"El Phoenix"

(semi working title, first chapter of my upcoming 5,000 wordish coming of age piece

This is so far the first two scenes of Chapter 1 plus a Latin poem that’s going in the third high school scene of Chapter 1. I am in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston and the El Phoenix did indeed exist, the corner bar with a Mexican restaurant attached down the hill from where I’ve lived for many years going back to my 20s when I had the occasional Rolling Rock in there. This story is combining the restaurant part with Brookline’s Busy Bee restaurant and skipping over the bar part.

Please let me know what you think bearing in mind that this is the first draft & I didn’t run the grammar software yet. Also the pictures are pulled from various places and are probably not the final picks.

EL PHOENIX

April 2, 1919.

Picking up her eraser, Kathy Leonard goes back to her arithmetic homework. More interesting than English class and the new paper having to be written, true, but needing to erase bits ten times more often and that not seeming to be a good thing.

One good part, each problem being like its own little house with that good feeling when one was finished. Not like most of the classes where you could read and read and it still seemed to take forever to finish. If only “Silas Marner” was as interesting as the books in the library, she thought. If it was you could read if in a jiffy not a month when the teacher said two weeks.

Humming to herself, she started the arithmetic problem over:

“A boat can travel 24 miles downstream with the current in the same time it takes to travel 8 miles upstream against the current. If the speed of the current is 2 miles per hour, how long does it take to get downstream?” (FOUND ON BRAINLY)

“18” said Father as he walked by.

“You weren’t supposed to tell me,” Kathy said. “I’m glad you did, though. Trying to solve it for an hour and I still couldn’t get the same answer twice in a row.”

“What I do too,” Father said with a smile. “Works for me.”

“How much do you have left to do?”

“Bookkeeping and American History, Kathy said. “After that I can read Mr. Baum’s The Sea Fairies. I had forgotten about it from when I was little. When I went through my bookcase I couldn’t find it. Turned out it had fallen down the back when I reshuffled everything. When mother and I went downtown to go Christmas shopping the shows on the Paramount’s marquee reminded me. Have to go through the children’s room to get to the teen books so found it on the shelf.”

“Bookkeeping is growing on me. I’m glad now that Mother made me sign up even though I hope I never have to earn my keep writing squiggly numbers in green ledger books except for us. That I enjoy and I know Mother was bored with it.”
“Maybe not bored but not thrilled,” her father, Timothy Leonard, said. “She likes hostessing the restaurant better. Always did like talking to people better than adding numbers. But I greatly appreciate your doing it.”

“Well I still make mistakes,”said Kathy.

“I know but your Mother catches them and there are far fewer.”

“Yes. And a good thing. I am friends with the pharmacist’s nephew. We go to youth group together. They had to get someone to do the books who had an advertisement in the paper since none of them can add two and two and get four. The person did a good job but he told everyone at the bank how much they make and wanted a discount on the pills his brother gets.”

“Why it’s better in the family. No one knows but us and we’re not telling. I’m glad you don’t mind. A long time ago your grandmother did them but somehow it has become something for the youngest lady in the family. But not for life! Someone else may want it later.”

SCENE 2

Saturday morning and the sky looking like rain but not for a while, said Mother. A farm child she had been with school right down the hill up in Oak Square but summers in New Brunswick where everyone’s grandparents lived.

Coffee with lots of cream and waffles for a treat with Father firing up the waffle iron while Mother slept in. The butter retrieved from the top shelf of the ice box with its wooden cabinet doors with their glass built just so with only an inch to spare. The ice box having to be wiggled in and out when the landlord had sent the appliance people around so everyone could have a new model. Like it was encased, nearly with its boxes of Shredded Wheat and cans of baked beans smiling at their opposite number over the sink where the dishes and glassware resided.

“The florist will be at the café at nine,” said Father. “But do you have the list? I’d like to know for the colors for when they write up the “Specials,” board.”

“I told him if they haven’t gone by. So some daffodils at least. A few around the corner I noticed going to school. And pansies.”

Smiling, Father said: “Whatever he brings you will make them look lovely. You inherited my sister’s flower arranging skills sideways.”

The flower boxes all set and back home.

Mother on her second cup and a morning spent sitting on the chair by the kitchen window knitting socks in red and white wool to match the gingham curtains with their ruffles and valance, nearly.

The kitchen boy bringing two bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on white toast up the hill at noon. An advantage of marrying a café man, Mother always said. Only having to cook when you felt like it and living a caterer’s life with leftovers for Sunday dinner every week from what didn’t get ordered the night before.

Afternoon spent reading (FIND A NOVEL) and then an omelet supper after Mother set off for her hostessing shift. The girl who usually did it having quit and a new girl not found yet.

It all working out, really. Bathtub deep enough to submerge oneself and dream the evening away wondering about what the neighbors were doing and listening to their jazz records playing through the walls without anyone knocking on the door needing the bathroom. Getting to float and sink down to the bottom and float up again until your fingers wrinkled up like prunes and you climbed out so relaxed you fall into bed.

SCENE 3

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
Arboribusque comae;
Mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
Flumina praetereunt;

Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
Ducere nuda choros.
Immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
Quae rapit hora diem.

The snows have scattered, and back comes grass to fields,
and leaves to the trees.
Earth changes her seasons, and the lessening rivers
flow past their banks.

The Grace, with the Nymphs and her twin sisters, dares
to lead the dance unapparelled.

Lest you hope for immortal things, the year warns you, and the hour,

That hurries away the kindly day.

Brookline High school Brookline Massachusetts. From Digital Commonwealth

Dana Hall School and Pine Manor ca. 1910-1920. The clothing would make it early 1920s when the big collars were fashionable. Also found on Digital Commonwealth

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:rn301f70x

Photograph of the "Buckarettes", the girls' basketball team at Breckenridge High school, Breckenridge, Texas. 1926 image, the year they won the 1926 Southern Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Texas State Championship. The next year they were runners up in the same contest.

Basil Clemons, photographer. 1926 Breckenridge High School "Buckarettes" Girls Basketball Team; Basil Clemons Photograph Collection, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Collection.

Not entirely 1920s-early 1930s but the green and black ceramic tile would be because that was very fashionable and widely available at all price points at that time. The lights over the medicine cabinet are obviously recent but the bathroom where our female lead character likes to soak in the tub would have looked just like this but with a draftier 1920s window.