at Brigid’s house

Rod’s mind woke up to the here and now as the sun broke through the clouds, getting in his eyes, and now he turned the corner and approached Brigid’s house!

It was in a row of connected houses, with tiny front yards.  Brigid’s was the tan one, number 207, the mailbox saying “O’Dierna”, with stars and stripes on it which looked like they had been painted by one of Brigid’s little brothers or sisters, or maybe all of them.  Rod slowed down, thinking of his pretext, where he’d say he was going if he “accidentally” ran into Brigid.  The road was cracked here .  .  . he had to be careful where he steered his bike.

Yes!

The long red hair, smoothed back by the white hand, freckled face, the jeans, sitting on the stoop, talking on her cell phone --

“Oh hi Brigid -- ” -- oops --

The bike tripped up on one of the cracks and Rod fell to his left.  His body turned over and hit the cracked sidewalk, and in breaking his fall his hand got scraped .  .  .

He felt like an absolute idiot, lying face up at the blue sky, blinking to get his senses back, and now Brigid’s face hovered over him, once again smoothing her hair back, her green eyes looking with concern.  “You okay, Rod?”

He took her hand and she pulled him up gently, though with her strength it was not a heavy task for her.  He half-remembered a dream where he had slipped and hit his head just before a parade and she looked down at him, in her majorette uniform, and helped him up.  .  .

When he staggered to his feet she said, “That was a spill.  Your hand’s a-bleedin’.  Come on in, we’ll clean it and patch it.”

Rod lurched over to get his bike off the road and steer it into the O’Dierna front lawn.  Then he followed Brigid up the little concrete path and up the stoop.  He noticed her clothes -- more casual than what she wore to school.  Sweatshirt, jeans with holes in them, cuffed up to mid-thigh.  And she was barefoot, which was a little strange. 

The O’Dierna living room was tiny, like the house, but well-kept.  Rod got sat on the couch while Brigid padded into the kitchen just behind them.  He heard her get out her cell phone.  “Oh Dad, that was my friend Rod from school, he was passin’ on his bike and fell.  No, he’s all right, just a scraped hand.  See you soon.  No, Mom’s not back yet.”

Some fumbling around the kitchen and Brigid was back.  “Damn, I thought the bandaids were in the cupboard.  Come to the bathroom, they’ve got to be there.”

In a moment Rod was standing helplessly in the O’Dierna bathroom while Brigid, forbidding him to move, rinsed his hand and applied the stinging antiseptic spray.  Brigid was the responsible type, that’s for sure.  He knew she was the oldest of five kids, and the others were pretty young.  Oldest kids tend to be responsible.  Rod was the middle of three, and his older sister, Sabrina, was like that.  His younger sister Myeka was a different story.

Rod looked down at Brigid’s bare feet next to his sneakers, then her cuffed jeans.  He glanced quickly for signs of breast mounds under her sweatshirt, then at her white hand holding his -- she was holding his hand! -- and then glanced around the bathroom, hopefully not in a snoopy way.  Toothbrushes -- which one was hers? -- toothpaste, shampoo.  An enema bottle, yuck.  Someone in the house must be sick.  Combs, brushes, and suntan oil, quite out of season.  A drying bra hanging from the shower curtain.  Hers or her mother’s?  He tried to make out the size but couldn’t.

His hand meticulously bandaged, Brigid now said, “Why don’t you hang out a bit?  I’ll get you a soda.”

They were sitting on the couch with their sodas when Rod finally found something to say.  “Well -- ”

“Bridge!  Math!  I can’t do this!” a young voice called from upstairs. 

Brigid closed her eyes in exasperation.  “Sorry Rod, I’ll only be a moment.  Here’s the remote, hang out.”

As she went upstairs, her feet slapping against the tile steps, Rod watched her tight jean-clad butt disappear and then contemplated the remote in his hand and the old tube TV in front of him.  His attention was then drawn to the photos on the wall.  Quite a lot of them, both parents and what looked like grandparents and of course Brigid’s little brothers and sisters.  A photo of Brigid herself in maybe second grade.

And then there was a part of the wall with Brigid’s majorette stuff.  A couple of award certificates, and three photos.  The first was from band camp last August, when all the Tunemasters went to U-Mass out in Amherst for a week.  The majorettes had their own subsection, and there on the sunny lawn, squinting in the hot summer sun, were Brigid and two majorettes from other schools, all in their uniforms, posing with their batons.  The other majorettes were in sparkly, skimpy outfits, with bare arms and midriffs, lots of leg showing over their marching boots -- but next to Brigid they looked positively fully clothed.

The second photo was from a newspaper article, showing Brigid, at a football game, and a baton way, way over her head, with people on the sidelines looking up as if at the moon.  Brigiwas waiting and in position to catch it, which she surely had.  The stop-action of the camera had caught one breast on the rebound up, the circlet looking up a little, as if waiting for the baton too.

