
Evan, Angelina, and I became inseparable, bonded by our shared agony in the Indians’ ignoble defeat. Even Angelina became caught up in passionate support of the Indians’ lost cause as the events of the World Series played out one by one in flickering shades of gray in Evan’s parlor.
Each day on our way home from school, our trio tramped through an ever increasing confusion of fallen leaves. By the middle of October, the weather chilled. The smell of burning leaves, raked into piles at the curb and set ablaze, filled the air. Evan and I had abandoned our baseballs and gloves in favor of a scuffed football that Evan carried tucked under his arm.
“Here,” Evan said as he tossed the football to me, “throw me a pass.”
Evan dashed up the street and turned his head to see me waving him to go farther. I reared back and threw the ball as hard as I could, but Evan never caught it. Instead, the ball was intercepted by a branch of a leaf-barren maple tree.
“Now what?” Evan asked, glaring at me.
“Throw your shoe and knock it loose,” I said.
“Throw your own. I ain’t getting’ my shoe caught up there, too.”
I conceded it was an ill-conceived idea as Mr. Schneider’s shiny new black Buick was parked under the limb. A thrown shoe would more than likely hit and dent the car. So, after a short debate, Evan and Angelina decided it was my duty to climb the tree to retrieve the trapped football as I was the one who had thrown it up there in the first place.
Evan laced his fingers together to form a stirrup and boosted me up to where I might catch hold of the lowest limb. Evan lifted me as high as he could, but the limb was just beyond my grasp.
“I can reach it,” Angelina said.
Evan eyed her warily, “You can’t climb a tree. You’re wearin’ a skirt.”
Angelina became indignant. “I’m taller than both of you, and I can climb out on that limb even in a skirt better than either of you.”
“Oh, yeah! Let’s see you do it,” Evan said.
“I will, but if you want me to get your football, you’ve got to do something for me.”
“Yeah, what?”
“I want to see the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one of Marilyn Monroe in your dad’s magazine.”
Evan shot an accusing look at me. Then he thought for a moment. “Okay, but if you don’t get my ball back, no deal.”
This time I made the laced-fingered stirrup and lifted Angelina up toward the first limb.
“You better not look up my skirt,” Angelina said in a tone that dared us not to do just that.
Angelina grabbed the tree branch, pulled herself up, and swung her leg over the limb. She carefully edged her way toward the stuck football. She stretched out along the limb to where she was just able to wiggle the football with her finger tips until it was free. The football fell and bounced off the hood of the Buick with a loud thud. We froze, not daring to breathe.
“Let’s get out of here,” Evan yelled as he scooped up his football.
“Hurry up, Angie,” I shouted.
Angelina scooted back down the limb as quickly as she dared and lowered herself to where I grabbed her around the knees and set her on the ground.
We ran down the street not stopping until we reached the safety of Evan’s front porch. After catching her breath, Angelina laughed, delighted at our escapade. Evan and I joined in, and soon all three of us were laughing nearly to the point of hysteria.
After our laughter finally subsided, Angelina turned to Evan. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
“My turn? For what?”
“You know, your promise.”
“Not now,” Evan said.
“Why not?
“It’s too late. My dad’ll be home soon.”
“When then?” Angelina demanded.
“Saturday.”
Angelina thought for a moment.
“Okay, Saturday,” she said nodding her consent as she started down the porch steps. At the bottom, she turned and added, “…or else.”
Evan and I glanced at one another before looking back to Angelina as she walked away in her blue skirt and white cotton panties with small, red hearts.
On Saturday, Evan and I were sitting at the kitchen table when we heard a knock at the rear door. Evan opened it, and Angelina stepped inside the warm kitchen. I had never seen Angelina, or any other girl for that matter, dressed the way she was now. She had on tight blue jeans rolled up into two-inch cuffs at the middle of her calves and a bright red sweater underneath a loden-green car coat. She wore her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“Ready?” Angelina asked.
“Hold your horses. My mom’s goin’ shopping in a couple minutes. I’ll show you then,” Evan said.
At that moment, Evan’s mother entered the kitchen. “Hello, Angelina.”
“Hello, Mrs. Schultz.”
“What are you going to show Angelina, Evan?”
A mask of uncertainty crossed Evan’s face before Angelina came to his rescue. “Evan promised to show me his baseball card collection.”
“He’s got the Indians complete…, almost,” I added.
“That’s nice. You children stay out of trouble while I run to the store.”
Evan’s mother left the kitchen by the door to the parlor. We waited in silence until we heard the front door close and the sound of high heels click across the porch, down the front stairs, and fade down the walkway.
“Let’s go,” Angelina said.
Evan, followed by Angelina then me, went out the back door and filed across his backyard. My heart was pounding, not so much from anticipation of seeing the photograph of Marilyn Monroe, but from being with Angelina when she saw it. But when we got to the garage door, a shiny new Master padlock on the rusted door latch denied us entrance. I felt relief, then disappointment.
Angelina stared at the padlock and then at Evan.
