Oh to be here.
Winter vacation and time to sleep in and not even think of school. The boys lots of fun but biology class not so much. One of those frogs to cut up making one want to be home feeling sick.
Plenty of nap time and four movie dates. Each with a different boy but no matter. No, two from the school but in different crowds. One met at an away football game in September and the other from the church. A need to keep their names straight but not too hard. Note taped to the inside of one’s bracelet and a glance before the lights dim.
Mother downtown having lunch with her photographer friend and no modeling jobs until March. Less spending money but more time to do what one wants instead of what one must. Well, sort of. Downtown all day being fun and another magazine ad to show around and make the other girls jealous. But stuck half the morning in a dress held together in the back with clothespins and not as glamorous as they all think though of course one lets them think whatever they want.
But the cook downstairs making lunch and no one to say no. The boxes of old pictures under Mother’s bed all dumped out on the bedspread in a heap. Most saying who but not always. But fun.
One at the very bottom. A girl with her hoop not looking thrilled and her mother with the dog and the father too. Some sort of kin, they must be. So much black but what they all wore then. Like a funeral every day, it must have been.
Bright colors now but the rest the same. Having to pose for longer than one wants dressed up in fancy clothes. . . .who knows what happened to them later. . . no way to know . . . hopefully, it was all fun . . . better not to know if it didn’t turn out all sunshine . . .
This is for my mother, Helen B. Guest Perry, who went to high school in suburban New York City though not Chappaqua. A model she was for various magazines with a zillion dates and rides home from the big city at 4 AM.
