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Chapter 2


Carolyn smiles graciously at Chester when he loops his pencil tip onto his order pad and punches a finite dot at the end of the table's order. When there were no other requests, the young red head pushed off the table and rolled away in his skates. Chester turned too quickly around a table and clattered to the floor, taking a napkin dispenser and a glass Heinz bottle with him.

"What did I tell you about wearin' those skates in my diner, boy?!" Mr. Biggs shouted from the kitchen. "There's a reason we don't wear 'em anymore!!"

Caroyln joined in the hidden snickers of her group while Chester eased himself onto his wheeled feet. He ripped off the skates and staggered behind the counter in his socks.

Judy shook Dick's arm. "That's not nice."

"You were laughin' too." Dick pinched Judy's cheek before she tore it away from his grasp. Judy's glowing smile reluctantly showed itself behind her glossy lipstick.The bright sunlight from the open blinds of the diner made the atmosphere around the table even warmer.

After the short afternoon lunch, Carolyn spent some time looking at the features of faces surrounding her while they talked. Their personalities were all becoming familiar. They didn't notice her eyes memorizing them, but she preferred to study them silently. Then, Michael was there at the far end of the diner, collecting dirty dishes.

Carolyn didn't realize how she looked until she saw her own coquettish expression being reflected back at her from Michael. It was almost closing time. He held their silent stare for a short moment and then he continued to walk away as if it never happened.

"You sure you want to stay, baby?" Dick asked Carolyn for the second time. "You know...he closes. And it's almost four."

Jason cut in. "The boss is still here, she'll be alright." He looked expectantly at Roxanne.

Roxanne pouted and dug out a five dollar bill from her purse and placed it on the table. "Five percent tip--no wonder you're goin' bankrupt, Biggs!" Roxanne huffed to the Chevy in a flurry of bouncy, brunette ringlets.

"Five percent...idiot. Not five bucks." Jason muttered in annoyance as he followed Roxanne and the rest of the group and left Carolyn to herself again.

Like clockwork, Michael piled Carolyn's finished malt glass and the gang's empty, crumb riddled dishes into a black bin. Soon after, his apron was gone and he was outside of the diner. Carolyn was patiently standing there, and the sudden sight of her made Michael freeze. He quickly buttoned up his long-sleeved, denim paisley. "You can't make it so obvious." Michael muttered to himself.

Michael slowly walked along the pavement with Carolyn synchronizing his steps alongside him. Michael took Carolyn's heavy bookcase from her, and Carolyn's hand lingered over his wrist. He instantly got goosebumps. Michael swallowed thickly.

"Why can't you just walk on home without me?" Michael spoke. He stared indecisively at the distant road in front of them that was lined with neatly trimmed, bright green lawns.

Carolyn quickened her pace.

Michael hesitantly catched up to her. "I didn't say I minded, girl."

Carolyn hid a coy smile when he briefly touched her elbow.

"Hello, Carol Jean!" A pearl-necklaced lady chirped from the flower bed she was pruning. Carolyn turned to smile at her as they passed the woman's picket fence. Michael returned no expression to the woman's startled jolt at the sight of him.

"How come you don't go to school?" Carolyn questioned Michael.

"I go to your school. Not for long, though." He kept his eyes low from the occasional glares of strange adults along the street. A woman in a circle of friends pointed deliberately at the strolling pair.

"Why?"

"We're just passin' through. I'll be back in Gary in no time." Michael shifted her bookcase to his other hand.

Michael quickly turned away from a plaid-shirted man with his hands on his hips from across the street. Once they reached her house, Michael returned Carolyn's case. "Bye, now. I ain't doing this no more. Alright?"

"Alright." The silence of the afternoon made Carolyn's small, wispy voice sound strangely loud. Her fingers were calmly gripping the leather of her bookcase against her chest. "Call me." She said.

Michael's fingers prodded his afro nervously and then he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I don't know." Michael mumbled. His eyes busied themselves with her front lawn.

"Won't you come in?" Carolyn softly suggested.

Michael took one quick step backwards. He looked into her hazel eyes with a serious expression. Carolyn blinked around at the inconspicuous people out on their porches, seeming a little flustered with guilt. She realized that they were in an invisible goldfish bowl with the whole neighborhood staring at them. Michael backed away and turned around to walk along the sidewalk that they had left behind.

