Pink House

As a first grader, I had a crush on a pretty little girl with deep brown eyes. I got over it, but when I was in fourth grade we moved to a different neighborhood (same school however.) Now I lived just down the block from the girl, and so I saw her often, playing in front of her pink house. She lived there with her grandmother, mother and sisters. This was a little unusual in the fifties, still, I never gave it much thought. In junior high the girl ‘blossomed’ and she received a lot of attention from the older boys. I watched from afar. In senior high she was one of ‘those’ girls, whatever that meant. I hardly noticed her at all. The pink house always seemed to have guys hanging around.

Years later, she worked at the same place I did. She still lived at the pink house. She was not a girl anymore, and had probably spent a few-too-many nights at the neighborhood bar. Later still, my father had moved out of his house and I went back to get it ready for sale. The pink house down the block was still there, still pink. There was a new generation of boys hanging out.

I wonder about this. Our lives started out the same, but somehow she never made the break to a life of her own, a life away from that pink house.