Short Stories

The Forsythia

…a tale of the haunting and daunting bush…

                                                                    written by Lisa Anne Minneti

Do we really only love what we can't control?
Can the familiar ever quench a thirst for the exotic?

Walking my dog, Jake, in a park, the wild one in the wayfarer field flirted with me, and as every spring I succumbed: the color, that yellow-gold--like a Crayloa crayon, common but not so easy.

Jake and I eyed up the best Forsythia branch to break. We wanted one chock full of buds but it had to be a little sly: discreet. Snapping it near the base, it was perfect for the lonely vase in my bathroom that needed some happy.
 
“Bless you bush!” I beamed as the branch broke.

In the Fairy Bible I read that if you take something from the wild it’s okay as long as you bless it. I actually like a little mischief, especially the kind always playing pranks in my own head.

Walking back home with my little prize, while smiling at passersby, I sometimes wondered if they thought me a thief. Hopefully they just thought I was a tad weird. Now, that I wouldn’t mind as during morning walks with Jake I often enjoyed dressing offbeat. Today’s look was an extra large purple jacket, a crocheted fedora done in metallic yarn, and pink lipstick.

While holding the Forsythia branch, proud and loud like a bridesmaid’s bouquet, I said, “Good morning,” to a pretty young couple who curtly returned a reserved nod—I had nothing to hide. What the strangers did not know, I had a long history with this yellow bush.

“Girls, look to the left, see those beautiful, natural free-flowing sweethearts of spring?” Mom directed, pointing at a Forsythia bush one spring.

My sister Lori and I knew what we would see and every March she would say the same thing about the Forsythia, “I love when they can just be their meandering free selves and not formed into a big beach ball like your Uncle Ernie does. I really hate that. Does anything say spring more than a Forsythia in bloom?”

I guess mom was a tree-hugger. She raised us to love nature and all people. That was the order for her—nature on top, everything else below.

The years passed and in our 22^nd year of life, my twin sister and I bought a little relic mansion in the middle of the city. I’d left home at eighteen, scuffled around crashing here and there, then, saw this house I had to have a few years later. Lori agreed to go in with me without even seeing it.

She was an actress and had lived in actors’ pads so was good with anything. It was like a steal—the foyer so grand. By this time, the late 80s, Carlisle Avenue was transitioning into a more diverse part of town. We heard sirens often and a few gunshots, too. A neighbor man would play his organ well after dark, sounding like the movie score from a Vincent Price flick.

We had a long, rectangular backyard, undulating with peaks and valleys and gopher haunts. I remember my dad saying, “It really needs to be graded.”

He would know, he had his own landscaping business before we were born. We saved the most glorious black and white pictures of him with our older brother Mark, the prince of the family, sitting on his tractor. Back in those simpler days, Mom, pregnant, did not know she was having twins, and when we both came out Dad had to get a real job with regular paychecks and benefits, assembling tractors at the local factory, to better support us all.

“Dad, really, grading, it sounds like a lot of work,” Lori replied to his suggestion, so we left the backyard as it was, taking a more carefree approach to our new life together.  If a light bulb burned out, we lit a candle. The yard did have some magical gifts, though, a big pussy willow tree by the garage, and two thirds of the way back was a huge orbiting, branchy bush.

“Girls,” Dad said, “get ready for a Forsythia bloom in the spring!” We looked at each other like he had just said something secretly holy, before adding, “ and that’s not all, with so much sun in this yard, we are going to plant a big garden; tomatoes, green beans, the works.” Dad was from an Italian family of fourteen who had survived hard times living off their garden.

“Zucchini and Eggplant!” two Neapolitan staples, Lori and I both blared at the same time. It was still winter yet I secretly could not wait to see what beginning-of-the-growing-season backyard magic was waiting for us in March.

That spring, late in the morning of March 4^th, before we went to celebrate Mom’s birthday, I ventured to the back weird room where we put out our collection of coats. You could see the backyard from there if you stood on a stool and carefully lifted the matchstick shade that always seemed to have fallen down.

