When Lucy met Maxine

Maxine is the type of girl you avoid making eye contact with, in fear of burning your eyes from her perfectness. At least that was the way I felt when I first met her. She has the kind of posture that make's everything around her look crooked. She wears dresses and mary-janes, and when working in the yard khaki's and penny loafers. She is basically a living, breathing Nancy Drew.

When I met her we had just moved into the neighborhood, and she had come over to greet us. Hazel was out, and my aunt and uncle were both working. I first groaned when the doorbell rang, (Family Feud was on, and heck-no do I want to miss that) but was immediately intrigued when I saw her. She had her hair put up into a floofy bun, with some sort of pendant balancing on the front. She smiled and introduced herself, reaching her arms straight out and handing me a large loaf of fruitcake. I was very tempted to do a Pee Wee Herman impersonation at the time but decided, by the fact she had tied a pink ribbon around the cake, she had never heard of him.

I put it under my arm and motioned her to come inside. She nodded thankfully and carefully walked into the house. I put the cake on the kitchen table and offered her a seat, and a slice of the cake she had brought. She shook her head and continued to smile. I unwrapped the loaf, (making sure to keep the ribbon intact) and began to cut myself a piece. I eyed her carefully, trying to read her. She was definitely a hard one. Even though her outward experience said, "Doris Day takes notes from me" I felt she was the opposite on the inside. Well, in just the next moment I knew that my accusation had been wrong. I had cut a nice sized chunk out of my pointer finger. I hadn't really noticed, pain never really bothered me, but she definitely noticed. She stood up in flash-like motion, grabbing my hand. She pulled her bag from her side and popped it open. It had more things in it that seemed possible. She pulled out multiple bandages, some sort of spray ("now just bite your tongue, it will sting a bit") and more cotton balls than needed. I thanked her and began inspecting the amazing work she had done on my finger. She delicately put everything back in her bag, and began to cut the fruitcake, throwing away the bits that had been - er - contaminated. 

"To be quite honest, you were cutting wrong", she said politely. 
 I still hadn't gotten past her nurse like reflexes. As she stood cutting the fruitcake I could nearly see her little white hat with a red cross. I shook myself out of it, "Really? How are you supposed to?"
 She smiled slightly, either because of my stupidity, or that people didn't take her advice often, "You see, you need to hold the bread with your fingers curled, so you don't do what you just did. You should also hold the knife with all your fingers on the handle, not one on the top of the metal part." She explained with demonstration.

That night I had three things I didn't have that morning: a perfectly bandaged finger, a stomach ache from too much fruitcake, and someone I knew, I'd know better very soon.