Dad gave us string cheese in the van. We were driving past what Dad was calling Harlem, as he recalled a non-detailed account of one of his inmates. I had never in my life tasted string cheese before.
I twisted the cheese free from the clear packaging and simultaneously thought of last winter. Of the smoky wooden cabin of a bookstore, with the little bear carve-out knocking back and forth in the wind, his splintered paw slung over the top of the shop's sign where he was nailed onto crookedly, hugging his own books to his chipped painted chest.
I clenched my mittens tightly onto the slim packet of candy my father had handed to me as he pulled into the pebble-splashed lot. The light from a lamp post spilled out across the setting, a powdering of snow slipping out of the clouds. The thin strands of winter-wary bangs stuck defiantly to my forehead as my knitted cap and the heat of dad's truck teased them.
I pulled back the folded foil, ripping the colored paper that hugged it ever so softly. I didn't want Dad to know.
Pink.
I turned the packet to the side, reading aloud in the softest of whispers, "Mentos."
I crept silently into the quieted bookstore, stepping strategically over the piles of musty hardcovers. Dad walked straight to the counter. With my left eye on his back, I popped out the the small candy-coated soft mint.
It fell onto the eager explorers of my tongue and I was immediately delighted.
Orange.
Yellow.
Yellow.
Pink!
Dad's voice pulled me back to the finger greased van windows.
"There's the Zoo!"
I didn't yet care. I was pre-occupied.
The cheese was meant to be eaten in a pulled fashion. Strand by strand. My siblings' noses were pressed up against the glass, their fingers wiping the fog away as quickly as it appeared. I went on nibbling, my tastebuds clapping and cheering, my mouth fighting between a smile and a chew.
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