by Osborne, Jon
“Think we could let her hold a S-P-A-R-K-L-E-R when it gets all the way dark out?” he asked. “She’s been bugging me about it for weeks now.”
Sara Whitestone slid her sunglasses down the bridge of her slender nose and raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow in her husband’s direction. “Yeah, right, James. You’re the one who’s been bugging me about it for weeks now and you know it.”
Her husband grinned at her. He looked absolutely ridiculous in his Kiss the Chef apron, which was par for the course when it came to him. James Whitestone was easily the world’s biggest dork, but then again that was precisely what Sara loved so much about him.
“C’mon, honey,” he whined. “Whaddya say? It’ll be a lot of fun. Don’t pretend it won’t.”
Sara let out a soft sigh of resignation, knowing she’d lost the argument already. Dana was the apple of her daddy’s eye, and he never denied her anything that wasn’t unsafe for her. Probably the result of his growing up as the youngest of five sons of a strict Presbyterian minister, a stern man who most likely would have been happy if playtime had been classified as the Eighth Deadly Sin. “Fine, you big goofball.” Sara finally relented. “But you’re the one taking her to the emergency room when her hair catches fire.”
Her husband’s lopsided grin exploded into a full-blown smile as he easily covered the fifteen feet between the grill and the lawn chair where she was sitting in three long, graceful strides. He leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “That anything like when my mom told me to not come running to her when I broke my leg?”
Sara laughed and punched him on one tree-trunk thigh. “Damn straight it is. Moms always know what we’re talking about. It’s hard-wired into our psychology.”
James groaned theatrically as he straightened back up, as though the strain of leaning down to kiss his wife had been enough throw his back out of alignment.
Sara Whitestone was a remarkably small woman; a trait that Dana would inherit as she herself grew into womanhood. Standing a shade under five feet tall, Sara tipped the scales at just below a hundred pounds, though those she went up against in court as a litigating attorney for the law firm of Smith, Frey and Bogner never seemed to mention anything about her size. Her diminutive stature simply didn’t register with them when she was in front of a jury, more often than not whipping their tails and looking for all the world exactly like what she was: an intellectual giant with a brilliant legal mind. Whenever anyone would ask her if it were nice always being the smartest person in the room, she’d smile politely and reply, “Well, no. Actually, it’s hell.”
Sara pouted and punched her husband on the leg again, harder this time. “Hey, be nice to me, you oversized gorilla. Be nice to me or no dessert for you tonight.”
James smiled and dropped down to his knees in front of her. His weight dented the soft grass as he wrapped his strong arms around her slender body and leaned forward to press his face into her breasts, which were braless and straining hard against a tattered Abba-concert T-shirt, her small nipples making tiny little diamond points against the thin fabric. “Just exactly what kind of dessert are we talking about here, Mrs. Whitestone?” he breathed into her chest.
Sara laughed and pushed his face away. “Nip it, lover boy. Nip it right in the bud. There’s a time and place for everything, and this is certainly neither the time nor the place for this little conversation. If you’re a good boy, though, maybe we’ll revisit this subject later on tonight when our little angel is in bed sleeping. Play your cards right and anything’s possible, I suppose.”
James rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. Favoring his wife with a comically lecherous wink, he returned to the grill by way of the sandbox, stopping just long enough to ask Dana what heinous and unforgivable crime her Holly Hobby doll had committed to warrant the extreme punishment of being buried up to her neck in sand. Sara smiled at them as she watched them talk before turning her attention back to the legal brief she’d brought home from work.
Fifteen minutes later James announced that the food was ready and that Dana needed to go into the house to wash before they could eat.
“What do I have to?” Dana asked, turning up her enormous blue eyes to meet his.
James furrowed his eyebrows, turning his handsome face into a mask of mock confusion. “Well, you have to because your hands are all dirty from playing in the sandbox, silly goose.”
