The Great Gelato Caper

So this is kind of cheating, because I technically did not write this per se; my aunt did and I made contributions/ edits. This story was featured in Grid magazine, a publication in Philadelphia promoting sustainability. Check it out.

The inspiration for the great gelato caper naturally began during a trip to Italy with my twin brother, sister-in-law and niece. Among the highlights of our trip was a particularly rugged hike, during which my niece, who was nine years old at the time, discovered the restorative powers of a good gelato. Since then, I’ve always made an effort to visit one of Philadelphia’s fine gelaterias whenever my niece visits from her home in North Carolina. Each time, she samples one or two flavors before deciding. Wistfully, she then says, “One day I’m going to ask to sample every flavor. Can you imagine?”

After my son was born, I wanted to do something special to thank my niece for being a constant presence during my early motherhood days. And so, the idea for the Great Gelato Caper was hatched. I shared my idea with local food maven Lindsay Gilmour and she suggested The Bent Spoon in Princeton, N.J., which is known for phenomenal gelato and an owner with an oversized sense of fun. From there, friend and client Ann Karlen of Fair Food made an e-mail introduction. Soon, I had an eager co-conspirator.

On paper, the Great Gelato Caper looked straightforward enough. Step One: Find a top-notch gelateria with an owner willing to host the caper. Step Two: Tote unsuspecting niece to aforementioned gelateria to play out life goal of sampling every flavor of gelato in one sitting. Step Three: Covertly get owner Gabby Carbone’s attention to signal the start of the Caper. Step Three is where the plan started to unravel.

I had been warned the Bent Spoon is tiny and that even on a blustery Black Friday, a crush of gelato aficionados and hot chocolate seekers would pack the house. Even so, I was not prepared for what I saw when I snuck away from my window-shopping niece and stuck my head in the store. With only two tables and a large glass storefront, the shop was teeming with customers.

I was feeling somewhat sheepish for even thinking Gabby could entertain a time-consuming special request when crushed with honest-to-goodness customers. Soon, I realized the store would be busy all day, so I redoubled my efforts to complete Step Three. Not so covertly, I approached the counter and awkwardly waved my arms while yelping, “Gabby! Hey, Gabby!” Gabby looked over, confused. “It’s Jenn Rezeli,” I offered. “Um, it’s about the Gelato Caper.” Mercifully, Gabby caught right on and enthusiastically said that she’d been waiting for us.

While Gabby got us situated for our tasting, she insisted we start with a thick river of hot chocolate topped with hand-cut vanilla bean marshmallows. It wasn’t the only time during the Caper we felt like we’d stumbled into Willy Wonka’s factory. She then brought over the first two spoonfuls of her shop’s unique “artisanal ice cream,” an authentic vanilla bean that could stand on its own—no pie needed. Seventeen(!) flavors followed—each one hand-delivered by Gabby along with a story of what was local or otherwise special about the ingredients. It was clear Gabby was taking care to layer the flavors, starting with the more mild and working up to a robust Blackberry Passionfruit. While there wasn’t a miss in the entire group, we agreed our top picks were: Chocolate-Orange, Chocolate with Bourbon and Honey Pecans, and Cardamom Ginger.

Back in my kitchen that night, wearing the Bent Spoon T-shirt Gabby had secretly slipped into a bag of samples she insisted we take home, my niece began to consider spending four years at Princeton for easy access to her now-favorite gelato. The afternoon was a wonderful experience in human kindness and a reminder of why shopping locally is so rewarding. As we topped our Bourbon, Caramel and Sea Salt gelato with some chocolate-covered honey pecans, we savored the sweetness of our personal interaction with a creative entrepreneur, knowing that Gabby would applaud our push for the ultimate ice cream experience.

When Summer Met Darla

It's been awhile. And I don't think anyone is even reading this anymore, and why would they? I've been radio silent for, what, a year now? But on the off chance someone somewhere at some point happens upon this page, he/she will find a posting that is not way past its shelf date. 

I take a writing course at NCSU every summer, and this year one of the classes I took was creative non-fiction. Which basically means real life... only more detailed and spiced up than your average diary entry. Think David Sedaris. If you don't know that name... why do I know you? 

In conclusion- I wrote this during my creative non-fiction class. That is all. 

