The Conjugation of M

By Beverly J. Bronleewe

The family that moved in next was as different from the former two families as Whip ’n Chill from tapioca.

The Conjugation of “M” relates the summer shenanigans of a suburban New England neighborhood through the eyes of Deborahh Gainsworth, a thirteen-year-old girl navigating the sometimes-tumultuous storms of her teenage years. All around her, personalities are gradually revealed through competitive banter and displays of their abilities, all in preparation for the long-awaited Ridgely Road Talent Show.

Deborahh faces the challenge of using her poetry skills to sublimate recent experiences—one an encounter she’d sooner forget, and the other a spiritual awakening she’d always remember.

The sequence of families who lived next door to her all had last names starting with the initial M. However, the third family who moves in is the one that will change her life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891300538

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The Conjugation of M

Beverly J. Bronleewe

ISBN 979-8-89130-052-1 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-053-8 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Beverly J. Bronleewe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Although this book is considered by the author to be autobiographical fiction, it easily could be said to be fictional autobiography. Either are correct. However, names and locals have been changed, to protect the innocent, or the not so innocent. Any resemblance to actual persons, dates and locales is entirely intentional.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

In Memory of Ruth McCassie,

whose spell for eternity was cast with a mascara wand.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Author's Note

About the Author

In Memory of Ruth McCassie,

whose spell for eternity was cast with a mascara wand.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have come to fruition without the patient prodding of our children, Matt, Erin and Emily, and their devoted spouses, the curiosity of faithful friends, and my husband Tom, who is not only technically savvy, but touchingly sweet.

Chapter 1

In the summer of 1966, having entered the teenage sphere of cynicism, I found myself confronted with a disturbing dilemma. I had to write about it. Poetry was my refuge of expression. It always had been. I'd loved to write since I was six years old, when my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Fisk, called me to the front of the class to read a poem I'd written in honor of St. Patrick's Day:

Green

We ware green for good old Pat,

He wares green its on his hat.

We like it but like or not

Hes jus glad hes not a Scot.

Thank you, Deborahh, she said as I primly took my seat. Do you see, class, how Miss Gainsworth used both rhyme and meter? she continued as she reread the poem, pounding out the rhythm on Keith Cantry's desk. I remember that he had backed up a little, deliberately avoiding any inadvertent beats on the hand. Looking back, it is hard to believe that a first-grade teacher would even think of igniting a desire to compose poetry, complete with explanations of rhyme and meter, in the heart of a first grader. But she had, and the fire lit in me had never been extinguished.

The question looming in front of me now, like a watch suspended from a hypnotist's hand, was Do I write and expose my true feelings about what happened, or do I cloak it in words that only I know the interpretation of? Writing them was one thing, reading them out loud another. It seemed risky to read mine out loud. The path from page to lips was long.

The temptation of adolescence is to live in the moment, not in memories. But some of the richest poetry I'd read, and I know some of the best I'd written, was comprised of memories. Not only is memory selective, memory is selfish. By the time you chew it up and spit it out in the form of words, it can be altered. Or you can be accused of altering it. Memory is peculiar to your perspective at the time, so that's how it's stored. And that's why sometimes you'll hear someone say, That's not how I remember it… Of course not.

In my thirteenth year, the concentric circles of my existence buzzed around me like bees bent on attacking a field of flowers. The summer had bloomed, as had any other summer on Ridgley Road. None of my neighborhood friends had scoped out their summer plans any more than I had. The New England humidity that forced us out of our stifling homes on those languid mornings likewise compelled us to return by midafternoon, where we sought refuge and lemonade. Our days were interrupted only by mealtimes, the occasional appointment scheduled by our mothers, and infrequent trips to the city pool. My mother banned me from the pool because of those pesky earaches, although I knew the real reason was that the company kept there had overheard her remarks once to one of my aunts. It has taken some pretty serious determination for me even now, as an adult, to consider a city pool as anything other than a disease factory.

