{"id":1208,"date":"2019-11-07T17:12:36","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T17:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=1208"},"modified":"2019-11-07T17:12:36","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T17:12:36","slug":"flynn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=1208","title":{"rendered":"Carolyn Flynn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I Don\u2019t Remember It That Way<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

LAUREL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to say that all you need to pull\noff a great Derby party is the perfect mint julep. Get everyone sort of\nelegantly sloshed on Kentucky bourbon and simple syrup. Lure them in under the\nspell of crushed ice and bruised mint. (Even the bruising must be done\nelegantly.) You serve the juleps in frosted silver goblets, preferably ones\nwith a pedigree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do that, I told my sister Everly, and\nit takes the pressure off the rest of the menu. Whether you do buttermilk-battered\nchicken, as I did last year for the movie stars, or whether you do baby back\nribs with a bourbon mop, like this year \u2013 mint julep is the thing. What people\nwant is to forget themselves, I told Everly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everly was back from her second deployment\nin Iraq, and she told me she wanted something new, she didn\u2019t know what, but not\nsoldiering. I was the queen of something new, all right. While she\u2019d been away,\nI had gotten a new life, mostly against my will, but I was getting used to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These Hollywood types who flock to the\nDerby parties are just the same as everyone who is Irish on St. Patrick\u2019s Day,\nI told Everly as we chopped garlic greens for the crispy potato pancakes.\nEveryone but everyone weeps in the Churchill Downs grandstand, longing for\nhome. I shouldn\u2019t be telling Everly this, I knew that. How many days and nights\nhad she longed for home while Iraqi shells fell on her bunker? That was what\nwas real. The Derby\u2014not real. Two minutes, then they forget they wept. But\nwhat\u2019s wrong with that? Adopt another culture, remember another time. It\u2019s harmless. So much\neasier than having to be yourself all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Chuck left, I fell into the habit\nof saying cynical stuff like this. I\u2019m better now. It suffices to say that last\nyear at Derby time, I wasn\u2019t my bright cheery self. Sixteen years with Chuck,\nand I hadn\u2019t been myself the whole time. I know that now. His affair hurt\u2014it stabbed me deep\u2014but\nit turned me right round to get my own self back. That night of the Derby\nparty, I was starting to see myself again \u2014someone new, but someone I could\nstill recognize. Then I saw him. Boone. I remembered Boone. I would never\nforget Boone. I was about to never forget him again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was arranging the petit four Derby\nchocolate mint cakes on a silver stand. First, I caught a scent. Not mint. Not\nchocolate. A wild, spicy half-clove scent, mingled with the chocolate and mint.\nGrass and river water and wildflowers. I lifted my eyes and saw my high school\nsweetheart Boone. He had been watching me for a few minutes as I fussed with\nthe candied violet flowers that topped the petit fours. He was already at my\nshoulder. I was well within his magnetic pull-field. Our faces were very close.\nThat\u2019s why I noticed the eyes. \u201cSeems I\u2019m just in time for a treat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was fresh hot off a divorce. He was\nstanding so close, I couldn\u2019t jump into exclamations and excited hugs the way\nyou do with high school friends. He\u2019d already crossed in, and I decided to let it\njust happen. I tilted my cheek to his and said, \u201cGood to see you,\u201d like it\nhadn\u2019t been twenty years. We both understood to take the conversation back to\nmy staging tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sipped pink tea, not iced white Zin\nlike our older sister Daisy remembered when she told the story later. Daisy was\nthe smartest, the doctor, and she had helped me that day with the loadout, then\nshe had her own Derby party to attend. I forgot that. But I know I wouldn\u2019t\ndrink while catering. I was working. I do remember what I was wearing, a\ntwinklelight blue silk dress with spaghetti straps. Everly said my dress was\nDiana-esque, as in Princess Diana, but I had always dressed that way, before\nDiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI heard last year it was delicious,\u201d\nBoone said. \u201cIt is.\u201d His eyes rested on my face, my lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou must have gone to the wrong Derby\nparty last year,\u201d I teased. \u201cElse you would already know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stunned him with that one, I thought,\nas I brought the tray to the table. Everly would need to pick up soon, start\nthese around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned to Boone. \u201cI heard you were in\nFrance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, I\u2019d heard he was back. I had\nbeen hearing about him through the grapevine for weeks leading up to the Derby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And actually, what I already knew was\nthat he\u2019d married a French woman, and they owned two Arabian thoroughbreds and\nlived in Bordeaux. That\u2019s what I\u2019d heard. But that part was years ago. So long\nago, the facts had already started to alter themselves in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a while,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019ve been\nstateside for years. California, mostly. Now here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Divorced, then, by the look of things.