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Living the Life of Holly
By Holly Winter
My Laughing Place

“It’s your last night.” Linda said. “What do you want to do?”

Stay. Not go home. Keep laughing with one of my closest friends and her family, who feel like my family. This is my laughing place, and it won’t be easy to leave. But. I didn’t get all philosophical. We’d already had all those conversations. I squinted my eyes in forced concentration. “Lose five pounds. That’s what I want to do tonight. Can you really do that for me?” I smiled at the challenge. “Come on, little Arizona genie. Rub your lamp.”

She ignored me and turned towards the kitchen. “Well, we haven’t juiced anything since you’ve been here.”

“I know.” I said. “And we haven’t discovered the Fountain of Youth either. We’ve been talking too much.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow. This’s our last chance. Let’s make some now.”

I like cooking with Linda. Cause, ‘Let’s make some’ means I sit at the counter talking while she cooks, both of us perfectly happy in our roles.

She cored some pears and fed long, drippy chunks into the juicer’s tube. The high powered grinding mechanism switched on, mangling the fruit into a thin, gray liquid.

“Taste test.” She said, handing me a sample.

I eyed the liquid suspiciously. “You sure this’s pear juice?” I sipped a bit. “Um. It reminds me…. of pears.”

We burst into synchronized laughter.

“Ok. Maybe it needs something more.” She giggled. “How about cranberries?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone juicing cranberries.” I was in awe.

“Oh. Me neither. But. I’ve got to use these up.”

Synchronized laughter.

She poured the berries into the tube and we watched as the juice in the glass turned to bright red. I tasted it.

“Bitter. How about some sugar?” I joked.

“No. carrots will sweeten it.”

Oolie came in. “What’d you doin?” She asked, hugging me.

“Supervising your mother.”

Synchronized laughing.

Oolie looked from one of us to the other. “That wasn’t funny.” She said for the hundredth time in the last week. “WHY are you laughing?”

We laughed harder.

She spied the seed painting on the fridge. “Eeeew. What’s that?”

Linda called over the whirling, as she fed bits of carrots to the machine. “It’s a little reminder to eat your fruits and vegetables each day.”

“What? It’s so ugly. I can’t believe it’s on our fridge forever. Now I won’t be able to eat.” Oolie whined.

“Really?” I asked. “That’s pretty cool. You’re going to starve yourself for art? What a statement.”

Synchronized laughing.

“Actually,” I confessed. “I gave that to your mother.”

Oolie grabbed my shoulders and started shaking. “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

We all laughed.

“Taste test.” Linda called, handing me the brownish juice.

“Um. Bitter-er.” I gasped. “Why don’t we have Tang, instead?”

“I know.” Linda said. “How about a beet?”

The juice turned a deeper red and tasted like the earth.

“I know……..” Linda started.

Synchronized laughing.

“Go on.” I encouraged.

“An apple. That will fix it. Oolie. Try it. Tell us what you think. Your taste buds are only thirteen years old.”

Synchronized laughing.

She wrinkled her face. “Um. No thanks. Think I’ll wait till you have it perfected.”

Linda poured out the final juice.

“It’s perfect.” I said.

Oolie sipped hers tenuously. “You call this perfect?”

“You know.” Linda said. “We haven’t made sorbet yet.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked. “I’m only driving twelve hours tomorrow. You’re preparing me for a three week moon walk.”

Linda put a special attachment onto her juicer that permitted her to feed frozen fruit through a little tube. The fruit was compacted and came out in long, thick spaghettis.

“Looks like fruit poop to me.” I said.

“Eeew.” Oolie said. “How can you say that? How can you eat that? Are you still going to eat it?”

“Of course. I’ve never, ever passed up fruit poop before. I’m willing to try anything once.”

I mashed the spaghettis while Linda set out the bowls.

“You know.” Linda said, as we ate our dessert. “This’s your last chance to see the photos from my Alaska trip.”

We ate sorbet and shared photos in Linda’s room. We heard the front door slam as Pete came home from his high school dance.

“Hurry.” I whispered. “Turn off the light. He’ll never believe we’re still awake at eleven o’clock.”

Pete pushed the door open slowly. “Why’s the light off?”

We laughed and jumped him as he walked through the door.

“Hey mom.” He said. “I forgot to tell you, but I have to go to the ski resort tomorrow to take photos for yearbook. It’s for a school project.”

“No.”

“Mom. I have to. It’s for school. It’s for yearbook. It’s my page.”

“No. You can’t go.”

“Mom. It won’t cost me any money. I’ll get in for free.”

“No.”

“What am I supposed to tell the other people on yearbook?” He demanded.

