________________________________________________________________________
Fearing the additional memories this place would bring, hesitating again, looking away, drawn again, compelled…
Marsha pushed the buggy across the Old Road and, remembering, stood in the exact place they had stood on that night.
The windows were boarded over. The lawn was overgrown with grass. Weeds choked the once white painted, now peeling gray rock that bordered the denuded flower beds. No longer whitewashed, a number of rails having fallen from their slots, a few sections leaning forward, a few backward, Marsha stood next to the split rail fence, where they had stood on that night, and…
“Oh, God!” Marsha Lipensky remembered.
Marsha Goldman Lipensky remembered that night as though it were now.
________________________________________________________________________ Retrospective: Lakeside Michigan: August 3, 1949
Walking on the soft shoulder of the Old Road, within the lulls of their conversation the only sounds they heard were those of the steady buzz of cicadas and their own gravely footsteps. Every few minutes headlights from an approaching car wavered in the distance casting long and short shadows as it traversed the dips in the road, the light becoming stronger and brighter until it fully lit the road before them for the seconds it took the car to pass.
“Here’s where I live.”
Stopping, they could see through the screened porch and open doorway. A little boy sat at the table eating. Reading a book, a woman was reclining on the wicker sofa.
Sounding strange, “That your mother?” Marsha asked quietly.
Catching a hint of sadness in her voice, “Yeah,” looking at her, “and the kid, that’s my brother Larry… Your mother, uh…” Not quite sure how to ask, “she’s okay, isn’t she? She’s not…”
“Oh, no!” Understanding his concern. “My mother’s okay. She’s just…” her voice trailing off.
Sensing she wanted to change the subject, “You got any brothers or sisters, besides, uh…?”
“Roger. No, only him, and…” she said softly, under her breath, as though speaking to herself, “I think he’s all there was ever supposed to be.”
The girl sounded so sad that, without thinking, as they turned from the cottage the boy took hold of her hand.
Having met slightly less than three hours earlier, other than the few seconds it took about an hour after they’d met over the Captain Kidd pinball machine, when Marsha and her girlfriend Shelly had momentarily taken the boys by their hands and led Mitchell and his friend Norman out of the Palladium, then over to the bowling alley where they’d met Marsha’s surely brother, this was the first time the two had really touched. And the feel of their hands warmed her as much as him and, although he seemingly held her hand, Marsha, also, imperceptibly—because he was not aware of it—held his hand.
As headlights approached from behind and their shadows became visible and lengthened, they would move further onto the soft shoulder till the car sped by, then angle back to the asphalt lip of the road.
Enjoying the warm touch of each other’s hand, neither spoke.
Approaching the stately Lakeside Hotel, by unspoken, mutual consent they stopped at the whitewashed split rail fence to look and to listen. Tiny, winking lights, looking like a million flickering fireflies had been woven through the limbs and around the trunks of the old oak trees that lined both sides of the long hotel driveway. Dance music, played by a live band on the screened hotel patio, wafted over the fairyland like grounds. The scent of pine from the towering trees mingled with the sweet odor of blooming lilac bushes.
Looking at her, “Marsha…” feeling as though his heart had missed a beat, Mitchell tentatively put his arm across her shoulders and, his breath catching in his throat, the words came without thought, “you’re so beautiful!”
Sincerely, innocently spoken, Mitchell’s words registering in her heart, moving closer into the hollow of his shoulder, their faces turned inward and the brushing, light touch of their lips generated a mental shock that passed from each to the other. Parting a moment, their lips touched again, warmly, devoid of passion, yet lovingly… and both felt the thrill of this first kiss as it transversed body and soul…
As though on cue, their eyes opened and in the semidarkness each looked wondrously at the flickering fireflies reflected within the dark pools of the eyes of the other.
Bewildered by the emotion that this, her first real kiss, had brought about, forcing her lips from his, “God, Mitchie,” catching her breath, “we just met! We don’t even know each other!”
Confused, “Yes,” positive she could hear his wildly thumping heart, “I guess it’s the music and lights and all,” he said, while all the while wanting, more than anything, to kiss her again. But unaware of the depth of her desire to be kissed again, hesitating, unsure of what to do, he reluctantly moved his arm from around her shoulders. Then, again taking her hand into his, they turned from the overwhelming beauty of the place and time and began to walk again.
Until…
“What school do you go to?” Thinking she was at least fourteen, but surely no older than fifteen. “You a freshie?”
“Uh, no,” she answered reluctantly, “I’m not a freshie.”
Hoping Marsha was a little younger than himself, “You’re not going into your second year, too, are you?”
“Well…” knowing she had to tell him, “Mitchie,” hoping it would not make a difference, “I’m still, uh, in grammar school.”
“Huh?” He looked at her. “Marcie, how old are you?”
Hesitating, “Uh, twelve. But,” she added hopefully, “I am going to be thirteen in just two months!”
Although Mitchell Lipensky would not be fifteen for another nineteen days, he considered himself as fifteen, and even if Marsha Goldman was only two months from her thirteenth birthday, that still made her only twelve years old.
As people grow older, the difference between their ages shrink; if one is fifty, two years, five years, or even ten years is not that great a difference. But the difference between fifteen and thirteen—almost fifteen, and almost thirteen—at least in Mitchell Lipensky’s mind was the difference between a man and a child.
Dropping her hand, “You’re only twelve years old?”
“No, I am not only twelve years old!” Marsha snapped back. “I am almost thirteen!”
“Yeah! And that still makes you twelve! Jesus! They sure grow girls big where you come from! What in the hell do they feed you?”
“Chopped liver and motzie!” She poked him in the chest. “The same stuff they feed you, you big jerk! Look,” she said angrily, “I live close by here and you don’t have to walk this baby home!”
“No, Marcie, it’s okay. I don’t mind walking the rest of the way.”
“Well I do and I don’t want you to!” Turning, she ran up the road.
Shelly and Norman well ahead, “Tell Norman I’ll wait for him here!” he called to the rapidly disappearing figure.
“Drop dead, you big jerk!”
But, the images seared into their hearts, though it took six years to find each other again…
Their love was born, and…
****
Lakeside, Michigan
April 28, 1958
“Mitchie!”
Marsha remembered.
“Oh, God, Mitchie!”
