Thursday, August 6, 2015

A Call From Aunt Becky

I often ask myself why my mother ever told me about the call that she received one winter morning from Aunt Becky.  Aunt Becky wasn't actually my aunt, she was Bonnie's mother. Bonnie was my friend who lived across the street.  I'd known her since I was four years old. We'd played jacks together on her wooden bedroom floor. I'd wait for her while she practiced the piano, and I'd wait for her while she finished dipping her last Nabisco wafer into her glass of milk, so that we could walk to kindergarten together. Now Bonnie and I were in fifth grade.

Aunt Becky said that she didn't know if she should actually tell my mother about it, but then she felt that it would be better if she did. The girls had been over at Bonnie's yesterday and she'd overheard  them talking about me. Actually, they were discussing a number of girls, and when they came to me, they decided that they didn't want me in their club. And she'd overheard one girl say, "Oow, she picks her nose."

Why, my mother felt compelled to tell me about her conversation with Aunt Becky, I'll never know.  But she delivered a word by word replay.  I shriveled into a ball when I heard. I knew that I picked my nose, but somehow I didn't quite realize that other people noticed. When I was little my Grandma Josie used to say, " Joanie, what are you digging for, gold?"  But that was kind of a joke, and besides I knew how much my Grandma loved me.

Well now the awful truth was out - even my Mother knew, though I suppose she too had known before on some level. Now what?  I was so shamed that I literally stopped my "secret" habit on the spot. But the damage had already been done. I would not be a member of their club and there was more to come.

I still don't know why Aunt Becky felt compelled to call my mother and report the whole sordid tale. And I still can't quite forgive my mother for spilling it all out to me that winter morning.




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