Tell Me Today

On the importance of saying what needs to be said now.

My mom called to me from the kitchen, announcing Jack’s arrival.

We greeted each other like long-lost relatives — the kind who actually like each other. Jack was one of my father’s closest friends, if not his best friend. They’d worked together first at one Philadelphia engineering firm, then another, then a third. Along with a few other guys — Joe, the Charlies (or, as we always pronounced it with our Philly accents, “Chal-lee”), maybe another Joe — they were a tight-knit group who did what they did so well that they were often recruited together, as a team.

What a concept in this day and age.

We would go to the homes of my dad’s coworkers in the summertime for pool parties and barbeques. Like ours, their houses were modest suburban split levels. And, like us, they all had immaculate, expansive, perfectly-kept backyards that seemed to go on forever. Those get-togethers were always somewhat awkward for me (and probably for my parents, too, whose idea of fun was a shopping trip to Sears for a new Craftsman tool). Usually there was another girl close who, like me, was sitting by herself reading; by the end of the evening we would be pen-pals (the ’80s equivalent of being a Facebook friend, but so much better).