There are three men and three women. They are adults though we are very young. We are ten, eleven, and eight. They are of that age beyond age: adults. They have lives that far exceed ours. They are detectives – the men. Smart and cultured. They are not gun-slinging detectives. Rather, they look for clues and solve mysteries. They are, in essence, The Hardy Boys, which we read in Koly’s grandmother’s attic – musty old copies that make our throats tighten. The mysteries are not violent nor are they all that specific. We don’t really know anything about men yet, let alone detectives. Anyway, they make me play the guys mostly: I am the youngest.
The women are cultured too – a painter, an editor, and in a bizarre twist of fate, a woman in search of a purpose – a model for who the ten-year-old May will someday become. Books are purchased on her character’s various possible career options. Books like “How to Break Into Publishing” which leads the ever-practical Koly to pursue a pretend career as an editor at Random House. Koly! – who will someday end up with the most absurd career of us all. I am the painter because I am crafty and because I’m not yet worried about my future I guess – though why they worry – at ten and eleven – still alludes me. The decade and some odd years before they have to think about these things stretches out in front of us.
There is a theme song. Of course, there’s a theme song. It involves us standing on my mother’s coffee table – our weight a hundred and fifty pounds among us – singing our parody of “Doo Wah Diddy”. Why do we sing this song? Where did we first hear it?
My Girl maybe? Where a bee sting brings about artistic excellence for one and death for another? It’s cliched and I will hate the movie when I look back, but now I am in love with it. In love with her because her name is Vada and mine is Ann. Her real name is Anna Chumpawama or something equally unpronouncible, something equally embarrassing but when she plays My Girl she becomes Vada who has a tragic tale of bee stings and lost innocence which she turns into poetry at the ripe age of 11. She is a veritable One Hit Wonder – much like Rick Springfield of “Doo Wah Diddy” fame. Oh, I’m sorry. You like him? You’re like my dad, the ham radiohead in the basement, singing along to “Jesse’s Girl.”
TQ&T. Tony, Quint, and Travis. May – Tony, me – Quint, and Koly – Travis. A game named after our detective lovers who were almost always away on business. The ladies are left alone in the mansion in Ireland (inherited by one of us, inhabited by all). May plays an eternally angsty Cassa who has a different job each week but probably has the best relationship of the bunch – with Travis. This good relationship is probably a simple equation of Koly doing a relatively good job of playing her guy part, coupled with the fact that May and Koly are best friends. Koly plays a cool business-minded Emma whose tumultuous relationship with Quint is nearly always verging on divorce. I might be at fault for that. Hard to say. And I play the temperamental Christine, who unfortunately has a husband played by her older sister. There are days when Christine and Tony can’t even speak to each other and deals must be brokered by level-headed (read: not related) Emma. But the game has always worked. Whether the characters love or hate each other that particular day, the game has always worked. Until the day it doesn’t.
I see all of this from the upward angle of my short, spiky hair, my Care Bear-patterned thermals. I see Koly looking at boys. I see the mounds under May’s sweater set. I see what they do not see. They’re about to lose this.