Darla and I met fairly recently. I chose her because she chose me first. Although Darla is technically not a she- that is- Darla is biologically male. I fell in love with her at first sight. She was exactly what I’d been looking for, so, naturally I bought her.

            Darla’s a fish. More specifically, she is my boyfriend’s fish. But she started out belonging to my friend. Same friend as boyfriend. Darla was imperative in that transition.

            His birthday was on a Thursday, and the concept of Darla took shape that Saturday while I was- God forbid- a little tipsy at the beach. Come Wednesday afternoon, Darla still seemed a pretty sound idea.

            Every day I drive my best friend home, but Wednesday afternoon when she got in my car, I asked how she felt about stopping at PetSmart. There was some confusion when I read this to my class thinking my best friend is Darla. I’d like to clarify my best friend is not a fish. She’s a lady person. Anyway, my lady person best friend consented- no questions asked.

            The only hint my past friend (present boyfriend) received was that of a photo of aforementioned human best friend inside a dog crate on display. I can only imagine what he must have thought at that point.

            I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the vast majority of beta fish sold in stores are male- because they’re the pretty ones. Yay feminism! Therefore, PetSmart had no female fish on display. This did not align with the plan in my head. So I wrote an F-E in front of the label reading “Male Beta- Blue.”

            I then took Darla’s cup to the cashier… then I finally realized what was happening. “Wait! What am I doing?” I screeched.

            The poor girl paused, mid-barcode swipe. “I thought you were going to buy the fish.”

            My best friend grabbed my shoulder and reassured the girl that we were in fact still purchasing the stupid fish.

            Panicking, I asked “Why? I barely know him and now I’m buying him a fish?! These ideas should only be shaped during moments of complete sobriety! This is what couples do and he’s going to think I’m a complete weirdo.”

            As good friends do, mine reminded me that I am in fact a weirdo.

            The cashier included a warranty with Darla.

            Late that night I laid down, watching Darla’s aqua tail flick the water in the aquarium I had all set up for her. Her restlessness mimicked mine, anticipating the events of the following day’s gifting.

Short Story Contest Entry

Hello? Is anyone out there?
In the back of your mind you might remember a little blog writer by the name of Summer, with a big blog by the name of The SummerSalt Project. It's sort of been... forever since I last posted.
It's been junior year, and I've forgotten what sleep feels like for the most part, and obviously forgotten about regular posting.
So, here's a little somethin' somethin' I typed up for an English class this year, and subsequently entered into a short story contest. (It was required.)
The topic provided was a coming of age story, and the feedback I got on the returned essay was probably the best part.
"Delicious, no calorie writing!"
I only vaguely grasp the meaning of that statement, but hopefully after reading my submission, you'll understand what it means:

Figures that the day I volunteered at Earth Day would be the same day a tornado nearly killed me. I suppose on April 16^th the karma system had some sort of a technical failure.

            The sky is the color of ogre bogies. The tent that my mom and her boss Carol had set up offers little protection from the destructive winds. Goosebumps press against the inside of my sweater and coat, and I had long ago abandoned the idea of my hair looking halfway decent. Our booth, the Conservation Council, loses more materials by the minute to the thieving wind. The white canopy threatens to follow the stolen papers and petitions, and I, with my 90-pound body, hang from the metal structure while Mom and Carol save as many supplies as they can. Just down the street, one of the cruddy plastic tables all the booths had been provided with begins to somersault across the asphalt.

            I abandon my post to grab my purse and we start the gusty trek back to the car while Mom pulls out her iPhone, which of course is wrapped in a Ziploc bag, the way she always keeps it when it rains. She talks through the clear plastic, to Dad, I assume, and we push on past the Salvation Army, which is uncharacteristically free from residents standing outside.

            The fenced lot where Mom and her coworkers park is filled with dancing litter, and a newspaper wraps its pages lovingly around my leg before I kick it away in quiet disgust. Mom opens the door and climbs in swiftly, but gingerly, hindered as she is by her newly risen belly.

            The car offers some sanctuary. Locked inside with windows up, I feel safer. Mom backs up and we drive familiar roads, the silence disturbed only by a few remarks about how strange the weather is.