\nWe didn\u2019t need to have that conversation yet. Still, it seemed like too\nimportant of a moment for us to launch into catching up on his mother, my\nfamily, old friends. And my life had been too dull the past sixteen years\u2014carpools\nand Girl Scouts and cupcakes. \u201cI\u2019d love to hear about \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny health department rule against\nadding a helper?\u201d he said, motioning his eyes to the platter before me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a rule, but I didn\u2019t tell him\nthat. I was unveiling the white chocolate elderflower lace, which we would serve\nup with honeysuckle granita. I showed him how to dip granita into goblets.\nFollowing at his shoulder, I drizzled chilled vodka over each one and added the\nwhite chocolate lace for garnish. In this way, we treated each one as an\nexquisite masterpiece. \u201cThis exotic array,\u201d I said, \u201cis the result of my\nforaging. We still go down by the Palisades at the Kentucky River. It\u2019s where\nwe got the elderflower, the honeysuckle, the candied violets.\u201d That place, that\ntime. I hadn\u2019t forgotten, and neither had he, I could see as his eyes took that\nin, curtained it. He looked out at the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuning into the rhythm of the crowd,\nsensing what the guests would need next, I glanced up to watch Everly move\nthrough the serving tent, placing nettle and asparagus flatbread pizzas on the\nbuffet table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spring evening breeze fluttered\nthrough her blouse. Everly was wearing simple white capris \u2014my suggestion.\nShe\u2019s small and curvy, a miniature Audrey Hepburn. Everly\u2019s hair was silky,\nlike an animal\u2019s. She is a gamine, is what they call it. Everly always\nsuggested a little something innocent and untamed, though it was never her\nintention. I can attest to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverly\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His eyes tracked to my sister bending\nto place a tray on the table. I watched a slow smile move across his face and\nlinger. Boone went off to say hello, but not without a kiss to my cheek and a\npromise to meet at Vintage for a drink next Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVERLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was\nback from Iraq, uncertain what to do next, and only half-married, when Laurel\nasked me to cater a Derby party. She was trying to get her business off the\nground. I was, for the first time in my sorry life, seriously in danger of\nlosing my way. So I said yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said, I was only half-married,\nand it was a matter of debate which was the stronger factor holding Scott and\nme together\u2014our shared trauma of war or our stubbornness not to fail. It\ncertainly wasn\u2019t love, or what I remembered of love. The uncanny thing was, my\nsister had stayed on the home front while I fought a war, but I had returned\nhome to find a sister who knew the battlefield of love the way I did. We had\nall the same questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I said this to Daisy when we were out\nfeeding horses at her farm on Paris Pike, and she turned from the horse, her\nhand held flat, a baby carrot cradled in her palm, and said in her droll voice,\n\u201cI don\u2019t\nknow if I ever would have seen it that way.\u201d The horse flared its gums back and\ngrabbed the carrot between its teeth, leaving a spot of saliva on Daisy\u2019s hand. \u201cBut I think\nyou may be right about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt a stab at my ribs, beneath my\nheart. \u201cYou may be right about that\u201d was what the marriage therapist had told\nme to say to Scott, and say it early and often. I wasn\u2019t sure it would work, or anything\nwould. Because nothing was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t say Laurel had a bad\nmarriage, just a dull one. Post-divorce, she was quickly in danger of becoming\na clich\u00e9. As a last-ditch effort to save her marriage, she\u2019d had a boob job. I\nswear to God, they don\u2019t look real, more like vanity mirror globe light bulbs\ncoated with a spray tan. She told me that after the surgery, when she and Chuck\nhad the green light to \u201cbe intimate,\u201d as she puts it, he told her they weren\u2019t\nbig enough. \u201cFor five grand, they should be g-d cantaloupes, not mangos.