Sometimes Coffeecake

My husband is working on the house, his tools litter the deck. I keep thinking someone is pounding at the door. Who could it be? The knocking is insistent. Desperate even. Like they were being chased by bandits.

Are there bandits anymore? Hoodlums? Greasers? How about Dreamsicles? Nesbitt's sodas? Bolo Bouncers? Do kids still play Ante-I-Over? Captain-May-I? Jacks? Marbles?

Puries, clearies, cats-eyes, shooters.

Sorting marbles, counting marbles, hoarding marbles, dreaming marbles. Circle in the dirt, flick of the thumb. The feel of marbles in a cloth pouch. The sound of marbles rolling down a bread board into a muffin tin. The hard-shine lightful improbable opulence of marbles.

Drive-ins, roller skate keys, double-dutch, hula hoops.

On Wednesdays busloads of school kids were transported to church for Religious Instruction. In high school girls weren't allowed to wear slacks, boys swam naked in the olympic-size pool. If their hems didn't touch the floor when they knelt, girls were sent home to lower them. Boys swam naked, girls knelt and hemmed.

Who gets to squeeze the dot of red dye into the margarine packet? Who gets to separate the halves of the Popsicle? Who gets to skim the cream off the top of the milk?

Are there milkmen anymore?

Roy delivered four bottles to the wooden milk crate on our back porch twice a week. Twice a week our mother put on lipstick and met him at the door with coffee, sometimes coffeecake. Sometimes they were still there when my sister and I wandered into the kitchen to put away the bread board and the muffin tin, looking for something sweet.

Clad-Easies, Kickerinos, Buster Browns, Petti-Pants.

Our mother's lipstick was bright red, it matched her nails. She wore housedresses and penny-loafers and ironed the sheets. Once I snuck up on her while she was bent over the sewing machine, she never forgot it. Neither did I.

Where have you gone, Fuller Brush man?

I have a dress I sometimes wear at home, 100% cotton, made in India. My husband calls it my housedress. It isn't. It's my between-dress, worn between my out-in-the-world clothes and my robe. I have a rule about my robe, it cannot be donned before the sun goes down.

Are there any Roys left out there?

My between-dress was originally ankle-length, but I raised it eight inches. I cut off the leftover and threw it away. Sometimes I wish I hadn't. Sometimes there's no going back. If I had thought ahead, I would've saved the excess in a wider hem. Just in case.

The pounding suddenly stops. (Did they escape? Did the bandits get them?) My husband calls up at the open window. He wants to take a coffeebreak, he's asking for something sweet. He'd never expect anything homemade, but yesterday I stopped by the bakery, just in case.