I had been getting up early every day working on my little science project, painting our mix-of-colors interior Z-BRICK veneers white. I could not drink my morning wake-up cup of coffee to get me going until my sister got up, those were the rules, so I was working slow. Then we would have to exercise. Lori would say, “Nothing is delicious until you earn it!” Extending its branches proudly out of one of the undulations in the yard, the Forsythia bush seemed to be alive with future energy and I could not wait to tell Mom about it.

Mom loved her yellow birthday cake with fudge frosting made with coffee, her favorite kind, and could not wait to see our bush so we all headed back, but seeing the Forsythia she decried, “Oh girls, it’s so not right, where are the flowers, it’s just all leaves! That Buddy Alfano you bought the house from plain ruined his Forsythia!” was Mom’s disappointed assessment.

In the years before selling the house, Buddy hadn’t paid much attention to the bush, letting it grow obese, big and round like a rotund pitcher of pink Kool-Aid you see on TV sitting on everyone’s summer picnic tables.

“Well, then, how can we get it to be happy, to be itself?” we questioned.

“I could cut it back…yes, I think that is what it needs,” said Dad, adding his years of landscaper wisdom to the debate.

This time a trio of Minneti girls simultaneously screamed, “NO…NO…NOT THAT!”

Growing up was a struggle between Mom’s love of all things free and natural, and Dad’s efficient, tailored style. I loved when he would drive us by houses he’d landscaped; their hedges trim, their lawns manicured, while adding nice details about the owners, like being given a refreshing glass of lemonade on a sweltering hot day, or family dogs who actually liked having him around.

So we left our Forsythia bush as it was, the years passed, and every March I would hope for some yellow. I took books out of the library and learned something about cutting the dead branches and this tidbit; if it bloomed on a branch one year it would not bloom again on that same branch. Or was it the other way around? With much trepidation, one year I cut just a few branches here and there, all the while hearing my Mom’s voice, it must remain the free, meandering bush I love.
           
Then it happened!

The next spring Lori looked outside and exclaimed, “Good job, Lisa, do you see the little yellow flirt?”

Our big Forsythia bush, that for years had only been a brown mass of sticks, had bloomed! On its right side there were two little yellow flowers. Yes, only two but they were there, and would soon be overshadowed by an abundance of green leaves.

From that spring on, each year we got a handful of yellow, a patch of hope.

Years later, living with our two yellow labs and my boyfriend, a nature boy with a passion for indigenous plants, he asked me, “Lisa, what bush would you like for outside the bathroom window, you can pick whatever you want.”

“Well…Forsythia…yes, Forsythia!”

The word spilled out before I even knew what I was saying.

“Sure, but isn’t that a strap bush?”

Not much happened on its first year after he planted it, so the next year, with my early bloom bouquet snatched from a healthy Forsythia, I hardly glanced in our backyard while grabbing a fun bumpy yellow vase that looked like an ear of corn.

It was March, would it happen this year? During the previous month I caught my boyfriend cutting branches on the Forsythia and I freaked out just like my Mom, suggesting sternly, “I think you should have done that in the fall, you’re cutting all the buds, aren’t you?”

Having read so much about them, it was funny how I could never really remember what exactly was the right thing to do.

I walked into the bathroom thinking this is where the vase should go today. Just by happenstance glancing outside the window, twin yellow Forsythia bush flowers were flirting at me, as yellow and fresh as the ones I’d just stolen—seeing in my mind’s eye Mom, Lori, Daddy, Mark, and Michael all smiling at me, I ran out to the backyard feeling a child again.

I was the twin Mom dressed in yellow and pink because her skin was darker.

Maybe planting is really all about memories…and another chance to grow new ones.




*****************

Note: To those who have read Hazel Moon, you'll recognize one of the characters, Cash Reynolds, in this early exploration into the world of fiction inspired by our memoir.

A Visitation

I woke in the distant fog of a forgotten rainbow, floating in the drizzle of a dream caught between worlds of reality and fantasy. Where was I? Where was my Wedgewood-blue bedroom door and what happeed to the pink tulips on my wallpaper? This had to be a guy's room, painted the gloomy color of Guinness Stout.

