Esterina Terpollari

“the children of the poor know but few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and paid for.”
― Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

“We're free agents. We can do what we want." Free agents. When my mother used those words she'd wave her keys. "We're like two bachelorettes," she'd say as we backed out of the drive. The road she took was always by the sea. Floods never put her off. "It'll pass" she'd say when I braced myself in the seat. If a wave hit the car, she'd drive on, floating sometimes for seconds. The wipers could clear off the sand and small stones. Seaweed was the problem. Not the one with poppers. That landed with a thud and rolled like a body off the windscreens. No, the problem was the smaller stuff, bright green and fine that wrapped itself like a feather boa around the side mirror. Usually, with one hand, she could throw it off. But sometimes, it took both her hands as if it were a scarf around Isadora Duncan's neck.”
― Georgia Scott, American Girl: Memories That Made Me

“Summers with Rene began with a cigarette in one side of her mouth and a squinting of her eyes as she thought . . . . Shortly, she would make her pronouncement and it would seem magical no matter how often the words were said. "It's a beach day," blessed the day. The rest was understood. No more needed to be said. I knew that she knew. She had the gift to read what would come from the skies as surely as my mother could see births and betrayals in the cards.”
― Georgia Scott, American Girl: Memories That Made Me

“Come spring, the trees give us gifts. Green bits that helicopter down from above. When they land, Joey and I follow, retrieve them and bend the blades until they touch, releasing the glue inside so we can stick them onto our noses and call each other Pinocchio. This beats anything in my yard. Gathering buds that die and fall was fine once. But chasing helicopters and having a green nose is better.”
― Georgia Scott, American Girl: Memories That Made Me