The Waiting Game(Barbara Mullen) THE WAITING GAME August 1946

Molly and her group had been soaking up the crisp cold aroma from the soda fountain at her favorite hangout, The Frosty Soda, on a hot summer afternoon when Lola startled them by smacking down her cherry coke on the counter and gushing, “Let’s take a vote on which of us will be the first to get a soda date after school in September.”

Hands shot up and mouths shouted “Me, me!” Bewildered by this groundswell of interest in the same boys they’d made fun of in middle school, those who smelled bad, the bullies they had avoided, the bashful ones afraid of their own shadows, those showoffs on the athletic field, Molly sunk lower on her stool. She’d been noticing lately that conversations with her girl friends had changed in the past few months. No matter what other subject a person brought up the talk ended up being about boys. Was it true boys didn’t date tomboy girls? Did boys hate smart girls? Which boys would be the most popular when they started high school in September?

Until a few months ago, Molly had been more or less ring leader of their group. That however was before any of them were wearing bras. Molly now measured her slide from chief to tribe member from the moment that Shirley’s mom bought her a training bra. Molly had hid her smooth chest under big bulky sweaters as one friend after the other reported wearing one of the cherished items. At the moment, Molly was the only group member who hadn’t been able to declare this rite of passage. The only one. Finally she lied, describing in detail an imagined white lace training bra. As they had with the others, the girls all giggled and congratulated her.

At last the first day of high school rolled around and Molly enrolled in her required classes and in physical education along with every other ninth grade girl. All went well in her classes including her first Phys.Ed. session until it was over. The instructor blew a whistle and all the girls made a dash for the shower room. As they began to fling gym suits onto a wooden bench and leap naked into one of four steamy shower stalls, Molly was immediately taken aback by a startling reality. Her slim body didn’t match those of her classmates, all of whom sported two perky little mounds on their chests. Molly backed away from the group and then, paralyzed, stared glassy eyed at the proof of this shocking revelation. Ellen, another girl, looking as dumb struck as Molly felt, edged up alongside her. Already naked, this girl crossed her arms across her ample breasts and chubby stomach while glancing helplessly at Molly. Molly, still in her gym suit, lowered herself to a nearby bench, and not knowing what else to do, moaned, “I’m going to be sick.”

Then she grabbed her street clothes and scrambled in the direction of a nearby restroom. She looked back over her shoulder and motioned to her stricken classmate to follow her, but the girl jerked her head back and forth mouthing, “No. No, I can’t.”

Inside the restroom Molly shrugged off her gym suit quickly, pulled on her sweater and skirt and slipped out into the school corridor through the back exit.

The next day when Molly didn’t find Ellen, as the other girls called her frightened partner from the day before, she asked the instructor what had happened to her. “Oh, she brought a note from a doctor excusing her from gym class for the rest of the year,” the instructor said. Molly felt sorry for Ellen but at the same time wished she’d been smart enough to think of that first. Instead, all that week she continued to run to the shower room before the others had left the gym, then ducked into the restroom, changed and escaped to the corridor. God, don’t let the gym teacher, or even worse, one of my schoolmates, find me out she prayed, all the way back to her locker.

First thing each morning she leaped out of bed and over to her vanity hoping to discover even the tiniest puffiness under her pale pink nipples. But she saw no change. None whatsoever. “I’m a freak,” she yelled at the mirror on Friday morning before pulling on her underwear shirt. By lunchtime her anxiety over gym class at 1:00 made swallowing her peanut butter and jelly sandwich nearly impossible.

All that weekend she kept reminding herself that it would soon be winter and, for the most part, she could hide her shame under heavy sweaters and a big jacket and snow pants. At least, she consoled herself, this meant she could postpone her dark thoughts of diving off the end of the iron ore dock till spring.

On Monday her best friend Donna wandered down the corridor at the very moment that Molly was sneaking out of the shower room. “What the H are you doing leaving gym class early? And by the back exit?” Donna sputtered.
Without answering, Molly took off in a sprint down the corridor.

Donna chased her out the front door and around the back of the building until at last Molly stopped and leaned her head against a brick wall.