The mismatched dressers were barely visible, hidden behind Mount-McKinley piles of rumpled XXL sweatshirts, assorted overalls, and plastic laundry baskets. The clothes looked folded on the bottom of those baskets, what dude would do that, while the top layers, lazily hanging over the rim, had inside-out boxer shorts featuring patterns of Irish-green shamrocks along with assorted T-shirts and rumpled jeans. On the rugged walls were posters of bar dice and killer whales. Somehow all this mess was crammed into the sparse space I was in—a room that screamed MAN CAVE. 

The morning light was filtering in through the small gaps of matchstick shades. Feeling dizzy, like I'd just downed a whole bottle of Prosecco, I turned to my side and gasped like the victim of a werewolf in a Lon Chaney movie.

"Oh...my...god," I mused seeing I was not alone in this guys-gone-wild frat pad.

There was a handsome hunk sleeping right next to me, his puppy face framed in a bundle of salt-and-pepper curls—a fellow I decided would look great in an age-of-the-Caesars Roman toga. When the fog of my disorientation cleared, this was my room after all, and the guy with those sexy George-Clooney locks was my J-dog, the stud I'd been living with!

My sister, Layna, who'd inherited the pixie mischief of our Gramma, who'd staged the mega mess in my room as a gag, started singing softly in my ears with her perfect-pitch voice while looking over my man, "You crack me up, Cola...all your boyfriends in one way or another look like Cash."

Hearing his name, after so many years, it all started coming back to me, my affair, my first all-consuming dalliance turned obsessive, with the daunting Cash Reynolds and how I first met him.

I'd locked eyes with a hunter—another man with a head of thick salt-and-pepper hair. He had the look of a wolf on the prowl, but also oozing the disarming charm of a Casanova. Drifting inside this expanding memory, I slipped into a romantic Twilight Zone...I was Cola Canelli again, 21again, flying fast and loose. He spoke right up, and boldly, as I approached his table with my waitress ordering pad, somehow knowing I wouldn't be able to resist him.

"Pleasure to meet you, miss, you must be new here, the name's Cash, you know like money, Cash Reynolds. So what's yours young lady? Let me guess, Princess or maybe Licorice?" he mused.

I poured him coffee, black, happy I had on my favorite light-blue uniform featuring an embroidered snake, done in yellow and black, our diner's logo. He had to be the tall 6' 2" dude with Paul Newman royal-blue eyes that waitress mates, Pat and Judy, were dishing about, telling me what a good tipper he was. Dollars-to-doughnuts, with Cash just sitting there, I paused to imagine him as a dashing riverboat gambler before I finally replied.

"Not quite, but good to meet you, stranger, the name's Cola, like the soda," accenting the la and da for emphasis and introducing him to the fact that I liked being musical with my voice.

"How is it that a young lady in these parts would be given a name like Cola? Where I come from, down Kentucky way, I've never met a girl with that name, anyway you can call me RC, that is if you dare?"

It wasn't so much his words, but how he said them, how he carried himself, like I was the rabbit this fox was going to corral for dinner. But, it was more than that, he had an immediate hypnotic hold over me—something about him I was completely vulnerable to, that couldn't be put it into words.

"Now, I'm not surprised," I quipped, flipping my hair, "it's a pet name because everyone knows how much I love soda, Coca Cola in particular, see?"

I opened my mouth wide while getting the last word out, resting my head back as far as it would go, eyes closed, then, held the position as if I were the statue, Venus de Milo, until he spoke up.

"Now Miss Cola, what am I supposed to be looking at? I mean I'm honored that you've opened yourself up to me, yet I wouldn't recommend this routine for every gentleman you meet, but whatever the secret of your tonsils up in there, it's safe with me."

With that, Mr. Cash Reynolds struck a match on the gold and sea salt colored counter with the macho moxie of a John Wayne movie double.

"Totally, that's good to know," I said, fluttering my minx eyes just like Patty Smyth does when fronting her band, Scandal, "I just love pop in a can, syrupy fizzy fountain drinks, and in general I'm an easy mark for most unhealthy addictions, so, Mr. Cash, what I was showing you was the evidence, of well, my obsessions' cavities!"

