Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.
Bittersweet
by Lynn Levy
Lynn Levy lives in Northern California with her husband, an overly familiar wild scrub jay called “Bubba,” and an enormous wisteria. She and the wisteria are in negotiations regarding ownership of the patio trellis.
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.
All in Good time
By Lynn Levy
“How do you work it?” Joe finally asked.
Agnes smiled. It was one of her rules. No cell phones in the house. Not no phones, but by the time these kids got handed over to her, less-is-more turned out to be a good starting place.
“What’s the phone number?” Agnes asked.
Joe shrugged, which was not a surprise. Kids didn’t memorize numbers anymore. The phone stored them.
“Alright,” Agnes said. “The first thing you have to do is memorize the phone number here. Get it down until you can say it by heart. It’s just 10 numbers. 304-555-0058. Say it back.”
“Three oh four,” Joe started and faltered. “Can I write it down, at least?” Joe asked.
Agnes shook her head, and repeated the number. This first test told her a lot about the child. The reward was to talk to a friend – an important act of connection. At that age, they craved their friends even if they couldn’t say why. She watched them overcome the small hurdle, to memorize her phone number and their friends’ – which of course Agnes had. She knew all the important numbers for the kids she took in. CPS was used to it by now, and her kids did well, and often asked to stay. Not always, but more than less, so they did as she asked and didn’t argue.
Some kids got angry at the task. You could tell a lot about someone by how they dealt with frustration. The bright kids generally had no trouble memorizing, but they might react with boredom or annoyance or curiosity, or they might be matter-of-fact about it. All of that told Agnes something.
Joe needed about 10 minutes to memorize her number, then he had the hang of it, of remembering the short bits instead of all 10 at once, and learning his friend Gabe’s number took only a moment. It was too soon for hugs, but Agnes patted the back of his hand.
She angled the heavy phone toward him and took the receiver off the hook. “Here,” she said.
Joe took it, his hand visibly dipping. He wasn’t expecting the weight.
He held it for a second, and Agnes tipped her chin at him. He put the receiver up to his ear, gingerly. “What’s that noise?” he asked.
“It’s called a dial tone. It lets you know the phone is ready to work.” Another thing lost with cell phones, that audible connection to the machinery of it all.
She dialed the first digit of Gabe’s number, then the second and third.
“Really?” Joe said.
“You do the rest,” Agnes prompted.
He finished the number, then looked a bit relieved at the familiar ringing tone.
“Hey,” he said when Gabe answered. He stood up, as if to go somewhere else, and then realized he was tethered. She watched the implications play across his face. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t speak freely with Agnes present.
“I’ll just be in the kitchen,” she said.
Being assigned to Agnes was like getting in a time machine, kids said. She had a bit of a reputation that way. Kids talked about her, but they didn’t really know what it meant until they got there.
Agnes didn’t hate technology, not really, but she felt it made people dependent. And people who were dependent had a harder time climbing out of the mire of their own problems. So, she made her kids memorize phone numbers, so they would learn to retain important information. She made them talk to their friends, not text, so they would learn to pay attention to voices and inflection. She taught them to read paper maps, and navigate for her when they wanted a ride. And she taught them to use the typewriter, so they would slow down and think about what they wanted to say.
Of course, eventually, they all left her, and rejoined the present, and the moment they did, they all went and got their own phones again, first thing, the thing they’d most longed for, most missed. But if they were with Agnes long enough, some of them, not all, but many, found it had changed. Found that it was easier, after all, to understand subtext in the tone of a friend’s voice than in their choice of emoji. Found that a drained battery was not a cause for panic. Found they felt more choice and control over when to attend to it, and when to ignore it.
“You got Agnes?” the older kids would say to the younger ones. “She’s cool, but you won’t feel the same about your phone after,” they’d say.
Of course, it wasn’t just the trip to the past, the Bakelite rotary phone and TV with 13 channels and manual typewriters that changed the kids. It was Agnes herself, and how she used her throwback world to help them reach themselves.
“You won’t feel the same about your phone,” some would say, sagely. But the ones who really got it said, “You won’t feel the same about yourself.”
Lynn Levy lives in Northern California with her husband, an overly familiar wild scrub jay called “Bubba,” and an enormous wisteria. She and the wisteria are in negotiations regarding ownership of the patio trellis.
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.
Chuckstable
By Lynn Levy
Dana cracked her gum and then smoothed it against the roof of her mouth. She pushed her tongue through, making that all-important thin membrane that would become the bubble, and Bobby watched, thinking that the gum made her tongue look as pink as the boa she was wearing. Which was saying a lot.
There was no explaining, really, why Dana was wearing a boa at all, but Bobby knew her better than to ask. Dana had on a boy’s tank top, cut-off jeans, and Goodwill Kiva sandals with one of the straps broken. She also had a scab on her left knee that grossed out the toughest kid in the neighborhood, and a thin white scar on her right arm from the time she’d fallen out of the big old oak on a dare that she could climb higher than the boys. The bone had stuck through, but Dana didn’t cry. After that she made her own rules, and nobody stopped her. If she wanted to wear a pink boa to catch snapping turtles, that’s what she did.
Dana blew the bubble and popped it, and used her tongue to pull the broken film back into her mouth.
Bobby pushed his old safari hat down over his forehead, hoping the shadow would hide his eyes. If Dana caught him staring, he was sure he’d shrivel up and die, though he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t even sure why he was staring, actually, it was just that over this last summer, somehow Dana had gotten really … interesting.
While he watched, she took a couple of quick lithe leaps across the flat stones, until she was in the middle of the creek, cool water riding over her feet, making the creek surface a different shape right there, two smooth glassy bumps that no longer looked like feet. Dana crouched and looked down into the water. She let her fingers dangle just below the surface, the current drawing little wakes around each one. She didn’t seem to notice the ends of the boa dipping into the creek, the feathers shrinking with wet.
Bobby jumped a little when she squealed. “It’s a big one!” she called. Then, annoyed, “Are you gonna come help me or what?”
Bobby ambled over to the creek bank as if he was just himself, instead of how he felt, like he was someone meeting Dana for the first time and shy because of it. He’d known Dana since their Mommas had let them play out in front of the trailers, in undershirts and no pants.
“What do you want with them snappers, anyway?” Bobby asked.
“I wanna put one in Duane’s outhouse,” she said. “On accounta what he said about Chuckstable.”
Chuckstable was Dana’s dog and the love of her life. He was also the ugliest thing God ever put together. What Duane had said was actually pretty funny, but didn’t bear repeating unless you liked the taste of soap.
“His Pa finds it, he’ll just kill it,” Bobby said. Dana looked up at him, squinting. The light caught her eyes, and the browns and greens flickered just like the creek bottom.
“Ya think?” Dana asked.
“Uh huh,” Bobby said.
Dana sighed, and leaned forward, reaching into the water to stroke the turtle’s shell once, carefully, from behind. Bobby noticed the way the knobs of her spine pushed against the tank top, and had the weird thought that she’d be safer in life if she had a shell too.
“You’re right,” she said, standing. The wet ends of the boa came out of the water and clung around her knees. “But it was fun to think about.”
Originally published in The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries, print version available for $6.99 for a limited time at Amazon.
Lynn Levy’s writing has also been published in The Write Spot: Possibilities and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year. All available in print ($15) and ereaders ($3.49) at Amazon. E-reader available with Kindle Unlimited.
All the Write Spot books are also available through your local bookseller.
Lynn Levy lives in Northern California with her husband, an endless parade of wild birds, and one dour skunk who passes by nightly. She and the skunk have an understanding.