\u201d He\nreally said g-d, not the real word. Neither one of them ever cussed, just\npretended to like that. It would be hard to say which member of that couple was\ntrying harder to be not-real. Later, Laurel confided to me her new, hard boobs\nmade her feel breakable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAUREL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have told Everly a million times I\u2019m\nso glad she\u2019s back safe and sound. She looks good. What a relief it was to lay\neyes on her when she and the other soldiers came through the jetway above us. I\nclapped along with the crowd, our applause rising. I felt so patriotic. My\nsister had served. \u201cThat\u2019s my sister,\u201d I said to the stranger next to me.\n\u201cThere. Right there. My sister.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes I want to ask Everly, because\nshe might know more than anyone, how did I get here, a mother of three\ndaughters, orphaned daughter, a divorced woman, and now a Derby caterer? Boone had\nasked me that, too, before he went off to say hello to Everly. I knew it was just\na simple question, not an invitation for my life story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve lived by the book, though not\nnecessarily the Good Book. I believe that good, hard-working people earn their\nrewards in this life, and that means me. I married Chuck one year after\ngraduating with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of\nKentucky, and we started our family right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stuck it out as a working mother as\nlong as I could. Every Sunday night, I dutifully mapped out dinner menus for\nthe week, cooking and freezing so that weeknight dinners of chicken risotto and\nbutternut squash lasagna wouldn\u2019t be such a hassle, so that I could have it\nall, such as the all is. My days at the office were punctuated with breaks to\npump breast milk to take back home to my baby. All of this seemed too\nunnatural. Why not just be with the baby when you were what the baby needed? It\nseemed that every waking hour was devoted somehow to storing up food for my\nfamily in the hope that someday all the bellies would be full and sated. Yet\nwhat I learned was that when you supply that\u2014when you are <\/em>the supply\u2014they\nare never sated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That turned out to be my story, because\nafter sixteen years of giving all, I learned Chuck had been having an affair.\nThat last part I would tell Boone. I find it arouses the protector instinct in\nmen. They get a little indignant that a beauty like me might find herself cast\naside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s the rest, how I became a\ncaterer: About a year into this working mother stint, I left my position\u2014\ngladly\u2014in the tobacco lab at the University of Kentucky and devoted myself to\nfamily. I became pregnant with our second daughter, and that was the day I\nresigned. From that point on\u2014what a relief!\u2014I could devote myself completely to\nfamily. Chuck and I had three daughters, just like my mother did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only difference was, now I was\nforty-two, and I found myself divorced and without much of a plan. I\u2019d been\nfilling everyone up but me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So of course I decided to be a caterer.\nThat\u2019s how I would tell that part of the story to Boone when we met at Vintage.\nChemistry and satiety, two subjects I knew well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, I caught his eye as he\ntalked to Everly. He smiled back at me, and with that, chemistry came, in the\nflood of an instant, to mean so much more than my brief, human-devoid career in\na tobacco lab; this kind of chemistry was the kind I remembered and ought to\nremember again. Yeah, this could get way more interesting than the tedious\nbreakdowns of the properties of nicotine that had been my errant career. It\ncould, possibly, again be a mysterious set of infinite combinations, something\nmore combustible. I looked at the way the lines crinkled around his blue eyes,\nthe way he leaned away from her as he tilted his tumbler of julep to his mouth,\ntaking the lip of it in his lip, but his eyes on me, raking me. I watched him\npour the ice-cool mint and fire-hot bourbon to his tongue. Satiation, his mouth\npromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His smile was electricity, blue-eyed\nAmerican electricity, the kind of patriotic spark I could trust to remain\ndangerous and familiar at the same time. I thought I was falling in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVERLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d long since\nstopped loving the dangerous ones. My worlds were full of them\u2014soldiers,\nparamedics, firefighters. I knew them all. Scott had been dangerous once, but\nnow I just thought he was mean. When my sister and I met Boone again, I knew he\nwas dangerous and sweet, but not trying to be anyone\u2019s hero. It was a\ncombination that was bound to unravel me. I agreed to meet him at Vintage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFriday is perfect,\u201d\nI said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFriday it is,\u201d he\nsaid and walked back to Laurel\u2019s tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would have been\nhard for Scott and me to hide anything from each other, not like Chuck had\nhidden from Laurel. Three goddamn years Chuck had that affair. They had a\nfrickin\u2019 love child now. My ex-brother-in-law was well on his way to a\nsubstitute family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Scott and me, we\nwere the knockdown, drag-out, get-real couple. I don\u2019t mean to make it sound\nlike we threw dishes at each other, though I did throw the dog at him once. To\nhis credit, he caught her. And it wasn\u2019t a throw, more of a toss. I remember\nscreaming, \u201cYou deal with it, then!