Once Around the Carousel

Chapter Two

Sharon and Linda's friendship took on the air of enchantment from the moment they met. Immediately they formed the type of bond that only exists between little girls. They spent every day together, and Linda taught Sharon everything about the beach. She showed her how to tell where the waves flow gently enough to fill the tunnels underneath a sandcastle without knocking it down, and the best crabbing spots on the jetty; the ice cream man who double-scoops, and the arcade with the best Skee-ball. Linda shared all the essential information a kid needs at the beach.

Their friendship provided a curative power Linda's medical treatment had always lacked. But throughout those first two weeks, Linda knew Sharon would be leaving. And when the MacCalasters went back to Hartford, Linda was back to playing alone.

The following summer, the MacCalasters arrived in late July and stayed an entire month. With her mother still unpacking the car, Sharon walked straight to the beach and found Linda. Their friendship never skipped a beat. They filled their days swimming, playing along the shoreline, and went searching for shells and treasures far enough down the beach to peak at Titus Dwight's supposedly haunted house. And in the evenings, they played in the arcades, rode the carousel, and gorged themselves on ice cream and fried dough.

When the MacCalasters vacation ended, the girls were heartbroken. Their separation hysteria set in fully as they stood with Sharon's brothers in the driveway on the final morning, watching Mrs. MacCalaster bring out the last of their belongings from the cottage.

"Why do we have to go back to stinky old Hartford anyway?" Sharon sobbed, stomping her feet back and forth on the cottage's driveway of crushed shells and packed sand.

"Well, for one thing, my little butternut-squash," her mother said, setting a cooler down on their station wagon's tailgate to wipe away Sharon's tears. "Your father's already home. You don't want him to get so lonely he forgets about us, do you?"

"I know, Mom; why don't we leave Grumpy here with her little friend Dopey." Tim offered.

Ignoring the presentation, Sharon latched onto the idea. "Can I, mom? Can I stay here with Linda?"

"Yeah, you can stay with us," Linda said, trying to rise above the wave of embarrassment the idea of Sharon coming to her house brought. She'd slept over at the MacCalaster's cottage most nights during the month and knew, among other things, that her mother would never fuss over them the way Mrs. MacCalaster did.

"I'm afraid not, baby-doll. But before your father left last week, he told me this vacation went so well that we'd come back next year," Mrs. MacCalaster said, closing the tailgate. "Now, boys, get in the back. Sharon, say goodbye to Linda and hop in the front with me." After a tearful hug, Linda walked back to the beach alone, and Perrin MacCalaster pulled away for their drive back to Hartford.

The girls had sworn to stay best friends through the mail, and Linda wrote her first letter right after dinner. Sharon outdid her, though, mailing a postcard when they stopped at Howard Johnson's for ice cream on the way home. The girls wrote daily letters for the rest of the summer and continued writing throughout the fall and winter. Then, in late February, Linda came home from school and, after knocking the snow off the mailbox, saw a letter with a message on the outside of the envelope in pink and purple markers: "The Very Best News, From Your Very Best Friend." As soon as Linda got upstairs to the room she shared with her big sister, Eliza; she carefully opened the envelope so she could save it. The letter induced shrieks of joy.

Hearing her daughter's scream, Gloria lazed her way from playing solitaire at the kitchen table. "What's the matter, Linny?" She called up from the foot of the stairs.

"I'm Ok 'omma. 'ook 'uh 'etter 'om 'aron," Linda mumbled, holding the letter between her lips so she could use both hands on the banisters. Her preferred tactic for managing stairs, as it avoided the indignity of sitting down on them.