My friends and I generally chose a large shade tree in someone's front yard to hang out under on those sultry mornings, and the one most often chosen was at the Arigottos' home, directly across from my own. In contrast to many other Italian families I knew, they were a small family. I wish I could say that the aromas of garlic and pasta sauce lured us over there, but sadly, Mrs. Arigotto did not have an Italian background. I think she mostly heated up canned SpaghettiOs and store-bought garlic bread when she wanted to impress Dr. Arigotto. I don't think he was impressed. However, judging from his girth when we caught a glimpse of him, he evidently found fulfilling food somewhere, if not in Mrs. Arigotto's kitchen. Lynette Arigotto was two years older than I and arrogantly richer than any other kid in the neighborhood, due to her dad's vet practice. Her brother, Dr. Arigotto's junior, Toddy, was something of a phantom figure since he owned a red Corvette and held a part-time job in his dad's office.

That summer, I had just graduated from a training bra (what are they training for, anyway?) to a size-A cup, a feat accompanied by subtle pride. The changes taking place in my body were beginning to affect how I felt about myself that summer and how others reacted to me. Sometimes I liked all of that, and sometimes none of it. Regardless, it was out of my control.

I was called Debbie by most of my friends, except Bernice Branson, who preferred my given name, Deborahh—yes, two h's. Bernice's enunciation of the three syllables accentuated her pompousness while simultaneously annoying me. But I had learned that the more I made my irritation obvious to her, the more delight she took in exaggerating the enunciation. So, I usually tried to ignore her, as did most of the Ridgley Road kids. Bernice was not one of my favorite people. It was risky to claim one best friend on Ridgley Road anyway. I preferred to spread my interests around, like one might a large wraparound skirt, trying to include everyone while still knotting it occasionally where it would best become me. This meant that if we hit upon a morning where Mrs. Arigotto would again point out the area on her front yard where grass refused to grow due to excessive lollygagging on our part, another location would have to be found, and chosen strategically. There were numerous possibilities.

Each house on Ridgley Road was its own world. The most interesting, of course, differed the most from my own. So, when I was younger, if I entered the McNickles' house with their umpteen children, and smelled last night's mashed potatoes (dredged in butter), I envisioned multitudes of McNickles pushing potatoes up their smeared noses—possibly even a food fight! I just knew it was more interesting than my home's tame table. The image of their crowded table and their father, whose handsome Irish boyishness was exaggerated by his spirited temper, contrasted with my supper table, which seated only the three of us: my mother, biting her subservient lip in resistance to my father's unjustified complaints over the meal; my father, whose dietary choices limited my mother to his nightly expectations of Monday meatloaf, Tuesday lambchops, Wednesday spaghetti; and lastly, of course, me. My longing for a younger sibling was supposedly fulfilled by occasional pets, dearly loved but unable to quibble, a characteristic symptomatic of siblings, which I'd often envied. That summer we still had Truedell, a nine-year-old inside-outside tabby cat, whose antics included jumping up on the front porch railing and ringing the bell with his paw.

In truth, the sympathies or respect afforded an only child, especially in my primarily Irish-Italian neighborhood, weren't mine to claim. I was a late-in-life surprise to my parents. When the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed the rhythm method of timing ovulation as a reliable birth control method, my parents, although neither Catholic nor frequent in their use of this option (judging from a subsequent discussion on the birds and the bees), were lured into trying it.

And voilà—there I was. It appears that the Catholic Church was more reliable in dispensing dogma than birth control information.

My two sisters, Annette, fourteen, and Sheryl, sixteen at the time of my birth, although temporarily embarrassed by my mother's condition for nine months, became doting second mothers, delighted with a live baby doll in the house. But their interest decreased as their dates increased, so that by the time I was four years old, they both were out of the house. Annette was attending college in Kansas, where she eventually lived with her husband; Sheryl was married, living out of state and responsible for my being declared an aunt (a lofty title for a four-year-old).