“I was hiding my freakish body, that’s what I was doing,” Molly whispered through tears.
“Huh? You’re no more a freak than I am,” Donna said.
“Yes I am. You’re normal. You’re wearing a bra.”
“But you wear one.”
“I lied. I don’t.”
“So why lie about it?”
“I don’t want people to know I’m weird, that’s why. I should join the circus sideshow.”
“You’re just skinny. That’s all. How is a tit supposed to round out with no fat to fill it?”
“Do you think that’s it?”
“Yeah. You just have to eat more. Come on. I got my fifty cent allowance today. I’ll buy you a malted.”

In a booth at the Frosted Soda, Donna bent forward and said, “Listen. I think you have to wait for them to grow. I bet mine took three months even after the first little bump showed up. Here’s what I think you should do in the meantime. Sneak off the gym floor like you do now only instead of hiding in the restroom, jump out of your clothes and dive quickly in and out of the shower -- say in about one minute flat. Then grab your - you get my drift. By then the rest of the class will be starting to tromp into the shower room.”

“I think I can maybe do that. Okay, I’ll try.”

By the following Friday, Molly had perfected Donna’s quick shower and change routine and had her classmates calling her “Speedy Callahan.” They didn’t know how much she’d have rather been prancing naked about the shower room with the rest of them. Just in time that same afternoon when Molly’s spirits could sink no lower, Donna raised them a little with the good news that the skating rink would be opening in a few days.

On opening night of the rink, Molly sang “Let it snow…” all the way to the East End Park. The evening seemed perfect for the occasion, crisp dry air with a full moon lighting up the night. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see the Northern Lights suddenly streak across their Minnesota skies. She stepped from the snow covered sidewalk unto a well worn short cut though the pine trees that circled the rink. At the end of the path she got her first view of the glimmering and yet unscratched ice rink. Surprised that something so beautiful still existed in spite of her personal troubles, she stood still for a moment and gazed at it. Then she spotted her friends coming out of the warming shack and hollered to them. “Hey, before the crowd shows up, let’s have a race.”

Minutes later, eight girls lined up in a row on the ice waiting for Marty, their park manager for as long as they could remember, to blow his start whistle. By then, a crowd had gathered on the sidelines and started to scream out the names of their favorite skaters. At first, Molly was in the lead with Donna in second place until, surprising everyone, Lola sped ahead of the pack. The cheering got louder and wilder. “Lola, Go Lola!” During three more rounds around the rink Lola zoomed further ahead to the win with Molly coming in second.

The crowd, including Molly, couldn’t stop smiling and clapping for rosy cheeked smiling Lola who, in memory, had never come close to winning anything before this. Molly considered Lola’s win a good omen. Surely this was to be a special night with a fine winter ahead.

Flushed from the action and cold air, Molly and Donna took a rest break in the warming shack. Then, just as they plopped down on a bench by the woodstove, a voice behind Molly said, “You’re quite a flash on the ice, pretty girl.” She turned to see who it was and was astonished to find dreamy Johnny B, captain of the high school hockey team, smiling down on her. Without asking permission, he came around and sat beside her. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her any questions because she guessed she would be too startled to answer.

Instead, he took a thermos from a burlap sack and poured creamy hot coffee from it into a tin cup and offered it to her. “Not only pretty, but a damn good skater,” he said pouring more coffee into another cup for himself. “What’s your name?”

“Molly,” she answered, but seemed unable to say another word while concentrating on his beautiful soft brown eyes. But when he started to introduce himself, she interrupted. “Oh, everybody knows who you are.” Immediately embarrassed by making such a juvenile remark, she shot up from the bench. “Guess I’ll have another swing around the rink.”

To her surprise, he got up and followed her outside and then cupped his arm under hers. “How about a skate?” he asked her. Slipping his other arm around her waist at her back he whisked her out onto the ice. So excited she could barely breath, Molly only hoped her ankles wouldn’t give out and her skates would keep moving in sync with his.

After their skate, and once Johnny had returned to the warming shack, Molly shot over to where her friends had gathered on the other side of the rink. “Oh my God, do you believe this?” she gasped.

“Like a fantasy come true,” Donna said.

A while later Johnny came out of the shack with his skates tied together and thrown over his shoulder. He waved to Molly. “Gotta go now. You going to be here tomorrow night?”
Molly smiled and mouthed yes.

She and Donna giggled all the way home. Later, secure in her little room, Molly let herself be thrilled all over again with the memory of the night and of course the idea that everyone had seen her skating with Johnny B. Still feeling crazy happy, she curled up under her quilt and hoped to dream of Johnny’s arm around her waist and together the two of them whirling round and round the rink.