From the corner of my eye, I see Mom’s right hand gripping the wheel, and her left rubbing away at the parasite. I try not to look at the vulgar scene with disgust. As an only child, and especially at the age where college is not so very distant- just two years to go- Mom’s baby seems an insensitive replacement for myself. I had long ago embraced the concept of only childhood. Now that idea had been shattered, and Mom’s bulging stomach, pressed taught against whatever gross internal fluids were at work, was a definitive wakeup call.

Like a beacon in the distance, the hundred-foot smokestack calls us to the cotton mill we call home. We pause long enough for Mom to fish out the remote that opens the dark metal gates, and then proceed around to the back of the building.

Dad is surprised to see us home so soon, but as later events reveal, he is helplessly optimistic. I run upstairs to my room to retrieve my computer, and settle down on the couch perpendicular to the one my parents occupy. I begin with good intentions to finish schoolwork, and yet somehow I find myself browsing Facebook. First item on the Newsfeed is my neighbor, Jan. Her posts typically report the latest adventures of her toddler son. Today, the 420-character limit informs me, “Holy crap! Tornadoes abound!”

I lunge for the remote and turn it to the news. “What are you doing?” Dad asks.

“Jan’s status.”

The green screen map of our local news station is enough to answer any lingering questions he might ask. The state is lit up with tornado warnings and sightings.

The raucous howls outside kick up a few decibels as if to emphasize their point.

Living in an ancient cotton mill, at this point my mind is a two-way track. One takes the half full approach: 200 mph tornado that probably won’t even happen against a building that has taken hits for the past 200 years. The other half has followed the path that’s swift and gathering speed, the half empty, one in which the images show our hundred foot smokestack tumbling down and crashing against the ruined pavement like a dropped champagne flute.

“Everyone, get in the bathroom.” Mom is always the first to panic.

I’m still not completely convinced, but I grab my laptop anyway and park myself on the floor of our downstairs bathroom, one of the only rooms in our house with no windows.

“I’m going to do laundry.” Dad on the other hand has chosen the other room in our two-story home with no windows.

Mom’s hands are rubbing away at her stomach, and I place my hand on one of hers to calm the tempo.

Then the lights go out. I had always heard that a tornado sounds like a train barreling towards you. It doesn’t sound that way to me.

Dad curses loudly in the laundry room, and as he pulls open the bathroom door, I can see our windows through the small crack, but outside I see nothing. The usual crepe myrtles are invisible in the gray that has engulfed our home.

The twister hits and the walls shake. I’m breathing so fast and so hard that it hurts. So this is how I die. This is how it ends, with drywall raining down on my head like powdery snow.

The baby.

Why had I been so selfish? If I were gone, what would my parents- my family have left? No young ones to carry on the dying Italian name. No high-pitched squeals. The pressure is so intense on my ears they feel like they may burst. No thrown green beans. I can’t breathe. No stomping tantrums.

The howling ceases. The walls are still. The snow stops.

I take a shuddering breath.

And then it all begins again.

My Mom, my Dad, and my unknown sibling: they all have to live.

Is there a metal pole jammed between my ear lobes? The pain is worse than any I’ve ever felt before.  

When the room is still once more I dare to hope. Maybe we had gone through the eye? That must have been it. I attempt (and fail) to slow my heart and breath. I realize Mom is holding my hand so hard it feels as if it might break. I don’t complain.

            And then the knocking starts.

            Boom. Boom. On the front.

            Crash. Crash. On the back.

            I can’t see Dad get up; the manufactured stars have had their fluorescent glow stolen by the wind. I only hear the bathroom knob turn and watch the greenish glow pour in. We split up. Mom runs to the back door first, and the voice sounds like our neighbor, Daniel. He’s a cop, and he looks and sounds like it. Not the doughnut eating, coffee belly kind, no. More like the Iraq vet kick-ass type. He’s ordering us to give him a sledgehammer. Apparently some people are trapped in their units. Meanwhile I run for the front door and open up to the most frightened face I’ve ever seen. Dad runs up the stairs to survey the damage.

            I cannot even process the disaster framing my 13-year-old neighbor, Rose’s face. Her large blue eyes have spread impossibly wider, and behind them, threatening to spill over, is an onslaught of frightened tears.

