Every fall and spring day after school the girls walked downtown together to their perch atop the hillock on the lawn of the government building across the street from the theater. As they walked, they'd chat about the dayâs events, which boy was cute and which wasn't, why they soooooo hated Mr. Watkins, the math teacher, for making the test too difficult, who had taken clandestine photographs of whom with whose camera phone. When they finally reached the hill on the lawn outside the building where Katie's father worked, they'd remove their backpacks from their shoulders, lie down on the grass and watch the clouds go by. Then the world would settle in on itself, a smooth and floating thing, until Mr. Simpson, Katie's dad, came out to meet them and take them home. But that sunny spring Thursday was different. That day Katie and Maddy didn't lie down on the hill. Instead, they sat down and continued their playful discourse. "Did you see him last night on American Idol?" Maddy shrieked. "He looked like such a dork!" "No he didn't, and he sang better than the other guy," scolded Katie. All this was going on when out of the corner of her eye, Katie spotted something dark moving across the street. She and Maddy turned to look. A mysterious-looking man dressed in a long black cassock and white tennis shoes turned left out of the theater. His eyes peered out from beneath a tall, black Russian fur hat. He carried a black briefcase in one hand, a white handkerchief in the other. He walked long, loafing strides to the end of the building, then turned left again and disappeared down the narrow alley between the theater and the tiny cafe next door. Maddy and Katie looked at each other in disbelief. "Who was that?" Maddy asked. Katie shook her head. "I donât know. He sure dresses funny." "I know. Totally." The girls watched the front of the theater in silence, as though expecting other strangers to emerge. After a few minutes, Katie lay down in the grass. "Look," she called to her friend, pointing at the sky. Maddy lay down and followed Katieâs outstretched finger. "That cloud looks like a . . . like a . . ." "OMG!" cried Maddy "Like a trombone!â?" The girls broke out in peals and peals of laughter. But even as the trombone cloud drifted by, the exotic man with the strange gait lingered in Maddyâs mind. (Continue to Part 2)
Jennifer Hambrick unites her extensive backgrounds in the arts and media and her deep roots in Columbus to bring inspiring music to central Ohio as Classical 101’s midday host. Jennifer performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago before earning a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.