8. BFFs, Pt. 2

Although I am no endocrinologist, I am certain there is a direct link between pubescent girls’ estrogen-producing ovaries and the area in the frontal lobe where laughter is stimulated. Often this laughter has nothing to do with anything humorous. Just as often this connection can lead to a critical lack of judgment.

Once Carol and I were laughing so hard on a trip from the first to the second floor of her house that we had to stop and sit down on the stairs. As we sprawled across the steps, her mother called up from the floor below, “What’s going on? You two sound like you’ve been smoking goofballs.” Of course, that sent us further into unrelenting laughter, tears streaming down our faces. To this day, I have no idea what a goofball is.

The Grovers lived across the street from us in a big, old house with a large side lot where Mr. Grover grew vegetables, various berries and some bing cherries. After retiring from the federal government, he sold his produce at a stand at the corner of Wisconsin and Western Avenues. He and his wife had also fostered ten children; some became permanent members of the family.

Walking from my house to Carol’s via David’s garage took us through the Grovers’ property, which had recently been sold and renovated. On July 27, 1967, Carol and I were wandering from my house to hers, through what had recently been the Grovers’ yard. I was wearing a dress I had made (along with teaching me how to paint and hang wallpaper, Mom taught me how to sew). It was a cute sleeveless shift in madras, which I had been told bled when wet. Mom said, When you wash this dress, don’t put it in the machine with other clothes. It will bleed. Rain had just begun to fall as we crossed into the backyard.

I started to scream that my madras was bleeding, and we both began to laugh uncontrollably. I was sure my entire dress would turn white as we stood in the rain laughing like fools. We looked up, and there on the deck stood a young girl who looked to be about our size…and possibly our age. A comrade in this skirmish with the world, and ourselves, known as adolescence. 

Lisa had moved to our street with her parents and her older sister Nadia from Wesley Heights in D.C. She took classes after school: music theory on Mondays, pottery on Tuesdays, piano lessons on Wednesdays, choir practice on Thursdays. She was forthright of speech, friendly, and she had a wry sense of humor for a 12 year old.

When Carol moved with her parents to Tunisia for a year, Lisa became my constant companion. At Christmas, she went to Michigan to see her grandparents and brought me back two ceramic ornaments she had made with her Granna Peggy: a Santa and a seahorse. Those ornaments hang on my Christmas tree today.

Lisa’s sister Nadia was very cool, and in the unspoken way tweens do, we studied her every move. On vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Nadia and her friend Avril came home after an evening on the boardwalk with a bikini they had swiped from Carlton’s on Rehoboth Avenue. 

We decided we would pull off a similar caper the next night. We went into a store near the boardwalk that was full of beach tchotchkes: cheap jewelry, hats, flip flops, and bamboo back scratchers. We walked around for a few minutes and, when we thought no one was looking, we each grabbed a ring off the counter. As we made our way to the door, the girl behind the counter yelled, Stop! I saw you take those rings!

Maybe I had seen too many episodes of the Little Rascals, but I knew when someone yells Stop, you do exactly the opposite. You run as if your life depends upon it, because the last thing you want is to spend the rest of that life in the slammer. Off I went toward the beach, turning onto the boardwalk which was filled with families walking leisurely with their Dairy Queen cones and cotton candy. I had just disappeared into the crowd when I heard the same voice yell, I’ve got this one; the other one’s up there.

At this point, I knew the jig was up. I couldn’t let Lisa be locked up without me. Besides, what could I do? Meet her parents at the appointed time and say, Lisa won’t be coming home tonight. She’s been arrested. I stopped and waited for the shopkeeper to catch up.

They took us back to the store and called the police. As the policeman tossed us in the back of his squad car, he pointed at his waist and said, If you were my kids, I’d take this belt to you. We were terrified. This had not been any part of the plan. It had seemed so fun when Nadia and Avril did it. We were just a couple of skinny daredevils being a little naughty.

Much to our relief, we did not get arrested. Lisa’s parents picked us up at the police station, but they waited until we were back at the house to give us a serious dressing down. I was put on the next bus to Washington. I wondered if they had come to the conclusion that having this big Irish Catholic family across the street was not such a good thing. I’ve never really known if they were getting rid of the miscreant or punishing us both by sending me home.

When I got home, I told my siblings straight away. I was sure I would need back up for this one. Then I told my mother. Well, my mother said, you’re going to have to tell your father. Wait, I said, couldn’t I just be quietly punished without telling him? He was an attorney with unwavering integrity…think Atticus Finch but with more children. He would throw the book at me: the U.S. Code…the Constitution…the Websters Dictionary, for God’s sake. 

No, she said, he’s in the living room reading the paper. Go tell him now. I tip-toed into the living room and cleared my throat. Dad, I said, Lisa and I stole a couple of rings at the beach, and we were caught. He looked at me over his reading glasses. How much did they cost? A dollar each, I said. Was it worth it? No. Then, I guess you won’t be doing that again. He shook his head and turned back to the newspaper.

__________________________

The photo is Lisa and me with a couple of monkeys in Gibraltar in 2015. Lisa was teaching English in Sevilla. It was a wonderful trip, except for the monkeys.

The inset is Lisa a year or two after we met.