~ GUITARS and FLOWERS ~

It’s pure magic how our yard changes almost overnight. Golden dandelions sprinkle our grass with bursting circles of sunshine. Lilies of the valley quiver under the bridal wreath bushes. Lilacs and honeysuckles paint our backyard in splashes of lavender and yellow.

It’s also picture-taking time. Mama brings out her Kodak camera and poses us in front of the flowers. Sonny gets dressed up in his sailor suit. I wear the white Sunday dress Mama made me, with rows of embroidered flowers. We stand motionless in front of the flowering almond bush. Click.

“Okay, now another one,” Mama says, stepping back. Click.

Mama enters the best snapshots in picture contests. Sonny won an Honorable Mention once and received a shiny goldy medal. I haven’t won anything yet. Pretty soon, Mama says, I’ll be too old for the Children’s Class. That’s okay with me. I never like how I look in pictures anyway.

The flowering almond bush under our bedroom window near the sidewalk blooms early. It’s such a shower of pink beauty that people walking by break off tiny branches so they can take a bit of spring with them. I never rap on the window like Mama does when they do this. I just watch from behind the curtain, happy to share something from our house.

I love flowers of all kinds. One time, I even became a flower, a big orange poppy. You see, Mama thinks I’m extra bright. I hear her tell others, “I don’t know where she gets her brains from, but she has them. Maybe she got mixed up at the hospital.” Mama doesn’t know I heard, but I did. My ears perk up when people talk about me.

But I never think I’m smart, not when I have an older brother and sisters who know so much more than I do, and tell me so.

Anyway, Mama is excited about this Hawaiian music, which is very popular now on the radio and in the movies. She thinks that if I could learn to play the Hawaiian guitar, she could hear this melodic music any time she wants. Or maybe I would be fulfilling some dream Mama once had for herself.

Mama has lots of dreams. Sometimes, when she’s in a certain mood, she shares them with us—dreams about what kind of house she’d really like to live in, if she ever had lots of money. I think she’d really like to live in one of those big fancy houses I see in the movies, that’s always clean, with acres of rooms and fancy furniture.

Maybe that’s why Mama writes shorts for the movies and sends them away to the movie people. It’s an extra special day when she gets a letter saying they’re buying two of them!

“We’re all going to the movies tomorrow night, and buying buttered popcorn too! ” She waves the check around. “ I sold two shorts, and here’s the proof.” She’s so happy about it. So is Daddy.

Of course, she’s always hoping to sell more, but never does. We want her to be happy, but sure don’t want her moving away to Hollywood.

Another time, Mama took some mail order course on how to make belts out of bits of celluloid and colored paper, braiding and twisting them into odd long shapes. I don’t think she ever sold any. There’s this flat cardboard box filled with unfinished and unsold belts that moves from closet to closet.

Auntie Stacia took a course on how to make tin cans into bouquets of metal flowers, snipping down the sides of cans to make the stems, cutting the tops into odd shapes of tinny flower petals, which she paints in bright colors. I think the only people she ever sold them to were Mama and the other aunts, because all the aunts have them displayed on tables somewhere in their houses.

Catherine, my older sister, received a Spanish guitar one Christmas, but never played it. It just stood silently in the corner of the sitting room. One day, nuns from the conservatory behind our school sent a flyer home announcing special spring rates for new music lessons they’re offering. One is a class for Hawaiian guitar.

Mama goes into action. She visits the music store and finds out she can buy a steel nut to put under the guitar strings to raise them, making the Spanish guitar sound like a Hawaiian one. You also need a steel bar to hold in your left hand and a finger pick and thumb pick for the right hand. “The music store man said that’s all you need, except you have to sit and play the guitar instead of standing up,” Mama tells me.

“So now you can take Hawaiian guitar lessons without my having to buy a new guitar.” Mama figures she can sacrifice a small sum each week for me to take lessons. Besides expanding my many talents, she’ll also be helping support the nuns. The final reward will be this unique Hawaiian music playing in our house, anytime we want. It also means my having to play for visiting relatives. I hate doing that. But it’s ritual, a normal part of company visits to our house—displaying any new talent we kids have achieved.