Dana stood up with a dramatic sigh. Tiny granules of sand cascaded down from her Barbie T-shirt as she wiped her hands across the butt of her previously clean white shorts and held them up for her father to inspect. “There, all clean now. See, Daddy?”
James threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was a deep, joyful sound. “Sorry, kiddo. Not good enough.”
He paused and grinned down at his daughter. “Now, I could be all wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure it’s just about time for this plane to take off.”
With that, he ran over and swept up her small body into his strong arms, swinging her out wildly to his side in a horizontal position five feet above the ground. Dana’s eyes lit up brighter than the runway lights over at Hopkins airport as he held her suspended in the air. They’d played this game many times before and it had always been one of her all-time favorites.
Winking at Sara again, James began humming loudly to imitate the rumbling of a plane’s engines. The sound came from deep within his chest and Dana could feel the vibrations as they tickled her body. “The pilots are ready for take-off in the cockpit!” James boomed. “Are the passengers ready?”
“Ready!” Dana giggled. “All the passengers are ready for take-off, Daddy!”
Engines rumbling joyfully, the impromptu summertime flight taxied quickly down the runway of the backyard and into the house, where it banked sharply to the right in the foyer before finally touching down at the kitchen sink to complete its vital hand-washing mission with a fresh bar of Ivory soap.
When father and daughter had returned and they were all seated around the wooden picnic table covered by a red-and-white-checkered plastic tablecloth in the middle of their backyard, the young family began eating and fell into an easy conversation centering on Dana’s trio of imaginary friends: Lula, Pano and Mr. Sunday.
“And what is Mr Sunday up to on this fine Fourth of July?” Sara asked, dabbing with a paper napkin at a smear of mustard that had found its way onto her daughter’s left cheek.
“He’s working today. No fireworks for him. And, boy, is he ever sad about that.”
“That’s too bad.” James empathized. “Seems pretty darn unfair that he has to work when everybody else is out there having a good time. What line of work is he in, anyway, sweetheart?”
“He’s a filthy prostitute,” Dana mumbled through a mouthful of half-chewed hot dog.
A shocked look flashed across Sara’s delicately pretty face. “What did you say?”
“I said Mr. Sunday’s a filthy prostitute and that he’s gotta work today,” Dana repeated nonchalantly, her attention now squarely focused on the tiny army ant that was marching its way steadily across the table and toward her plate.
James arched an inquisitive eyebrow at his wife before turning back to his daughter. “Where on earth did you learn a word like that, honey?”
“From that movie you were watching last night, Daddy. You know, the one with all the filthy prostitutes in it. Did you forget about it already?”
Sara shot her husband a look that could have frozen water. “That’s it, James. That is it. No more late-night television for you until this little girl’s been in bed and sawing logs for at least an hour. You ever hear the saying about little pitchers having big ears? Well, there you go. There’s your proof right there, buster.”
“But, Mom!” Dana whined.
“But, Mom!” James echoed in the same tone.
Sara held up a hand to silence them. “Don’t But, Mom me, you two. That’s final. I mean it, James. Only PBS until she’s in bed and lost in dream world, you h
ear me? The only words she needs to be learning are the ones they teach her on Sesame Street and The Electric Company.”
Turning back to Dana with a frown, she added, “And I don’t ever want to hear that word out of your mouth again, little lady. It’s a bad word and if I ever hear it again you’re getting the soap. You didn’t like it very much the last time, remember?”
Dana rolled her eyes and took a long drink of her Kool-Aid before smacking her red-stained lips once. “Fine, Mommy. I heard you the first time, you know.”
Sara raised her eyebrows and pulled back her head on her shoulders in surprise. It took everything she had to hold back the laugh she felt coming on. In some ways her daughter seemed so advanced for her young age that she often had to remind herself that Dana wasn’t even five years old yet. “I only said it once, Little Miss Smarty-Pants.”
“I know you did, and that’s the same time I heard you say it.”
“Hard argue with that logic,” James chimed in helpfully.
