MAILBOX: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith by Nancy Freund, Gobreau Press, 2015, Chapter 10: Camille and Chocolate Soup
The way I first knew Camille and I would be friends was because we both had a white dress with a sailboat on it from Chocolate Soup and we both wore that dress on the same day, my first day of first grade, as a new girl in my new city. My dad says it was just a coincidence. "Don't read too much into it," he always says. But I think it means we are supposed to be friends, and Camille thinks so too, so that's good enough for us. If I didn't actually like her, then I wouldn't feel forced to be friends with her just because we had the same dress. Then it would just be a coincidence. That's how the world works. Now we've been friends in both schools, before and after the teacher's strike, I mean. It makes sense because we're neighbors too. The only difference is I have just one younger brother and she has two older sisters, and three older brothers, including the one who died in Vietnam. Also, I'm the oldest of the kids in my family and she's the youngest. And my dad's a businessman and her dad's already retired. Come to think of it, her dad fought in World War Two, and my dad was too young for that. But other than that, Camille and I are almost the same in every category.
The dress has a blue and red sailboat on the front, and a blue pin-dot sash. A sash is a fabric belt you tie in a bow instead of a buckle. The dress has red piping on the neck and arm holes. Chocolate Soup is expensive so my mom doesn't buy dresses for me there very often. Sometimes she sews dresses like the Chocolate Soup ones with fabric we pick out at Harper's Fabrics. Piping looks fancy but it's not that hard to do. It's just a little strip of fabric sewn into the seam. When you get right down to it, lots of things that look fancy are easy to do, and lots of things that seem easy are hard, even if you're very creative and a good artist. Mostly I like the dresses my mom makes. She says fashion should dare to take some risks.
One time Julie Fagan's dress split all the way down the side, not because of a fashion risk but just because the thread came out. She had to call her mom and go home. I felt sorry for her, but I don't think anyone saw what happened to her dress except me because I was sitting next to her. I didn't tell anyone about it because I thought it would be mean. Not even Camille, who would have loved a good laugh.
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Thank you for reading. ~~ your Freund, Nancy
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Mailbox: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith. Chapter 1.
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