Another Friday Night
Saturday, April 8, 2006
The day of Snickerdoodle and Penelope’s wedding, out in Colorado. Collette wondered how their tape had gone over with the family.
Meanwhile, “Mall Madness” as it had thus been dubbed, had not been quite as maddening as originally suspected. There gathered amongst the goths, preps, and tweens (Collette hated that word) of a Friday night’s collection in the food court were (in addition to the afore named): the Toasts, the Spinnings, the Giraffes, Joe, Curly, and Ben-Hur. Incidents were few. Wallace, who was not assigned to a group, but wandered from store to store, was asked out by two goth girls, most amusingly. And also oddly, instead of the usual pop hits playing over the mall’s sound system all night, there was instead a medley of Classical music, from the beginning of the evening until the end. And OLeif ran into Peach Fuzz who looked just the same.
The teams were simply split. Judah had Nacchianti, Plato, and Gaston, who finished third. Evangeline took Julia Poach and her four friends, finishing fourth, OLeif had Bob B, Pablo, and Goofy taking the grand first place prize, while Collette had Noel, Lilia, Sunrise, and Daisy who took second place. And waiting with Jimmy at the table was a great chocolate chip cookie reading in chocolate and white frosting: “Mall Madness Winners.” It was later subsequentially torn apart with plastic forks and gobbled. And while the groups huddled over other treats from the court, Collette sat herself at a table and read a chapter of grief in a book – a letter to a sister from an older brother, a letter written just before he was killed in action in France, 1916. And despite her chaotic location in the food court, she was surprised to find her eyes well up.
The remainder of the evening was spent in heavier discussion, OLeif, Collette, Bob B., and Molly following Joe, Wallace, Curly, and Rose in the car ahead. Ben-Hur had the ACT’s in the morning and could not stay, as did Rose, although she had to follow the group until they split. And so they ended up at Picasso’s Coffee House over smoothies and mochas while Wally and Rose played chess and there was general talk over things. And Joe laughed over Collette’s Sphinx nose as usual.
It was another one of those nights that she realized more so, how much the kids were growing up. Joe was almost a man. Wallace and Ben-Hur were not far behind. And then the sophomores – Augustus and Curly and Rose were not far behind. It pleased Collette to see them enjoying their time together. Sometimes she compared her high school years to theirs, but she felt as though she had grown up in quite another time and place, despite the fact of it only having been five years since.
And the blossoms were a’bloomin’ Saturday morning – full and pink and thick all over the trees.