I don’t protest too much about the lessons. I usually do what I’m told. Adults are in charge and we have to follow their rules whether we like them or not. I just hope I don’t have to learn to do the hula. When I mention I’m going to learn to play the Hawaiian guitar, kids ask, “Really? Are you going to be doing that hula dance too, in a grass skirt?” That possibility scares me more than learning the guitar.

So every Wednesday after school, I have to go home, then lug this huge guitar in its new heavy black case for three long blocks to the conservatory, an odd, forbidding-looking red brick building.

Going by myself to this strange new place frightens me. I’m not sure where to go or what to do when I get there. Mama says the nuns will tell me what to do, and to just show them my signed slip that says, “For Hawaiian Guitar Lessons.”

“It won’t matter if the guitar has a painted picture of a Spanish lady doing a Flamenco dance on its topside. You tell the nun it’s a Spanish guitar made into a Hawaiian guitar.” These are Mama’s parting words to me as I try to somehow get out of leaving. It doesn’t work. Never does.

So I trudge to my first lesson, with no way to hide from onlookers where I’m going, or why.

Once inside the conservatory, it takes lots of questions, many wrong turns, and numerous doors before I finally find out where I’m to go for my lesson. I keep hoping I’ll remember the way next time I come, as all the rooms and doors look the same.

So here I am, just me and this older nun, whom I’ve never met before, in this large room with a big stage, lots of instruments, and music sounds coming from all sides. It’s a real jumble of noises. She tells me her name, but I can’t figure out what she said and I’m too afraid to ask her to repeat it. So I just call her “Sister.” But I don’t speak too often, mostly, I just listen.

She gives me a guitar book. Hawaiian Guitar Lessons #1. There, right on the cover, is a Hawaiian girl dancing in a grass skirt, and a straw-hatted man sitting under a palm tree, playing a guitar on his lap. I could never wear something like that or dance around with flowers around my neck and feet.

What if I left now? Would they come after me? What would they do if they caught me?

The nun says to take very good care of the book, even if it’s mine and already paid for. “You will use this book every day for your practice. And remember to bring it along with you each time.”

Something more I have to carry back and forth.

I quickly turn the cover page over so I don’t have to look at the grass-skirted girl anymore. Inside, it all looks like a foreign language. There are lines running across the pages, with big dots scattered everywhere on the lines. I know nothing about guitars, notes, or clefs. The nun says to look the book over, and leaves the room.

I’m all alone. It seems like such a long time since I first came.

This certain urge happens whenever I’m scared, only I don’t know what to do about it here. If I go out of the room to look for a bathroom, I’ll just get lost, which makes me more scared.

I rise up from my chair, not sure what to do.

It’s already too late. A puddle is forming on the floor beneath me. I just stand there, looking down at the floor.

The nun returns. I’m so afraid of what she’ll say. All she does is take my hand, whispering, “Follow me.”

Where is she taking me? What kind of punishment do they give for doing something like this? I bite my quivering lips and follow.

The nun stops at a door, opens it and points inside. “You must use this room if you feel the need the next time,” she says and walks away.

I don’t have to use the room now, so I just stand inside there and begin to cry. I’m afraid to come out, afraid I’ll get lost again.

After a while, the nun comes in and tells me the lesson is over and that I can leave now. “And don’t worry about what happened. We all have accidents.”

I walk back to the music room close to her. I really don’t know this nun that well, but I love her already. I pack up my guitar and new lesson book and follow her.

“We’ll see you next week at the same time, Ludmilla,” she says as she opens the outside door for me. “Ludmilla” never sounded nicer.

I take the longer way home, hoping everything will dry up on the way.

Still, I don’t really want to go back anymore. I don’t remember anything I learned, only that shameful thing that happened.

I tell Mama the minute I get in the door, “I don’t want to go to lessons anymore.” Mama doesn’t even ask why, just tells me, “I paid for eight weeks of guitar lessons for you. You’re going to go there every week whether you like it or not. And you’re going to practice every night too, whether you want to or not.”

