The Yellow Tulips

I grew up next to a dilapidated rental home.  So many families moved in and out of that place.  From my sister's bedroom window, we could see them, down in their kitchen, making fried potatoes and mac-n-cheese under a single, dimly-lit bulb dangling from the ceiling.  When my step-father discovered that we could look right down into their kitchen, living room; even bathroom, he planted a series of pine trees in a line along our property.  Eventually, those saplings would give us privacy, he said.  But moreover, it would keep his step-children from becoming peeping Toms.  But, we were curious about their life.  A life so drastically different than our own.  Why did the dad smoke cigarettes right over the food he was cooking?  Why did their bathtub have that "ring" around it?  Why did they drink so much beer?  What were they watching on that t.v. all the time?  The yelling.  What were they so angry about all the time?


They had two children; a boy and a girl.  The girl was my age and the boy was just a couple of years older.  He sold fundraiser candy bars to us once.  I bought as many bars as my mom's change cup could afford.  He thanked me but didn't know my name.  It was like we weren't really neighbors.  Neighbors know one another's names.  It was more like that family just existed over there.  I knew his name though.  I had heard it yelled a million times.


One day, I was home from school for a Catholic holiday.  I decided to see if the girl next door wanted to ride bikes.  I walked up to her porch stepping on cigarette butts and kicking over a glass Pepsi bottle.  I knocked loudly several times.  What seemed to be a pack of dogs began barking, then yelling,  "Rhonda!  Get back in the bed.  The truant officer is at the door!"  The mother came to the door with a cigarette in her mouth and a squirmy barking dog in her arms.  "Yeah?" she asked.  "Is Rhonda home?" I said.  She seemed aggravated with me for a second, then hollered in to her daughter.  Rhonda emerged, still in her nightgown.  Her mother, suspicious, stood there while I asked Rhonda if she wanted to ride bikes.  Before Rhonda could answer, her mother turned toward the living room and said "Rhonda can't ride bikes today.  Truant officer sees her out on a bike and..." her voice trailed off.  Rhonda asked her mother if I could stay and play Barbies.  She was fine with that.


Rhonda's Barbies were old; like 1970's old.  Their clothes were old too.  One of the outfits, I will never forget it, red and orange hounds tooth bell-bottoms and butterfly collar.  And I kind of thought it was cool.  She didn't have a Barbie bus, or house, or pool so we just played on the carpet.  I stayed for a few hours.  She handed me the Barbie outfit to keep as I was leaving.  


My mother was frantic when I came home.  She couldn't find me and had called or visited every neighbor's home looking for me; looking for me everywhere but Rhonda's.  She hadn't thought to look for me there.


Spring that year brought forth several of the Iris' that my mother had planted but she was especially proud of the yellow tulips that had bloomed at the beginning of our walkway.  They were, indeed, gorgeous.  My mother had explained to me that tulips have to be planted as a bulb in the fall.  She had waited a long time to see these tulips.  Then, one day, the tulips were gone; disappeared.  They had been plucked straight up from their home by the ivy, leaving behind an empty hole.  My mother shook her head and tsk, tsk, tsk'd all the way back into the house wondering who would do such a thing.  My best friend and I decided to ride bikes back over to the park.  Down the sidewalk, we could see small clumps of dark earth forming a line; a line straight to the next door neighbor's house.  As we got closer, we could see the yellow tulips, haphazardly transplanted in Rhonda's yard.  We jumped off of our bikes to inspect them more closely.  They had been placed in a shallow dry hole in the ground-one on either side of the walkway.  They were severely wilted; the petals touching the ground. 


I was so angry!  I pulled them back up from the cracked dry earth and cigarette butts and brought them back over to their home.  The yellow tulips never recovered after that.  After she had seen my handiwork, my mother explained to me that the tulips cannot handle the trauma of being moved from one place to another, so they died.  I thought my mother would be proud of me for reclaiming the tulips.  I thought she would lift me up on a sheet and parade me through town.  I got them back; I cracked the case.  Our neighbor is a thief who didn't have the patience or dedication to plant bulbs back in the fall so she stole ours!  My mother said simply, "Iris, Rhonda probably wanted something pretty to look at when she comes home.  You should have let her keep the tulips." 


It was many years before I understood what my mother was trying to tell me.  I still have the hounds tooth Barbie outfit that Rhonda gave me.  Every time I come across it, I think of Rhonda and the yellow tulips and I hope that she is someplace far away, and it is pretty there.