            “My mom isn’t home. I don’t know where she is.” Rose’s voice is so shaky that I wrap my arms around her and hold her to my still fluttering chest. “I hid by myself with my flashlight in a closet.  I didn’t know if you’d be home, and I don’t know if there will be another tornado.” Warm tears fall in great drops down my sweatshirt.

            Dad’s shoes are booming against the wood on his way down. “You lost half the roof over your bedroom.”

            At this point I’m having some success with convincing myself that I’m only dreaming. In a surreal state, I try to call Rose’s mom, but the cell lines are down and Rose’s fear intensifies. More neighbors are at the back door, shouting to Dad about holes in roofs and busted sprinkler pipes that have flooded homes with water already ankle deep.

Then Dana, Rose’s mom, bursts through the mob.

 She’s plastered by the rain still falling outside. Dripping arms pull Rose to a dripping raincoat. “I was so scared! Oh honey.” She had left her car parked on the main road. Still holding Rose she gives us the news. “All the trees in the front are down, and one took out the gate to drive into the building. But we’d better get to the basement- there are more coming.”

I don’t need to be told twice. I reach for my miniature pinscher, who up until now has been cowering, confined to the bathtub, and Rose and I run to the basement. I don’t realize my parents aren’t with us until we’re underground.

For now we’re running through a world I would never recognize as the one I had come home to: the one that was safe, secure, and predictable. Trees are splayed across the earth and cars in the parking lot. The carnage of their recent demise is smeared across the windows of each unit in horrible matted green leaves.

The storage units aren’t the most comforting of places in the best of circumstances, but now they’re a personal hell. The emergency lights are on, which do next to nothing besides casting eerie shadows on crumbling brick walls and archways. The fire alarm, which must have been triggered by the disaster, is relentless. It screams insistently from above, the system illuminating the walls at 3-second intervals. Rose’s hand is shaking in mine, or maybe that’s my own.

We run as fast as we can down corridor after corridor of repeated black doors, eerie in similarity, as if a small child had used a stamp to print out each one.

We reach the end and there’s what appears to be the vast majority of the 82 unit occupants.

All are in various stages of shock: some crying, some angry, some rendered silent.

Jan’s son Alex, the adventurous two-year-old, is inconsolable. The alarms and flashing lights are too much. I feel like screaming, too. But seeing as I can’t, being nearly 15 years older, I do my best to put on a calm face and talk with Jan. She’s one of those still in the silent stage, which is unusual for her.

“How did you guys make out?” I ask, rubbing Alex’s tiny feet. It’s not so bad, imagining those feet belonging to my sister. It’s weird for sure, but compared to what just happened, a sibling can’t possibly seem so horrible.

Jan shifts Alex to her hip and stares past me with expressionless eyes. “We’ve lost everything.”

Walking through the cluster of neighbors and desperately seeking the faces of my parents, I piece together the story. A unit closer to me, Brad’s, had the H-VAC unit ripped from the roof and carried with the wind to crash once over Carl’s unit, then rebound and finally drop onto the old wooden swing set I had played on as a kid. The force of the H-VAC pushed in a part of Carl’s roof, knocking out his girlfriend, Mindy. Incidentally, Carl also lives under the main sprinkler line, so the falling roof severed the pipes, triggered the fire alarm, and unleashed a torrent right over Jan and Alex’s home.

After pushing through the panicked crowd, I come to the conclusion that Mom and Dad are definitely not down here. I hold my dog close and run back through the corridors, still ringing, still black, still flashing, back out to nauseating sunlight. The sky is a sickly green I’ve never seen before in my life, nor expect to ever see again. At least, I hope not.

My door is open and spattered with more sticks and foliage gore, but at least the sounds of familiar voices upstairs are comforting, marred as they are by the sounds of dripping water pouring through the ceiling over my living room. I run up to my room, which I can barely identify. Everything soft has been pushed far from the gaping hole on the side furthest from my door. My couch is soaked, and brick dust and other debris litter the puddles across the hardwood floor. 

Daniel is arguing with my parents in his firm, police officer way, “-but you can’t stay the night. Or for a couple nights. Maybe even a few months. This is a mandatory evacuation until further notice. We’re cut off from water and electricity right now, and the building is structurally unsound.”

In the meantime, I place buckets around the floor and move my favorite things from harm’s way. What I’d been most worried about was my great-grandfather’s cigar box from World War II, filled with paper money and coins from all over the world. I’ve always been attached to it, and I’m not exactly sure why. 