“But, I can’t go back—”

“Well, you are. I don’t know why you don’t appreciate being given an opportunity no one else in this family has had.”

I can’t tell her the real reason, knowing that would make her even madder. In addition, I sure don’t want her walking me there, as she sometimes has for other things, which is never any fun.

So I go back to lessons the next week, and make sure to excuse myself if I feel like I’m going to have another accident. I know where that room is now and a fast way to get there.

But I never do get the hang of playing the guitar, though I try as hard as I can, and Sister Josef tries as hard as she can. My brain never connects to those strings. There’s a big gap there somewhere. I’m just not musically inclined. I think I heard someone else say that when they heard me practicing. My brother says even worse things, like “Can’t you practice in the basement, so I don’t have to hear those awful sounds?”

Any music I finally manage to ping out on those strings does not sound at all like the Hawaiian music heard in the movies or on the radio. Even Mama agrees, and says she’s not going to pay for any more lessons after these are done. Catherine says she wants her guitar back, too, since it’s hers, and “It was not meant to be a Hawaiian guitar, anyway.”

She has taken to learning the ukulele, maybe thinking Mama might like her kind of Hawaiian music better, but gives it up pretty quick like she does most things. Mama doesn’t seem to like Hawaiian music that much anymore anyway.

At the end of the music sessions, there’s to be a spring concert featuring students from each musical section. After hours of extra practice onstage and at home, the big talked about night arrives. I’m too nervous to eat, hoping I’ll remember all the notes and when to play them.

I have to go early, by myself, but that’s better because I don’t have to talk to anybody on the way there, just say extra prayers to lots of saints for help. Mama and the rest will come later. Daddy never goes to our school stuff, but Mama always does.

The concert is free for family and friends, but you still need tickets, as lots of people always want to come. Everyone dresses up, making it a special event. I just hope they don’t sit too close to the front because I don’t want to look out and see anybody I know, or Buddy making faces at me.

I wait backstage while the others do their pieces. Then it’s my turn. I walk slowly onto the huge stage as practiced, place my music book on the stand, then sit on this wobbly tin folding chair, trying to balance my guitar on my lap. A twisted gold rope around my neck is connected to the guitar to keep it from slipping, but it still does sometimes.

Luckily, I don’t have to play alone, because they paired me off with another guitar student. He covers up lots of my mistakes. Only the really good students get to play by themselves.

We sit, stiff and silent. Then the nun off at the side nods her head, our signal to begin. With the steel bar gripped tightly in my left hand, I try to glide it across the strings with a slight tremolo, to make it sound like what I had practiced for so many days before. My fingers, with picks on them, pluck out the notes.

I keep my eyes glued to the book on the music stand in front of me, not daring to look up or out into that audience, knowing they’re watching me.

As I’m sitting and playing, I keep thinking how lucky I am, knowing where the bathroom is, because now I feel I have to go and don’t think I can wait. Sitting on that chair, it seems like forever, and it does no good trying to cross my legs, not with this big guitar on my lap.

After the last tremulous note, the bathroom agony magically disappears as I hear the audience clapping. What a joyous sound! Right then, I decide that being onstage and getting applause is worth the previous days of misery, and the agony I just suffered plastered to that tinny chair. I’m ready to do it all over again. It would all be so much easier the next time.

But that’s not going to happen, since I know there’ll be no more guitar lessons. “You learned all you’re going to.” Mama’s words echo as I leave the stage, knowing I’ll have to walk home with my family. When I do, they make silly remarks about my playing, my appearance, and other unwanted comments. “You’re just lucky you had some guy playing with you, so you didn’t have to squeak by yourself,” Buddy teases.

But the previous applause drowns him out, along with the other shaming words.

Maybe playing music on the radio, and not being seen, might be better than sitting on a stage. But I know for sure I’ll never get to play on the radio, not me, so I cross that thought from my head. The guitar goes back in the corner, minus the steel bar.

During recital practices, I heard music students talk about the Spring Operetta that would be happening next month. They made it sound like a really wonderful event. “You don’t even have to play an instrument to be in it,” they told me.