Sara shot him another look. “You stay out of this, James. Stay out of it or you can consider the dessert menu off-limits to you tonight, if you get my drift.”
James turned back to his daughter with a grin and held up his large hands, shrugging his broad shoulders in good-natured defeat. “Hard to argue with that logic, too. Sorry, kiddo, but Mom’s definitely got the trump card on this one. Daddy’s not the smartest guy in the whole world but he sure as hell knows when he’s been beat. Only PBS on that television from now on.”
By the time they’d finished eating, cleared the table and brought the leftovers inside to the kitchen, the sun had set fully and the moonless sky above had sufficiently darkened for the Whitestone family festivities to begin at last. Off in the distance they could hear the booming of the fireworks downtown as they streaked deep into the night to the accompaniment of the Cleveland Orchestra.
With an air of ceremony that made both Sara and Dana giggle, James switched off the back porch light and lit a sparkler from a box of ten with a cheap plastic lighter before solemnly handing it over to his daughter. Taking his wife’s hand in his own, they watched Dana gleefully run through the yard waving it around in figure-eight patterns. Little sparks of fire jumped off the stick in all directions, illuminating both a small circle of the night and the unadulterated joy on their only child’s smiling face.
“I’m a fairy princess!” Dana squealed with delight. “I’m a fairy princess and this here’s my magic wand!”
Sara smiled and slipped an arm around her husband’s waist, gently rubbing the small of his back. “You know what?” she said softly. “This is as good as it gets. I really think it’s moments like this we’ve worked so hard for all these years.”
A single tear formed silently in the corner of her right eye, wavered there for a moment as though unsure what to do next, then spilled out slowly onto her smooth cheek.
“You know what?” James answered, pulling his wife closer and gently kissing the tear away. “I think you’re absolutely right.”
Sara Whitestone’s slender shoulders started to shake as she began to cry harder then, once again asking herself how she could continue keeping such a huge secret from this man who so obviously loved her more than he loved life itself. But James Whitestone just held his wife tighter and kissed her again.
Even softer this time.
CHAPTER 11
In her oxygen-starved mind, Dana is four years old again.
It is the Fourth of July and she and her parents have just come back into the house after having enjoyed a wonderfully exciting holiday picnic in their backyard.
Still all wound up from being allowed to play Fairy Princess with a magic-wand sparkler; there is another hour of frantic play before the first signs of sleep begin to creep into the corners of her enormous blue eyes.
She finally curls up in her father’s lap as he sits on the living-room couch watching the evening news on their cabinet-style television. As usual, her mother is at the kitchen table reviewing a large pile of legal briefs that she has brought home from work, periodically jotting down notes on the yellow legal pad at her side.
As Dan Rather signs off for the night, Dana stretches her arms high over her head and lets out a loud yawn.
***
“Getting sleepy, honey bear?” James Whitestone asked, lightly scratching his daughter’s back over her Barbie T-shirt.
Dana nodded and yawned again. “Mmhmm. I think I’m ready for bed now, Daddy.”
Hearing this declaration, Sara stood up, crossed into the living room and plucked Dana from her father’s lap. “Well, then let’s go brush your teeth and get you ready for bed, sleepyhead. Then I’ll tuck you in and read you a bedtime story. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good, ’cept why do I gotta brush my teeth again? I brushed them this morning, remember? They’re still pretty clean.”
Sara laughed and rapidly kissed the soft hollow of her daughter’s neck. “You have to brush them again, silly, so that the Cavity Creeps don’t invade Toothopolis while you’re sleeping tonight.”
Dana squirmed in her mother’s arms. “OK, OK, already! Just stop that – you’re tickling me, Mommy!”
When they’d finally finished up in the bathroom, they got Dana dressed in her pajamas and into bed. Pulling back the Big Bird covers, Sara tucked them in gently around her daughter’s small body. “What shall we read tonight, princess?” she asked.
Dana screwed up her face in concentration. Important decision here. “Hmmm. How about we just do the story of Dana and the Three Friends again instead of reading from a book?”
