It's Birthday Weekend!

CHAPTER 29

Zina

Monday, February 24, 1930

“Happy Birthday Day, Duey!” Zina looked back at her kitten to share her enthusiasm. “Oh! Nan will be here soon and then Frank will be by around six o’clock.” 

Duey was apparently more interested in grooming himself than in whatever a ‘birthday’ might be. Zina smiled at him and quickly got changed out of her school clothes behind her screen and began to fix her hair. 

As she smoothed her nearly black shoulder length hair, she struggled with a particularly unruly curl twisting the wrong way. She licked her fingers to try again. Duey copied her with his white tipped paws.

She giggled about how he mimicked her, but she certainly wouldn’t use his techniques herself. “I’m not going to care today about this cowlick, Duey. Even if it were called a ‘catlick’ you aren’t going to help me, but thanks anyway.” Zina was sure he understood, as he turned his attention to his other paw, nonchalantly.

Satisfied with her appearance, she went downstairs and out to the porch. Nan was already there.

“Hello, fellow twelve-year-old!” Zina greeted Nan; they locked elbows and walked toward the park to wait for Frank by ‘Aunt Etna’.

It was a beautiful sunny day for February, and although the air was brisk, it was wonderfully dry and void of snow.

“I know what I wish for you, Zina. That you finally find the perfect boy you are looking for. Oh, it is the most wonderful feeling!” Nan began skipping with happiness.

Zina smiled at her best friend while trying to keep up, metering her breath as best as she could to avoid a coughing fit.

“Oh, and I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you!” Nan came to a sudden halt to face Zina. “I talked with Father Antonio after our church meeting on Friday and he gave me an answer about the cousin question.” Nan was more excited now than anyone would normally be after talking with their priest.

“So, Father Antonio said that Michael and I would be allowed to marry!” Nan squealed.

“Nan, wait, you asked Father about Michael?”

“Well, I didn’t drop names, but I asked about the rules. I know we share the same uncle on his father’s side, and the church has rules about cousins getting married. So, the point is, Father Antonio said its allowable; we are within the rules!” Nan released Zina to spin and twirl with pure happiness.

“But Nan, we are twelve, remember? Well, technically. You’ll be thirteen in two months, but right now we are all twelve, you, me, and Frank.”

“I know, but that is not the point.” Nan brushed the small detail of age away like lint off her skirt. “Of course, we have to wait a few years still – plenty of time for Michael to fall in love with me.” She squeezed Zina’s hand with confidence.

The girls walked together in awkward silence since Zina’s mood shifted. What are these rules for cousins? Frank and I share an uncle too, and we are closer relatives than Nan and Michael are. We are most likely outside of the rules Nan mentioned, but that really doesn’t matter anymore, I can’t think of him that way.

Nan began talking again about all the visions she had for her future. Zina just smiled and was happy in all the right spots for Nan as she went on and on with her dreams of marrying Michael.

Zina wavered in her thoughts of Frank – now she wished Frank weren’t a cousin. Will I ever find someone else?

“Oh, there he is!” Nan exclaimed and Zina’s heart skipped as if Nan produced a boy in answer to her ‘find someone’ question.

“Oh hi, Frank,” said Zina, shaking off her previous train of thought and trying to be as natural as possible.

“Hi Zina, hi Nan. Happy Birthday Zina!”

“Thank you, Frank.” Zina regained her composure. “Isn’t it the best day today, that we are all twelve! Let’s head to the candy store and share a malt to celebrate. You’ll be thirteen tomorrow, Frank, so we don’t have any time to waste.” Zina smiled.

“What are you wishing for your birthday, Frank? It's so funny that you and Zina’s birthdays are one year apart, and one day.”

“I have a very special wish this year.”

“What is that?” Nan asked.

“If I told you, it won’t come true.”

“I thought that only holds true when you blow out candles.” Zina said.

“No, I’m pretty sure it works with any birthday wish.”