\u201d I stormed off. I guess I used to be famous\nfor my storm-outs. That\u2019s what Daisy and Laurel would tell you. Our parents,\ntoo, if they were here to tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t see it that way. I\u2019m not that way\nnow. Life\u2019s too short for storm-outs. Scott and I have been going to\nmeditation, and if there\u2019s hope for us to pull it back from the brink, it\u2019s\nthat we\u2019re learning to be less mindless. The first time I meditated, I thought\nI would spontaneously combust, right there in the room on my mat. From the\ninstant the chime sounded, I tried to focus on my breath, but my mind raced\nahead, as if the chime had been the jangling bell at the starting gate of the\nKentucky Derby, rather than two hand-tuned Tibetan brass bells. Pretty soon my\nmind was going every place I never wanted it to go, as though the trauma jockey\nwas astride, whacking my sorry mortal hide with a whip, steering me right into\nthe flying dirt clods of hell. Just when I thought my stack would blow, the\ninstructor would tell us to breathe in, breathe out, come back to the breath. And\nthe chatter would cease for one glorious moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally got to\nwhere I could watch one thought pass without telling it to just go away. I must\nhave had a good stretch of focusing on the breath because the next sensation\nwas a cramp in my left calf. Though my eyes were closed, I felt the light\nfiltering into the room through the jelly-colored glass block windows. The\ncolors behind the curtain of my eyelids swirled and softened. Then I remembered\nto breathe. For a while it was like I was underwater, beautiful candy-colored\nwater, fuchsia and bronze and mint. And I could even taste mint on my tongue.\nBut then my leg started twitching and it reminded me I had been thinking, and I\nwasn\u2019t supposed to think. Especially I wasn\u2019t supposed to think about Scott and\nwhat was to become of us and was I still attractive to the opposite sex.\nEspecially, I was not supposed to think of how Boone had come back into our\nlives, and would he wreck them again, as he nearly had before? And would Laurel\never know how much he wrecked me? And shouldn\u2019t I have said no and not met up\nwith Boone at Vint\u2014 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The instructor\nintoned again, asked us to take inventory of our bodies. Might you feel tension\nin any one area? Your jaw tight? Brow creased? No, actually, it was all kind of\ntingly in there, I wanted to tell her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breathe, just\nbreathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAUREL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the big screen above me in the tent,\nthe post parade began. Boone returned at my elbow and bent his head to whisper\nin my ear. \u201cWhat\u2019s your bet?\u201d I felt his breath on my neck, and I remembered.\nThe spring I was sixteen, Boone and his mother had come to live in the\ndownstairs apartment of our cabin at the Kentucky Palisades. The idea that our\nfamily would be living there with him the whole summer we\u2019d be at the cabin had\njust lit me up all through the spring. I had gotten my driver\u2019s license in\nApril\u2014and a sudden, inspired burst of energy to help Dad fix things at the\ncabin to get it ready for summer. \u201cOnly Dad was onto me,\u201d I confessed to Boone\nas we watched the horses trot out onto the track to circle past the stand. \u201cI\nthought at the time I was fooling him, but I have more sense about that now.\u201d\nBecause I have a teenage daughter who is just like me, I didn\u2019t add.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLaurel, what were our parents\nthinking?\u201d Boone said. \u201cThat you wouldn\u2019t<\/em> sneak down to see me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lying on the fold-out sofa bed, my\nshirt off, my skin tingling with the cool of my perspiration and his,\nwhispering in the dark, we believed no one had known, his mother sleeping in\nher room, my parents upstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered it all: Boone past and\nBoone present, seemingly the same, wild and sweet, only sweeter now. Boone, who\ncould quote Walt Whitman and had been to France; Boone, who knew horses, could\nride, had a way with them; Boone, who loved our mother\u2019s cooking, even when we\ndid not. He\u2019d played baseball and he\u2019d traveled. As this man re-entering my\nlife, he\u2019d traveled and read more, making him more interesting. He was\nirresistible. That long-ago summer when we still lived at the cabin at the\nPalisades, I\u2019d had Boone all to myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo which horse are you betting on?