The Summer I Was Twelve

 

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This picture was taken in the summer of 1957. I was 12.

 

This was the summer my big sister Doreen came home to Regina for a visit. She gave me some of her clothes so I would look more the way she thought a girl my age should look. The skirt was something I never would have chosen. It was brown and striped and went to my mid-calf. She took me to see a play put on by the McGill University drama club, called “My Fur Lady.” All I recall of the play was that the girls at McGill wore short kilts and lounged around in the Redpath Library. Little did I know that later in my life I would study in that library and even work there for a few months.

That was the summer when Doreen asked me if I’d had “the curse” yet. “Yet?” I was terrified. What fate would befall me that I hadn’t heard about? She explained she meant my period, which I was relieved to tell her had begun.

I was shaving my legs and underarms at the bathroom sink, with a safety razor that had removable blades. “One of Dad’s old razors?!” she exclaimed. On my next birthday she sent me a gift of a little pink Lady Schick electric shaver. I loved it. For Christmas she sent me a lovely yellow quilted dressing gown, since she knew I didn’t have one. She also discouraged me from wearing “padded” bras because, she said, boys played a game called “true or false.” Life as a young woman began to feel quite alarming.

That summer Doreen and I shared my room and my bed. She placed a small, framed photo on my desk of her boyfriend. I asked her if they were going to get married. Her answer was, “People do get married.” They did.

Doreen brought an LP with her, “Belafonte.” We played that record almost every day, in my memory. We danced to the happy, Caribbean rhythms, a little hip-swinging dance, small steps, our bare feet flat on Mum’s hardwood floor. The songs were much more suggestive than any I had heard before, like “Will his love be like his rum? Intoxicating all night long? Yes it will. Yes it will.” Oooh, boy!

One of my favourites was “Dolly Dawn.” We laughed and danced to this one a lot. For a start, Mum’s name was Dolly. And Belafonte sang it with such zest. Lines like, “When Dolly go into a turn, Old men jump and their eyes begin to burn” were really rude, I thought, but Mum, always busy in the kitchen, washing dishes, preparing food, never said a word so I assumed she would tolerate it, if not approve of it. My big sister and I laughed loudly and danced outrageously and had so much fun together.

One day Doreen grabbed a broom and taught me to do the limbo. Even then my back didn’t arch very well, but I did my best to take little steps and wiggle my hips as I went feet first under that stick. Doreen said everyone in Montreal was doing it. There were a lot of newcomers from the Caribbean at McGill and in Montreal in general just then and she loved going to their dances.

Doreen told me about a film she had gone to with a bunch of friends, wherein a car drove onto the sidewalk and a woman was grabbed and pulled into the car. These silly friends decided to try to re-enact the scene in real life. They got a ticket for “driving on the sidewalk.” Her life in Montreal seemed very exciting to a 12-year-old in sleepy Regina. Nothing like that ever happened here, I was sure.

Doreen had another side, one less fun-loving. She was a stickler for perfection. She asked how I was able to wear my shoes when they were so scuffed. I went and polished them at once, not without feeling embarrassed and resentful, though. Another time I broke a fingernail and she asked me how I could stand having nine long nails and one short one. I didn’t cut the others off. Doreen came to my piano recital and I was so nervous I couldn’t even play God Save the Queen. I blanked out completely.

One day, a week before Doreen was to return to Montreal, my best friend Carol said she was going to her Aunt Marg’s cottage at Regina Beach for a couple of weeks. She said our friend Sharon was going with her. I asked if I could go, too, and she said I could. As I arrived at her driveway with my hastily packed suitcase, I heard her other aunt, Nell, complaining about my coming, but I pretended I hadn’t heard and stood there, suitcase in hand, until it was loaded into the huge trunk of the car.

We had duties to perform at the cottage. We had to keep our room clean. We had to wash salad vegetables before dinner and wash dishes after dinner. But after that we were free to do whatever we wanted.

During the long August days we lay on towels in the sun by the lake, turning our skin bright red until it peeled, then eventually brown, in spite of the pain. Our bedroom smelled of Noxema. The room had two single beds in it so we tied the two beds together at the legs and the three of us slept in it, our burned skin keeping us awake if our taking and laughing didn’t.

On the few rainy days, we played endless games of Monopoly. The aunts were tolerant and didn’t make us put the game away at bedtime.

So this takes me back to the photo of myself. Every evening we took a walk from the cabin to a hilltop where we could watch the sun set on a perfect day. This is the picture Carol or Sharon took of me on that hilltop, with my Brownie Camera. I was wearing our uniform. Carol, Sharon, and I were all wearing boys’ jeans and white sweatshirts that summer. In order to get these jeans, I had gone into a menswear store, by myself. I went in and picked out some mens’ jeans and tried them on in the dressing room behind a curtain. Was I nervous? Oh, yes. Did I feel brave? You bet!

How did Doreen feel about my leaving a week before she had planned to go back to Montreal? I never heard. How did I feel? When Mum asked me if I really wanted to go to the cottage with Carol when Doreen was still here, I said, “But this is my only chance to go to the beach!” So she let me go. Doreen stayed with them for another week. I don’t know what transpired during that time, but they had a falling out over her marriage to Doug Kimura. I wonder if that week was spent happily or in arguments with her about marrying Doug? Had my presence kept things civil? Who knows?

When Mum and Dad came to pick me up at the end of two weeks, we were happy to see each other They admired my dark tan and said how healthy I looked. They thanked the aunts for taking such good care of me. By this time, I had had enough togetherness with my friends. Sometimes three is a crowd.

That September I went into Grade Seven.

1255 words

Amber Harvey

January 18, 2021

 

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