This is a new story called “Boys and girls make fun” let’s start….. It’s funny, how as a kid you tend to see things so totally different from the reality in which they are. Only when you’re confronted with those same memories years later do you really understand the misconceptions we all place on them.
It was how I remembered June, though back then as a kid, we all teasingly called her, Maybelline.
Growing up right next door as a child, I very often made a little extra money back then doing odd jobs such as pulling weeds or mowing the lawn for June and her husband, “Old man Thomas” as we had likewise labeled him. There was no denying the fact that he was in fact older than she was herself back then, though “old” to us was anyone over the age of thirty. So his label was in fact somewhat appropriate even for the times as Thomas was easily in his forty’s back then, and June, or Maybelline was at the most in her early twenties.
Now as kids, the reason we called her Maybelline had a little bit to do with the makeup she wore, so it was an easy reflection of her as a person, along with her character. She did tend to wear a lot of makeup back then, or at least as I remember she did anyway. I remember that she always seemed to have darker than normal eyes,
more so than anyone else who lived around there at the time. Long lashes in addition, certainly fake as that was very much in style too, and always the same shade of bright red lipstick, that for some goofy reason, made my own parents cast doubt on her as being something they called, “A loose woman”.
I always wondered about that back then, never quite understanding what it was they meant, making the mistake of asking my parents once what it did mean, and getting sent off to my room for it. I never asked them about stuff like that ever again.
There was another major thing about her too though, that I tended to notice a great deal of, perhaps even more so than her dark almost coal black hair that she wore piled up on top of her head most of the time, not to mention all the makeup. But that was…she had fairly large breasts.
Hell, not fairly…they were, plain and simply. But again, I think looking back I tended to equate her memory with Dolly Parton for some reason, who at the time was very popular around the area I was growing up in. I think to some extent that Maybelline actually copied her look, which was again another subtle reminder, at least of her memory anyway, now looking back.
Even now I find myself smiling, looking back at my very first weeding lesson. Standing there in June’s garden while she proceeded to show me which plants were just that, and which ones were actually weeds. I stood paying close attention, though not so much to the weeds as to her boobs.
Stooping over so she could pull a few herself, showing me how she wanted me to do it and be careful so as not to accidentally pull out the actual flowers, I couldn’t help but gaze down the front of her open blouse. I remember clearly the stark contrast of her bronzed skin from hours of sun tanning,
or simply working out in the yard in skimpy halter tops, or what was back then not quite a bikini top, more like a permissible bra that could be worn outside. Though even that my mother frowned whenever she saw our neighbor dressed like that. Dad didn’t frown much however, he mostly smiled in fact,
and spent an inordinate amount of time looking out the kitchen window, as long as mom wasn’t around shooing him away, usually asking him if he didn’t have better things he could be doing as opposed to watching the neighbor flaunt her breasts.
I guess there is some truth to the saying, “boys will be boys”, though I know with some degree of certainty, dad wouldn’t have been able to stand there the way I was, and get away with looking down her blouse the way I was either. And funny too. Even doing that, all I really saw was a bit more well rounded, not so tanned pink flesh that hinted at what was still covered. I never once saw her nipples or anything even close to that whenever I did get a chance to take a peek without her being aware that I had.
I guess, it was just knowing that they were there, and that I was inches, or fractions of an inch from actually seeing them. Maybe back then, for a young boy growing up, just coming into his early sexuality, it was enough.
Another thing they always used to say was that things happen in threes. That was certainly the case for me.
After graduating from high school, I immediately left to do a stint in the Army. As it happened, I was but a few short weeks away from getting out when I was called home on emergency leave. Rather than waste a lot of unnecessary time, I was given an early honorable discharge, so went home a civilian as opposed to still being in the service.
The bad news was, I went home to bury my parents who’d been killed in an automobile accident. I’d been home less than a month after that, still trying to sort things out, collect myself, when June’s husband Thomas died from liver disease, no doubt brought on from all the booze he’d been drinking over the years.
That set the stage for what became a very interesting period for me. And a renewal of unexpected circumstances, with Maybelline.
**
Now, oddly enough, I didn’t even see June once during the month after my parent’s death. She had herself taken her husband out of state to a hospital that was much closer to where he’d grown up as a kid himself. She spent most of her time living and staying with his sister while he lay dying in the hospital.
So it was no surprise that she didn’t come to my parent’s funeral, though even if she’d been home at the time, I’d have been surprised to see her even then. I mean it wasn’t like they were close neighbors or anything, and certainly not friends. And I was sad to hear her own husband had passed away, hearing it from one of the other neighbors who’d been looking after her place while she was gone.
The day she came back home, I made a point of going over to see her, give her my condolences, and for no other reason, just to say hello.
Like I said, it’s funny how you remember things, and thus continue to perceive them to be. It was that image of “Maybelline” in my mind when I went over to her place later that late afternoon when I knew upon seeing her car in the drive, that she’d returned home again.
A bit nervous, and not sure exactly what I was going to say to her beyond “I’m sorry for your loss,” I knocked on her door waiting patiently. The fact it took her a while to even answer the door should have told me she was busy doing other things, and that now perhaps wasn’t the best time for me to show up and pay a courtesy call. In fact, I even stepped off the step intending to return home again when I heard her fumble with the lock on the door. The security chain was still engaged when she opened it, peering out towards me.
“Yes? Can I help you?” She asked.
I guess I should have realized I’d changed a little myself too. My own light brown hair was still short, far shorter than she’d ever seen me wear it of course for one. And secondly, I had actually grown another inch or two, not to mention putting on some weight, bulking up a bit. The twenty-two year old she now stood there looking at was a far cry from the skinny, somewhat shorter, much longer haired teenage kid I had been the last time I had seen her, let alone spoken to her.
“Hi…June? It’s me, Max.”
Even then it didn’t register for a moment, though her eyes suddenly grew wide as she realized who I was. She confused me further by suddenly closing the door, though it immediately opened again as she disengaged the security chain.
“Oh my god! Max! Come in! Come in! How’ve you been anyway?” She asked, though her tone quickly softened from one of excitement to one of sudden realization as she only then remembered what had most recently happened to me too. “I’m so sorry…about your parents,” she then said, stepping back into the room inviting me in.
“I’m sorry about…” I was staring, pausing momentarily before finishing my sentence, “your husband,” I said, stepping the rest of the way in. It was then that I realized I’d just caught her only moments perhaps from stepping into the shower. She hadn’t even bothered to throw a robe on.
All she had on was a simple bath towel that barely even covered her as it was. Now I was surprised she hadn’t asked me to come back later even knowing who I was now. But she hadn’t, inviting me to sit down in her living room instead as she took a seat across from me, curling up in the chair, tucking her legs beneath her as she did, though careful about revealing too much of herself.