The third photo made him cringe.  It was a black-and-white of Brigid leading that White Mountain Winter Parade up in New Hampshire last month.  The coldest parade they’d ever marched in, well below freezing with a stiff wind, the one time Sarge told them not to even try to play because their lips might get frozen to their instruments!  Only the drummers played, a steady cadence beat while the band marched holding their instruments in front of them.  And there was Brigid, the nearly naked majorette, passing the bundled-up locals in their heavy boots and ski caps, with her arms stretched out and chest thrust out as she twirled.  He remembered getting ready to march, hanging out with Brigid in her earmuffs and warm-up coat and Uggs, only her bare legs showing.  She bit her lip and said, “Heah goes nothin’!”, and shook off the coat and earmuffs and boots, and slipped into her sparkly flip-flops.  She shut her eyes, feeling the frigid wind on her body, and said, “Eeeeeee!!!”, to everyone’s general amusement.  Then she shook her whole body, breasts jiggling, and put her “majorette face” on and took her place in front of the band.  Of course she had performed perfectly, once again being “Frigid Brigid” -- a nickname she always hated but it was just too obvious for the wise guys in the school to resist.

Why would Brigid have that picture up? Why would she want to be reminded of that bone-chilling day?  Then he contemplated the photo next to it, of that high throw, and realized it was another difficult majorette trick that she was proud of: being able to stand the cold and perform in it.  He thought of something from the Tunemasters guidebook, the section on majorettes: “Remember: Football season is during COLD months and the uniform does not have much to keep you warm.  If you can’t handle being a little cold, there is always a place for you in a fully covered uniform marching with a horn.”  Sounded like a dare!

Brigid was back down from helping her brother.  “Fractions,” she explained.

“That was a fun band camp,” Rod said, pointing the remote at that photo.

“Oh yes.  That’s Tilda and Marj.  Their schools are near Leominster, I think.”  (Pronounced “Lemminster” by natives.)  “They taught me some good throws.”

Brigid’s foot was up over her other knee and Rod looked at it.  “Cold for barefoot, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m gettin’ used to it.  Training for the new uniform.”

Rod’s mouth went a little dry and he cleared his throat.  “The whole uniform was hanging from your ear today?”

“The same!”

“What happened to the sandals?”

        “Gone,” Brigid said.  “The new uniform doesn’t have them.  Those old flip-flops were a-gettin’ in the way anyway.  Hahd to hold on, sometimes.”

Interesting, Rod mused.  Whenever changes were made to the regular band uniforms, it was always in the direction of adding something -- the plumes to the shako hats, the cummerbunds, the gloves.  While changes to the majorette uniform were always in the direction of shrinking something, or taking it away entirely -- like with shoes.  They could have easily made the sandals more secure by putting back that ankle strap, like in Grenicia’s uniform from last year, but no.  He thought of the old photos in the glass case, the boots of the 1940’s majorettes, shrunk over the years to wellies, slippers, sandals, flip-flops.  Those stringy things Brigid had been wearing were the last vestige of footwear.  Now that vestige was gone.

“But marching barefoot .  .  .  isn’t it .  .  .  won’t you step on something?”

Brigid was unperturbed and even enthusiastic.  “Ms. Kleinfelter showed me photos of a parade in Thailand, the traditional dancers with the gold crowns, they perform in bare feet.  But you have to get ‘em tough.”  She scampered back to the kitchen and then came back with those old sneakers she’d been wearing.  “See?”

Rod looked.  Inside these sneakers Brigid had glued rough sandpaper.  “Ouch!”

“It kind of hurt at first, but it’s been three weeks and now I can walk on anything.  Here, feel ‘em.”

She moved her foot a little toward Rod.  “Go ahead!” she said again, flexing her pretty toes.  It seemed a little weird but Rod extended his hand gingerly.

“Wow .  .  .  Brigid, your sole is like a rock!”

“That’s right,” she said proudly.  “And I can do more now.  Come in back, I’ll show you.”

Rod followed the barefoot girl through the kitchen and now they were out in the back yard.  It was very small, fenced in, bordering equally small yards to each side and behind, straddled by a line of telephone poles.  Wires criss-crossed overhead.

Brigid had a baton lying against one of the lawn chairs.  She twirled it over her head, tied part of her sweatshirt against her waist, and said, “Watch.”

She did a high throw and then another.  Being Brigid, there was no danger of the baton drifting out of the tiny yard, or hitting the wires.  And now she did a third throw, spun around, and as the baton came down she twisted her leg around and hit the baton with the upturned sole of her foot.  The baton bounced up and into her hand.  Another throw, and she bounced it up with her other foot.  And now she threw the baton behind her, and kicked it back up to her hand, first with one foot and then the other!

She caught her breath.  “Can’t do that with those flip-flops on.”

Rod laughed.  “Brigid, you are incredible!”

She blushed, a shy white-girl blush, her face turning red around the cheeks and forehead.  And then she said what she said at lunch.  “Wait till you see my new uniform.  It’s very pretty.”