Lighter Than Air

The fat girl next door would give us a nickel to walk to the old man's store and get her an ice-cream cone, vanilla, of course, the only flavor then. On Powotan Avenue, Aunt Harriet and I would take turns licking it all the way back. It was hot that summer and we longed to go to Virginia Beach and put our toes in the tide. [trained every day and the James River swelled up to our doorsteps. Aunt Harriet and I wore tight rubber bathing caps and long saggy bathing suits. How skinny we were. She was nine and I was six. The lightning flashed and we hid in the closet; the thunder crashed. We had straight, bobbed hair and bangs. Once a dirigible moved above the tops of the trees, with little ladders dangling down, and we waved.