"Oh...okay...but sometimes you know it's cool not to advertise your shortcomings, anyway that's how I roll—keep them guessing. At your age, though, you still want to show off a bit, I get that. So, you've got those silver fillings and I daresay quite a mouthful for a girl your age. Next time, go for the gold! Never set your goals too low in this life, instead ride 'em high! Want a look at my teeth? I'm not big into smiles but as you can see they're perfect, as in all capped, and I did it straight up, no happy gas for me. I like the pain," he bragged while flashing me a Cheshire Cat grin.

At this point I was completely mesmerized, standing in front of him in an Elvis-Presley-groupie daze as a premonition of what might possibly happen next took hold—the potent fantasy unfolding in my fertile imagination.

Caught up in a saucy daydream playing out as a film screening inside my mind, I asked him, "Does a riverboat gambler ever go flying?" I teased to open this lucid drama.

"As a matter of fact, he does and I just happen to have my hot air balloon out back? When's your break?" he questioned, playing along.

"I'll check with Judy and Pat. You know them, right? I think their groupie customers are coming in soon, so they can handle the floor and I should be able to get away for a bit!"

As we left the restaurant together I felt as light as purple rain, my soul now soaring like a morning dove. 

Mr. Cash was stylishly decked out in a Members Only maroon jacket, me in a new outfit from our local mall's Merry-Go-Round; tight white jeans with pink patches on the knees. It was the mauve-shaded world of 1984, the night sky glimmering with blue-eyeliner stars and days filled with double rainbows.

As my fantasy flick unfolded, his hot air balloon was parked out back, we took hold of the line, and climbed into the gondola. It was fashioned in the shape of a Lincoln Continental Mark IV. One blast from the gas jet and it whisked us up up and away. 

Day became night as moonlight made my midnight-brown bangs gleam, my hair fashionably cut straight back to my ears. Cash blew me a kiss with his free hand to honor the evening's deepening lavender darkness. When the kiss arrived, like Sleeping Beauty before me, I became the effervescent, carbonated Miss Cola Canelli!

"We're almost there...I'll just let some air out now. You should remember this place."

We landed in the hustle and bustle of a racetrack, not any old track, this was Maywood, Cash's favorite, known for its vintage atmosphere. Other gamblers were coming and going, the intoxicating risk of the wager thick in the air, and Cash Reynolds could never resist the call of the wild to the betting booths. Sitting at a VIP table, we were served coffee in an enormous sterling silver decanter right next to the track.

The handsome jockeys were so dignified, riding tall in the saddle of their magnificent thoroughbreds, holding the reins with the precision of a conductor's baton. Ablaze in doll-buggy-parade colors, cherry red and honeybee yellow, they lit up the dark night.

"Cola, I see you checking out the jockey in red, and he you. Don't be shy, what is there to do but remember that Love is Magic...always know that."

Funny, even in the midst of this daydream I was thinking that the jockey in red looked like my J-dog when he was a skinny teenager, but getting back to the daydream movie projecting inside my imagination.

The jockey winked at me then tipped his hat to his horse...a grand steed with the soul of a gray unicorn, looking like the one from the famous Cloisters tapestry. When the jockey offered us the reins, he dismounted, Cash and I got on, and rode the mythical creature, soaring over a series of Medieval castles that magically appeared among the rolling hills and through cotton-ball clouds...puffy like a '70's print ad, but decked out in the '80's colors teal and racy wine, the clouds' ribbons fluttering in the literary winds of that time.

Back in my real-world diner, standing there, slowly coming out of the trance I'd slipped into, without realizing it I began spilling hot coffee on my shoes. I scurried to the kitchen to clean up, talk to Judy and Pat, and caught them in the middle of a gossip session spilling the beans about me and my twin sister, Layna.

"Now, is she the sister who goes out with that D'Gunner boy...well, speak of the devil...Cola, is it you or your sister who's dating a D'Gunner?" Judy asked, like most of our friends, someone who had trouble telling us apart.

"That's Layna," I replied, distracted, part of me still drifting in and out of my surreal daydream.

"Say, Cash usually wants something to drink. I saw you hanging by him. What are you thinking...he's so old?" Pat butted in.

"And, no freebies for friends here, you serve him, he pays, got it?" Judy insisted.

