The first thing I noticed about Siesel was her dog. Gretel was still a puppy when we all moved in, but even at six months a St. Bernard is hard to ignore. And she was a perfect example of her breed. Heavy-footed, rounded of back, cotton-white with fields of auburn and umber. She was too young for the characteristic loose lip – it would be a little while before she began spraying us all with clear mucus when she shook her big head or sneezed – but she made opaque messes with big-puppy energy.

The second thing I noticed was Siesel’s hair. It was naturally curly and the color of buffed copper. I hadn’t seen a redhead before, and I would never after meet one of better hue. My books all pictured blonde princesses, which made my brunette self feel second-string, but something about the color of Siesel’s hair moved her out of the arena of normal for me, and into the epic.

Siesel, for her part, probably wasn’t feeling epic. She was nearly nine years old and she had just moved away from all of her friends in New Orleans, yanked with her mother from their homey humid delta to the suburbs of Long Island. She knew the move had something to do with her father’s job; she heard her parents fighting late into the night, and she must have believed what her mother told mine: that her dad wanted to get them out of the South, back to the area where he was raised. She acted lonely. She didn’t like appearing exotic. She considered altering her name, to Cecile or Cecily. Even those were too odd. She paid no attention to the younger kids on the block. I was only five.

The neighborhood in Glen Cove was hewn out of an old berry and clover farm. The developers took pasture two acres at a time, carving streets and cul-de-sacs, laying sewer and water lines, basing and framing and finishing blocks of ranch and split-level houses with rail-fenced backyards. A year after our block was settled, a draft horse broke through the fence into my backyard and caused my visiting cousin to have hysterics. Three years after, all of the farm had been turned into single-family first-time homes, everything except the original two-story wood-frame farmhouse, where the big O’Neill family lived, with the twins Shelly and Stephen and seven other kids.

The way tract homes were developed, entire initial neighborhoods moved in at once. The houses were in such demand that they sold immediately upon completion, and approximately sixty days later the street became narrow with moving vans, and nuclear families ranged around in relocation chaos. There followed additional periods of shelf-building, lawn seeding, and patio development, during which the neighbors took each other’s material and cooperative measure.

My household was friendly. My mother was always outgoing and energetic, my father was competent and cordial, and my baby brother was adorable.

Siesel’s family was exuberant. They weren’t from the Northeast; they couldn’t help but be interesting. Her father was enthusiastic and her mother was vivacious. She wore bright flowing clothes and almost sang instead of speaking. She stacked a dozen gold bangles on her wrists, like a princess from the Arabian Nights. She made a big decorative deal out of every holiday. Especially Halloween.

The neighborhood was completed in August and no one was set up properly for Labor Day; Halloween was the first big holiday after the houses filled. It happened that Siesel’s birthday was on the 30^th of October and their family tradition had always celebrated it with Halloween, so Siesel’s mother threw the first of what would be an annual party, and invited every kid on the block.

That seemed extraordinary. Siesel was a few years ahead of the post-war tsunami, and most of the neighbor kids were four or five or six to her nine, but all of us were invited and Siesel was gracious.

They decked the house out like it was haunted. Cobwebs and strange lights played on the flat back yard and eerie music whined from inside the study. Siesel’s father greeted everyone dressed like Dracula, whose movie wouldn’t be out for two years and would then be deemed so terrifying that I for one, and several other guests as well, would not be permitted to see it. Siesel’s mother appeared as a beautiful Gypsy. Siesel herself was a ballerina that first year; I condensed with envy at the sight of her yellow satin toe shoes and horizontal tulle skirt.

There were lanterns and crepe paper strung from the back of the house to the edges of the fence, and several wooden tables with attached benches and matching cloths. I was seated at the table farthest from the house and the rituals, but Siesel’s mother made sure all of the guests saw the big cake before she cut into it. It was iced in orange and chocolate-so-dark-it-was-nearly-black, and it looked like a flattened pumpkin. It was moist dark devilsfood beneath buttercream frosting, and there was a charm baked into it. That was a tradition in Siesel’s family; the guest who found the charm would receive a prize.

(to be continued on Wednesday)