Lee's Room

5. Find a way to be invited into the room of someone you don’t know well (or really much at all). Note some small keepsake (a stone, a poster, a playing card, a ribbon, a Star Wars action figure) and ask them where they got it, but don’t ask anything more.  Then write a theme about what you might extrapolate from that object, just as a detective might.

Whenever I see a gourd, I think of her, the 11-year-old cousin of an acquaintance whose floor I happened to sleep on in between states. The team was traveling from race to race every weekend, and would take any semblance of a living situation it could get after hours on the road. When we arrived at Alice's place, we burst through the door and sprinted to claim the available beds. Resigned to the floor - I did not want to fight over a mattress - I staked my claim in the upstairs game room. I shoveled errant Lego's out of the way before setting up my sleeping bag. Ratatouille was playing on the television.

I could hear the shrieks and screams of the other girls quarreling, and wanted to avoid the combat. I ducked into the next room over. LEE'S ROOM. KEEP OUT. Lee was Alice's little sister. I'd met her in passing at a meet last year. Rather than heed the warning, I explored the small space. Neon pinks and purples hurt my weary eyes. Typical girl's room, I thought. And then I saw the gourd on the nightstand.

It was April, far after that time in fall when gourds are in vogue. Strange. I picked it up, shook it, and something rattled inside. A maraca? No, she would have two of them if that were the case. What kind of eleven-year-old uses maracas anyway? 

Lee and Alice's parents had divorced in December. The gourd in my right hand, I suddenly realized. They had gone to a pumpkin patch, selected the perfect orange specimen, and carved together. It was the last time they were all together, a functional family. Lee lingered behind and picked up the gourd, intrigued by its strange shape. She shoved it in her pocket and caught up with her family. She slips her hand in her father's, and the happy foursome walk to the car, all smiles, together.

I gingerly place the gourd back on the nightstand, and slip out of Lee's room.