"Yeah, that's right, there's no Cola without Cash," Pat teased, after laying down a stand-up comedian clever play on words.

"What do you mean too old...I don't want a guy my own age. Haven't you two figured out by now that I like to be...well...different?"

"Different...that's for sure, you always give me something different to shake my head at whenever you show up here," Pat added satirically.

"Just what are you planning to do with that geezer anyway?" Judy asked, kidding yet serious.

"I think we'll have a whole passel of kids," I replied reflectively, looking up and away, sighing, and batting my eyelashes as I imagined our home full of Little-House-on-the-Prairie toddlers.

"Snap out of it...you're just manstruck on that old-timer," Pat warned.

Instead of tuning into what they were saying, I'd slipped back deep into my Mr. Cash daydream because in the midst of the fantasy he'd just told me something terrifying.

We'd left the racetrack and were soaring again, the hot air balloon's Lincoln Continental shape distinctively outlined against a growing bank of granite-gray threatening storm clouds.

"Why would you scare me like that...it's a lie...it has to be...it can't be true?" I hissed.

"I'm telling you...your brother...he is going to die...Cola, I wouldn't lie to you ever, but especially not about something this serious," Cash insisted.

"I won't allow it...he's our prince, our brightest star...we can't lose him..."

We drifted over the apartment I shared with Layna, featuring upside-down pink hearts on the wallpaper and a fridge full of soda...the cola kind, and liquor of all sorts. I had on my black leather jacket and a ruby ring, a gift from a recent Valentine's Day admirer. Just then the hot air balloon began losing altitude...

Before impacting the ground my fantasy ride was over, the Lincoln Continental Mark IV balloon was gone, and I was back in my present-moment real world.

There was an actual Mr. Cash in my distant past, but J-dog was my new Cash Reynolds and despite the high-roller feelings of infatuation in my tantalizing daydream, I was good with that.

Back in bed, now focused on the future, I kissed the sturdy side of my J-dog, leapt out from under the covers, grabbed one of the sweatshirts from the pile, and felt like a jumping jack...I was Cola again!

I skipped out into the coral-colored guestroom to play with my treasures—bottles of fine fragrances, a pair of chunky boots, and sat down in front of my 1920's vanity. Picking out a hair tie from a pewter box, with one swoop I had a spiked-high ponytail, the kind you keep pulling on to keep it funky.

"My Jakey...I missed you!"

Jake was the big, yellow lab pup my J-dog had surprised me with early in our relationship. Racing Jake to the kitchen, I started singing the Warren Zevon song, "Werewolves of London," but it soon led to another Mr. Cash memory.

My uncle and his buddies who hung out at the restaurant used to ring out with a collective Ahoo whenever Cash came into the diner. Jake loved it when I sang that song to him and so kept brushing up against me with every Ahoo.

"Superstar cool," I said after eyeing up the plump banana muffins J-dog picked up for us at the big-box store where he liked to shop for bargains.

Opening the frig I bypassed the tub of supposedly healthy oleo and grabbed a stick of the real thing, the kind I always had around for baking. Pulling the muffin out of the oven, I sliced it up like I'd done so many years before and put a perfect square of butter right in the middle. Jake was breathing heavy, tail wagging, sitting impatiently right next to me hoping for a treat.

"I know it looks awesome now, but just wait until the butter melts," I advised Jake, who sighed a deep breath and seemed to relax.

J-dog had inherited classic Stoneware plates from a relative and I went to grab my favorite, the one with red-and-yellow strawberries on it. I sat right down on the ceramic floor, noticed the dirty grout, but for some unexplained reason my mind went blank except for wondering how long it had been since I'd seen Cash...going on twenty years and counting. 

After going our separate ways, I always thought, hoped, expected that I'd somehow run into him. You know, fate has a way of pulling that kind of clandestine coincidence off when things are meant to be.

I'd always believed in magic—how focusing on someone or something can actually alter your reality. Feeling myself slipping down an all-too-familiar rabbit hole slope of sadness, I couldn't let that happen, not today.

I took a bite of the muffin and again, strangely, though it was early and not sure why I had the overwhelming urge to call my mother right at that instant, when I'd planned to phone her later in the day.