Linda shrugged. “Tell them you forgot you were Mormon and that Mormons don’t go skiing on Sundays.”

Synchronized laughter. Oolie tried to hide a smile. Pete laid across the bottom of the bed, frowning.

I grabbed his toe and squeezed really hard. “That’s funny, Pete. You know that’s funny.”

“Not really.” He said, dryly while the corners of his mouth fought showing a smile.

“Yeah.” Linda said. “Just tell them that you’ve only been alive now for sixteen years and you just forgot what you do on Sundays.”

Synchronized laughter.

Linda sat on the bed next to Oolie.

“So.” Linda said to Pete. “I hear you’re quite the dancer.”

“From who?”

“A lady who was at the dance for a little bit.”

“Was it fun?” I asked.

“No. It wasn’t fun.” He scowled. “Those dances are never fun. The kids all stand around. Nobody dances.”

“Man.” I said. “I should’ve gone. I would’ve torn up the dance floor.”

“Actually.” He said, politely. “You have to be under eighteen to attend.”

I shrugged. “I look young for my age.”

Synchronized laughing. But. This time it was from Oolie and Pete.

“You don’t think I look young?” I smiled.

Oolie tried to breathe through her laughter. “You’re like one of the oldest people I know.”

“I have an eight in my age.” I insisted.

“Yeah.” Pete said. “The problem isn’t with the second number. It’s with the first number. It has to be a one. Not a three.”

The two kids laughed and giggled their way through the absurdness of an adult at a high school dance.

“So. Holly.” Linda said. “You’re thirty eight and you’ve never been married.”

“I know.” I smiled. “I’m having a great life.”

“Well.” Linda started. “I think you should set a goal. To be married by forty-five.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to beat the hives back into my skin.

“Because it’s time. I know you like Cool-guy. Are you thinking you might be ready to get married anytime in the next seven years?”

Um. She wasn’t kidding.

“Marriage is fun.” Linda continued. “Take me being married to Luke. He lays here in this bed snoring so loud that I have dreams of airplanes.”

“Man.” Oolie said. “If that were me, I’d run into the living room to sleep.”

Everyone laughed.

“No way.” Linda laughed. “I love sleeping next to him. Ok. But. Everyone. I think we’d better let Holly go to sleep. She has a long drive tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Holly.” Oolie said. “You better go to sleep immediately. You need those hours of beauty sleep.”

“Do you know what time it is?” Pete asked.

I said goodbye to Linda as Oolie and I went into the bathroom to brush our teeth.

“I feel inferior.” I said, while brushing.

“Why?” She asked, as she brushed.

“Because. My toothbrush isn’t electric.”

“They’re more fun this way.”

I started making the sound that my toothbrush would have made if it were electric. “zzzzzzz” upping the intensity as the brush moved around my mouth.

Oolie laughed, spitting toothpaste.

I laughed, demurely. I had more practice laughing while brushing. No. Not from growing up with five brothers and sisters. The college dorm.

Her giggling grew and she dropped her toothbrush on the floor. It rattled around searching for her teeth.

“I can’t believe I did that.” She pasted.

We giggled our way out of the bathroom to find Pete doubled over in the hallway laughing hysterically.

“Holly. Thanks so much… but….”

He was holding my booklet, Kid Columns, that I’d hid under his pillow.

His was inscribed to Oolie. “Oh.” I said, bewildered. “I can’t believe I switched the books.” I turned to Oolie. “Go check under your pillow.”

The kids swapped their treasures as we stood in the hall struck yet again synchronized laughter.

“Hey, Holly.” Pete said.

“Yeah, honey-boy.”

“Maybe it’s good you’re going. I can’t keep laughing like this every day. It can’t be healthy.”

“I know.” I laughed, kissing his cheek.

Oolie gave me a hug. “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

“Got to.” I said, hugging her back.

She hugged me harder. “Remember the other day when I wanted a snow day so I could miss school, and you said you would talk the clouds into snowing if I would agree to spend my whole day off playing the piano for you?”

“Yes.” I smiled.

“How do you do that? Talk to clouds so it’ll snow.”

“Well. First there has to be clouds.”

She released me from the hug and ran outside. “THAT’S NOT FUNNY.”

“What not funny?” Pete asked, following her outside.

“There aren’t any clouds. Tonight the sky is FILLED with stars.”

“Then you’ll be leaving.” Pete said, sadly.

“Sorry, guys.” I said, hugging them goodbye. “But tell me you see the irony in the fact that it didn’t stop snowing till I was ready to leave.”

Synchronized laughing.

Wanna try another column? How about #115 Teasing Wars which is about going to my first auction with Lena and Sean.

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