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The Pencil Borrowers Unlike most objects of childhood memory, the tree still stood as it
always had, a wide and tall projection of earth, dwarfing the surrounding
landscape; a home to endless winged and scampering creatures; the center
of space and time and existence of all Buck Valley. On countless occasions,
I balanced on the gnarled roots, leapt for the lowest of braches, ran
my hands along an ever-expanding trunk to discover new knobs and nooks
and crevices where a boy could lodge treasures and secrets to keep hidden
indefinitely from the eyes of the world; the tree would never tell,
and God was busy elsewhere. More true to task, and in keeping with the realities of an undusted
remembrance, the walk from the gate, up the hill and to the front door
of the Mills' home — where for eight years each Monday at 4:30,
I dutifully trudged to take piano lessons from the lady of the house
— were much smaller in proportion. The uneven paving stones could
be covered in a span of less than a minute as the hill lazily rolled,
hardly the mountain it had once been; and the house itself, though in
most every other way pristine in my recollection, down to the ivy, was
at least one tenth the size I had believed it twenty-odd years earlier.
I was scarcely fourteen the last time I made that journey, feeling emancipated,
feeling unburdened, feeling sick at heart. I loved her, the Mills' oldest daughter. The highlight and the most
excruciating torture of each lesson, more pleasing than a gold star,
more humiliating than a rebuke for unlearned pieces, the length and
breadth of all that was musical and meaningful in my world, summed up
by an auburn bob, freckled nose and the artificial scent of strawberries:
Natalie. We shared classes throughout our school career and, due to the proximity
of our names, I was blessed by her closeness, learning all there was
to know by the repetition of casual observance and the sheer desire
to absorb every stripe of her dresses and every strain of her voice.
She bit her nails over long division, hummed during vocabulary tests,
and shook her right leg nervously whenever called upon, though there
was no need; she always had the correct answer. If perfection could
be achieved at eight, twelve or fourteen, she had done so with overflowing
success. So secretly wrapped up was I in her sighs and sneezes and shoulders
slouched over her books, I failed to notice, or care, that her teeth
were crooked and she laughed like a duck fussing the water. By junior high we were casual acquaintances, pencil borrowers and nothing
more. When I saw her each Monday before or after my piano lesson, we
would exchange civilities, perhaps chat idly about a book report or
protest harmlessly over an excessive work load of math; but I could
never crack the bone and get to the marrow, the heart of the matter,
to the eternal flush upon my face whenever she was near. She must have
thought I was constantly in the sun, perpetually burnt but never tanned.
She could not know, could not possibly understand the raging, coursing
feelings running me at once hot and cold, making me light in the head,
wobbly in the knees, tongue-tied and more foolish than I should have
been. These were sensations I felt without cause or explanation, simply
the reaction of her presence, her being, the catalyst of unexplainable
emotion. The tree lay just within the Mills' property line, branches reaching
well up and over the fence, shading as much as half of Stipe Street,
spilling out toward the house, the roots spreading wide and peaking
up in all places, buckling the sidewalk; playing trespass into Mr. Reinhout's
yard, where they wreaked havoc with his latticed scuppernongs and goose
berries. I often loitered beneath its bows after lessons, listless and
bothered, wondering what had taken hold of me, imagining what she was
doing back up at the house: homework, television, setting the table
for supper. Or, perhaps, as anxious as myself, hidden behind a curtained
window, watching, building up nerve to walk down and join me, eventually
falling short of the task or appearing only when I had given up hope
and trailed home with dusk, defeated for another day.
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