Carolyn closed her front door behind her. She adjusted a blanket on her uncle, who was sleeping on a couch, and turned down the volume knob on the television. Carolyn entered her bathroom and closed the door softly so she wouldn't wake up her uncle across the hall. Her hands grabbed a brush and then she sat down in front of a mirror to comb the curls out of her hair. She stripped off her dress, heels, stockings, satin slip and belt and topped the pile of too-bright-colors with her lace bra and underwear. In the bath she smeared off the eyeliner and lipstick and bronzer and eyeshadow from her face with Zest bar soap, the same kind that Judy said had kept her own skin so smooth and pearly.

She then slipped into a fitting cotton romper and dumped her dirty clothes into a laundry hamper. She collected her uncle's folded dirty clothes near the guest room.

Feeling aimless, Carolyn lied in her bed and stared at the ceiling. Her eyelids blink themselves endlessly. The sunlight from her window reminded her that it was a Friday night at five o'clock. A clock nailed high in the corner of her room ticked like a heartbeat of silence.

When she woke up, she made dinner and shook her snoring uncle in time for Nixon's campaign speech. Carolyn and her uncle ate beside each other at the kitchen table quietly while Nixon spoke slowly behind the flickering TV screen.

At a commercial break, her uncle swallowed quickly to speak. "So, you're not going."

Carolyn twirled her pasta with her fork and shrugged. Her uncle brushed some hair out of her eyes. "Why don't you go to bed after dinner--you look tired."

"Okay." Carolyn put down her fork. "I--"

The commercials ended.

"Shh!!" Her uncle interrupted. He gave her an apologetic squeeze of her chin. "We'll talk later." He shot up from his chair and went adjust the TV antennas. Nixon's face fizzled into place. Carolyn watched her uncle sit back down beside her and narrow his light brown eyes intensely at the TV between forkfuls of spaghetti. Carolyn couldn't help but think of how much he looked like her father, despite the fact that he was blonde and her father had brown hair. She wished he would sound just like him. Then, she could imagine he wasn't thousands of miles away.

The phone rang.

Carolyn left her plate and glass of milk to answer it, but her uncle got there first. "Hello?" He asked loudly. "No--he's on mission work, but I'll take a message for 'ya. Who? Carolyn?" Her uncle shared a look with Carolyn, who stood up. She took the phone from her uncle while he took his plate to the couch to watch the live campaign.

"Hello?" A gentle male voice spoke from the receiver.

Carolyn couldn't hear herself breathe over the sound of her heartbeat banging in her eardrums. She let out a calming breath and glanced at the living room. Her uncle was lifting a roll of pasta noodles into his mouth, undisturbed. "Hi."

"Hello?"

"Yes."

"Carolyn?"

"It's me." She said a little louder.

"Oh. Well, I used a yellow book."

Carolyn grinned widely, and chewed on her lip.

"So you're the preacher's daughter."

"Yes."

Michael laughed at himself. "I understand, now."

"Why are you laughing?"

There was a silence on the other end. "Pardon?"

"Why are you laughing?"

Michael chuckled. "Nothing. Don't worry about it."

Carolyn played with her fingernails as Michael told her about his progress with the old birdhouse. "I still think it's silly."

"Fix it yourself, then." He countered a little too seriously.

"Will you take me, Michael?"

"...Pardon?"

Carolyn was quiet for five long seconds.

"Hello?" Michael asked.

"Homecoming is soon."

"Hold on." Michael shouted something angrily when a door creaked open. There was some laughter and then some annoyed muttering. "What was that?"

"Homecoming is soon."

Michael sounded nervous. "I know."

Carolyn could hear the electronic buzz of their connection in the quiet. Kennedy was firing back at Nixon from the TV in the other room. "Are you going?"

Michael sighed inaudibly, and then some rustling sounded when he adjusted himself on his bed. "I don't know."

Carolyn spoke. "Will you take me?"

The long, airy buzz of their connection filled their ears again. A little girl was squealing from somewhere in a room, and in the other, there was a grainy roar of applause from an audience.

"I can't." Michael's voice spoke in a mysterious tone. "Carolyn, I think you're a real sweet, quiet girl. I think you're pretty. Real pretty."

A pleasurable feeling warmed Carolyn's entire body at Michael's soft words.

"But, people are starting to talk. I couldn't take you."

Carolyn swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry." Michael added.

"When do you work?" Caroline fingered the telephone chord and glanced at her uncle again.

"Everyday except Sunday." Michael replied quietly. After a few seconds, he continued. "I'll see you."

Next school day

After the dismissal bell, Carolyn hugged her books to her chest as her heels raced down the the school hallway. A hand flew to grab her shoulder, and she was pulled to a halt. She snatched her fallen sweater from the ground.

"Carol!" The glasses-wearing boy panted. He swallowed exhaustedly. "Gee--you can run!" His eyes looked shocked at Carolyn's shapley red dress. He smiled wearily. "You look good today."