When the McNickles moved out sometime in the early sixties, they were replaced by the Marrufos, whose mother possessed the uncanny ability to produce new offspring nearly every spring. Out from under her well-worn winter coat would come not only spring clothes but generally a new Marrufo as well. I marveled at this and wondered why my own mother couldn't be as creative.

Those Marrufos kept pretty much to themselves, for which I was genuinely grateful, since the memory I have of them was peanut butter and jelly–stained mouths with the breath to match. I knew there was a father in the picture, but I also understood that he wasn't often home. Evidently often enough, I'd think, seeing Mrs. Marrufo and her blanket-laden arms again herding Marrufos one direction or another.

My understanding of reproduction at that time was pretty limited to Missie, the Cantry family's beloved beagle. Missie chose to give birth at the most inopportune time in the most inconvenient place: midnight on New Year's Eve in the Cantry kitchen pantry, coincidentally underneath a case of canned baby peas.

The neighborhood kids had been invited over in place of the annual adults' New Year's Eve bash. Mrs. Cantry was convinced that an event for the neighborhood children would absolve her of not providing a Better Homes and Gardens Christmas for her own children that year. Within earshot, I had heard my mother relay the specifics of the story while seated under the hair dryer at Betty's Beauty Boutique. As she amplified her volume under the ancient dryer's roar, I couldn't help but be amused at the stares she managed to unknowingly collect.

Apparently, Mrs. Cantry felt the need to compensate for a rather disturbing non–Kris Kringle episode involving her ex-husband, one of the local Boy Scout leaders. Something about him drunk and attired in full elf regalia, having just come from an office Christmas party, dragging in his even drunker girlfriend. I wasn't sure whether my mother said Suzie or floozie, but this woman had accompanied him to see his kids on Christmas Eve. All I remember, in retrospect, about that particular date at 64 Ridgley Road was being surprised, noticing the Cantry's annual Christmas wreath—fresh from the Boy Scouts' lot—looking rather bedraggled, awkwardly suspended from the hickory tree by their front porch. It all made sense when Crindy Cantry later said her mother had crowned her father, and that he had sent something flying. I didn't think there was anything pertaining to this kind of misbehavior in the Boy Scout Handbook.

Anyway, Mrs. Cantry had quickly sent out personal invitations edged in gold, following Christmas, to each of us kids in the neighborhood—including her own three children—inviting us to a New Year's Eve get-together. As a postscript, she had added B.Y.O.D. My mother had to call to find out exactly what Mrs. Cantry was referring to: bring your own doughnuts, dolls…devil dogs? Mrs. Cantry informed my mother that the abbreviation stood for bring your own disappointments. It did not sound like a very cheery New Year's Eve. It appeared to make my mother a bit uncomfortable, but it also solved her dilemma of how to keep me entertained that night. This was one of about three nights in the year when my parents entertained with a beer-and-card party, so for me to be invited somewhere else meant that my mother would not have to find a way to distract me from the party planned for that evening in our dining room.

Mrs. Cantry evidently had high hopes that if we all shared times of disappointment in our young lives, this would provide some type of absolution for the incident her children had endured on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cantry's plan was usurped by Missie's. Missie saved the day. Or night, as it turned out.

Numerous childish woe-is-me disappointments had been shared. Wayne Booker began talking about the time his dad had tied a string around his loose tooth to the clothesline winder, reeling him in. We were all proceeding to ooooh, when a disturbing howl in the pantry shot through the air. The silver Christmas tree shimmered—or shivered—in response, but it was Mrs. Cantry bolting out of her comfy hot-pink beanbag that startled us.

The Cantry kids knew the cause of the cacophony—Missie was about to pop!

They had waited since Halloween for these puppies to make their appearance. They fell all over each other to see who could sprint to the pantry the fastest, with the youngest, Davy, the victor. The rest of us were spurred into action.

Since I don't do well with even the mere sight of blood, I cannot relate many firsthand details, but by listening to both Missie's and the kids' groans, gasps, and grunts, I knew it wasn't a pretty sight.