There aren't many people you can count on to connect with when you really need someone. My mom was one of those gems. She always wanted to talk, no matter the hour, and she always picked up.

"Hi Ma," my voice high-pitched and usually chipper, perhaps on the verge of being annoying, "so how are you? We just got home from D.C. last night and had a blast!"

I lifted up the muffin, just like I used to do as a kid growing up in a home where our mother often baked them from scratch. We'd slather the top with butter and watch the yummy golden goo slide to the sides while rotating it, like you would a shiny diamond to catch every glimmer and shimmer there was to see. I took another bite, all the while thinking how fortunate I was to have J-dog in my corner, while also feeling Mr. Cash's shadow present, hearing the echoes of his words...Cola, you always do something to surprise me!

"Hi honey...so glad you're home safe and sound," replied Mom, who had a habit of rattling on and on until she got everything out that was on her mind. "Did you girls have fun with C.C.? What about your sister, did she have a good time? I like C.C. well, what's not to like, she's cute, dresses nice, she's intelligent, and she's German! Washington D.C. should have been a great vacation spot for Layna...you know how she just loves pomp and circumstance. Your father's been driving me crazy.

Sometimes he's just no help at all. The only thing I can get him to do is go to estate sales. I just buy cheap things like the small pan I picked up last time to fry eggs in while waiting for your father to get up, but not him, it's always about finding something much more expensive like antique furniture. Oh well, that's your father."

"I thought he was pretty much only into tools and fishing supplies?" I offered, hoping to soften her edge where Dad was concerned.

"Yes, he buys those things too, but you know we have such a small house and there's nowhere to put the tables and bookcases he brings home. Anyway, I'm glad you had a good time. Did your sister get along with C.C.?"

"Yes Ma...yes...C.C. met us there and took us to some Shakespeare play that she found out about and then brought us a bottle of wine and some flowers."

"Oh, she got you a present, too?"

"She always does."

"Yeah, I like C.C. She dresses nice."

"She likes you, too, Mom, really she does."

I tried not to chuckle at my mother's comical difficulty both keeping up with and maintaining a balanced conversation, and managed to hold a chuckle in by petting Jake who'd nestled right next to me on the floor.

"Oh...well...did she say I dress like a German when you showed her those pictures of me?"

"Yes, Mom, you had on your European look, a denim skirt and I think some boots, those clogs, too."

"It's time you and your sister let people know about your German roots, and I'm not talking about your hair! You're only half Italian, you know. My little babies...when you both were toddlers you looked so Italian, I'd take you out in a double stroller and my German friends would come up and say how special it was that I adopted both of you and didn't split you up, as is sometimes the German custom...like your uncle, now he was raised by his grandmother. Anyway, walking you I'd smile and say, yes, they're mine."

All of a sudden there was a quiet pause on the other end of the line.

"Oh...honey...I knew there was something I forgot to tell you...that Reynolds fellow you knew years ago, he died...it was in the paper. Your father showed it to me this morning."

Hearing the shocking, tragic news I cringed then collapsed. Yes, memories of Cash had been interrupting all my thoughts since waking, but please...NOT THAT. Jets of searing painful grief invaded my being like an emotional Black Plague.

I dropped the plate on the floor, it shattered and the muffin went flying. Prostrate, my cheek on the cold ceramic tiles, my breathing became spasmodic. Fighting off a panic attack, I struggled to gather myself enough to respond to my mother who still on the line was now wondering what happened to me.

"When...when did he die...how...where...," I managed to get out as a profound sense of loss continued to cripple me."

"Just hold on and I'll go get the clipping, it's over by the cat...Pumpkin move now...just a minute," Mom said sensing I was upset.

I could hear her rummaging quickly through some papers, realizing as she always did just how much he meant to me.

"Here it is...oh...I didn't know Cash was my age...huh...oh Cola...he died on your birthday."

He was my first love...

and you never forget the one

who lit your fires of passion

for the very first time.

****************************

Here's a poem Lisa recently wrote:

Sandbox

I want to fall into you...in a sandbox,

In a tree so tall its music-note branches reach for  

Stars made of purple glitter,

And be squished like a bag of plump rainbow pastel marshmallows.