The next night Molly arrived at the rink even before Marty had lit a fire in the warming shack’s woodstove. “Here early aren’t you, girl?” Marty said. “Must be dying to practice your figure skating. All those twirls and shoot the duck and swan dives. I watched you last year. You’re turning into a regular Sonja Heini.”

“Yes, that’s it. I came to practice before the rink got overrun.”

“Better put your skates on in a hurry then.”

Inside the still cold shack Molly pulled at her laces quickly but wished now she hadn’t come so early. Would Johnny see her as over anxious? And also where was Donna? She promised to be here by now. With her skates on, Molly buttoned up her parka to her neck and pulled her knitted cap down over her ears. Then as she stood up to leave, the shack door flew open and three of Johnny B’s friends piled noisily into the shack.

“Well, if it isn’t Johnny’s new girlfriend already here,” said the most boisterous of the bunch.

A second later Johnny himself pushed open the door. “Cut it out lamebrains,” he said. “Leave her alone.”

Then he sat next to Molly and told her, “I’ll see you on the ice as soon as I’m laced up.”

At that moment, Molly couldn’t care less about his nasty friends or why her own friends hadn’t shown up yet. She kept on skating with Johnny or standing next to him outside the shack talking and laughing all evening. She loved how he flirted and teased her with his head cocked to one side and told silly jokes without screwing up the punch line. And how he asked her about herself and her family and what movies she had loved and on and on. And how he answered the same kind of questions that she asked him. Molly couldn’t seem to stop smiling; she didn’t know a girl could have an actual conversation with a boy.

“I could get you a front row seat at the first hockey game of the year next week. How would you like that?” he asked her near the end of the evening.

“Are you serious? You must be kidding. Can you do that?”

He smiled and put an arm round her shoulder. “What’s the use of being team captain if I can’t get a pretty girl a front row seat?”

She reached up and touched his hand on her shoulder. “I just luuuve hockey. It’s my very favorite sport in the world,” she said.

By the third night, Molly had no doubt that she was in love. After a few skates Johnny guided her around to the back of the shack. Tingling head to toe with anticipation, Molly followed him willingly. Then, among the pine tree shadows, their skates wobbling in a foot of snow, Johnny wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. With a gloved hand under her chin, he leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips.
Then he backed up a little and smiled. “I think that was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I should have warned you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how to do it right.” He laughed and grabbed her hand and led her back to the shack to make plans for the following night.

Reliving the night before, Molly nearly floated one class to the other the next morning. Today she was glad that Johnny’s classes were in another wing of the building. Just as well, she thought, he doesn’t have to see me walking on a cloud like some kind of love sick ninny. Minutes later, however, when she closed her locker and turned around, Johnny was standing behind her, a broad smile on his face. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning to you, too. Surprised to see you in the freshman corridor.”

He shook his head. “My, pretty girl, aren’t you the tiny one out of your big fat snowsuit,” he remarked. “Well, gotta get going. Geometry awaits me.”

As he turned to leave, she said, “See you tonight.”
Over his shoulder, he mumbled, “Oh, yeah, sure.”

Johnny was already out on the ice when she and Donna arrived at the rink that evening. Molly waved to him before going into the shack, but then said, “I don’t think he waved back.”

“Don’t be silly. He must have,” Donna told her. “Just hurry up and get out there.”

Once on the ice, Molly shot across the rink to catch up to Johnny and then skated alongside him. She waited for him to reach for her hand but instead, without warning, he screeched to a halt and hopped off the ice.

After her next go around, Molly got off the rink too and scurried back to the shack. Confused, and not knowing what to do next, she sat down on one of the benches. A moment later, Johnny came in and plopped down beside her. He tapped his gloved hand on her knee, then slapped his other hand to his forehead. “Honestly, girl, you coulda fooled me. In fact, you did fool me. In your snow clothes you look nothing like the girl I saw in school this morning. I mean…. I didn’t guess you were a little skinflint.”

“What?” she stuttered. “But….” She looked into his beautiful dark eyes and tried hard to smile. “I’m still me.”