Crindy Cantry began talking about Missie's counterpart in this venture. Apparently, a male dog named Flip, belonging to some family friends of the Cantrys who lived somewhere out in the country, decided to become a city dog for a day and paid Missie the rudest of visits. Flip's success rate with the females preceded him, since the more puppies Missie produced, the more Crindy compared them with other litters Flip had sired.

At any rate, that was the first time—at age eleven—I had reckoned with the fact that it took two to tango, as I'd heard my father say, even though it was usually said in reference to Mr. Cantry's latest escapade.

In light of this unexpected incident (and thanks to Missie's output and Crindy's input), I surmised that Mr. Marrufo was directly responsible for Mrs. Marrufo's ever-expanding wardrobe requirements. In this case, I knew we couldn't blame it on Flip.

Mrs. Marrufo's ability to present the neighborhood with a new Marrufo nearly every spring was surpassed only by one other distinctive feature, her variable shades of red hair. I, being a student of every Nice 'n Easy commercial on TV, knew these were not God-given shades of red hair, due to the darker hair budding on her scalp toward the end of each month. I kept an eye on her choices of Raucous Razzleberry or Strawberry Secret. Prior to the Missie moment, however, I had wondered if there was any connection between Mrs. Marrufo's hair coloration and her yearly production of Marrufos.

When the Marrufos moved out in the summer of '66, I wasn't surprised to learn of the McCaffreys moving in. The front aluminum screen door displayed a decorative M, after all, neatly centered in the curlicue frame. The door had merely conjugated its residents, from the McNickles to the Marrufos to the McCaffreys.

But the family that moved in next was as different from the former two families as butterscotch pudding from popcorn balls.

Hey, have you girls seen the hunk that moved into the Marrufos' house last week? asked Bernice Branson, directing her question to our female squad languidly spread out like seals on a suburban seashore. As she approached the Arigottos' huge silver maple, she flamboyantly flashed her recent adornments. Bernice was the first on Ridgley Road to have braces anchored onto her teeth, evoking both mixed admiration and dread amongst us. She stuck her tongue out between her teeth, and I couldn't help but think that her mother, who had sold her soul to the devil himself for those things, would have fumed if she'd seen Bernice shooting out last night's popcorn kernels from between her brackets.

This I knew about Bernice Branson: she relished dream dousing. She had put down nearly every good idea tossed around under that dear old tree, and did it gleefully. Her hallmark on my childhood imagination was demythologizing Santa Claus and revealing that my parents had been impersonating him. Egad. Bernice had decided to drop that atomic childhood bomb on me one day when I was eight years old, while we were raking leaves at my backyard.

One of the connections to our personal memory banks is the sense of smell, such as the recognition of a loved one's perfume in a crowd. Emeraude by Coty does that for me—my mother's signature scent. The smell of food has perhaps one of the greatest powers to evoke memories, and the savory smell of Woolworth's hot dogs sizzling on the well-seasoned grill in downtown Waldmoor still prompts a reverie of fine child-delight cuisine. Burning autumn leaves are the fragrance that will always prompt me to remember this incident.

Bernice and I had been busy in my backyard, raking piles of unruly leaves into neat leaf houses, emphasizing the peculiarities of each room. The aroma of smoldering oak and maple leaves wafted throughout the neighborhood that Saturday afternoon as Ridgley Road families burned their individual piles. A Norman Rockwell autumn afternoon. As Bernice and I hustled and coaxed our leaves into precisely the designs we had in mind, there hung in the brisk autumnal air an almost philosophical mood affecting our conversation. We began unraveling a few of life's deeper mysteries.

You're not one of those babies who still believes in Santa Claus, are you? she asked, pushing her pile of leaves for a laundry room closer and closer to my modernized kitchen. I suspected that she knew I was the better leaf architect.

What do you mean? I hesitantly said, lowering my eyes in fear that the rumors I'd heard could be true.

You know, that whole thing about a big fat man in a red suit bringing presents down the chimney and all that—the whole flying reindeer thing. You don't think that really happens…do you?