“Whatever you say Frank.” said Nan. 

~

On the walk back to Zina’s house, Frank purposefully fell behind so he could talk with Zina alone. Nan eventually got the hint and started skipping ahead with the sucker she bought.

Frank took this chance to give Zina something he brought for her. “I know we have our candies, but I have an apple for you, Zina. I saved two from the final harvest last fall, especially for our birthdays.”

“Oh Frank, the first of the year for me. Thank you, that’s very sweet of you.”

“Funny, I’m not so sure how sweet the apple is, but you can try it.” Frank smiled.

Zina bit into it and said it was the perfect amount of sweetness.

Frank brought out his pocketknife and proceeded to walk and peel his apple in a long continuous peel, the way he always did.  He’d start from the top by the stem and go in a spiral motion, coiling the peel as he slivered it off, creating one long strand that kept going, all the way down to nearly touching the sidewalk. He made sure he stopped before it hit the ground. Next, he grabbed the edge of the peel with the knife hand and brought it to his lips. He started eating the end of the peel, moving and sliding it into his mouth inch by inch, chewing the entire length before he took a bite of the apple that he removed it from. Zina looked at him in disbelief.

“If you were going to still eat the peel, why did you even peel it? I just don't understand you, Frank.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the peel so why waste it?”

“Well why don’t you just eat it with the apple? Why cut it off at all?” Zina asked and took another bite of her apple.

“Oh, that? I think it's fun. Why do you crochet granny circles?”

“What? How is that in any way similar?” 

“Well, since you asked Zina, here is what I think. They are both lines and circles. Your crocheting is a line being made into a circle and my apple peel is a circle, or I suppose a sphere, being made into a line. The line becomes a circle in your granny circles, and the circle becomes a line with my apple peel. They were one of the same, and then, they were different.”

It was just an apple, wasn’t it? Until Frank explained it, it was. Frank always sees things for more than what they are.

“Ok Frank, are you going to do that other thing now?”

“Of course,” he said. He had just finished his complete apple. He ate the entire core but saved the seeds in his cheek. He did this with every apple she had ever seen him eat. As they were walking, Frank made sure to go to the edges of the woody areas at the north end of the park. He spit out one seed onto the ground, after making a divot in the dirt, and then covered it over. The ground was hard, but he could scratch some dirt to cover.

“Someday it might be a tree. Perhaps not, but it has a chance now. I can’t always see what will happen, but I can set things in motion for them to.” He spit the last seed in the last hole.

“Like how the seed can’t see the tree it will be someday.”  Zina handed him her finished core.

He smiled, she remembered.

"The seen and unseen – exactly,” he said, as he made an extra-large hole and dropped her entire core into it. Zina looked at him in surprise. “But maybe this will work just as well.”

Zina smiled.

“Zina, imagine what the apple might think, if it could think. It has just been devoured, now it is buried in the ground.”

“How morbid.” Zina shuddered.

“Right, but think of it, now the apple has two choices, to decay and die right there, or to wiggle its seeds deeper in the soil and grow into something new.”

“You are a puzzle, Frank. Ah, but there is one more thing that could happen to the seed. It could get scratched and pecked at and eaten by a bird. It has no choices then.”

He laughed and she smiled.

“If I plant enough seeds, one will take eventually, right? And can you imagine how many apples we’d have then?”

“From one tree Frank?”

“No, from one tree and the seeds of all those apples. Then the seeds from all those apples that were just seeds, and so on and on.”

“Oh,” Zina got quiet. Sometimes Frank overwhelmed her with the visions he had. He can see the entire universe in the blink of an eye, she thought.

“Happy Birthday Zina, may all of the small seeds in your life grow to bear countless fruit.”

“Happy Birthday, tomorrow, to you too Frank. May you always see the universe in every small seed.”

They both smiled. A friend that understands you completely. Birthday wishes do come true.

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