4th of July 1953: Roxy Nine

Now, Rose and me had our flirtations over the spring and into the summer, but nothing really came of it. Her husband and spinster aunt-in-law watched her like a hawk, and I was busy with husband and mother-in-law Cassie and my kids. It seemed the ember that was ignited when we kissed back in February would die out. However, things took a turn when I attended our neighbor Betty [One]’s 4th of July party.

Now, Betty [One] is the queen bee of our neighborhood. Her husband was a state senator. The story of how he became a state senator is pretty nifty; but this is not the magazine to confess how you get elected as a Republican in a Democratic-led state. It was all yesterday’s news anyway.

Betty was a pretty girl but she wasn’t my type. Now, Rose was and she was at the party. However, so was her husband.

We were standing by the pool and I was petting [One]’s cat Smee and Benjamin harrumphed. He said when he was a captain in the Navy, his ship had a cat named Mr. Tibbs. Then he showed me a photo of this cute little tuxedo cat in a sailor’s outfit. I was going to squeal. But then he went on a rant about how insane and insipid his men were for going gaga over that pussy. The sailor’s outfit was the most respectable outfit they dressed the cat in, he said. They dressed it up as Hollywood starlets. I was going to say I wish I could see photos of that, when he ranted about how those men should have loved and respected him instead. Apparently, when the shit went down, they looked for the cat, not him. Now, I think it says a lot about how a man feels about females by how he feels about felines. And Rose was more feline than female; but I’m coming to that. Now, just as he ranted about this storm where everyone rushed to save the cat, storm clouds started brewing in our neighborhood. Lighting struck. We all rushed into the house, and the adults hid in the basement.

Now, also at this party was a man called Dr. Johan Engelbert. (The editors will give him a fake name, right?) He is a psychology professor at the local college and this huge Wagner snob. I’m more into race music than that long-haired stuff, but I really zapped him once by telling him even a Wagner fan would rather see a junior college performance of La Boheme than the Bayreuth Festival performance of the Ring Saga if their favorite antisemite was missing the festival that year. Ha, really got him there!

Except sadly he was not actually a Nazi, but I don’t think there’s a magazine for Jews who are pretending to be Nazis for reasons I still don’t understand. Actually, he was rather disappointing as a person when I found that out. I loved razzing the Nazi.

So, we hung out in the basement as “Entry of the Gladiators” by the composer Julius Fučík played upstairs. It was after the tuba section finished that Dr. Engelbert talked about this self-improvement seminar he was going to run. He’s gathering a bunch of girls out in the middle of the woods in western Maryland, real snoozeville. I left Appalachia for a reason, so I wasn’t excited about spending an entire month there. However, that changed when Rose’s husband decided to sell his poor wife to the good doctor. He really thought he lived in the Antebellum era. Then I realized that I could be spending a month bunking with Rose!

Rock and roll! I jumped on the chance.

When the sun came out again, I met with Rose in the poolhouse. She was wearing a beautiful rose-colored swimsuit and her lovely long legs were on display. I was wearing a two-piece that showed my tummy. She took me in her firm arms, since she was taller than me and could easily be a ladies basketball player. We were so happy that we could be together for an entire month. We kissed for the first time since February, embracing like we couldn’t in this cruel world.

Soon, we would be like Eve and Lilith in the Garden of Eden, united as one under the oak trees of Deep Creek Lake.

So it was really going to happen. I’d leave my two children and my Puerto Rican maid^[1] and my husband and spend a month of freedom.