Kathy Little Bird by Nancy Freedman, Benedict Freedman Page B

a candle to you.”
    I didn’t know how to handle compliments. I felt exhilarated, as though I wasn’t me, but the exotic beauty he seemed to think I was. Odd how it had apparently escaped everyone’s observation but his. I wished I had worn my best dress. But one doesn’t wear a best dress to the store. Besides, how couldI have known I’d meet this attractive, well-traveled gentleman?
    It wasn’t his polish alone that intrigued me; it was an unexpected quality about him. Other people, at least the ones I knew, were dull by comparison. You more or less knew how they’d react and what they’d say. But Jack’s mind darted nimbly from subject to subject. One minute I saw the lights of Broadway and the next rubbed shoulders with crowds in the subway.
    The only time I had been in a crowd was when Abram took me to the Mennonite Easter party. There were tables set up behind the church and people greeted one another joyously with, “He is risen.” The response: “He is indeed risen.” With this accomplished they were free to inquire after absent relatives, exchange recipes, eat crumble cake, and wander toward the improvised stage where children recited poems and the fourth grade had prepared an elocution exercise.
    There was a wonderful display of painted eggs. Abram, whispering they symbolized life, bought one for me, with a blue and gold lily emblazoned on it. I felt a shiver of excitement like when we exchanged shadows. I remembered capering around the edge of his. He’d stood before mine with outflung arms reciting psalms. It was impressive.
    Of course the Mennonite Easter wasn’t to be compared with Jack Sullivan’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “You wouldn’t believe the crowd, people jam-packed against you, you couldn’t get your hand to your face. There was some clown blowing one of those party favors at my neck and I couldn’t free my hand to brush it aside.”
    I was so fascinated by these tales of a wider world that it somewhat belatedly occurred to me how long I had sat over the sarsaparilla soda. I should have been back an hour ago. I should be in the middle of dinner preparation and here I was, listening to snatches of big-city life. “I have to be going,” I said, jumping up.
    Jack Sullivan in his turn, got to his feet. “But not like this, so fast. I have to see you again. Can it be this evening? There’s a barn dance…”
    “No, I couldn’t possibly. Perhaps another time.”
    “Time,” he lamented, “is what I don’t have much of.”
    “Maybe tomorrow, for a few minutes. A short walk?”
    “I’ll be there, wherever ‘there’ is.”
    “It would be better if you didn’t come to the house. My stepfather is very strict. How about here—seven-thirty?”
    “I’ll reserve the table,” he laughed.
    We shook hands on it and his fingers didn’t want to let mine go. As soon as I was out of earshot I began to sing him. I sang his red hair. I sang the places he’d been. I even sang his eyes, disparate, with many colors. Jack Sullivan was fun to sing. A wild Irish ballad was what I devised, a cross between “The Kerry Dancing” and “Kathleen Mavourneen.”
    I’d never known anyone like Jack Sullivan. He was such an alert, alive person. I wasn’t sure if he was good-looking. His features were a tad too sharp, but he had a dimple in his chin, his eyes danced with fun, and he was brimming over with wonderful tales. And he thought I was pretty. On that splendid note I brought my song to a loud crescendo.
    One of the things I would do when I got home would beto look at my face in the mirror and try to see what Jack Sullivan saw. I’d wear my other dress tomorrow. I remembered Mum letting the hem down. And I’d brush my hair out.
    When I got home there were the dishes I’d left from lunch piled in the sink. Mum would never start a meal until her kitchen was spotless, but I worked around the mess, putting away the things from the flour sack. I cut thick slices of brown bread and