Polka Dots
MOM FAVORED POLKA DOTS and refused to buy Yellen neck ornaments of any other sort. Every time he suggested stripes, she shuttered. Maybe his father had hated patterns composed of arrays of dots. Mom surely hated Father.
There were no portraits of his father in the family’s photo albums. There were, however, many of Yellen’s sister and of Yellen. In those snapshots, nearly half of Yellen’s rompers were covered with perfectly even, exactly sized circles. The only reason why his teenage wardrobe had not been similarly speckled was because few merchants carried that design in men’s sizes.
Nonetheless, Yellen remembered protesting wearing dots in first through fifth grades. Mom’s compromise had been to allow him to also wear paisley.
Yellen sighed. He wished that he could dial hi