\u201d\nBoone said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always bet on the red ones with three white socks,\u201d I said, referencing Secretariat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVERLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year I turned twelve, our parents decided to rent out the\nlower level of our cabin down at the Palisades of the Kentucky River. All\nthrough the spring, Daisy and I went down with Dad to renovate the cabin so the\nwalkout basement would be rentable. Laurel was in cheerleading competition\nseason. I think that\u2019s why she didn\u2019t come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d grown up at the\ncabin, every summer since I was born and even before that, when Daisy was two\nand Laurel wasn\u2019t even born yet. The three of us had all these summers to\nexplore. Sometimes we took the trail along the edge of the limestone cliffs,\nbreathlessly making our way through the brush, pressing aside the branches of\nblue ash and sugar maples until we emerged to see the muddy river two hundred\nfeet below. The sudden cleavage between two coinciding limestone cliffs seemed\nlike something of a miracle. Walking along the ridge, it seemed possible to\nknow something that had before seemed unknowable. I think our parents needed\none that summer\u2014a miracle, I mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other times, Daisy, Laurel and me cut\nin to the forest at points only we knew, trails that led us to secret, sandy\nterraces down close to the river, lined with beech and tulip poplars, where we had\nstashed a canoe so we could paddle our way through the placid waters. Here, we\nfound the best wildflowers and chokecherry bushes. Spring ephemerals, our\nmother called them, flowers that quickly bloom, then produce seed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rest of the year, the plants\ndevote their energy to underground structures\u2014roots, rhizomes, bulbs,\u201d our\nmother said, and this idea of a fleeting scene of wonder took hold in our\nimaginations. We knew that when we came upon a hidden meadow draped in the\nwhite lace of chokecherry flowers, we might be the only ones to see it like\nthat. We leaped forward into the meadow with our baskets, reaching beneath the\ndrooping clusters for the small dark fruit and filled our containers to take\nthem back, because we knew that in a week, the fruit would be gone.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That spring, with Laurel busy with\ncheerleading, Dad told Daisy and me that he needed us to be his extra hands. He\nwanted us to bring him tools and lend moral support. Daisy and I, we did all\nthe brick work leading up to the separate door, while Dad did the carpentry, a\nlot of drilling and sawing. I didn\u2019t mind. I liked the way the mortar oozed\nthrough the bricks, liked to spread it smooth. It seemed a way to restore an\norder of sorts. Daisy wondered aloud if this made us \u201cbrickheads,\u201d the term she\nhad for construction workers who had once worked for my father, when he still\nbuilt homes, before the recession. I said I didn\u2019t know, but it seemed we were\nbecoming more like them so maybe we ought not to call them that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAUREL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Vintage, a bar with a flowing wall\nof water pinned between blue and violet lights, I could feel classy and\nsophisticated. Here I was sitting across from Boone for a second date. It\nseemed so easy. Quite a solution. Feeling betrayed? Just strike up a romance\nwith a high school sweetheart, someone you already knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started by asking about his mother, who\nhad been our mother\u2019s hope for the garden at the cabin. That seemed safe. Our\nmother had her mind made up the minute she met Boone\u2019s mother, a potential\nrenter, that this woman was someone who would tend to the flowers, shrubs and\ntrees, keep the cabin looking nice. We could plant tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant\nin the vegetable garden, and our new tenant would keep an eye on things until\nwe came back for summer. These hoped-for botanical skills were the reason Boone\ncame into our lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked across the table and wondered\nwhen he\u2019d tell me the story of his divorce. I wanted to know if he was\nemotionally available, but I didn\u2019t quite have the palate for another\ndividing-up-the-household-goods story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd how\u2019s Everly?\u201d he asked after a\nwhile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safer territory, then, to talk about\nwhat Everly was doing, she and Scott and their little boy, cute as a button\n(did I really say that?), who was starting kindergarten in the fall. I told him\nhow Everly and her husband both went to war even though they were officers and\nengineers, how even that didn\u2019t protect them from seeing combat.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told him about Daisy, too, who was\nworking in hospice, and her husband in kidney dialysis, both doctors, both\nbrilliant, their kids, Mitchell and Rochelle. \u201cThey\u2019re probably both destined\nfor medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, she\u2019s married.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI \u2013 they \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d I decided not to tell him Everly\nand Scott were separated. They might be having their troubles, but they\nunderstood each other in ways that Chuck had never tried to understand me. But then\nI never gave Chuck anything to be intrigued about. Everly would slap me for\nthinking that. Putting myself down was a bad habit. With Boone sitting in front\nof me, ready to ask another question about my family, I remembered an earlier\nself, the me before the putdowns had started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does her husband do?