I recognized at this point that I had two options. I could reveal some of the doubts I had secretly harbored in the Santa sanctum of my mind, or I could feign maturity and act streetwise, denying any conceivable belief in that jolly old elf at the ripe old age of eight years. I decided to wobble on middle ground. I winked at her.

What do you think? I said, shifting my rake from one hand to the other, not exactly sure what I was implying. Ambivalence was my safety net.

Bernice rolled her eyes at me and mercifully dropped the discussion, either out of guilt (an unfamiliar emotion for her) or fear that she might get caught exposing the truth to me if my mother were to stick her head out of the back door to offer us a steaming cup of hot cocoa. We continued raking. But the smoldering leaves peppered throughout the neighborhood no longer held their magical aroma.

That evening, as I helped my mother fold laundry, I confronted her. Mom, is the whole Santa story true? Does he really live up at the North Pole and bring presents to all the boys and girls all over the world? Does he really have enough time to do that in one night of the year? And what about those storybook reindeer? Can just eight reindeer pull a sleigh full of toys for kids all over the world? I know there's that time change thing…but still…

Well, why not? my mother hedged, biting her lower lip, her habit when things got uncomfortable. You believe in miracles, don't you? Who've you been talking to, anyway—that Bernice Branson? I nodded on both accounts.

Oh, you know her, Debbie. She's always acting like she knows more than you younger kids.

I remember noticing that she had mixed up the clean underwear she was folding. My father's blue-striped button undershorts were heading to my underwear drawer.

Now, don't you worry your pretty little head about what Bernice said. Santa will come this year, I'll guarantee you that. But I did worry about it.

I soon began to realize that questioning the Santa legend could endanger my potential hoard of gifts, however, so I never again verbally questioned the veracity of the old man's existence. In fact, I became downright zealous in propagating my supposedly recovered belief by spending much of the following December looking up into the chimney (particularly when a parental audience was present) and checking the fireplace heath for ample gift space. Sometimes, just for effect, I added musical snippets of Oh, you'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout, I'm telling you why…

My false enthusiasm that year paid off in one of the largest piles of gifts I had ever received. Later, I figured out that they were trying to further encourage my belief (by the overabundance) that he existed, in a big way. Instead, their generosity only served to expose the cover-up.

By the next year, the charade had ended, and we collectively breathed a sigh of relief. I learned a lesson that, once the truth was out there, we no longer needed to dance around it. Or, in my case, rearrange gifts.

So, eyeing Bernice with the knowledge of what I'd seen in the past, I suspected that we might do well to be wary of her observations. A spade is a spade.

Lynette Arigotto was the first to snare Bernice's bait concerning the hunk-in-residence.

All I've seen is a little boy…kind of puny… hanging out his window. I think it used to be Karla Marrufo's room, Lynette said.

The rest of us let these two older girls, Lynette and Bernice, discuss this subject, which was so new to us. Boys. Datable boys. Certainly not the kind that hung out with us.

Well, there's an older brother, Bernice said. Before school let out, I heard other kids talking about a new guy who would be in his senior year moving into our neighborhood. They said his name is Garry and that he's a real hunk. I'd better quit talking about him or I'll start drooling… Bernice rolled her eyes back, seeming to swoon. Meanwhile, we waited to see if she meant this literally or not. With Bernice and her braces, you never knew.

I've heard his mother yelling at the little runt, ‘Willie, get away from that window. You'll catch the bronchitis again!' Lynette mimicked nasally. But I haven't seen the older brother at all. This was received with sympathetic sighs from the female division of the group.

As if on cue, the bedroom window across the street (one house over from mine) slowly began to creak upward, exposing a pale-faced little boy whose voice soon eclipsed his size.

Hey, kids. Come on ovah to my house, Willie McCaffrey squawked while endeavoring to push the stubborn window up—a task his skinny little arms strained to accomplish. He looked about six years old, the type of kid who is basically a bother to a teenage girl. I already knew I'd have no patience with him, even if it meant a