“We can get in through the window on the side,” Evan reassured her.
Evan led us around the side of the garage to a small window six feet above the ground.
“Here, boost me up,” Evan told me.
My heart once again beating rapidly, I laced my fingers and raised Evan to the window. Evan opened the window easily and crawled inside. Then Angelina stepped into my waiting hands, and I lifted her up as I had done at the tree where this misadventure began. She disappeared into the garage. Then Evan appeared at the window.
“Here, I’ll pull you up.”
I took hold of Evan’s outstretched hands. Evan pulled me up to the window sill to where I could get a grip and crawl through. The window was above the workbench, so it was an easy step down once inside.
I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. Then I jumped down to the floor as Evan pulled a wooden 7-Up box from under the workbench. Evan grabbed a stack of magazines from the box and leafed through several copies of Sports Illustrated and Popular Mechanics.
“It ain’t here,” he said.
“Are you sure? Look again,” Angelina demanded.
“It ain’t here, I told you.”
“Here, let me look.”
Angelina snatched the magazines from Evan’s hands and carefully went through them, placing each one in a neat pile as she discarded it.
My feelings were mixed. On one hand, I was relieved that the magazine with its provocative photograph had disappeared, but on the other, I had grown increasingly curious about female anatomy in recent weeks. But now, all I saw was disappointment register on Angelina’s face. I wondered why the photograph was so important to her.
“What do you want to do now?” Evan asked after sliding the box back under the workbench.
At that moment, I had a brilliant flash, “I know. Let’s go to the secret place.”
“Jack,” Evan protested. “We can’t go there.”
“What secret place?” Angelina asked. She turned to Evan, “You still owe me. Remember?”
And with that, Evan caved in with only mock reluctance. He really had wanted to show off his hidden treasure, but now sharing the secret place would have to do.
We left the garage the way we had come. I went first, but when Angelina followed, she jumped to the ground before I could help her. She stumbled and fell with her leg under her when she landed.
“Are you all right?”
Angelina did not answer me but quickly sprang to her feet. “You don’t have to worry about me,” Angelina said, brushing the dirt from her jeans, “Let’s go.”
“Evan. You kids out there?” We heard Evan’s mother call, “Come in the house. Your father told you to keep out of the garage.”
Evan looked at me and Angelina.
“Evan!”
“Coming.”
“But I want to see the secret place,” Angelina protested.
“I gotta go,” Evan said as he started for the house.
I was about to follow when Angelina demanded, “Jack, you take me.”
I turned to see Angelina standing resolutely, hands on her hips.
Angelina limped as we trudged through the dry, brown stalks of yet to be harvested corn in Miller’s field.
“Did you hurt your leg?”
Angelina seemed not to hear and continued on until we reached the hole in the fence at the edge of the field. We crawled through and climbed down the embankment to the path that followed the creek to the swimming hole. As we turned the last bend in the path, the pond appeared, placid in the autumn sun that now bathed the hollow in golden light.
We skirted the edge of the pond and sat together on the bank under the old willow. Angelina took off her coat, spread it on the grass, and lay on her back. She clasped her hands behind her head accentuating the shape of her breasts through her red sweater. I felt my pulse quicken as I lay down beside her. We gazed up through the trees into the cerulean sky without speaking for what seemed an eternity.
“I had polio,” Angelina said matter-of-factly. “I missed a year of school.”
I considered this revelation for a moment.
“Did it hurt?”
“I was in the hospital for a long time. I’m okay now,” Angelina said as she turned toward me and rested on her elbow. “Do you remember when we watched the World Series together?”
I nodded.
“Put your arms around me,” Angelina said as she scooted close to me.
Warm excitement welled through me as Angelina and I held one another. We kissed. I felt my erection, a sensation I had only recently began to experience even at the thought of Angelina. I hoped she wouldn’t notice.
Our breathing quickened. I put my hand under her sweater and felt her smooth skin. I slipped my hand under her bra, but suddenly Angelina rose to her knees, bent over, and kissed me for the last time. She then jumped to her feet and grabbed her coat. As I slowly got to my feet, I saw a faint smile cross Angelina’s lips.
“I have to go home,” she said.
As we trudged back through Miller’s field, we didn’t speak.
The next day, it rained. Evan and I spent the afternoon at his house, first at the kitchen table building a model airplane, until Evan’s mother chased us out, then on the floor of the parlor playing Monopoly.
Monday morning, Angelina didn’t come to school. Tuesday came and Angelina was again absent. I decided to go to see her on the way home.
As I walked up Angelina’s front stairs that afternoon, a chill breeze came up, swirling the dry leaves in the air. I pulled my collar up around my neck and knocked on her front door. No one answered, but I was insistent and continued to rap loudly until I heard a voice within.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
The door opened and an old woman stood guard behind it.
“Is Angelina home?” I asked.
“She’s not here,” the old woman said starting to close the door.
“Excuse me,” I insisted, “but I’m her friend, Jack.”
“I know who you are.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Home,” the old woman said and closed the door.
The End