He laughed. “Not to me,” and then stood up. “I thought there would be something more rounded under that snowsuit, girl. What do you say? See you later? Maybe in a year or two? He whirled around. “Okay. That’s all I wanted to tell you,” he said before leaving the shack. He didn’t look back.

“A year or two?” Molly repeated letting his words sink in. Johnny had probably leaped back onto the ice before she moved a muscle. When she tried to stand up, her legs gave in and she sat back down.

Soon after, Donna burst into the shack looking for her. Then hearing what had happened, she said, “Let’s get out of here. Selfish jerk! If it happened to me, I’d have kicked him in the nuts.”

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to anyone, my mom especially. She would collapse. I feel fainty now.” She dropped her head to her lap and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her jacket. “I thought he loved me,” she whispered.

“Tell you what,” Donna said. “You come to my house right now and cry your eyes out. We can call your mom to say you’re sleeping over. My mom won’t care. She’ll understand. Since my dad left us she swears all men are rats underneath. Take your skates off. We have to blow this joint before someone else comes back to the shack.”

“I’m too weak.”

I’ll help you walk.

At Donna’s house, with her head face down on their dining table, Molly muttered, “I should have known he couldn’t love a skinny bag of bones like me.”

Donna’s mom came over and brushed back Molly’s hair from her forehead. “Don’t worry, honey. Men are just as rotten whether you’re fat, skinny or in between.”

“Come on, Molly,” Donna said the next day at lunch. “You heard my mom say you can’t trust men. Born that way, she claims. And Johnny proves she’s right.”

“But you don’t get treated mean. And you have friends who are boys.”

“I’m not in love with them. They’re my friends -- like you and me.”

“I’m never, ever, going to fall in love again. And another thing, I’m not going back to the rink this winter. I know his friends are all laughing at me. Probably teasing Johnny about his scrawny girl friend.”

“Hey, Molly. Usually you fight back when things don’t go right.”

“I guess that was before I became a freak. Here’s what I’m thinking now. I could make a secret appointment with a doctor who knows how to make girls normal. Or else I could talk to the school nurse. No, I can’t do that, that would be embarrassing and people would find out.”

Donna thought all of Molly’s ideas were creepy and told her so. “They’re going to appear. One morning you’re going to look in the mirror and yell, “Damn, it’s Lana Turner in person!”

“I don’t believe that. My dreams used to be exciting. Now I have only nightmares about having no tits. I don’t want to be in high school. I don’t care about classes or studying or stupid homework. Everybody must be making fun of me. Maybe they should. But they don’t know how terrible I feel.”

At home Molly stayed in her room most of the time; at night her insides ached and she couldn’t fall asleep for hours, repeating questions in her head: Why couldn’t he love me without curves? Is a rounded chest all that matters to boys? What about being smart or funny or caring? I know this hurt will never go away because I don’t know how to stop the pain in the middle of my heart.

A week later, at their corner table in the cafeteria, Donna said, “Try to eat your cheese sandwich. “Holy Cow, Molly. If you don’t eat you’re going to get skinnier and only make matters worse.”
Molly frowned. “You don’t want me to puke on the table, do you?”
“I have an idea,” Donna said. “If you want to hear it.”
“What? Tell me.”
“Can you scrape up two dollars?”
“Depends what for.”
“Follow me after school and I’ll show you.”

At three o’clock Donna led Molly down the hill to Montgomery Wards and they headed straight for the lingerie department. “Okay, what size breasts do you want to have? Barely there, like mine?” Donna asked.
“Yeah, I’d sell my soul for a pair like yours.”
“Do you have the money on you? Because here’s a bra my size.”
“I have my baby sitting money. Hmm, but I don’t want to waste it on something useless.”
“It won’t be useless after we get a bag of cotton balls at Woolworths.”
“Get out of here. Go on. Will that work?”
“If it does, you have to promise to go with me to our first freshman dance.”
“Aw, I told you I wasn’t going to a school dance until I got some tits. Now it seems that will be never.”
“Geez, Molly, you used to try everything. You’re turning into one great big drip.”
“I am not. Well, I’ll try it. But I’m not making any promises.”

Later that afternoon in Donna’s bedroom, Molly donned the sagging little bra and began to stuff cotton balls into it. When both cups were equally rounded she pulled on her blouse again and called Donna and her mother to come have a look.

