Snow Angels

I checked the menu, but I already knew exactly what I would get.

Georgie came back looking like a new woman.

"Better?" Dad asked. She nodded and I watched her ponytail bounce behind her head, shiny black and wavier now with the snow that had fallen into it. No kinks like mine, though. I started thinking mean thoughts about her, but that's what I do when I'm hungry, so I took a deep yoga breath, closed my eyes, and blew the bad thoughts away.

We ordered, and except for the waitress wanting me to order the Davy Crockett kids' meal instead of the adult-size hamburger and regular Coke, we didn't have any issues. My stomach was much happier afterward, and I secretly thanked Georgie's weak bladder because no matter what my father said, I certainly did know starving.


"Hey!" Georgie said as I opened the front door. "The front is mine, dorkazoid. Get back there."

"No way!" I screamed back, all energized like the battery bunny and ready for a good round. "I gave you the front from the track to the diner because you had to pee and I didn't want you to wet your pants all over the seat. I was being nice! And now you've had it twice in a row, GeorgeAnn Tappan Zee Bridges!" Sometimes I used her whole name, secretly hoping it would make us laugh.
It didn't, but at least I was using my voice, just like Minnie told me I'd need to learn how to do.

"That was your decision, not mine!" she screeched at me. "A trip is a trip, and you should have had the front to here. It's my turn! Fair and square!"

I felt a rush of adrenaline whoosh through me as I pushed her out of the way and grabbed the front door handle, waiting for Dad to unlock the car.

"Dad?!" Georgie cried, and her screech was loud enough for an old lady in the parking lot to turn around and look at us. "Daddy?!"

I looked at him, my hand still on the front door. His face was all squinched up again like it had been earlier, when he was on the car phone. For a minute there I thought I saw his eyes well up.

This just wasn't worth it. I caved before he had a chance to talk or yell or cry.

"Okay, fine." I said, but I gave the curb next to car a good kick before going to the back seat.

Once there, I sulked. I swore to myself that I wouldn't say a word to Georgie or Dad for the rest of my life. Well, at least for the rest of the day. He should've stood up for me. She should have known that if she had the whole way into the city, it was only fair that I get the way back, even if it was only from Yonkers. I blew up an angry black cloud in my mind and let it rest over me as we moved through the snow and the whirling dervish that was going on outside.

Dad didn't listen to the radio this time, and it was obvious that driving wasn't easy with the storm going on. The Bronx River Parkway was the friendliest way home from the city, with plenty of trees on both sides of the car, but I sensed his struggle.

"Sycamore," I whispered to myself. "Weeping Alaskan Cedar."

Cars were pulled over as if their drivers had given up the ghost and had decided to wait it out. Until what, I wondered. Warm weather? Spring? Morning?

The wind had carved out beautiful dunes of snow all along the highway, and I squinted to see animal shapes or funny faces in them. We were creeping along slower and slower, which made the game easier. When I told Georgie what I was doing to amuse myself, she ignored me.

It was still a crazy thing, the sound of a cell phone's jangling ring inside the silence of a car. When the car phone went off, we all three jumped like we had electrodes attached to our hearts or something. The car slid right as Dad tried to grab the phone, then it slid left as he dropped it and grabbed the wheel with both hands.

I just held my breath and watched the white up ahead.

"Dammit!" Dad shouted, and that was saying something, because like I said, if Dad was anywhere near us, he kept his swear words to a bare minimum. I scrunched down and for the first time ever said a secret prayer of thanks for the back seat.

He finally let the car just slow down on its own, his eyes on the rearview mirror, then out into the white up ahead for the next, then back again. I didn't want to drive when I got big. It looked like a lot of pressure.

The car came to a crunchy kind of stop off the highway, and who knows what lay under all that snow, but being where we were it could have been the entrance to a park or just a place where parents pull over when a kid is puking or something. A sign just about a foot in front of our car said "Scarsdale 1 Mile".

All three of us sat in silence for a second, and I closed my eyes, blew out my breath.

"Okay, my sweets!" Dad said after clearing his throat. "I'm going to return that phone call, and you? And you?" He turned back and pointed at me. "Are both on Snow Angel Duty."

