SHORT STORY 1

The village was buzzing louder than the hive of yellow jackets by the old traffic light on Croton Ave. The summer fair was always on the first weekend of June, and it was as if the pockets of the town that were ordinarily steeped in a kind of sleepy stupor were awakened. Drones prepared their storefronts for the sudden influx of clientele, the tables of handcrafted jewels and baked goods lined the Main Street; hexagonal hubs of creativity and commerce. The wooden planks of the stage in front of St. Mary’s gleamed warmly in the early morning summer with a honey golden hue, and the amplifiers hummed. There would be a parade, ‘Second Wind’s’ music would fill the air with Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, and mom would work the flower stall at St. Augustine’s.

My sister and I, two years apart and consequently two worlds apart, always left our adolescent squabbles in the nooks of 10 Pine Hill Road, and would, for the afternoon, be two best friends. We would flit from the bean bag throwing booth, to the horse shoe booth where the winner would get a clumsy gold fish, plastic-bagged and hungry. We would rummage through old antiques that smelled like moth-balls and old age, and then take a turn riding on an exercise bike someone was selling for $50.00.

Hot dogs and hamburgers would be had for lunch, sold by the man with a silver, waxed mustache. The impatients were going for $4.00 a flat. The ‘money tree’ would be raffled off at the end of the day; a point of fascination for my sister and I, for it really was a miniature tree with 100 one dollar bills attached to it and “we hope we win it!” And when we were fed and bored with the festivities around the parish, we two girls would find our Granny or our Daddy and be led thru the busy Main Street, and goad our guardians into purchasing two cotton candy’s and “oooh, that ring, I like it sooooo much!”

There were no clouds, sharp edges or feelings of apprehension. Mommy was selling marigolds a block away, Granny was eager to watch the senior citizen group march around the traffic circle between the girl scouts and the Croton Montessori School, and my sister and I were with our Dad; impatiently waiting to leave the bookstand. Our family’s jigsaw-puzzle disparity vanished and what was left, was a family that fit, apart but together, at the fair.