Summer Whites

At least once a summer, I get it into my head I will spend the day outside on a blanket, reading and tanning. I get a lot of reading accomplished, anyway.

My sun was hot today. And of course, I get tricked by it.
I drag out my green blanket, my notebooks, my coffee and a good summer novel. Desperate for a tan, I apply baby oil, sighing, knowing the futility in it. My skin remains white all year round.
I watch the thick trails of baby oil move slowly down my legs, leaving behind it's shine. If my skin was golden, this might be kind of sexy. I pout.
I spread out on my blanket feeling the heat sinking it rays deep, deep, deeper into my skin.
My neighbors behind me are playing Tom Jones. I find myself immersed in the abyss of his voice, suggestive and sexual. It seems to roll with the waves of heat touching my skin. I am lucky a cool breeze periodically washes across my warm body.
At least I get to pretend I am not wasting away my afternoon.
I watch as bees stir around me, tricked, thinking my legs are pollen. They spring away quickly at the stickiness.

Four Years Old

I remember standing in the front yard, marveled with my legs. I had pulled my yellow dress to the top of my thighs, slowly twisting my leg.
I looked up to see the old neighbor lady walking by with her cane on the sidewalk in front of me, cool in her summer whites. Her hair, the whitest shade of all.
I pushed a flip-flopped foot far forward. "My legs are so very long, dontcha think?" I asked her.
"Oh my, yes," she agreed. "They look very strong."
I smiled and said thank you watching as she slowly make her way up her driveway.

My little brother and I used to sit on the front porch of her pale green house. She would invite us over for bread and butter. It was always a welcomed treat, sitting quietly, eating around the pad of butter she would place in the middle of the white slice. How satisfying was the last bite of thick sweetness, clogging the mouth. It would long after leave it's after-taste and coating on our baby teeth.

I had never been in her house, until one day she was just not there anymore.
There was an Open House, endless amounts of people trailing in and out in the summer heat.
My brother and I finally worked up enough nerve to climb her front porch steps, ignoring our Mother's words to stay away.
The rooms were filled with flowered wall paper and hardwood floors. There was nothing else. I could not even detect a hint of smell.
We traveled upstairs.
Nothing was different there, either. Room after room of flowers.
Except the last bedroom.
It is a stark white and the happiest room of all.