"Really?" Georgie said, looking out her window. "It looks kind of stormy for snow angels, Dad. Like the wind would whip them away once we made them."

"Aw, come on," he said. "Where's your sense of adventure? And just sheer fun? This is a memory in the making, my Chickadee. Grab life by the coattails and let the winds blow you where they may! That's what I say!"

Well, you didn't have to ask me twice. I wanted to be part of the mayhem going on out there. I opened my door and clomped my way toward a stand of cottonwoods in snow that hit me almost at the knee. I watched as my My Little Pony boots were completely buried, even up to the purple fuzz at their tops.

Georgie's car door slammed hard, and I turned to see her begrudgingly make her way toward me.

"This is so unbelievably dumb. I mean, like, literally, dumb."

Georgie had recently started to use the word "literally" and I still didn't quite get what it meant.

I scooped up two mittens full of snow, packed them, and looked around. She was not a good target, not today, and it hurt me to think of throwing a snowball at a tree, but that's what I did; I figured maybe trees on the Bronx River Parkway don't get to play with kids very often. Maybe it would be fun for this big old cottonwood to catch one in the trunk.

"Let's do angels!" I screamed into the wind, but Georgie ignored me. She held herself in a big hug against the snowy craziness of it all and watched Dad inside the car, yelling into his phone.

No matter, I thought. I threw myself down into the crunchy sequined snow and flapped my arms and legs. Looking up through the towering cottonwood branches, all layered with white powdered sugar icing like the tootsie-roll trees my mother makes for our annual gingerbread house, I felt a peace and awe, regardless of the storm.

She was right, Zana. I belonged to these trees, and they belonged to me. Sometimes I danced with the stand of baby poplars in my backyard. I didn't give a hoot if old Mrs. Christianson was peeping out from her dining room sheers, watching me Do-SiDo and Allemande Left with my favorite five trees. I didn't think much about what other people thought of me.

I stood up and bowed to the cottonwoods, one at a time, thanking them for this delicious winter's treat, then turned back to the car. Dad was off the phone and waving his arms like a snow angel. I tried to run to the car, but my boot came off and I stood for a second like a flamingo, then just gave up and sat my butt down to get the boot back on.

"You're both in the back!" Dad shouted across the car at us.

"But it was finally my turn!" I screamed into the wind. I grabbed the passenger side handle.

"No way, Madeline. It's back seat or no seat. The storm is bad, you see that, right? I want you safe."

When Dad called either of us by our real names, I knew it was final. The front-seat game was over. I crawled in and buckled up on the side with no dry cleaning.

But Georgie decided to buck the system.

"I'm twelve years old! I'm not some little kid! I'm almost as tall as a grownup! And I don't want to sit with her back there!" She kicked the tire, which just about made my jaw drop. You don't kick Dad's car, no matter what. But especially when he just used somebody's real name.

I watched them scream at each other and wondered. What in the world could make a snowy day in New York City turn this ugly? Why not just go along and get along?

Dad finally threw his hands up after pointing at her and got in after slamming the door. He yanked his seat belt over him then raked his hands over his hair to brush the snow off.

"She is almost, not quite, but almost, as hard-headed as your mother," he said.

Georgie had decided to mope and be miserable. Her arms were folded, and she had her hood up. Finally, she came back to my side of the car and opened the door.

"Move over, turd."

"No!" I said. I was tired of her mood, tired of always trying to make her happy. "Get in the other side!" I smiled when she slammed the door, and Dad caught it in the rearview mirror.

"You could've moved over, kid," he said.

"That's the dry cleaning side! And besides, Minnie Pinnister told me I needed to stand up for myself and use my voice more," I explained.

I turned and watched her black coat make its way around the back of the car. Her coat's hood had pretty rabbit hair that was getting all fluffed and flown by the wind. I wished, not for the first time, that my coat had fur around it. Just pretend fur, though, not fur from a real bunny. I thought about the bunny on my tarot reading, the warning behind all the earthy deliciousness of my card.

I saw the white car coming, and because of the snow, it kind of fooled my eyes like when you see a Magic Eye picture for the first time. From the flat white of our car's back window, it emerged from the snow, and it came at us like that giant shark in Jaws, swaying from side to side with its big-toothed grill grinning at us.