Mother, why does that lady sit sit sit, on the side of the road, like a puppy at the pound waiting to be chosen and taken home? She is too busy belting along to the blaring radio to hear my question but she’d only ignore me anyway ‘cause I’m “too young to understand.” I’m offended because today belongs to my ninth birthday and that means only one more year ‘till double digits.
Secretly, I think there is something broken in Lawn Chair Lady’s head, but I can’t tell mother cause she’ll get angry and make me write, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” seven gazillion times until my wrist aches and my eyes grow dizzy. But why else would a lady like her want to sit sit sit all day long? She appears when I leave for school in the early morning, when the grass is wet with sticky dew, and is still there when I return home, as if she’s guarding something. Lady stares at the boring people and cars zooming past from her sun-bleached-orange lawn chair which looks so ancient, as though she might fall through the cracks of the woven mesh that feels like sandpaper, at any given moment.
Nobody’s making her do it either. I suppose it must get lonesome, sitting there all by herself. It makes me sad ‘cause I guess the inside of Lady’s house must be more lonely than the side of that road.
She lives all by herself, except once or twice a day, I see shiny people in crisp, clean uniforms that smell like the hospital come and to take care of her. I think that’s what they do. They must do a good job too, ‘cause she always looks so happy.
We cheerfully wave while cruising past and mother shouts, “Hey Girlfriend!” ‘cause she thinks saying that makes her sound young again. Only, I don’t know why she does it ‘cause we don’t even know Lady. I bet mother’s never said one word to her, but it doesn’t matter ‘cause Lady can’t hear through the windshield anyway. She just looks up with her wide, glassy eyes and waves back with a smile like she won the lottery.
Her long ponytail, dyed as red as the stop sign that keeps her company, except the very top which is silvery gray, blows with freedom in the breeze. So plump is her body, that it resembles a lump of sour dough bread baking and rising in the blistering heat of noon. On sizzling summer days her floury skin turns all freckled and sore ‘cause Lady doesn’t know to go inside when it gets too hot, I guess.
Someday, when mother’s out at the store buying paper bags full with groceries, I’m going to walk all the way down Elaine Street and around the bend to where Lawn Chair Lady parks herself because I want to ask her why she sits. What is she guarding? Who is she waiting for? Why are they so late?
I bet she’s got some exciting stories to tell, for someone so content on sitting in one place all the time must have had quite a thrilling life already. Even otherwise, I’ll be glad to keep her company, ‘cause I am a pretty lonely girl myself, and I don’t have any thrilling stories either.