Sara smiled. It was their own personal version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and over time and with Dana’s considered input, the story changed slightly with each telling.
Switching off the overhead light left only the soft yellow glow of Dana’s bedside lamp. Clearing her throat dramatically, Sara began this night’s version of the tale.
“Once upon a time there lived a delightful group of three friends, and their names were Mrs. Lula, Mr. Sunday and their precious baby – the wonderfully cute and adorable little Pano. They all lived together in a cozy little cottage in the forest and they enjoyed their peaceful lives there very much.”
“Nope,” Dana corrected. “That’s not right. They live in a gingerbread house in the forest now, Mommy. They moved last week.”
Sara laughed and tickled her daughter’s belly. “OK, smarty-pants, they moved last week. I think I can live with that. Anyway, the Three Friends all lived together in a cozy gingerbread house in the forest and they enjoyed their peaceful lives there very much.”
The story progressed from there with the Three Friends deciding to take a walk in the forest in order to give their chocolate-cake breakfasts time to cool down. When they’d finally made it back home, Dana suggested they get James to do the voices.
“He does them best,” she said.
When James had been summoned and had taken a seat next to his wife on the bed, Sara continued the story, leading her husband into his lines.
“The Three Friends had just returned home,” she prompted. “Pano could hardly wait to eat!”
“What’s this?” James asked in his Mr. Sunday voice. “Somebody has been nibbling on my cake!” Switching to his feminine Mrs. Lula voice, he said, “And somebody has been nibbling on my cake, too!” Finally, Pano’s high-pitched and deeply wounded voice. “And somebody’s been nibbling on my cake, too, and they’ve eaten it all up!”
“Uh-oh,” the real Dana cut in. “Somebody’s in a shitload of trouble.”
Sara slumped her shoulders in defeat, much too tired to correct her daughter’s language again. She glanced over at her husband and gave him a long, meaningful look before continuing. “Looking around the room, Mr. Sunday noticed the chairs,” she said.
“Somebody has been sitting in my chair,” James growled as Mr. Sunday. “And somebody has been sitting in my chair as well!” he offered in his Mrs Lula voice.
&
nbsp; “But it was Pano who was the most upset, the tears coming from his eyes.”
“Somebody has been sitting in my chair, too, and they broke it all to pieces!” James thundered. ‘This is complete and total bullshit!”
“James Allen Whitestone!” Sara cried out. “It’s no wonder she talks like a trucker!”
James tried to choke out an apology but couldn’t do it through the waves of laughter racking his body. After several long moments he finally took a deep breath and wiped at his misty eyes. “Let me try that again,” he said. “Somebody has been sitting in my chair and they broke it all to pieces.”
Sara paused and looked at him expectantly. She knew he wouldn’t be able to resist.
“They broke my favorite chair, the inconsiderate little bastards,” James muttered under his breath.
Dana giggled happily, but Sara just ignored him. “Don’t listen to him, Dana. Don’t listen to a single thing he says. I don’t know why they ever let him out of the Bad Boys’ Home in the first place. I’m calling them first thing in the morning so they can come pick him up.”
She stared at her husband for several measured beats before turning back to her daughter. “Now, where was I before we were so rudely interrupted?”
“The Three Friends had just found out their chairs were all busted up,” Dana answered helpfully.
“Oh, yes. That’s right. Thank you, honey. The Three Friends did not know what they would find next, so they dashed upstairs lickety-split. Mr. Sunday was the first to look into the bedroom.”
Sara paused and looked over at her husband, who obediently took his place back in the story.
“Somebody has been sleeping my bed!” James bellowed as Mr. Sunday. Switching to his Mrs Lula voice, he added, “And somebody has been sleeping in my bed, too!”
“Pano rubbed his eyes in disbelief.”
“And somebody has been sleeping my bed, and there she is now!” James cried out.
Dana’s big blue eyes went saucer-wide as she peeked out from beneath the covers.