“Hubba hubba,” Donna yelled. “Whew!”
“But how will I explain how they popped out overnight?”
Donna’s mother shook her fiery Henna red hair. “You might have more explaining to do than that. What are you going to do at the school dance when the first boy gets fresh with you behind the bleachers and ends up with a handful of cotton?”
“Oh, my God, I’d have to leave town. Would a boy do that?”
“Does the sun come up in the morning?” Donna’s mom answered.
Then Donna burst out laughing and her mom howled too.

Molly went silent for a second and then threw herself on the bed. At first she giggled a little and then more and then started to laugh uproariously. Next thing, she reached under her blouse and started to fling the fluffy white balls up in the air. Then she sat up straight and began to pitch them at Donna and her mom. They zinged them right back at her until Donna squealed, “Looks like we have to come up with a different plan!”

The next day Molly had a talk with herself. If she couldn’t fall in love she could make herself do other things, like become an honor student with things on her mind other than boys and school dances and flirting at the ice rink. Or she could even become an anthropologist in the South Pacific like Margaret Mead some day or go to China like Pearl Buck and write books. And never have to cry over another Johnny B.

That same afternoon in science class Molly forced herself to walk over to talk to a group of squares and misfits and drips that she’d more or less ignored in the past. Or had they ignored her? Even now they were huddled together in a far corner of the room. Molly made several unsuccessful attempts to join their conversation when finally Benjamin, a dark haired boy with a shy smile, looked up from his Bunsen Burner and asked, “Can I help you with today’s assignment?”
“That would be perfect,” she answered.
A few minutes later, a serious faced girl named Jeanine glanced up at Molly over horn rimmed glasses. “Would you like to join our team? We’re just starting this new project.”
“Swell!” Molly answered, deciding on the spot: Yes! This could very likely be the beginning of a life without heartbreak.

By April, Molly, had made a home for herself with her newfound pals, especially Jeanine and Benjamin, who had gotten her interested in new topics like news about the splitting of the atom, books by authors Steinbeck and Hemingway and Faulkner and a book called “Forever Amber” that was so good she had to hide it under her mattress at home. She’d become so keyed up with the new ideas swarming around in her brain that she brushed off the constant teasing of her old friends who kept telling her, “You’re going to become a book worm like Jeanine and a drip like Benjamin if you don’t watch out.”

Molly scoffed at their warnings telling them, “A person can be both smart and popular -- if they want to, that is. At the moment, it just happens that Jeanine and Benjamin and I don’t give a hoot about the popular part.”

Many mornings Molly was so distracted by her fresh interests she actually forgot to examine herself in her vanity mirror. Then one morning, almost accidentally while turning to swing around and pick up her undershirt, she saw, or thought she saw, a tiny lift under each nipple. But then decided aw, no, it must have been her imagination.

Only the next morning looking more closely she let herself think maybe. To be sure, she waited two more weeks before grabbing Donna by the arm in the hall and dragging her into the girl’s bathroom. “Donna. You were right. It’s happening. I swear, Two little puffs. Like you promised!”
“Holy Cow!” Donna howled.
“Shut up! Somebody will hear you.”
“What did I tell you? Oh, no you didn’t believe me. See, you’re not a freak! In another six weeks they’ll be the same size as mine are now!
“Go on. Do you think so? Six weeks! Should we get the training bra now just to be prepared? Too bad we got hysterical and ripped up the last one.”
“Sure, if you can get the cash.”
“I’ll ask my mom for it tonight. But she’s gonna faint when I tell her what it’s for.”
“We’ll buy it tomorrow then,” Donna said.

Not quite ready for the school shower or the bra, Molly kept a smile on her face and her secret to herself and Donna until one morning in May when she felt the time was right. With her heart racing, she plucked the bra up from her underwear box on the floor. Her fingers trembling, she fastened the hooks and pulled the straps over her shoulders and then buttoned herself into a special white organdy blouse with a ruffled neckline that had been washed and pressed and waiting for this day.
Could it be that she walked more confidently, her shoulders thrown back, that morning, at the same time that her stomach growled with excitement, she wondered.

That afternoon, as she’d practiced in her head a dozen times, she walked nonchalantly from the gym after Phys. Ed. class with the other girls. Then she whipped off her gym suit and bra, tossed it over the bench and dove into one of the steamy showers. Two girls joined her and she soaped down and rinsed off exactly as they did.