Oh, how I wish I could be part of something like that, be on that stage again, and not have to play an instrument.

For days, I rub the magic stone I carry in my green leatherette purse. It works. My wish comes true when someone tells me that, because I was a conservatory student, I’m eligible to be in the Spring Operetta. There’s even a note from the music nuns saying the same thing.

I bring that note home to Mama right away so she’ll believe me.

She has to let me be in the operetta and not say “no” just because the guitar lessons didn’t work out.

“It says it doesn’t cost any money to be in the operetta,” I blurt out even before handing her the note, holding my breath for her answer.

“Well,” Mama muses, “maybe you’ll have more success being in that operetta than playing the guitar.”

She signs the slip and reminds me on the day I have to go to tryouts. I don’t even know what “try-outs” are, but I go anyway.

Other frightened children from the music classes are there also. We have to sing, dance, and talk some, while the nuns write stuff down in a yellow tablet each time we do anything.

I know I can’t sing. I tried singing along with the guitar till Sister Josef finally said, “Just play the music. One thing at a time is enough for you to learn.”

We wait anxiously as names are called for speaking parts and singing parts. The chosen girls prance up on the stage like such smarties. There’s a big group left over. I’m one of them, all set to go home, even glad about it. New stuff is sometimes too hard to figure out.

“Stay put,” the nun announces. “All you girls who weren’t picked for special roles will also be in our operetta. You will each be a poppy. We are going to have a whole field of them.”

What? I am going to be a poppy? How could that happen?

I run home to tell everyone. “I’m going to be in the operetta—I’m going to be a poppy!” No one in the family understands how learning the Hawaiian guitar could turn me into a poppy. I don’t either.

Rehearsal time begins the next week, but it’s not like the guitar recital when we practiced alone. There are lots of kids, boys and girls. After school and on weekends, squealing children and screaming nuns fill the room, with pianos plinking, songs to memorize, and dances to learn. The nuns tell us where to stand, what to do. Everything happens all at once.

We have to rehearse for six long weeks. Still, it’s fun, after I figure out what I’m supposed to do. I just follow what everyone else is doing. Easy. If I don’t know the dance steps, I just watch the feet next to me. I watch lips too, for words to songs. Since I don’t have to do anything by myself, I become one of the group quite easily and happily.

First, we practice Act One. This is the part where we’re all poppies, standing in a huge field, swaying back and forth, heads reaching up for the sun. We sing our songs, do our dances. Near the end of the act, this fairy princess comes wandering through our field, touching each one of us with her magic wand. As the sparkling wand taps our heads, we have to wilt, and slowly slump to the ground.

Oh, how we practice wilting, over and over.

“Make it real,” the nun repeats, tapping her pointer on the floor. “Let your body go limp. And loose. I don’t want to hear a sound when you wilt.”

I practice wilting at home, too. Finally, nobody thinks I’m sick and fainting like they did the first time. I get so good at wilting; I can wilt any time, any place. Acting is easy.

Since we have to sing songs and dance as a group, I’m no longer just me; I’m part of something bigger—a field of swaying poppies. Surprisingly, I do feel like a poppy. Somehow, I even become one when I’m on that stage.

Is this how flowers really feel, swirling in the breezes? Light and airy and never wanting to stop flowering. No chores. No rules. Just glowing in the sunlight. It’s so much better than playing guitar.

Geraldine doesn’t like it that I spend so much time rehearsing.

“Who wants to be in a dumb operetta,” she says when I tell her I will be too busy to play with her for a while. “Making believe you’re a fake poppy—just singing and dancing around, not even getting to say anything.”

“I like being a poppy!” I tell her, but she’s already walking away, not wanting to hear any more. I don’t care; I have new friends from the operetta group. They ask me to come to their houses to rehearse songs, and I even get invited to one of their birthday parties. So it doesn’t matter so much that Geraldine stops asking me to do things.

Next, we practice Act Two, and we’re no longer poppies.

At the very beginning, the fairy princess sprinkles magic dust on us, and we all rise up from our wilting positions and magically turn into dancing fairies, wearing ballerina skirts, wings, and pink ballet slippers. We’re told this is what we’ll be wearing, as we don’t have any costumes yet, but I really feel like I’m a dancing fairy, costume or not.