Daniel gives the final order, and Dad turns to me. “Pack your suitcase with everything you’ll need to last a few weeks. We’ll come back when we can to get more.”

In my closet it’s dark. Dark and windowless, like the bathroom had been when the tornado hit and tore me from the only home I’ve ever known. I find my headlamp I use for camping and pack my red Swiss Luggage case I’d gotten for Christmas that year. I don’t even bother to fold; such tasks seem superfluous now. A lot of the things I had worried about just this morning when it was a normal rainy day seem so trivial: material things, scholastic tasks, even my antagonism towards the baby.

When the bag is packed so full I have to sit on top to work the zipper shut, I grab the handle and the old box of Dutch Masters. The walk down the stairs is different, like I’d been making this same trip multiple times a day, 7 days a week, without even noticing. Now it feels like a goodbye, albeit a temporary one, but temporary is a word without a definition right now. Daniel had said tonight, a few nights, a couple of months, and the uncertainty offers no solace.

Already the spectators are pouring in through the broken gates, gaping at our life like it's some sort of spectacle. Dad’s car is packed, and even the cat is mewling unhappily in her travel crate on the seat beside me.

I send hopeful thoughts like carrier pigeons through the green sunset and off to everyone: to my neighbors who had also been evacuated, to the homes that had been hit much worse, to my distant family who must be so worried, and to my baby sister, who I will never again refer to as a parasite.

It takes awhile to navigate a way through the twisted rubble up to the gate, and I look back the whole time. Will our home be standing when we return? Will it be a home at all? 

Humbledore's Army

Okay, for those of you who have ever played and/or seen muggle quidditch, this is most likely a totally pointless article for you to read. However, if you’ve been totally dying to read more of my intense wit and witticisms, then you can suffer through it anyway.

My first introduction to muggle quidditch was this fall when I opened my morning paper (I feel like I am the last specimen of my age group to actually subscribe to print), and I saw my best friend Sunni Ryan. Sunni and I went to middle school together and got into loads of trouble (ha, as if, we wish we were that cool), and I missed the heck out of her. So imagine my delight when I see her riding a broomstick with a humongous smile on her face and a headline of “Quidditch Catches on Like Magic.” I had never even heard of such a thing in actuality, but I’ve been a total Potter nerd since I read the first book at age 4.

Sunni and I went to an intercollegiate match that day between State, Duke, ECU, and UNC-CH. Afterwards, I went to nearly every one of Sunni’s games.

The basic gist of the article was to explain how Quidditch for Muggles (non-magic folk) has spread across the globe. The International Quidditch Association (or IQA), has helped found 400 college and 300 high school teams already. 45 states in the country host quidditch teams.

Furthermore, the Quidditch World Cup isn’t just for wizards and witches anymore. The fourth annual was hosted this year in New York with 757 athletes representing 46 teams.

It’s been a goal at my school for a while now to form a team.

The principal of our school is Dr. Thomas Humble. Not only does his name remarkably resemble the famous Albus Dumbledore of the Harry Potter series, he also looks like him, sans lengthy beard. As such, punny nerds as we are, we have named our principal Humbledore.

So Humbledore isn’t a fan of having yet another club at Raleigh Charter, so we have formed an impromptu group with a tentative name of Humbledore’s Army. It makes sense, seeing as we’re a misfit troop of kids hosting an under-the-table association not approved of by the administration.

For you muggles who don’t know how ground quidditch is played, I have spared you your confusion and I shall list the rules as follows.

There are 7 people per quidditch team.  There are 2 beaters, one keeper, and 3 chasers, and a seeker. There’s also the snitch, but technically he/she isn’t part of the team. Everyone but the snitch must run around the duration of the game holding  the handle of a broomstick that they’re holding between their legs. It’s incredibly hard to do so and to perform the tasks mentioned below:

So let’s start with the beaters.

Beaters have dodge balls (bludgers), and their job is pretty much to beat the crap out of anyone they possibly can. Once hit by a bludger, the player hit has to drop the ball (if he or she is carrying one), and run around the goal post in order to reenter the game.

Got it? Good.

