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Colored lights began to break through the evening mist as we pulled up to Mike’s house in Woodland Park. Set on a little rise above the street, the front lawn was filled with homemade Christmas decorations cut from sheet aluminum and painted with glossy enamel: a couple of four-foot high children in choir robes, holding hymnals, eyes raised in song; several candles, static flames on top lit by inner bulbs; and branches cut from a fir tree at the base of the drive, across the front door’s lintel. G, Mike, and I all got out before J pulled into the garage, which barely had room for the compact Lancer and Buick station wagon.
Inside, G pulled some covered ceramic bowls from the, as she called it, icebox, saying “I really don’t like to cook.” Turning towards me, she asked, “Janie, would you like to help me here? Mike and J can get the table ready in the other room.”
There didn’t seem much to do as she put as few things in the oven for re-heating, and started a pan of water on the stove, to defrost a bag of vegetables. I looked around, wondering how I could seem busy. While I pulled glasses from a shelf by the sink, intending to fill them with ice, she wondered, “I suppose you’ve got all your applications finished and mailed in by now?”
“Well, actually, I’ve really just started. I’m going to get them done over the holiday, I think.”
“Smith, Radcliffe, Barnard, and what else?”
“Yes, and Wellesley, too.”
“What do they ask on the applications? I remember Sheila and Mike both had to write an essay about something personal. And they needed letters, recommendations from teachers, and someone outside of school, a personal friend. Oh, and of course, all the school grades and test scores.”
My mind froze and raced at the same time. I didn’t know if I could count Mrs. … Dr., I guess I should say… Harrison as a “personal acquaintance.” To me, she was mostly Mike’s mother; we hadn’t really talked more than two or three times. I knew, though, that she loved her son, and would do anything for him. A letter of recommendation for his girlfriend seemed to flow naturally from that. So I stammered my way through, “Yes. I’ve been thinking…It’s OK if you don’t want to, but, uh, could you…would you think about writing a letter for me? For Radcliffe?”
She pulled an oven mitt from her right hand, paused a beat, then said, “I wondered if you could use some help there, but I didn’t want to ask. Of course, I will, Janie, of course I will.” Another pause, punctuated by a warm smile. “I want to make sure I put just the right things in there. I know I won’t have to talk about all your fabulous accomplishments at school, your grades and test scores and activities. Your teachers and Miss M. are already doing that. I do think I know you a bit, so I can truthfully say what a good, warm, and caring girl you are. But I would like to know more about your plans, your aspirations – why you would benefit from and contribute to that university environment. Mike says you are interested in psychology, in children?”
This was still just a feeling I had, more than a plan. “Well, that’s what I’m thinking now, but I don’t really know that much about it. I just know children are special, they need the right direction at the start of life. And I like thinking about how people act, what makes them do what they do, how they fit in with other people, that sort of thing. That isn’t really something you get in high school, and I haven’t really done any looking or reading…”
“I want to give you a couple of books to look at, Janie. Wait here. Oh, and can you watch that pot, so it doesn’t boil over?”
She came back with a foot-high pile of books. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to give them all to you,” she laughed. She placed one next to the glasses I’d been filling with ice. “Here, you should start with this. He was at Yale, Gesell. He wrote books about the developmental stages of maturation. This one” – it was titled Child Development – “is a good summary, but if you want more from him, I’ve got a lot more.” I could see titles such as The Child From Five to Ten and Youth: The Years from Ten to Sixteen. “And of course, you should read Piaget.” She placed another book on top of the Gesell, The Origin of Intelligence in the Child. “I think if you just read these two, you’ll get a good idea of how to start thinking about all this. Or even if that’s what you want to do. But whatever you do, I know you be great at it. You are so lucky, you have the ability to do anything you want. Just be sure you make good choices.”
[?It was like] Mike’s mother saw something in me I didn’t even know was there. “Oh, this is great, I can’t wait to read them.Thank you.” Then I remembered the recommendation. “I’ll make sure you get the form for Radcliffe. Mike’s coming over tomorrow, he can bring it back, I guess.”
After dinner, we watched a Christmas special with Perry Como for an hour. Upstairs, I got to use Sheila’s room for the night. It was larger than Mike’s and had an old four-poster bed with antique furniture to match. “This is all from my parent’s room at the farm where I grew up,” G explained as she found fluffed the pillows and fussed with the sheets. “I hope you’ll be comfortable. The bathroom’s right around the corner. There’s only one, so we have to take turns.” Mike’s room was across the small central hall at the top of the stairs; his parents slept in a larger room next to his.
I put my bag down on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, and walked across the hall to sit with Mike at his desk. “Your mom said she’d write me a recommendation for Radcliffe. I don’t know, I feel a little funny about that. She doesn’t really know me. Does she really count as a “personal or family friend’?”
“She’s always asking me about you.”
“What do you say? What does she say?”
“Oh, I don’t tell her much, just what you do at school, where you live, your parents and sister, how you like the New Yorker, movies, plays. Nothing about us.”
“I know. Mothers love to pry, don’t they?”
We chatted a bit more that Christmas night. He opened up the window over the garage, the one with a little flat space on the roof outside, where he would sit sometimes, just to be alone. We both crawled over the bookcase built into the wall below, squeezing into the nook which was not really big enough for one. Knees drawn up, cuddling close, he wrapped his arms around me while I squeezed him tight around his waist. He buried his face in my hair. I was glad I’d washed it that morning.
Even our combined body heat wasn’t enough to keep us out there more than five minutes. We struggled back inside, and I returned to Sheila’s room. Once in my floor length caftan-style flannel nightgown – white with small red flowers – I crawled into the double four-poster bed. I felt myself drifting away, open to the state of mind Mike called a “nobrieism”, what you have when you are still awake, just before falling asleep, and your mind seems to be starting to dream. I sensed him lying next to me, stroking the soft flannel over my back. I jerked fully awake, and found myself alone.
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