Nell Minow

On my 20th birthday, I got a call in my dorm from my boyfriend’s mother, Fran. He was in college 2000 miles away in California, but I was about 20 minutes from his home, and his mother said she wanted to come over to give me a birthday present. I did not know her very well yet, but I did know that her sense of time was….elastic and unpredictable, a refreshing difference from my resolutely punctual family.  So, I told the girls in the dorm that my boyfriend’s mother would be arriving and if I was in class they should ask her to wait and perhaps somehow convey to her subtly that I was worthy of her wonderful son.

But it turned out I was there when she arrived.  And it was quite an arrival, more of a procession. She brought along two teenage kids I did not know, all three of them draped in pale blue chiffon they were wearing like long ponchos, with holes cut out for their heads.  They were carrying a blue candle in an engraved brass candleholder with a bell in the base, a blue bowl with four blue straws, a blue toothbrush, and a small cake with blue frosting.  My room was so tiny I had to leave the door open to fit them all inside.

In honor of my birthday, they were there to induct me into the Bluebird Club, which Fran made up, inspired by some bluebird pins she found in a thrift shop.  The candle was so I’d think of them at night.  The toothbrush was so I would think of them in the morning. The blue bowl and straws were for a blue drink (melted blueberry sherbet), and we sat on the floor and sipped it together through the blue straws. They made me take a secret oath and sang me a bluebird song.  

That night, some of the girls in the dorm came by to say happy birthday and see how the day went.  “Was everything okay with your boyfriend’s mom?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. I was here and everything was fine.”  

“Thank goodness,” one of them said.  “I was so worried she’d arrive when those kooks were sitting on your floor!”