Cupping a hand behind her ear, Alma canted her head for a sharper listen. She tapped Isabel on the forearm. “Is that Petey Samson I hear scratching at the door? I believe he’s saying he’s set to take off on his next safari.”
“Already? Good grief.” Isabel threw up her hands. “It seems like we just finished doing that.”
“Quit your grousing since it only takes you a speedy six-and-a-half minutes.”
“I fibbed by giving you the low side of the estimate. We’re gone a bit longer, something along the lines of fifteen or twenty minutes. Petey Samson has to halt at each street sign and mailbox to—”
“Right, I get the picture. Unless you were both running like antelopes, I knew it took you longer.”
Isabel laughed. “The last time I ran anywhere like an antelope came when the smoke alarm shrilled out in the middle of the night. Max and I still resided on the boulevard.” She pronounced it as bou-le-VARD. “We sprang up from bed to see what the matter was.”
“I remember your telling me that story,” said Alma. “Master Cecil had tiptoed down to the basement to experiment with his new chemistry set. He played an apprentice wizard concocting a secret formula to drink and turn him invisible.”
“He’d watched 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' and liked his chance at success. Afterward, the house reeked of rotten eggs for a week, and Max, as he always did, laughed it off. Boys will be boys was his philosophy.”
“Did you confiscate Cecil’s new chemistry set?”
“Indeed I did on the spot, though by then a new hobby had grabbed his fancy. Inventing a pair of tinfoil-and-bubblegum wings to leap and fly off the garage roof, if I’m not mistaken. But that’s another story for another time.”
Maybe he began sneaking smokes on the playground around then, thought Alma. She said, “Cecil was a devil like Max.”
“And both devils, big and small, are now gone.” Isabel’s gaze drifted out the window. “You know what’s so untrue? Time doesn’t bind up and heal all wounds. It just never does because I miss them more than I ever did.”
Alma tried to rescue Isabel from drowning in her pensive moment. “Petey Samson is clawing down the door.”
Isabel had recently added Petey to his name because she thought two names, as in Petey Sampson, had more dignified ring. Alma also knew Petey was the name Max had given his first sedan, a melon bright sports coupé he tooled up in to court the young Isabel. Alma would never give her car a name except a bad one cursed on the mornings its cranky engine didn’t start up for her.
“I can hear the pooch is hurting,” said Isabel. “We’re off again.”
“I’ll have your refilled glass of iced tea waiting for you when you get back,” said Alma.
End of the new #SampleSunday.
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