Dreaming Red Candles

It was not until her fourteenth birthday she thought about money and boys. This is the simple story that signals the storm. The storm bleeds money, or thinks of money but gets no money for a long, long time. It, also, examines the beginnings of love at fourteen--a sultry rainbow after the storm.

Money hadn't really been a problem in Shirly's life. Her mother cooked the meals. If she needed clothing, it was provided. Tickets to Saturday matinees were given to her without charge. She even had a black cocker spaniel named Cinders. Cinders was as black as an inkdot, quite adorable.

At thirteen there was only that dog to care for. Nothing in this world could compare. She loved to give her a good bone to chew on. Doggie treats were given often. And she had family ties. The aunts, the uncles, the nieces, the nephews, they were memories of previous birthday parties. She laid odds on the fact that thirteen was a bad number for her. And for the most part no year was ever worse to speak out about and realize what a dark and murky Cloud Of Witness hung over her. The nightmare of escapes! It was a year as regrettable as giving away a paid copy of Black Beauty.

Would boys and money be the cause for Shirly's inevitable happiness? She had somehow went into her own little world that year, but if it rained, it should stop. Things were just certain to go better by now, now that that year had finally ended and she was facing her fourteenth birthday.

A birthday party? It was to begin at seven in the evening. She hadn't minded when her mother told her that it would probably end before eleven. She hadn't minded either that her father took a stern look at children having their own parties. After all, he had the face of one of caution, disliking fast-freddies, jimmy-jerking, twisting out, funky chicken or any other wild dancing. After all, it was l964. And Shirly hadn't even minded that Sam never found out what she had told Emily Rose, her best friend. Emily Rose had finished her round of selling Girl Scout cookies and decided to plant her bike on Shirly's backyard lawn. Shirly's mother was cooking up some bacon and eggs and hash browns, as usual. Shirly finally asked her mother if she could bicycle down to the old tunnel at the crossroads to a large interpass highway to catch minnows at the park down there. Her father read the business morning newspaper section at the table quickly, warning her not to get muddy, that it was a thing she should promise not to do.

Shirly and Emily Rose bicycled down to the highway tunnel. They parked their bikes in a dirt lot and started into the park's woods.

They traveled a short distance. To where the minnows swam about. The creekbank was soft.

"When I was a very little girl, Emily . . . " Shirly said, "This is where music used to fill the air! There was something I adored about it. The songs even had the thrilling sound of street parades. It was a lovely park, then. Up above was the sky on a sunshiny afternoon. I dreamed once about the silk blue Navy ties that the street parade Navy band men had on.". Like Shirly, since that summer, Emily Rose's life was based up the steps of strict principles as she counted the summer evenings like sand dollars webbing the time for her.

"We are goin'ta catch minnows. Huh."

"Are you tired, Emily?


"No, not really. However, I didn't get up on the right side of bed this morning. Watch out! I get cranky!"

The two of them were so very very young. Yet Emily Rose, with every word she spoke, expressed powerful sentiment. As a young girl, Shirly felt she had guts too.

"I'll bet there's a million minnows in that creek, wouldn't you think?

"Yeah, maybe. Hey. What do you think about your birthday?" Emily looked concerned as if she might meet up with a frog who turned into a prince,instead of minnows. "What's it mean to you? Fourteen? Are you supposed to be sort of grown-up now, aren't you?"

"Really?" said Shirly. "I thought I was supposed to be watching you teach me how to catch a lot of minnows."

"Yes. That's true. It's our best game. I'll bet we won't be catching them much longer, though. All I really want to do this summer is sit up in the tree cabin watching out for Sam to come out with his beach towel and maybe his fins and goggles."

"Oh, Emily, that's stupid. The floor in that thing isn't strong enough. I get scared up there."

Emily guessed that she was stalling. She wasn't afraid of the floor at all. It was Sam she was frightened of. Sam had turned sixteen two months ago and he was blind as a rooster at night. Silly to think he'd notice a good friend of hers.

They got out their nets and opened their pint-sized milk cartons from inside the paper bags. Swimming wildly about the small stream in that murky muddy water in a shallow creek, the minnows were limitless. The two girls continued to drag their home-made nets in there for a good hour. The nets were plastic bags. The minnows were put in the milk cartons once caught.

"You ready to count these things?"

"No."

"Well, I'm going to."

They sat back on the large stones dirtying their pants a bit. Then they began to cautiously pour the minnows back into their nets counting each of them like it was part of Johnny Appleseed's way. You were told not to eat minnows. They multiplied too fast to take home. Mother's didn't especially like minnows.

"How many do you have Emily?"

"Twenty."

"Oh gee."

"No. Nineteen."

"Well, I only have seventeen. You put me to the test and I guess I lost."

"I did. Didn't"

"Figures. That you'd win this game." Shirly said.

"Maybe, sometime, someplace, you'll win too, Shirly."

"Will I want to keep on catching minnows since I'm going to be fourteen now? Even though it's stupid? It appears to be stupid, anyway. Dumb fish. That's all they are."

Emily nodded in approval. She decided to dump her fish out into the creek with one swat of her net. She didn't say anything. For a moment. Then she told Shirly that it would be a day she would never forget for the rest of her life. You must know that when and how to watch for dumb fish and with who.

"You know, you told me last week that you might trade in your bicycle." said Emily.