Then there are chasers. The chasers have a soccer ball (the quaffle), and they pass it back and forth down the field to try to pass it through a goal post (hula hoops sprayed gold attached to posts of varying lengths). A goal wins the team 10 points. However, if hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle.

Moving on. Keep up.

Keepers guard the goal posts to make sure chasers don’t score. Pretty simple.

Then there’s my favorite.

The golden snitch and the seekers.

Each team has a seeker who runs like heck to catch the snitch. In the book, a snitch is a little golden ball with tiny wings that flutters around the field for a seeker to catch. Obviously, seeing as it’s hard to green screen that sort of thing on a regular basis, ground quidditch uses a person. The snitch dresses in yellow and hangs a sock with a tennis ball inside off the back of his/her pants. The snitch is released first thing in the game when all other players have their eyes closed. Once out of sight, the game begins and the seekers take off after the snitch.

The snitch has no rules or boundaries. I have seen them:

·      Get into a car and drive away

·      Spray silly string in someone’s face

·      Hide in a bathroom the whole game

·      Duck under a refreshment table and dump a water bottle on someone who dares try to approach.

·      Slap someone across the face

Needless to say, I totally want to be snitch.

If the snitch is caught (by pulling off the sock), then the game ends and the seeker wins 30 points for the team. The goal is to know when to catch the snitch, because if one team has 50 points and your team has 10 and the seeker catches the snitch, then the team only gets 40 points and pretty much forfeits the game.

It’s a test of skill, agility, and ability to run around for an indefinite period of time with a broomstick between your legs looking like a complete dork. 

Ask Me

As previously mentioned, I'm taking a writing workshop at North Carolina State University. My first class is poetry, which I've discovered is probably not my area of expertise. The class is brilliant, and every time someone reads a poem, it kind of sort of makes me want to ditch my notebook, Ginny Weasley possessed by Tom Riddle style, in an abandoned girl's lavatory, only Moaning Myrtle wouldn't find it and give it to Harry and Ron and what have you.
But, I'm in it, and I'm working on improving.
We have fun prompts, which the other day was one in which we were given various first lines from poems, and I chose the excerpt from "Ask Me" by William Stafford. I didn't see the piece in its entirety until after I finished, but this is what I came up with:

Sometime when the river is ice ask me

What it is like to wait for you,

As cold and stubborn

And resolute and arbitrary,

And reckless, 

And just plain stupid

As frozen water.

In response I will laugh

And you will melt,

Same way you always do. 

And your lukewarm banks will nourish

Fresh birthed daffodils. 

And I will feel victorious at having broke you down.

But then I realize the patch of river where I stood

Is lost

And so, I continue to drown. 

I think I love you.

Wing Girl Chapter IV

Hey guys, I've been a little less than dutiful at posting frequently over the summer. Luckily, however, I haven't forgotten to keep writing. I'm at a workshop now at NC State for young writers. Yesterday, I read the first chapter of Wing Girl, the novel I've been kind of sort of working on. I didn't get to chapters two and three, but I got a lot of positive feedback on the first portion from the brother Doug, of previous socialite prom queen, Nina. The encouragement persuaded me to post just a little more, and so Doug is back with more from his recent chaotic new lifestyle. Enjoy, maybe?

IV

Doug

I stumble over a stray high-heeled shoe on my way through the door. I drop the bag of groceries in my left hand. Hoping it isn’t the one with the container of eggs, I shout up the stairs in the general direction of my vegetable of a sister. “Nina!”

It was fun the first few days having a roommate. It felt more grownup to be forced in tight arrangements with someone you grew up with when it was your own home instead of when you were young and you had no choice. Lately, however, it had become simply a nuisance.

It’s gotten to the point where I dread returning home, afraid of the catastrophe that waits for me in every square foot. A bra is slung over the wooden backing of a chair, a still vaguely water sodden towel thrown half-hazardly on the carpet, dirty dishes are stacked nearly a foot high by the kitchen sink, and coffee grounds litter the floor, leaving a perfect trail from the freezer to the espresso machine. Even Liza Jane is avoiding the newest addition to our home.

I haven’t heard so much as a creak from the floor above, so either Nina is still asleep, or she had gone out already. A glance at the clock reading 5 makes me doubt the latter.