When she stepped out of the stall one of the other girls in the room hollered at her, “Hey Callahan, you’re slowing down. Usually you’re dressed and out of here by now.”

Once out of the shower room, Molly ran all the way to where Donna waited for her at their lockers. Out of breath, Molly cried out, “I DID IT! I PASSED THE TEST! OH MY GOD. I DID IT!”
Donna grabbed both of her hands and swung her around. “I knew you were ready! Now I can collect my debt.”
“What debt?”
“The one that said if you showered naked in public before the end of the school year we could go to our first school dance together.”
“Oh. No. I’m not ready for that. Am I? Well maybe I could if we went as a group with Benjamin and Jeanine. I promised them we would all go together to our first dance if I ever had the guts to go to one.”
“Okay,” Donna said. “Strength in numbers I guess.”

At last, on the first Saturday night in June, two weeks before the end of their freshman year, Molly and Donna readied themselves for their first school dance in front of Molly’s vanity.
“Hurry so Benjamin and Jeanine won’t be standing by the gym door waiting for us like hicks off the farm bus,” Donna said while checking her lipstick.
“Does your mom know you’re wearing red lipstick?
“Sure. You know my ma.”
“I’m only allowed to wear pink.” Molly said taking one more look in the mirror at herself in her brand new powder blue sweater set and ballerina skirt.
“Come on, you look beautiful.”
“So do you.”
“Okay, let’s get the H out of here then.”

“There’s Benjamin and Jeanine outside the entrance. Looking like two country bumpkins, just like I told you they would,” Donna said.
“They don’t look like bumpkins. Not too sharp, I agree, but only in your dreams could you be as smart as they are,” Molly said and then hailed her friends.

Inside, all four of them clung together near the gym entrance for awhile until Molly’s old friends arrived. Feeling more secure then, they all moved closer to the dance floor. In a while, Donna and Molly ventured over to the punch table and poured themselves a glass of sweet red liquid. After a first sip, Donna grasped Molly’s arm. “Oh, Jasus,” she whispered. “Don’t look over by the Nickelodeon. But he’s here with his smartalec friends.”
“Who’s here?”
“Mr. Wonderful.”
“Johnny B. is here?” Molly asked, at once feeling hot around her neck and like she was getting flushed in the face. “He comes to these school dances?”
“I guess he does.”
“Is he looking over here? Do you think he has seen us? I’ll die if he comes over here.”
“I don’t know if he spotted us but he’s sliding a coin in the Nickelodeon now.”
“I don’t know why I’m shaking. My heart is going 60 miles an hour. He won’t come over here. Why would he?”
“Now he’s turned around and is glancing over this way. He’s just seen you. And he’s taking a good long look.”
“How do I look? What about my hair? I bet it’s wild from the wind.”
“It’s too late to worry cuz he’s headed in this direction. And now his song, “String of Pearls,” has started to play.

A moment later Johnny stood in front of them sidling up to Molly, and, just the way she remembered, swallowing her whole again with his gorgeous brown eyes. “My, hasn’t the pretty girl grown up since December?” he said. Without asking, he slipped his hand around her waist. “I think it’s time we have a dance, don’t you?”

Molly glanced quickly over at all her friends now talking and laughing together and then back at handsome Johnny. Oh, how she yearned to lean her head on his shoulder and move across the floor with “String of Pearls” playing in the background. And to feel his cheek next to hers. Not as overwhelming and perfect and thrilling as that first time he held her hand and reached his arm across her back and asked her for a skate. She had been so beholden to him for paying her any attention then. The feel of his cheek would be as warm now she was sure, his lips just as touchable as they were behind the warming shack. As enjoyable as before. Probably so enjoyable, she hoped, that she wouldn’t have to visualize herself wounded and rejected and confused ever again.

She looked up at him at him now, letting herself sink into his gorgeous dark eyes once more. He smiled down at her, his arm still at her waist. Every ounce of her wanted to slide toward him and move with him close to her across the floor. She gazed harder into his dark eyes and handsome face, wanting to be dazzled by him as before but was somehow, no matter how she tried, unable to escape the night he left her alone and sobbing in the warming shack. So, with trembling fingers, she lifted his hand from her waist and backed away from him.

“Sorry,” she said, “I have to go. My friends are waiting for me.” She paused another moment. “But what do you say? Call me in a year or so maybe?”

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