Goldie
Maxine woke up to sunshine positively radiating through her sheer white frilly
curtains. She loved her bedroom so
much, especially since Mom had bought her beautiful white and black bookcase
bed and matching dresser. Her pink
radio, acquired after much begging and groveling, assured that she had the hit
parade at her almost teenage
fingertips twenty four hours a day. The
exciting news of this morning was the temperature would actually reach seventy
five today, a tropical day in Newfoundland. She had a plan, one which depended solely on
how receptive her mother was with it.
Meanwhile
downstairs in the kitchen her mother was making toutins and the aroma was
wafting up the stairs. Fried bread dough
slathered with plenty of butter, life couldn’t get much better! Her stomach continued to grumble, a reminder
that she hadn’t eaten supper the night before.
Mom had not been impressed with her detailed description of the menu and
bed had come rather early, before the streetlights came on actually.
She
tossed the bedspread over her semi made bed and rushed to the bathroom to gave
herself ‘a cats lick and a promise’, as her grandmother always said. After the day she envisioned, a bath would
most certainly be in order and one a day was more than enough in her
opinion. She didn’t want to have too
many baths! Rummaging in her closet
she found her red, white and blue beach bag.
She found a large towel, one of her mothers’ old ones, put on her old
blue swim suit and finally headed down for breakfast.
Her
mother looked up from her newspaper.
“Goldie Maxine, what are you doing in your swim suit and sunglasses at
seven o’clock in the morning?”
“I am going out to get a suntan in the middle
of the backyard.” She inwardly cringed
as she was well aware that their
backyard was not an ideal place to sunbathe.
“All
you’re going to get out there is fly bites and germs, there’s not enough grass
to put a tea towel on!”
Hummm
she thought, this is not going well, but
on the other hand, she isn’t saying no outright. Maybe if I don’t say anything else, she’ll
reconsider. I don’t want to seem ‘bumptious’ as my teacher always
says. Concentrating on her cereal
bowl she sent positive thoughts to her mother.
After
what seemed like hours her mother continued
“Ok, you can go out in back yard, but stay off that roof like a good girl,
that ladder is too high for you to be climbing.”
A
little later, her mother lowered her and her heavy beach bag from the bathroom
window as the yard didn’t have a door.
One wasn’t necessary really, as the yard was only used for hanging out
clothes on a sunny day. If her father
wanted to paint or tar the roof, he walked around to the next street and
entered through the gate. Such a waste of time she thought. Finding the flattest part of the sloping
plot, furthest away from the ditch, she spread out her towel. She then slathered herself with baby oil
laced with iodine, lay back and closed one eye; the other one watched her
mothers’ progress until she disappeared downstairs.
Finally, sure that the coast was clear, she
picked up her towel, baby oil concoction and gargantuan bottle of Kool-Aid,
shoved them in her bag and skulked towards the ladder. Her deadly fear of heights was overshadowed
by how she imagined she would turn heads after a few hours spent lying on the
hot roof baking in the sun.
Goldie
Maxine’s last memory was of the beautiful cloud that looked exactly like a
roaring lion. Waking up moments later,
or so it seemed, she had trouble turning over.
Her body was stuck to the roof with molasses! No wasn’t molasses, it was soft tar and it was in her hair, on
her swim suit and all over the front of her body including one side of her
face. Now I’m in for it she thought. “No,
Mom, I wasn’t on the roof.” Right! Maybe I can walk around to the front of the
house, sneak in and get a bath before she sees me. Climbing gingerly down the ladder so that it wouldn’t squeak, across the yard and
slowly lifting her short legs over the fence, she plunged to the ground. After wiping off her knees, she crept down Goodview Street,
over Livingstone Street
and up Lime Street,
hugging the buildings. Good!
She thought the street is empty of
nosey parker neighbors! What a relief!
The
silence was broken by “Oh my goodness!
Look at you!” It seemed she
hadn’t quite made it, her friend Jeannie ‘of the loud voice’ stood with her
hands on her hips, mouth open wide enough to swallow a cod, while trying not to
break into inappropriate hysterical laughter.
“You’re pitch black on the front side my dear and red as a beet on the
back! Your mother is going to have your
guts for garters!
With
an academy award worthy devil may care look she wordlessly waltzed away up the
gallery stairs. She then tiptoed down
the long hall and yelled downstairs to her mother “You were right Mom it’s
filthy out there in that yard. I’m going
to get a bath.”
Locking
the bathroom door, she took off her blue and black splattered swim suit and
looked in the mirror. Jeannie is usually master of the
exaggeration but not this time, she thought. I look just like a lobster, a tar covered lobster. After filling the tub she covered herself in
Sunlight soap and started scrubbing at the sticky mess. It wasn’t coming off;
the strong soap wasn’t even moving it!
Plus, it was now all over the bath and everything else she’d touched.
With
her heart beating out of her chest, she wrapped herself in her towel and
trudged down the stairs to face the music.
As soon as her mother came into view, Goldie Maxine started to wail “I
disobeyed you and went up on the roof Mom, I’m sorry. It won’t come off even though I scrubbed and
scrubbed. Am I going to grow old still
covered with tar?”
“Come
here you dirty little thing” her mother said, wiping her tears and giving
Goldie Maxine a hug “we’ll get if off.”
She knew full well that removing the tar from sunburned skin would be
punishment enough. Covering her daughters
body with Good Luck margarine and then working it through her long curly hair
she smiled to herself. She was
remembering another time years ago, when another little girl also had a run in
with a similar sticky substance.
