When Irish Eyes are smiling...

My neighbors growing up were straight-off-the-boat from Ireland, with names like Rena, TWO guys named Patrick, Anne-Marie, Sean and Tommy. Mom (Rena) and kid Patrick had flaming red hair. They were all sun-burn victims, except for Anne, who somehow had a shroud of Mediterranean skin. The mom, Rena, had a very thick brogue accent and often said American expressions completely backwards, but she was infamous for her own brand of harassment in saying, "Oh stop, you'll break and tear the house down" which really sounded like, "Oh shtop, yoo-ll break and tear the how-se dow-n."

Anyway, Anne was my good friend. Our houses were so close, I could hop over the fence to get to her yard (not that I did, remember I was a fat kid). She also had a pool, which made her an even better friend. I spent ridiculous amounts of time in that house. But our lives could not have been more different. While I was the wild-child youngest kid in my family with little to no responsibility, she was the oldest kid with the most responsibility a kid could have at that point in life. Her mom worked crazy and long hours as a CTA bus-driver. I was never quite sure what her dad did, if anything, but at any rate, she was the live-in babysitter, built-in Mom and the cook. She took care of her brothers when they were sick. She helped them with their homework. She essentially raised them herself. She also had to attend a Catholic school, which ironically was always my threat of punishment when I was bad. "If you do that again, we are sending you to Catholic school"…worked like a charm every time and kept this kid out of trouble.

Seeing that there was no one I could pick on and since she was a year younger than me, I did all of the things to her that older siblings do. Anne got the official "little sister" taunting from me.

I had silly nicknames for her. I convinced her to let me cut her hair. I was the person who told her there was no Santa Claus. Well, actually, I'd confirmed it. She knew. Her mother, Rena, was NOT so happy with that and let me know. I did everything and some that had been done to me and in return, she treated me with the disdain, but the respect younger siblings give their older sibs. She really listened to me and after the taunting was over, I grew to appreciate her.

As the years went by, her parents decided to move into a bigger house. They put their house up for rent and moved across town but asked if Anne could finish school at our house since her bus was right in the neighborhood. The plan was that she would stay for a month. She was in 7th grade, I was in 8th.

We set up another bed in my bedroom and it was like having a month long slumber party. Since we went to different schools, it was fun to compare notes on what was happening in the public school system (boys) or her horrific nun stories. But like all slumber parties, there is a good story.

Anne wanted me to pluck her eyebrows. I'd only ever done my own and had really mastered it, so I had a go. She couldn't sit still. Her eyes kept watering. I put (great tip, btw) Oragel (the goop that numbs gums) on her eyebrows THEN tried to pluck. Still no go. She was being a baby. I was frustrated.

Since she had NO threshold for beauty pain, she asked me to…shave her eyebrows.

I pondered this and thought, "Well, why not??" Men shaved their faces into designs, why couldn't I Picasso her eyebrows. Seemed easy enough. And Picasso I did. I did one. It was perfect … like shaping a small caterpillar. No problem. Like a model. I did good!

It was the other eyebrow that I … missed. Or messed up. Or just plainly f-ed up. It wasn't until after I'd taken HALF her eyebrow off that I realized my error. My big fatal error. My error that I could not glue back on.

I stared at her in shock, but tried to hide my fright (and my evil laughter). She wanted to see. She was excited. I panicked. I told her to wait.

I remember scrambling into my mother's gargantuan make-up drawer. My mother has always been natural, but had more make-up than Tammy Faye Baker's face. Anyway, I found eyebrow pencil and ran back into my room.

Too late. Anne was crying and holding her eye like I'd punched her. She was going to tell my parents on me. I freaked. I told her (lying, of course) that she could do the same to me. She tried escaping my room, but I had to come up with something, so I grabbed a magazine to show her what I could do. And then I calmed her down enough to show her the magic of make-up. I very carefully drew in her eyebrow and even added a sexy little arch. I told her she looked like a model. She grew silent. She looked. Thru her tears a little smile crept up. I sighed with the relief that older siblings must get when they know they have saved the day.

Bad thing was, after that incident, she didn't quite have a handle on her dark skin but light hair and that using DARK black eyeliner to 'fix' her eyebrow looked a little odd, but I let her figure that one out.

Funny little extra: Anne's parents were fairly young, compared to mine so I went by the first named basis, Rena and Pat, with them. My parents being older somehow made the whole first-name thing NOT work. Since I had a complicated last name, the first year I knew Anne, she used to call my parents, "Mr. and Mrs. Lisa's Parents."