Kiss me under the Hollywood sign

Chapter 10

I was just nine years old when tragedy struck - a runaway tractor-trailer crashed into my Mom's Ford Pinto on the highway, turning it into a twisted metal pretzel. I remember bits and pieces - the screech of brakes, shattering glass, a chorus of car horns blaring in panic. When I came to, I was being carried through the peach orchards by Aunt Mildred, still wearing my straw sunhat decorated with daisies from the night before.

After the funeral, Aunt Mildred's farm became my whole world. The gray wood panels of the old farmhouse had character - each knot and whorl in the wood told a story. The screen door creaked like an old man's joints as I flung it open each morning to greet the day. Breakfast was a hearty country affair - bacon so thick it refused to curl, biscuits the size of baseballs, sometimes topped with slices of fresh peaches if Aunt Mildred was feeling generous. She wasn't one for idle chit chat over meals. "Eat up before the chickens find their way in here," was usually the extent of breakfast conversation.

After breakfast we'd head to the orchards, where I was put to work right away. "A strong back and weak mind is all you need here," Aunt Mildred would say as she handed me a rusty peach bucket and pointed to the nearest tree. I soon learned which varieties were the sweetest and juiciest - Elbertas and Encores were my favorites. Hauling heavy buckets of fruit back to the shed was tiring work, and more than once I had to sit and rest in the shade of the trees, peeling the fuzz from peaches with my teeth as the sweat poured down my face. Aunt Mildred never slowed her pace. She worked the orchards without a hitch.

One particularly sweltering August afternoon, I collapsed in the grass, soaked through. "I cain't go on anymore," I cried, fanning myself dramatically with my straw sunhat. Aunt Mildred took a long drag from her cigarette (unfiltered Lucky Strikes, her vice of choice) and peered down at me, unmoved. "You'll get heatstroke layin' there. Up and at 'em now."

With a monumental effort, I dragged myself to my feet using a low-hanging branch. That's when I spotted it - a perfect hiding place, just begging to be discovered. A small hollow at the base of an ancient oak tree, just big enough to curl up inside. "I found a secret clubhouse!" I cried. Aunt Mildred just snorted. "That old haunt's been there since I was a girl. It'll be your new sweat lodge in this heat if you don't keep movin'."

After a long day's work, evenings were spent on the rickety front porch, enjoying the fading sunlight. I'd peel peaches or shuck corn obsessively, trying to drag out the pleasure as long as possible. Then came my favorite part - storytime. I'd beg Aunt Mildred to tell tales of her girlhood adventures, like the time she rode Old Bess the mule all the way to town through a rainstorm, or tracked a wild boar through the woods armed only with a butcher knife. Her stories were like vivid dreamscapes that transported me from the humid Georgia nights. I longed to spin tales of my own someday. But Aunt Mildred had little patience for fantasy.

"Dreams are for sleeping, not living'," she'd say as she tucked me firmly into my lumpy feather bed, a flashlight and battered Nancy Drew novel in hand. And then the cicadas would take over with their otherworldly music, carrying me off to adventures of my very own imagining.

So the summer days slipped happily by, marked only by the changing hue of the orchards - from frothy pink blossoms in spring, through the swelling green fruit of summer, to burnt orange and rich red in autumn. School was a welcome distraction come fall, if only to escape the backbreaking work of harvesting. I excelled at my studies, finding an escape in books. While my classmates gossiped and passed notes, I devoured literature, transporting myself to faraway worlds between the pages. This is where I began to hone my skills as a storyteller, weaving tales for my classmates during recess that had them enthralled.

My best stories always featured Aunt Mildred as the protagonist, from her rumored exploits as a young hellion to imagining her as some sort of wild woman of the woods. "And then a wolf attacked old Bess the mule, but Aunt Mildred whipped out her lucky butcher knife and went all Crocodile Dundee on his hairy behind!"

The other children would howl with laughter at my exaggerated tales. News of my storytelling skills soon reached Aunt Mildred. "So I hear you been spinning yarns bout me at school," she said one evening as she sliced potatoes for supper. A gleam entered her eye that I didn't quite trust. "Reckon you oughta hear the real story of me and the Chickasaw locals next spring dance." I knew then that her own tales would blow mine clear out of the water. And sure enough, that night she regaled me with a saga so colorful and unlikely that I knew I'd never top it. From that point on, I was content to let Aunt Mildred reign as chief spinner of tall tales on the farm.

So the years slipped by pleasantly in a blur of seasons - like the pages of a favorite book read over and over until the words run together. School and chores filled my days, while cozy evenings on the porch and Aunt Mildred's wild stories kept my imagination well-fed and roaming free. My secret dreams of narrative grew stronger with each passing year, taking shape between the lines of my journal like a photograph in a darkroom. But I never spoke these dreams aloud, content, for now, to live fully in each fleeting moment and soak up all the stories - real or imagined - that Aunt Mildred's farm had to offer. I loved her in a fierce, wordless way and knew as long as I had her, I was home.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Daniel's voice jolted me back to the present. I glanced up to see him eyeing me curious-like from across his fancy desk. Suddenly I was aware of how far my mind had wandered, and a flush rose to my cheeks.

"Oh, just your mum made me remember mine..b-back in Georgia..not that she is alive," I said, fluttering my hands. "Nothing too exciting, I'm sure. My life's not nearly so fancy as yours seems to be."

Daniel leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "Now don't sell yourself short, Emily. A person's passions and dreams are what make their life rich, far more than any paycheck or headline ever could. I'd love to hear about your Mom... if you'd care to share."

And with that kind of look waiting, how could I not? So I launched into the tale, putting extra emphasis on Ma's sizzling threats to the sun, which had Daniel hooting with laughter by the end. "What a character your Mom sounds! No wonder you've got a flair for drama".

"She was one of a kind, that's for sure. Lord only knows where I got it from," I said.

Georgia ( where Ma's grave resides) seemed an ocean away in that moment, but telling tales of Ma brought her close, like she was sitting right there beside me giving her two cents. I could almost smell the honeysuckle on the breeze. A familiar ache of homesickness twinged in my heart then, but it felt sweet too.

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