I’m in such awe as I listen to the fairy queen practice her lovely songs. She’s only in eighth grade, but her voice is so good she could even be in a big opera. And she looks so beautiful wearing just her school clothes. She even talks to me sometimes.

Two weeks before the operetta, we have to get fitted for our costumes, but we can’t wear them till two days before the show, or they might get dirty or torn.

A group of older ladies comes into the downstairs hall with hangers full of costumes, and tape measures, scissors and stickpins. First, they have us try on these round flat hats that cover our head with large floppy orange petals. The big hats flip around a lot, but are held on by black elastic stretched snugly under our chins.

“These bands must be kept tight at all times so the hats stay on!” the nun warns as red marks appear on our necks.

Next, we have to take off all our clothes, except our underwear. I’ve never done this before in front of other children outside of our family, and hesitate a long time, but I know if I want to be a poppy, I have to do it. I close my eyes during most of the process, not looking at anyone, hoping they’re not looking at me either.

“You’re next,” the lady says.

Now what? I wonder as I stand there in my underwear, hoping I don’t have to take anything else off. She slips a long shiny green sleeveless dress over my head. Attached to the skirt are pointy jaggedy leaves, layers and layers of them, that move as I twirl. I also get long green stockings, but no shoes.

Just for the few minutes that I have the whole costume on, I really feel like a flower, and lift my head to the sun, even though the nun always says, “Girls, don’t look up too high, or your hats will fall off. Just look straight ahead, so we can see your flowery faces. And smile. Remember, these are happy poppies, not drooping ones.”

The hat makes me smile automatically, and I don’t even notice the tight band anymore.

The next day, in come the fairy costumes. It’s as if it’s snowing pink cotton candy all over the basement room. I’ve only seen such airy dresses in fairy tale books, never thinking I would ever get to wear one. I’m not dreaming either. One of those floating dresses is for me.

My clothes come off much quicker this time. Soon I’m in this fancy dress with a pink satiny top and a net skirt that poufs out like a ballerina outfit. There are sparkles all over the dress, and some fall on me, making me sparkle, too. There are also pink ballet slippers that are oh so soft. Then we have gauzy wings attached to our shoulders and carry a tiny wand with a silver star at the tip.

“One more thing—” The lady halts me, then puts a crown of flowers atop my hair. They’re not real, but almost smell as if they are. I’ve drifted into a far-off land, where everything is floating about and sparkling. I begin to twirl till a stern voice tells me to “stand still.” I do, but inside I’m still twirling.

Each piece of our costume gets a tag with our name pinned on it before it’s put on a wooden clothes hanger. Then the costumes get hung on long poles hanging from the ceiling pipes of the basement rehearsal hall, waiting for the big day. The room is now dancing in colors—green, orange, and glittery pink.

Every time before I go on stage to rehearse now, I stop, linger, and touch my outfits, to make sure they’re still there. I can’t wait to really put them on.

There are ads in the church bulletin, and even tacked on trees, about the Spring Operetta. The price isn’t too much, so Mama says the whole family will come to see me.

Geraldine says, “Well, I’ll come, but I still think the whole thing is pretty silly.”

Dress rehearsal night. There’s such excitement as thirty girls are helped into poppy costumes and told to wait at the side of the stage.

It’s so hard just waiting, not saying a word. Giggles keep exploding, hats flopping off. The music starts and we tiptoe quietly to take our places on stage.

The big velvet curtain opens slowly. The lights that are supposed to be the sun begin shining and we all become a field of swaying poppies. We sing. We dance. It’s pure magic. All that we have practiced turns out even better than I imagined. I can feel myself wilting as my pile of green sinks to the floor and my poppy hat droops and covers me up. I even feel like crying, because I’m dying like this. But there isn’t time to be sad, because as soon as the curtain closes, we have to rise up, quick as we can, and rush to the costume room.

