“When do I get to be the queen?”
“When you’re ready. And when I’m done.”
“Ok.”
Then we held hands and bopped through our kingdom.
Fourth of July — Jay, New York
“Jimmy! Put that frog – where did you get that firecracker? John, why aren’t you watching your son?”
I wanted a sweater but I couldn’t wear one because Jane said these were dresses for summertime.
“Jane, Janie, Jane, Jane,” I whispered. She didn’t look down but she held my hand and led me to a table full of cookies and cakes and pies and popcorn and everything bigger than my eyes. I stared.
Jane piled a paper plate up until it caved from the weight of all the things I was not supposed to have. Clouds and clouds and clouds of frosting stared back at me. Sprinkles fell from the clouds onto my fingers. I looked around. And licked the evidence off my left hand.
“Jane, Janie, Jane, Jane.” She took the plate from me and one star-shaped striped cookie was lost in the lawn. It was ok because there were so. Many. More. Janie took my hand and led me to a stump, over behind the tent a little.
In my excitement to regain the plate, I forgot about my balloon. Sitting on the log like she told me to, I couldn’t reach the plate anyways. So I stared up at the darkening sky, watching the red balloon turn blue as it left my world.
Just before the my balloon went all the way to heaven, while the flicker of red still twirled in the blue, the first white blast of the night popped off.
I fell backwards off the log. I gasped. I coughed.
Before the tears could form in my eyes, Jane’s laugh caught me. And then she laid down on the grass beside me. With our feet up on the log, we watched my balloon vanish into the spidering smoke the blast had left behind. Everything was fine and I was happy there with Jane.