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was in the war, too, an officer,\u201d I\nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everly told me she and Scott were going\nto meditation together, that the Veterans Administration found it did wonders\nfor post-traumatic stress disorder in vets. She told me it was more helpful\nthan talk therapy, which Chuck and I did out the wazoo. Talking just made\nthings worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boone drained the last of his beer. \u201cThey\u2019re\nnot separated, then?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVERLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am Everly, the little sister, named\nafter a rockabilly band, two brothers from Kentucky who had a hit in the 1950s\nabout making out. You\u2019d think I was born in 1957, when they were at their\nheight. But no, I was born in 1972, when the Everly Brothers guest-starred in a\nsummer show with Johnny Cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our parents liked the name \u201cEver,\u201d\nthat\u2019s what Laurel had said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this little summer fill-in show\ngave our parents the nudge into \u201cEverly,\u201d which they thought sounded even\nbetter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boone called me Ever, though, without knowing\nthat\u2019s where our parents had begun. That\u2019s what he called me that whole summer,\nwhen I tagged along for tennis and ice cream, foraging at the river and\nlearning ballroom dance in the living room with his mother\u2019s Navajo rugs rolled\nback to the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He came to see me after Laurel broke up\nwith him, her senior year. He said he\u2019d remember me forever. He said I was like\nspringtime. He said what we had was special and he would not EVER forget me. He\nkept saying it, just like that, \u201cI won\u2019t\nEVER forget you,\u201d until my pout turned to a smile. He cupped his hand under my\nchin and lifted my eyes to his. He said he only wanted me to be happy. He said\nhe couldn\u2019t imagine living without me. I was almost thirteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAUREL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You weren\u2019t named after the Everly\nBrothers, no way, I never said that. Mom was trying to decide between Heaven\nand Ever, but Dad wanted to name you Lily. That would keep the flower thing\ngoing. Daisy, Laurel, Lily, you see. So, Ever met Lily and became Everly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You scoff when I tell that story, but\nit\u2019s true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And don\u2019t\nyou remember? We saw the Everly Brothers once. Of course, we had to. They had a\nreunion tour of sorts, and they played at the Executive Inn near the\nFairgrounds in Louisville. Chuck and I were newlyweds, and \u2026 well, I can\u2019t\nremember if you had a date that night. Isn\u2019t that funny? I can remember clear\nas a bell that the three of us went, but I can\u2019t remember if you brought\nsomeone. Perhaps not. You were always so embarrassed about your name you\nwouldn\u2019t have wanted to explain to someone else why we were even going. But I\nthink it\u2019s the coolest name ever. Hah. Ever-ly. The coolest name, Ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember the sound was really bad at\nthe concert. They sort of screeched through \u201cWake Up, Little Susie,\u201d and I\ncouldn\u2019t remember what I ever liked about them. Also, we ordered bourbon steaks\nwith garlic mashed potatoes and just because it was the kind of thing our\nparents would have ordered, we all got Manhattans, and tried to forget they\nwere dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rockabilly and Manhattans. I think we had our era wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Novelist and memoirist Carolyn Flynn<\/strong> says she\u2019s writing I Don\u2019t Remember It That Way<\/em> because she\u2019s fascinated with selective forgetting\u2014of ourselves, our shared past and our collective history, as families and as a country. Flynn is the winner of the 2014 Rick Bass\/Montana Prize for Fiction for the short story \u201cPretend.\u201d She\u2019s completing a memoir, You\u2019ve Gone Too Far,<\/em> that springs from her creative nonfiction piece, \u201cResurrection,\u201d published in Fourth Genre. <\/em>A 2015 TEDxWomen speaker on the topic of \u201cTell a Better Story, Live a Better Life,\u201d she can be found at www.carolynflynn.com<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Don\u2019t Remember It That Way LAUREL I used to say that all you need to pull off a great Derby party is the perfect mint julep. Get everyone sort of elegantly sloshed on Kentucky bourbon and simple syrup. Lure them in under the spell of crushed ice and bruised mint. (Even the bruising must be done elegantly.) You serve the juleps in frosted silver goblets, preferably ones with a pedigree. Do that, I told my sister Everly, and it takes the pressure off the rest of the menu. Whether you do buttermilk-battered chicken, as