I climb the wooden stairway and march down the hallway straight to Nina’s room. It’s far worse of a disaster zone than the downstairs. It’s like Nina was a bomb, and the littering of her belongings on the first floor is merely the shrapnel of the aftermath.

The piling of clothes on the bed stirs. I reach towards a corner of cotton sheet gasping for air and yank it back. I uncover a furious face half marred by yesterday’s mascara. Nina claws out in search of the covering with faint whines. I rip off the rest of the sheet and then turn my attention to the covered windows. Pulling one up hard snaps in unwelcome light. The room looks even more disastrous when lit.

Nina shudders to enough cohesiveness to aim a hung-over pillow throw at my head. It misses and instead knocks over an open makeup case on the painted drawers by my elbow.

I whirl around to face Nina, and clamber up to the foot of the bed. She’s pissed, I can see. But I need her to hear me out. “Nina, I’m sorry you were evicted from your place, and you know I’m more than happy to get you back on your feet, but it’s been three weeks now, and you haven’t made any effort whatsoever to find a job or another place to stay.”

Her voice is still scratchy, not quite recovered from last night’s concert. “Doug, I’m almost there, I swear. I talked to the stage manager last night, and he says he might be able to offer me something. I got his number. It’s right there.”

She points to a pile of rubbish on the floor. I uncover a slip of stained paper emitting fumes of alcohol with 6 numbers on it. “Uh-huh, Nina, I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

She gives me a disappointed and befuddled look, and then pulls the sheets back over her head, asleep before her head hits the pillow.

But Wait, There's More.

            If you’ve been reading SummerSalt for a while, you might remember the story of the two brothers and the vixen, Maria. The two brothers lived in a village in Hungary named Veszprem. One brother is my great-great grandfather, Anton, and the other was Josef. Josef was getting married, and in those days it was common for the brother of the soon-to-be-groom to bring back the fiancé to the village, so off goes Anton to retrieve the bride for the arranged marriage of his brother Josef. However, player that my great-grandfather was, he and Maria fell in love on the return trip. So, if you fall in love with your brother’s bride and totally betray your family in screwing up an arranged marriage, this leads to a rather awkward situation of explaining. As such, Anton and Maria decided to skip out on that process, and instead boarded a train without tickets. Of course when the ticket collector came by, they had nothing to turn over, and so instead Anton did the obvious thing, he pushed his true love off the moving train and jumped out after her. P.S., when I told this story to my campers up in Philly, the only question they repeatedly asked was “Were they hurt?” So, I don’t know the answer to that. However, if they were, it clearly did not mess up either of their reproductive organs, or I wouldn’t be here. So Maria and her love rolled to a stop (unhurt or in pain, unknown), in France. They had absolutely no money, so they got a job cleaning hotels, all the while saving up their earnings to come to America. Which they did, and this is why I’m here.

            The way we pieced together this whole story is, Anton’s brother Josef had one son very late in life (he was kept for some years as a POW), and that son’s wife gave birth to my cousin Zsolt. He still lives in Veszprem, and he contacted my grandfather here in America, and we compiled this whole little drama-drenched novel of my family.

            So, all this time, we had automatically assumed that my grandmother’s side of the family is purebred Italian (I’m half Italian), and that my grandfather’s side was Hungarian.

            We were wrong. Through Facebook (such a marvelous thing), we were contacted by a guy in Canada. My last name is not common in any country, not even Hungary where it supposedly came from. Even Hungarians would tell us the country of origin of the name wasn’t Hungary.

            This Canadian dude contacts my father (Italian), and sends him a message saying that his father-in-law just died, and his surname was the same as mine. He found hardly any of the name around the globe, but a lot of us in North Carolina. He had done some genealogy research about the family, and this is what he told us:

            200 years ago, my family came from Italy to Hungary to build Zirc Cathedral, and they settled there. Crazy enough, the cathedral is in the village where my cousin Zsolt lives. The fact that my family was church builders is a bit ironic, seeing as I’ve already mentioned in a previous article that I am not religious in the least. In the 1956 revolution, Canada took in 35,000 Hungarians, and the Canadian’s father-in-law was the only with my surname.

            So, as it turns out, my name isn’t actually Hungarian as we had believed all this time, and the way my family came to America (at least on my grandfather’s side), is worthy of a romance novel. Now I feel as if with a name like that, I have quite a lot to live up to.