Carolyn fought the urge to writhe away from his grasp. He was her council president after all.

"There's an emergency meeting in a couple minutes--officers and members!" The president gripped his vice president's shoulder.

Carolyn bit her lip at a recent memory:

Jason threw Carolyn a can of red spray paint before he returned to his chaotic curls and zig zags all along the walls of the dark gym. Roxanne and Judy were squealing while they tore down ribbons of crepe paper and popped balloons, and Dick was currently in the corner of the gym during his trek around the floorboards as he poured trails of maple syrup behind him.

Carolyn sprayed an innocent smiley face onto the wall, but then she immediately felt guilty. She had become part of the destruction to her own student council's hard work to set up the gym for homecoming night in a few days. She warred with her emotions while the aerosol can twisted and rolled between her fingers. There was a sickly-sweet scent coming from behind her, and Carolyn turned around to find Dick eyeing her dripping red collage of smilies. He grinned and shook his head with a humored approval. Carolyn managed a tiny, reserved smirk in return. Then Dick continued to pour the syrup alongside his steps as his boots circled the entire gym once more.


"They trashed our stuff again!" He seethed hotly. "Everything! Those assholes!" The president shouted suddenly, banging his fist on the lockers beside them. Carolyn jumped, and a few students turned their heads to the heaving teenager on their way out of the school. The president blushed at the town minister's daughter in front of him. "Sorry." The president began to lead her in the opposite direction from the front school doors to the Home Economics room. "I was speechless, too, Carol." He added sadly. "The principal is trying to find out who did it."

Carolyn thought to make an excuse to tear away from the presidents consoling rub of her arm as he discussed the clean-up plans, but something inside of her wouldn't let her make any hasty decisions. Her feet were dragging her farther away from the pink Chevy rumbling impatiently in the parking lot.

At a quarter to five in the afternoon, the gym was finally clean. Members were assigned decorations to bring tomorrow and were told to not be late for the next meeting. Carolyn scrubbed off her face in the girls bathroom. The sink was draining with all of the makeup that took her all of that morning to finish correctly for Roxanne's approval. She used her dress to wipe her face dry. The rusty mirror reflected an all-too-familiar face with large lips, a flat nose, a speckle of acne and eyebrows that were already growing back hairs she had plucked away. Carolyn quickly twirled her hair in a bun and shoved pins against any limp strands that escaped. The steam from the hot water and soap she had used to scrub the ant-infested, sticky gym floor had made her carefully-curled hair flat, brown and lifeless once more. She grabbed her books and left her reflection in the mirror. She took a secret way home, on a dirt path through the abandoned forest with the old cemetery and the weird birdhouse.

Carolyn's white heels became pinker with each crunch in the red dirt. Eventually, she let herself be barefoot. The dirt felt chalky and hot under the soles of her feet. The trees and the sounds of the forest hadn't changed for ten years. A long-forgotten mental map told her that she was getting closer to the creepy birdhouse.

Carolyn heard some singing coming from a clearing beside her. and she wandered through the trees to find the source. She looked back at the dirt road to memorize her landmarks, and then her heels took her deeper into the woods. The voice was sweet and had a ringing vibrato that echoed off of the pines and hidden oaks. The singing was clear now--she could hear every word.

Her eyes found Michael, who was lifting a handful of seed into the hole of the birdhouse hanging from a low branch of a pine tree. He smiled on a long-held note from his throat, and the echo from his angelic voice floated effortlessly to Carolyn's ears. Carolyn drew closer to the singing man in a long sleeved white shirt and bell-bottoms. As she got near, the ringing vibrato faded and his eyes were staring at her swishing red dress.

Without saying a word, he fed the birds that were huddled and flapping in the wood of the birdhouse. Carolyn observed the new wood, shiny nails, tiny padded roof and intricately carved ledges of the house. For the longest time, her gaze moved slowly over the large decorations of painted blue lilies and tulips. Carolyn's dried brush strokes were delicate and artistic atop Michael's smooth coats of white paint.

"You weren't there today." Michael said, leaning against the tree and disturbing the sound of rustling pine leaves in the wind. She turned to look at him, and something in his steely stare mysteriously shifted. Michael's brown eyes crawl over Carolyn's long nose, soft cheeks, and plump, rose-colored lips.

She turned back to the birdhouse as if his voice was only a disturbance to her observance of their work. Michael lifted a small, tin bucket of sunflower seeds to her hands, and Carolyn dumped a modest handful into the hole. The beady eyes of two birds shuffled quickly to the ledge and pecked on the helping. Carolyn takes off her sweater and tosses it on her textbooks and heels.

