MERYL

Meryl had sat behind me in Mr. Anderson’s homeroom all three years of high school, and our junior year we’d chattered like “loros”—“parrots,” as our teacher Mr. Lorenzo called us—in Spanish class. In December of our senior year I wrote:

Meryl and I went tromping today. It was wet and gray in the winter hills above the bay cities; sunshine streamed through the clouds over the distant buildings while around us the weather couldn’t decide whether to be rainy or not. We talked about Britte swearing, Goldfinger, poison oak, and our unromantic lives She’s awfully funny. Her attitude is “Just wait, world! I’m gonna slay ‘em!”—meaning the boys.

At the house I met Mother and Father, younger sister Bess, and older sister Polly, who was busy making a robe for “her man.” I was slightly taken aback by her sheeny maroon fabric until I realized I was looking at the lining. I also met their chimpanzee, who promptly turned her back on me and started picking off fleas.

We listened to Mexican mariachi music while gobbling down baked green peppers stuffed with meat—and fried yams (every bite of which I swallowed with effort). Polly told me that she had had a retina infection and had been given a shot of cortisone above her left eye. (Ouch!) She said there was a v-shaped black patch through everything she saw. Father told a true story about a third grader who had written, “The human body has three main parts: a brainium, a borax, and bowels. And there are five bowels: a, e, i, o, and u.” Also, as we chomped away on some garlicky French bread and polluted the air, he talked about the garlic-eating weightlifter down at the Y who managed to clear out the gym after exhaling about five times.

They have a wonderful house, full of plants, musical instruments (Meryl plays the violin), and all sorts of odds and ends. On the shelf of the room at the bottom of the stairs were shells, stones, snakeskins, and animal bones (a mouse’s skull, yet). Also, they have a loom! Her mother was quick to tell me how clever Meryl is at making things. Ah, two of us! (How’s that for a swollen head?)

Anyway, they’re such a great family. I was my goofiest self right off the bat, they made me feel so at home. And Meryl herself is just so…so what?…so nice, I guess. Just that.

And, by the way, Polly had the most delightfully messy room! It really did my heart—and conscience—good to see it.