I hurry to get into my fairy costume, though part of me is still a poppy. These outfits are harder to put on, and we need help with our wings and the flower crowns. “Next, who’s next?” “Who else needs help?” “Hurry! Over here.” Everyone is rushing about. “Only two minutes to get back on stage.”

These stiff skirts itch, and my pink ballet shoes are too big, or I have someone else’s, and they have to be stuffed with toilet paper. Our hair is combed back, held with hairpins by some big girls who have come over to help. They even dab rouge on my cheeks. I’ve never had any on before.

Oh, I feel magical now, and look like a real fairy princess. The smile on my face stays put, as if glued there.

And this isn’t even the real show, they tell us, only a dress rehearsal. But we must still act like there are people in the audience. We know the nuns are out there, and can hear them talking and clapping every once in a while.

There’s even a photographer from the newspaper.

The next day, the picture he took is on the front page of the paper. I’m not in the picture, just the fairy princess. But I don’t care. I’m in the show and I’m a small part of something big that’s on the front page. Mama even reads the story aloud to Daddy.

It’s a beautiful spring night. I have to go early. I want to go early. I can hardly eat anyway. My brother teases, “Lulu’s going to be a poppy—a big, big poppy seed!” I don’t care what he says—I’m just happy about everything.

I put on my poppy costume as soon as I get there, without any help. Right away, I know I have to go to the bathroom. It’s not easy lifting all the long leaves up without getting them into the toilet. But we’ve been told that once we’re in the stiff ballet costume, there will be no going to the bathroom.

We wait in the dark. My stomach is quivering. But once the curtain opens and the music starts, I immerse myself in the stage world, a world I don’t ever want to leave. I just want to keep doing this show over and over and over.

We do three performances—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. After final curtain of each, we can come out in our fairy costumes and talk to people.

I know I sparkle. I’ve never sparkled before; I’ve always been in the background, satisfied to stay there. Now I want everyone to notice me in this beautiful costume. I realize I can become someone else—someone different from my plain, everyday self. All I need is a costume.

The nuns have told us that if we wanted to, we could buy our costumes. Then we’d get to keep them always.

Mama says, “No, we just can’t afford to buy any kind of costumes.”

“Only the poppy one. Couldn’t I just get the poppy one to keep?” I beg. “That outfit doesn’t cost as much as the fairy one does.”

“No,” Mama repeats, “We can’t even afford the poppy one. We bought tickets for the whole family to see you as a poppy—we’ll remember how you looked.”

I know it’s no use to ask again. I also know I can’t change into a fairy princess unless I’m on that stage. But I’m so sure I could become a poppy anywhere, if I could just put on that green costume, sing the poppy song, and wilt over and over. I want that leafy dress and poppy hat more than anything else—well, unless it’s the Shirley Temple doll for Christmas.

The show is over; the curtain closes, never to open again. I linger as long as I can with the audience afterwards, giving me more time to be in my fairy costume.

I go into the costume room, slowly take off my fairy dress and hang it up for the last time. Most of the girls have paid for their dresses and are wrapping them up in crinkling tissue paper, putting them into big brown dress boxes, so anxious to take them home. Some can hardly manage to carry their two boxes out the door at the same time.

They call to one another that they’ll be putting on their own show this summer. “And we can wear our special costumes. Won’t that be fun?” Which means I won’t be seeing them anymore. I won’t have any special costume, so I can’t be in their shows.

Only a few of us are still lingering. Nobody’s talking anymore.

I don’t want to leave. Both of my dresses look so sad and lonely on their hangers, as if waiting for me to put them back on and bring them to life once more. I try to stop the tears, but they come anyway.

We were told we could keep the wand with the shiny star. I decide I don’t want that wand anymore. It would mean nothing without the rest of the clothes. I throw the wand on the floor. I want to smash it, break it up, but can only stomp down over and over, hard as I can with my soft tie shoes, till all that’s left is a pile of smashed crunch.

I walk out, not even turning around for one last look. Best to leave everything behind.

Still, there’s this aching pain, as if pieces of my heart have been broken off and remain attached to those costumes left hanging alone in that room.

The door slams shut. I’m on the other side now, where everything is newly dark.