The two sit down on the grass and look up at the little house, leaving a safe distance between themselves.

After a stretch of silence, Michael struggles with a smile. "I was waitin' on that vanilla malt with extra whip cream and a cherry. For Miss Carolyn."

Carolyn beams and blinks her hazel eyes up at him.

Michael's eyes wander over the sunlight on Carolyn's face to her bright dress to her naked shoulders to the red dust on her bare feet, and then they rest on her lips. He calmly turns to the view of the finished birdhouse and stares at it, too.

"It was worth it." Michael says firmly.

Carolyn hesitantly comes closer to his side, and Michael acknowledges the movement with a fleeting glance to her knees.

"It's beautiful." Carolyn breathes. Her hands inch towards his, and their fingers twinkle to life at their touch. Her small voice is loud enough to rise above a rustle of tree leaves.

Michael focuses on her hands as they experimentally climb from his arms to his chest and easily lower him to the grass. "What are you doing?" He whispers. His brown eyes shift from Carolyn's lips to her eyes to the deserted forest clearing. Her brown locks are suddenly loose and tickling his chin. He can feel the fine hairs of her nose touching his skin right before he realizes that she is kissing him.

Carolyn slides her hands from his cheeks to his collar, slowly slipping his buttons out of their slits, and then she blindly feels the existence of his bare chest against the earth. Michael cautiously settles his hands somewhere around her, but Carolyn encourages them to ease around her waist. Between breaths, Carolyn's eyes briefly meet Michael's, which are still slightly open with disbelief, but glazed with amazement at how good her full lips feel against his. Michael curiously responds to her, and Carolyn moans breathlessly at the feeling of his large hands slowly gliding down her back.

Their lips graze each others feverishly, searching for the heightened feeling they give each other that is somewhere just out of reach, but then Michael stills, looking nervous. He straightens up.

Carolyn shifts so that her knees are bent patiently across the thighs of his bell bottoms, and then a tense silence follows.

Carolyn finally looks up from the grass to find Michael with the strangest distant expression. Michael's face relaxes when Carolyn presses her petite hands to his cheeks. He chuckles and blinks threateningly. "You're gonna get us in trouble one day."

The slow-growing smile that Carolyn sees centimeters away from her face is daring, but slightly anxious. She smiles back, and her fingers travel along his ears and are soon lost in his pillow of fluffy hair. Michael's lips curl. Carolyn's other hand lovingly does the same, as if it is questioning him to doubt his feelings.

The warm rays of sun and a whistling bluebird reminds them that they are completely alone. Carolyn gingerly molds their lips together.

"Come 'ere, girl." Michael whispered into her. Michael's hands hugged her against him, and then his warm fingers steadily unzip her dress and slide along her bare skin by the fine lace of her bra. Carolyn shakily slips her arms around his neck, and Michael slows their kiss to relish in the feeling of her tongue timidly easing around his. The heat of the summer sun, the closeness of their skin, the sensations of Michael's hidden touches, and Carolyn's sighs against their lips fill their senses to the edge of a white-hot bliss, but then Michael stiffens again.

When Carolyn moves to kiss him, Michael pushes away Carolyn's arms rigidly. He breathes heavily among the sounds of the chirping forest, listening for something. Carolyn sits still in his grip and wonders what she did wrong.

Michael swivels behind them, and a crackle of twigs sounds in the forest.

Carolyn gasps.

A fat hog trots out from the brush and tromps over dead pinecones to its unknown destination past the hugging seniors.

Their wide eyes meet, and Michael bursts out laughing at Carolyn's face. Carolyn snatches breaths of air as her middle crumbles under her giggles.

"I changed my mind about homecoming." Michael tells her. "I talked to my mother--as long as we're careful and come straight home and don't cause any trouble."

The two accepted the declaration and settled in each others' arms.

"You ain't never coming back?"

Michael shifted at Carolyn's question, but prepared to answer it. "No."

Carolyn gripped him a little tighter then. She holds onto what she realized was a tumbleweed or a passing summer breeze in her town that had no purpose but for her to exist in it. Her calendar hung without sound from a nail in her bedroom, decorated with perfectly aligned markings for every Sunday and every Friday; one day of the week was for wearing a modest dress and pearls with a small silver crucifix, and one day of the week was for a simple sweater and a graceful smile to greet the student body full of faces she had always known--or would forever know.

She blinked away from Michael's worried gaze and spoke before he asked her what was making her eyes so dim. "Tell me about Gary." Her vision catches the minuscule twitch of a smile on Michael's lips before he starts to speak.
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