My old man is mean. He don’t give a shiny penny to no one, not even if they is deserving or poor. He says he works hard for what he has and what he has belongs to him and only to him. Hoards things, too, rubbish mostly, only he don’t think of it as rubbish. He says it has a value and that one day he’ll be richer as a king with all he has. I heared someone say he was tight as a clam, and I reckon that about says it.
I tell Livvy she’s like my da in the mean she’s being. I tell her she’s gonna turn into one of them shriveled old women that live on their own with maybe three cats and a shopping trolley with a wobbly wheel. She knows I’m talking ‘bout old Ma Capstaff and she don’t like that.
‘Aw c’mon, Livvy, just say.’
Livvy don’t look nothing like Ma Capstaff. Not one bit like. Livvy is young and she’s pretty and everything is in the right place and not pulled down yet by gravity. Her hair’s the colour of new straw and her cheeks is pink as pinch. So, what I said about her and how she’ll be like Ma Capstaff one day, well, she knows I don’t really think that.
‘Look Livvy, I got nothing and you got everything. I’m just asking you to share it with me. Just to say what it is.’
She’s in love, Livvy is. You can see it, if you didn’t know. She’s all lit up and smiling and looking like nothing can touch her or taint her. She’s in love with Markie Bruce and if I’m being totally honest I love him a bit, too. And the thing is, the really important thing, Markie loves Livvy back.
‘Don’t keep it all to yourself, Livvy. Pennies lose their shine if they’re kept in a glass jar with a thousand other pennies. I know, cos I see the pennies my da has saved up for a never-coming rainy day. Dull as dirt.’
I want Livvy to tell me. So as I can know. I want her to tell me what it’s like, what love feels like. Kisses I know already. Din’t I kiss Mr Kennill and kissing him for a whole minute on account of he payed ten dollars to our fundraiser. And kissing him was sort of nice and sort of not. His breath smelled of onions and he hadn’t shaved that morning. But still it was sort of nice, and it was like there was butterflies in my tummy, and after Mr Kennill kept looking at me from far off and smiling at me and that left me feeling dizzy, too.
‘Was it like having butterflies in the tummy? Or standing on a tall bridge looking down. Or pins and needles on the souls of your feet. Don’t be a clam. Tell me Livvy.’
Livvy smiled at me, pretty as peaches. She lifted one hand high in the air and she let it fall, moving it like a dropped feather, waving it slow and lazy from side to side, and lower and lower. Then she stopped her hand level with her heart.
‘It’s just like floating,’ she said. ‘Like you is made of nothing but air and feeling like a cloud that ain’t moving. Or like lying on the surface of warm water, and you close your eyes and you don’t feel the water, just the being held. That’s what it’s like.’
Livvy put her arms gentle about me and I could smell the sweet and floral scent she dabbed behind her ears and on the nape of her neck. She said I was to just close my eyes. And she breathed on my face, and she rocked me from side to side, slow, like her hand was that falling feather again.
‘Like that,’ she said.
And I swear I knew love then and I was richer than my da would ever be with his pennies in jars and his collection of rubbish, richer as a King or a Queen.
Patricia Ann McNair 
My old man is mean. He don’t give a shiny penny to no one, not even if they is deserving or poor. He says he works hard for what he has and what he has belongs to him and only to him. Hoards things, too, rubbish mostly, only he don’t think of it as rubbish. He says it has a value and that one day he’ll be richer as a king with all he has. I heared someone say he was tight as a clam, and I reckon that about says it.
I tell Livvy she’s like my da in the mean she’s being. I tell her she’s gonna turn into one of them shriveled old women that live on their own with maybe three cats and a shopping trolley with a wobbly wheel. She knows I’m talking ‘bout old Ma Capstaff and she don’t like that.
‘Aw c’mon, Livvy, just say.’
Livvy don’t look nothing like Ma Capstaff. Not one bit like. Livvy is young and she’s pretty and everything is in the right place and not pulled down yet by gravity. Her hair’s the colour of new straw and her cheeks is pink as pinch. So, what I said about her and how she’ll be like Ma Capstaff one day, well, she knows I don’t really think that.
‘Look Livvy, I got nothing and you got everything. I’m just asking you to share it with me. Just to say what it is.’
She’s in love, Livvy is. You can see it, if you didn’t know. She’s all lit up and smiling and looking like nothing can touch her or taint her. She’s in love with Markie Bruce and if I’m being totally honest I love him a bit, too. And the thing is, the really important thing, Markie loves Livvy back.
‘Don’t keep it all to yourself, Livvy. Pennies lose their shine if they’re kept in a glass jar with a thousand other pennies. I know, cos I see the pennies my da has saved up for a never-coming rainy day. Dull as dirt.’
I want Livvy to tell me. So as I can know. I want her to tell me what it’s like, what love feels like. Kisses I know already. Din’t I kiss Mr Kennill and kissing him for a whole minute on account of he payed ten dollars to our fundraiser. And kissing him was sort of nice and sort of not. His breath smelled of onions and he hadn’t shaved that morning. But still it was sort of nice, and it was like there was butterflies in my tummy, and after Mr Kennill kept looking at me from far off and smiling at me and that left me feeling dizzy, too.
‘Was it like having butterflies in the tummy? Or standing on a tall bridge looking down. Or pins and needles on the souls of your feet. Don’t be a clam. Tell me Livvy.’
Livvy smiled at me, pretty as peaches. She lifted one hand high in the air and she let it fall, moving it like a dropped feather, waving it slow and lazy from side to side, and lower and lower. Then she stopped her hand level with her heart.
‘It’s just like floating,’ she said. ‘Like you is made of nothing but air and feeling like a cloud that ain’t moving. Or like lying on the surface of warm water, and you close your eyes and you don’t feel the water, just the being held. That’s what it’s like.’
Livvy put her arms gentle about me and I could smell the sweet and floral scent she dabbed behind her ears and on the nape of her neck. She said I was to just close my eyes. And she breathed on my face, and she rocked me from side to side, slow, like her hand was that falling feather again.
‘Like that,’ she said.
And I swear I knew love then and I was richer than my da would ever be with his pennies in jars and his collection of rubbish, richer as a King or a Queen.
‘Just like that,’ Livvy said.