"That's right. What's wrong with that? Should I hold onto it?"

Emily snickered a little at Shirly, as if the two of them were members of a school of mermaids.
"Bicycles are like men." Emily told her, "You fit right into them. They come in all kinds of classy sizes and shapes and you should never get tired of them. I think I just might watch out for Sam. He says the darnest things. He'd probably even tell you to keep your bicycle, if you wanted to keep it that badly."

"Sam? How did men ever get into this conversation? I'm a smaaaaaart cookie, and we love each other don't we? You and I? I mean, we care a whole whole lot for each other."

"Yes, Shirly. Of course. But just think about what I said."

Both of the girls were clever about twisting their nets so that their catchs vanished.


"You know what Sam did with the five dollars that he got from his grandfather the other day?"

"No, what?"

"He bought a beach towel with it."

"He swims?"

"Yeah!"

"Where?"

"He swims in the river. At the ocean too."

"How nice and sexy."

"So you see, Shirly? Don't go out and find strangers. The nicest boys are right under our noses, you know?"

Emily Rose had played with her net all this while she was chatting. There were the lot of minnows left in the net that she hadn't concentrated on. She hadn't poured them out yet.

"Oh, go ahead and pour out those stupid minnows. I want to go back and shinney up the tree cabin like you suggested. You've got a pair of binoculars up there am I right?"


"Gee. Maybe it would be good if we spied on Sam, after all."

"Good idea."

"First, we'll ride our bicycles out to the ice cream stand and get a cone."

They were about to depart when Shirly asked Emily Rose to wait a minute. She put her milk carton on its side on top of a large flat stone. She took another rock and with one grand splat smashed the carton flat. Then she got her net and threw it up in the air as high as she could until it caught in one of the long, green branchs of a familar tree.

"I don't think I'll be catching minnows again. It's really not a grown-up thing to do."

Emily Rose agreed. You just caught them to prove that if all things go well on the day of a fourteenth birthday such as this one, the memory of having done the thing you might not ever do again is enough to stay with you.

They bicycled to the ice cream stand and then back to the neighborhood sometime in the afternoon. When they got to the familiar street where Shirly's residence was, she shouted to Emily Rose, "Go and put your bicycle underneath the tree cabin. If Sam is out there somewhere we'll notice him." Shirly reached over to Emily Rose and squeezed her so tightly that Emily thought she would turn purple-sick and vomit.



"Sam!"

"Oh, hi girls."

Emily Rose was about to whisper something coy to him when Sam screamed up at them, "Are you in that treecabin, honey?"

"Gee, Sam." Emily Rose was teasing him. "I don't think Shirly knows who you are, Sam. Not yet anyway."

Shirly bursted out with, "Are you sus-sus-supposed to be a swimmer from the deep lagoon or something?"

"Oh, yeah." Sam's young independent eyes were gleaming.

"Do you suppose that Sam is out there to give us a warning?"

Shirly and Emily Rose waited for Sam to speak. He was carrying a rolled beach towel. He had his tennis shoes around his neck.

"I''m going to the Lake with Kieran and his friends but here now. For your fourteenth birthday..." He had some small loud fireworks. He got a match out from his pocket and lit one. "Emily told me about your new age today, we've been planning this for a whole week."

Sam was just the sort of person to like. His lanky lean look, for having been a squirming boy at twelve and now a sixteen year old boy-wonder, had girls falling all over him. He sported blonde hair and yet his feet were too big. You could notice that with his sandals on. He had distinct qualities that made him stand out from the rest of his buddies.

Shirly couldn't believe he was there, actually talking to her. She didn't think he knew she existed. She idolized him to a point and would have done just about anything for him. Sam, on the other hand, was "at home" with dating. Yet he was trustworthy. Maybe he was, simply, a myth in those days.

Suddenly Sam blurted out. "Would you like a date?"

Shirly admired his muscular body as she gazed down from the treecabin her father and brother had made for her little sister. "Are you serious?" She asked in disbelief.

"Dead serious." he hollered back up into the tree cabin as if it were a Cinderella's palace.

Shirly thought of how she might be able to become a part of his inner circle. A coveted place. At a moments notice, her mother was on her side and she wondered, just then, how she would feel with a real genuine boyfriend at her heels. Probable answer? Overjoyed. "Hey, my party is at eight. Why not stop over?"

Sam looked up at her with a sheepish grin, "I'm a square ole' boy,but I'll think about stopping in, okay?"

Just then, Shirly uttered, If you don't come this year, then do come next year."

"Okay, girls. I'm headed for the Lake. Take care." Then finally, dangling his carkeys at the hole of the car's lock, he looked back and yelled, "Sam will be there. Don't you worry now."

Somehow Shirly didn't worry. Emily Rose was quietly amazed Shirly had closed her eyes and set her sight on a wishing star. Emily Rose bet that next year Shirly would be all brown and tan in the middle of summer--either from out on the lawn or in a tanning salon. That's when Sam might ask more of her. Money was worth saving now. Minnows were out. Sam was in. His friends wondered what he'd do next or where he'd go or what he'd sleep over--maybe, he'd become a world traveler.

Thus. That was the day of a young girl's birthday.



* * *

This is an era that I yearn to return to. I loved the birthday parties I had as a young person and love to think of my good friends then as nicely as I did in this story.