Garret Raven & Judah Rye
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Wednesday had been a day for the high seas, bunches of green bananas in the hold, the sand and sun of the pyramids… And in the evening they had watched a brief clip, live, of a man walking a high-wire in a red circus costume at the Science Center with no net beneath him and thunderstorms branching in from the northeast.
Later that night, when OLeif and Collette were back at the apartment, Carrie IM’d to say that Blessing (their cousin) had developed a tumor. She would have surgery that coming Monday. It was not good news, especially with Judah (her brother) on the other side of the world, but the doctors believed it was not cancerous, which balanced the unpleasant surprise of the news.
Meanwhile, there were all sorts of fluff and nonsense going on as usual everywhere. And at the office, Judah Rye had just left to sing at a wedding in Chicago following Hebrew at the seminary. Poor man, Collette thought. He was often teased about his bachelor status at only twenty-six. After telling the youth about his coming absence while he would be in Chicago for the wedding, Joe teased him.
“So who’s the bride, eh?”
“It’s not my wedding,” he insisted.
He had to be so embarrassed. Collette figured most of the older women at church already had him paired off with a niece, great-niece, or a “dear, sweet young girl” somewhere out there. Collette shook her head and felt sorry for the poor boy.
On the other side of things, Judah had also been employed (much to his secret delight, Ivy and Collette were sure) to impersonate a gecko at Vacation Bible School upon returning from General Assembly in Chattanooga. Ivy and Collette thought this was quite hilarious. They also discussed the upcoming church picnic and how to delegate the food responsibilities. They suggested: vegetables, fruit, beans, and chips for sides.
“But nobody eats beans, you know,” Ivy was saying just as the phone rang. She picked it up. “Weirdos,” she said, as she spoke into the receiver. “Oops. Oh, hi, Sinai. No, not you. I was talking about someone else.”
She laughed.
Collette decided to ignore whatever was coming at her that weekend – too much for her to speak of. She was looking forward to the possibility of visiting the Ravens down in Paducah, Kentucky, within the coming weeks.
It had been over three years since she had seen her and Diana’s old pal – Nevermore Raven. This was his first name, but he actually went by his middle title – Garret. With a shock of fire-cracker red hair and blue eyes, his personality inevitably reminded Collette and Carrie-Bri of John, in “In Search of the Castaways”. It would be mighty good to laugh over the old times – Garret, Diana, and herself, maybe walk back in the fields together, the three of them. It had been so long since they were little children playing with each other at church and on Fridays. They were good old memories.
Meanwhile, Collette set about to vacuuming in preparation for the arrival of the “loan-lady” who would be visiting the following evening in order for OLeif and her to re-sign their lease. There was also fish to fry for dinner, a salad to make for OLeif, and then she would continue reading The Mysterious Island, her latest find at the library from Wednesday’s rainy evening.
OLeif soon walked in with a pair of new black shoes and a wedge of watermelon.
“Izzy was just in the kitchen slicing up a watermelon and said, ‘you want some?’”
Collette smiled at the thought of the red-head slicing up a watermelon. No doubt his eyes grew wide with the thought of finishing off the juicy treasure himself, if no one was watching. Good food was the pirate horde of the Silverspoon family.
Later, OLeif and Collette drove off to Outback for a piece of chocolate cake as the sunken gold hurried fast against the cliffs of thunderheads and lightening flashing in the southwest. The skies turned violet as OLeif sat on the porch, reading Jonathan Edwards and smoking his pipe.