Dances & Tornadoes
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Tuesday. Cleaning. Dishes. The usual.
Mercy was getting married in four days. No longer would she be Mercy Pretzel. She would be Mrs. Caligula Cuarters. Then the circle of the Pretzel family would finally be complete.
Puck was better understanding the art of slurping his toes.
“Seriously, do you really find that necessary?” Collette asked him.
Puck was too concentrated to answer.
The rest of the day he smiled as big as his smile would smile and fussed when he thought it was about time to fuss for food or to be carried around or to sit outside and watch the squirrels and the trees.
Collette helped him stand on the porch with his bare feet. Puck was very proud for doing this (almost) on his own. He gurgled through his fingers as usual and giggled in the wind.
Collette and Puck took their autumn walks under winds and wild skies. Acorn caps made a better crunch than the actual acorn. Puck pointed out the good ones on the pavement and Collette crunched them. The weather was going to be bad, no matter how marvelous the wind was, whipping through the pines and oaks in the later afternoon. Tornadoes had come again to eastern Missouri.
That evening, after getting her express deposit for Israel into the post office about three minutes late for the mail truck, Collette returned home before the rain began to fall. On the way, an ambulance and firetruck blazed past her onto the highway and a truck connected to a boat nearly plowed right into her as it careened in front of her onto the entrance ramp. Collette pulled into the driveway under coming storms. She was glad to be home.
OLeif was soon off himself to dinner at Applebee’s where Jimmy was meeting Augustus and Mollie.
“He said something… talking to them about this dance for the high schoolers?” OLeif said.
“What?”
“Yeah, something like that. Prom or something maybe? I don’t know.”
It wasn’t often that a church, even if it was Presbyterian, endorsed such a thing. Collette could just see Rose’s face begin to wrinkle.
“Stupid proms,” she had been known to say.
Collette spent her night thinking about the Ark and eating potato chips.
OLeif returned later. He had volunteered to be a chaperone at the valentine-youth-group-dance-etcetera in February. Collette and Rose had a few laughs over it that evening via IM.
“I’ll be working,” said Rose, her usual response when asked about fun weekend activities.