I did last year for the movie stars, or whether you do baby back ribs with a bourbon mop, like this year \u2013 mint julep is the thing. What people want is to forget themselves, I told Everly. Everly was back from her second deployment in Iraq, and she told me she wanted something new, she didn\u2019t know what, but not soldiering. I was the queen of something new, all right. While she\u2019d been away, I had gotten a new life, mostly against my will, but I was getting used to it. These Hollywood types who flock to the Derby parties are just the same as everyone who is Irish on St. Patrick\u2019s Day, I told Everly as we chopped garlic greens for the crispy potato pancakes. Everyone but everyone weeps in the Churchill Downs grandstand, longing for home. I shouldn\u2019t be telling Everly this, I knew that. How many days and nights had she longed for home while Iraqi shells fell on her bunker? That was what was real. The Derby\u2014not real. Two minutes, then they forget they wept. But what\u2019s wrong with that? Adopt another culture, remember another time. It\u2019s harmless. So much easier than having to be yourself all the time. After Chuck left, I fell into the habit of saying cynical stuff like this. I\u2019m better now. It suffices to say that last year at Derby time, I wasn\u2019t my bright cheery self. Sixteen years with Chuck, and I hadn\u2019t been myself the whole time. I know that now. His affair hurt\u2014it stabbed me deep\u2014but it turned me right round to get my own self back. That night of the Derby party, I was starting to see myself again \u2014someone new, but someone I could still recognize. Then I saw him. Boone. I remembered Boone. I would never forget Boone. I was about to never forget him again. I was arranging the petit four Derby chocolate mint cakes on a silver stand. First, I caught a scent. Not mint. Not chocolate. A wild, spicy half-clove scent, mingled with the chocolate and mint. Grass and river water and wildflowers. I lifted my eyes and saw my high school sweetheart Boone. He had been watching me for a few minutes as I fussed with the candied violet flowers that topped the petit fours. He was already at my shoulder. I was well within his magnetic pull-field. Our faces were very close. That\u2019s why I noticed the eyes. \u201cSeems I\u2019m just in time for a treat,\u201d he said. I was fresh hot off a divorce. He was standing so close, I couldn\u2019t jump into exclamations and excited hugs the way you do with high school friends. He\u2019d already crossed in, and I decided to let it just happen. I tilted my cheek to his and said, \u201cGood to see you,\u201d like it hadn\u2019t been twenty years. We both understood to take the conversation back to my staging tent. We sipped pink tea, not iced white Zin like our older sister Daisy remembered when she told the story later. Daisy was the smartest, the doctor, and she had helped me that day with the loadout, then she had her own Derby party to attend. I forgot that. But I know I wouldn\u2019t drink while catering. I was working. I do remember what I was wearing, a twinklelight blue silk dress with spaghetti straps. Everly said my dress was Diana-esque, as in Princess Diana, but I had always dressed that way, before Diana. \u201cI heard last year it was delicious,\u201d Boone said. \u201cIt is.\u201d His eyes rested on my face, my lips. \u201cYou must have gone to the wrong Derby party last year,\u201d I teased. \u201cElse you would already know.\u201d I stunned him with that one, I thought, as I brought the tray to the table. Everly would need to pick up soon, start these around. I turned to Boone. \u201cI heard you were in France.\u201d Actually, I\u2019d heard he was back. I had been hearing about him through the grapevine for weeks leading up to the Derby. And actually, what I already knew was that he\u2019d married a French woman, and they owned two Arabian thoroughbreds and lived in Bordeaux. That\u2019s what I\u2019d heard. But that part was years ago. So long ago, the facts had already started to alter themselves in my mind. \u201cFor a while,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019ve been stateside for years. California, mostly. Now here.\u201d Divorced, then, by the look of things. We didn\u2019t need to have that conversation yet. Still, it seemed like too important of a moment for us to launch into catching up on his mother, my family, old friends. And my life had been too dull the past sixteen years\u2014carpools and Girl Scouts and cupcakes. \u201cI\u2019d love to hear about \u2026 \u201d \u201cAny health department rule against adding a helper?\u201d he said, motioning his eyes to the platter before me. There was a rule, but I didn\u2019t tell him that. I was unveiling the white chocolate elderflower lace, which we would serve up with honeysuckle granita. I showed him how to dip granita into goblets. Following at his shoulder, I drizzled chilled vodka over each one and added the white chocolate lace for garnish. In this way, we treated each one as an exquisite masterpiece. \u201cThis exotic array,\u201d I said, \u201cis the result of my foraging. We still go down by the Palisades at the Kentucky<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1183,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-full-width.php","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1208","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}