Anita’s House
Photo by Ron Lach
I wasn't allowed to go to Anita’s house after school. I couldn't tell her why, because I didn't understand myself. What was wrong with Anita's house?
My best friend at Beardsley Elementary School was Anita. During recess, we played in the outfield, where clover bloomed like a blanket of snow. We sat cross-legged, making chain necklaces and tiaras from a pile of clover flowers. Imagining ourselves as beautiful fairies with translucent wings, we danced with the honeybees until the bell rang.
There was never enough recess time to play.
After school, Anita and I walked home together when her mom didn’t pick her up. We’d cut across the big kid's playground to the mouth of the Beardsley underpass.
The underpass was a tunnel that ran beneath Airport Drive, a busy street next to Beardsley Elementary. Kids like me, who lived in the neighborhoods east of the school, had to use the tunnel to avoid getting hit by cars. The inside smelled like pee and garbage. Sometimes, if I stood in the middle of the tunnel and closed my eyes, I could feel the rumble of semi-trucks vibrating through my bones. Even though it was dark in the tunnel, I could still read the nasty words scribbled on the walls. My greatest fear, aside from lightning and flashbulbs, was leaving school late and finding myself stuck in the underpass with Big Barbara. If she decided to beat me up, no one would hear my screams.
Big Barbara was a sixth-grader. She and her friends hung out in the underpass before and after school, terrorizing younger kids like me for no reason. One morning, as I tried to squeeze between her and her friends with my bike, I accidentally clipped her arm with my handle bars.
"What'd ya do that for?" she erupted, her face an inch from mine, fist clenched. "No one messes with me and gets away with it."
I froze. I didn't know what to do except stare at her. If I was going to get clobbered, at least I'd see it coming.
"I'm going to beat you up after school," she roared. "I'll be waiting for you right here, in the underpass."
I showed up for the fight after school. I had no choice; the underpass was the only way home. My friends and I waited until the tunnel cleared, but Big Barbara never showed up. I felt relief and empowerment when my friends cheered, declaring I'd won the fight by default.
After that day, I never saw Big Barbara again. She moved.
"The last one out is a squealing pig," I shouted to my friends.
I held my breath and ran, dodging bikes and slowpokes with lunch boxes until I burst into the sunlight on the other side of Airport Drive. I was quick, but Anita was faster.
We skipped along Robert's Lane. We liked telling knock-knock jokes we already knew the answers to. We stepped on the cracks and didn't think about our mothers’ backs. We were too busy eating Cracker Jacks and planning birthdays to care. But, the closer we got to Anita's house, our skips slowed and our laughter turned to silence.
Anita lived behind the 11-C Supermarket on Robert's Lane in a neighborhood of pale, yellow houses. There were no chain-link fences like at Happy Acres, only Sycamores and sidewalks crisscrossing spans of grass. It was a place where a kid could run forever. Mothers sat in the shade, dragging on cigarettes and rocking their newborns. There were little girls jumping rope and boys with grass-stained knees playing with cars on the sidewalk. And there was a line of kids waiting for a turn on the Slip-n-Slide. Anita was lucky to live in such a beautiful place alive with so many people.
"Wanna come over?" Anita asked.
“I can't."
"How come?"
"Just can't."
I couldn't look Anita in the eye. I said goodbye and moped all the way home to Happy Acres.
One day, Anita came to school with a pixie haircut. She didn't have her beautiful long, blonde hair anymore and I barely recognized her. She looked skinny with a tiny pin head, but her eyes were the same giant blue saucers.
"What happened to you?” I asked.
"My mom got mad at my hair for being tangled and took me to the Beauty Palace for a pixie haircut." Anita wrapped her arms around her head and sighed. "I hate my hair."
I smiled. I lifted the back of my hair. Snuggled against my neck was a tangle the size of pink grapefruit. I knew it wouldn't be long before Anita and me had matching haircuts.
"Wanna come over today?" she asked.
The first time I asked permission to go to Anita's after school, Mom said, "No." The second time, she said, "Quit asking." The third time, I got a lecture.
"I don't have anything against Anita or her family," Mom said. "I'm sure they're very nice people. My concern is with where they live. Welfare housing is not a safe environment for little girls, especially when they're outside unsupervised." She explained that Anita's family lived in a low-income neighborhood, which meant they were poor and couldn't afford much. The government provided them a house, food stamps, and a giant block of cheese every month.
It bothered me that outside of school, Anita and I were different. I couldn't tell the difference.
"Are you sure you can't come over?"Anita asked. "I got an Easy-Bake Oven for my birthday."
Anita's Easy-Bake Oven changed everything.
Mom was at a PTA meeting. Brother had Cub Scouts, and Dad was never home until dark. No one would ever find out if I snuck over to Anita's house for an hour on my way home from school.
We ran all the way to Anita's house after school that day. We did stop once for a drink from a garden hose.
It was dark inside Anita’s house. Thick drapes blocked the afternoon sun. Her living room was sparsely decorated, with a gold and brown floral couch, a blue velvet recliner, a small television on a milk crate, and a coffee table piled with folded laundry. Around the corner was a dining room table with eight chairs. It was ten times bigger than my kitchen booth at home.
Anita had a pink bedroom. Her walls were painted a soft light pink, the lace curtains were pink, and her beautiful four-poster canopy bed was covered with a cozy pink chenille bedspread. I'd never seen so much pink in one room before.
My bedroom at home had brown, wood-paneled walls, and my bed was an army cot.
We baked a triple-layer cherry cake in Anita’s Easy-Bake Oven. It was lopsided and crispy on the edges, but we didn't mind. We stacked the layers and iced them with pink frosting. On top, we sprinkled cinnamon Red Hots.
"That's the prettiest little cake I have ever seen," her mom said. "I think it's even prettier than a Smith's Bakery cake."
We grinned with pride until our cheeks ached.
Our cake was delicious. We savored every bite and enjoyed sipping chocolate milk from little teacups.
When it was time to leave, Anita's mom gave me a big hug. She called me her "extra daughter" and said I was always welcome and could visit anytime, as long as it was okay with my mother.
Anita and I baked many cakes in her Easy-Bake Oven until school was out for the summer. Mom never found out.
There was nothing wrong with Anita’s house.
There was something wrong with mine.
