Red Rope

I'm reading Kim Campbell's book Less is More where she talks about using more short texts in teaching than using novels. I finished her chapters on essays and memoirs yesterday. Her discussion of a teaching strategy using candy sparked a memory (isn't that an awesome thing?). This morning after my sister and brother-in-law left, I just had to jot the event down. I've been eying the Twizzlers packages at the grocery story lately, so I'm not totally surprised that this memory popped into my brain.

Red Rope

Walking down a dirt path, sunrays skipping across the forest floor and mosquitoes buzzing around my dark head, I finally reach the lodge. The screen door screeches a greeting, alerting Sally that a customer has arrived. Inside, the lodge is an oasis of 1970s wilderness décor—dark stained paneling on every wall, rough hewn columns supporting the next floor, and a picture window facing the lake as well as framing poppy red hummingbird feeders.

Sally’s on the phone, so I climb a bar stool, using the foot rest of the counter as leverage to pull my six-year-old pudge onto the faux leather seat. Once atop the ottoman like disk, I push off from the counter and brace my feet against the stool’s legs to circle dizzyingly until Sally can give me her full attention, or until I plop off the stool from vertigo. The click of the plastic receiver against the metal apparatus of the wall-mount clues me to stop spinning and wait patiently for Sally to wrap the mile-long curled cord over the top of the phone.

“And what may I do for you today?” Sally smiles at me, asking a question to which she already knows the answer, but a smile fills my face anyway.

“A rope please.”

Behind me, I hear the tell-tale screech of the door before a familiar voice adds, “Me, too, Sally.”

Stacy ascends her stool like an Olympic gymnast. Her blonde hair falling straight down her back and pink swimsuit complete the illusion.

“Alright, ladies. You know the drill. Do you have permission from your mothers? You don’t want to go getting me into trouble now do ya?” Sally’s northern Minnesota accent belies the Norwegian settlers of the region, though she could pass more easily through the ranks of Ojibwa Sioux native to the area.

“Yes, ma’am,” Stacy says, sliding her eyes at me, a give-away that she’s lying. My shoulders hunch as I flinch back a space, thinking of the plastic-coated metal fly swatter her mother keeps over their rounded refrigerator, her arbiter of punishment.

Sally doesn’t look convinced but doesn’t argue, after all it’s only twenty-five cents. She swings her gaze to me. “And you missy? Do you have permission from Sylvia?”

I pause, considering letting Stacy have my treat to avoid her future punishment, but the memory of strawberry sugar outweighs my friendship. “Yes, ma’am.” Sally again doesn’t look convinced but shrugs and reaches for two pieces of rope. “I suppose these’re to be added to your tab.”

In our haste to escape with our treat, we barely nod, clutching the plastic encased candy and jumping from our perches. The screen door slaps against the door jamb behind us as we skip down the cement steps, heading for the dock. Once there, we spend a half minute playacting jumping rope with our treat, but greed soon overtakes us. The crinkle of thin plastic opening to release strawberry scented sugar rushes through my senses, reviving memories of past treats. My memory sinks like teeth into the chewy roundness edged with a sinuous rill. Lying on the deck, the splintery wood against our backs and bright sun warming our bodies, Stacy and I share stories—some exaggerated, others true—all the time knowing that vacation would soon end, we’d depart for the same city but not see each other until next year. Both of us know the sweet bliss of summertime friendship and the harsh lash of separation. The empty wrappers, long snakes of cellophane, lay between us that day, shiny reminders of life’s fleeting joy.