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CRY BEFORE MIDNIGHT
by Donald Olson

That a caterpillar could turn into a butterfly seemed a less remarkable feat of nature
than the transformation of the girlhood friend Anna so fondly remembered into this
willow-thin, middle-aged woman, brown as a gypsy, with a mane of strawlike hair
which looked as if it had been trimmed in a windstorm with a pair of pruning shears.

“My dear, I swear to goodness I wouldn’t have known you,” declared Anna
as they drove toward the lake under a brooding late-autumn sky.

She had prepared herself for a certain shock of unrecognition when she
picked Maureen up at the airport. Although Maureen had dutifully kept up her end of
the correspondence, unlike Anna she had never sent so much as a single snapshot to
record the inevitable change in appearance over the twenty-five years since they’d
last seen each other. Consequently, Anna still carried in her mind the image of a
seventeen-year-old girl inclined to plumpness, with excitable brown eyes and
feather-cut raisin-colored hair.

It was of their childhood days that Anna chattered all the way to the house, as
if wanting to forestall the questions Maureen must have been dying to ask ever since
receiving Anna’s urgently worded telegram.

“I’m impressed, girl,” said Maureen as they climbed out of the car. “You did
yourself proud.”

Anna pursed her babyish lips. “A prison, that’s what it’s been.” Though
undeniably an imposing one: a tree-girdled red-brick colonial, all massive chimneys,
creeping ivy, and black shutters, with a sweeping stone-balustraded terrace
overlooking the lake, slate-colored now under a dull metallic sky.

Anna helped Maureen with her bags. “A hatbox? Don’t tell me women wear
hats in the wilds of New Mexico.”

Maureen smiled. “I don’t use it for hats.” In the foyer she unstrapped the lid
and carefully lifted out a heavy receptacle. “One of my replicas of a Cochiti
polychrome storage jar.” Globe-shaped, with a short tapering neck about as wide as
a fist, it was decorated with a bird motif between bands of brilliant black and red.
“The perforated stopper’s my own concession to modernity, so it can be used for a
variety of purposes.”

Anna gushed over the workmanship but when she would have examined it
more closely Maureen stopped her with a laugh. “No, no, mustn’t touch. It’s a gift
for Carter.”

“For Carter?”
 “Oh, I have something for you, too, but I thought Carter might be less
antagonistic—if I brought him something special. You wrote about his passion for
rock candy. Well, the jar’s full of rock candy.”