MELANIE
Before supper, I’m reading a homework assignment when Mama says, “Stephanie’s here.”
Steph follows Mama into my room. “I’ll be out of here in a minute. I just need to gather all the laundry, so I can get a head start on it tomorrow. I feel like things have gotten out of hand for the last few weeks.” She kneels on the floor and lifts Birdie’s bedspread, sweeping her arm beneath the bed, looking for lost socks.
All the blood drains from my face and I feel cold sweat bead along my hairline.
Not under my bed. Don’t look under my bed, Mama.
I kneel in the cramped space between the two beds.
Our faces level, Mama grins at me. “Mellie, sweetie, you visit with Steph. I’ll take care of this.”
“I want to help. I’ll get the stuff from under here.” I pull out Heidi, remembering too late about the tear.
My heart stops. Mama will see the rip in Heidi and she’ll know something has really upset me. She takes Heidi from me. Sitting back on her heels, she stares at it. “Now what in heaven’s name…”
She touches the tear in the stuffed animal’s fur, examining the snapped threads, her fingers gently probing the exposed stuffing. “Really, Melanie.” She stares at the rabbit and her hands began to shake. She never once looks up at me.
Instead, she pushes to her feet. Still holding my stuffed toy, she says, “I don’t think I can fix this. I don’t know how.” With the rabbit in her arms, she turns and leaves the room. The pile of dirty clothes is still on the floor.
Steph kneels beside me on the floor. She slides her arm around my shoulder. “Mellie, what’s the matter? Are you getting your period again?”
If only things were as simple as getting my period. I shake my head. “No. That’s not it.”
Steph leads me over to my bed. She closes the door and snaps the lock. Her brow wrinkles with concern as she comes to sit beside me.
She hands me a tissue. “Listen, we’re best friends. You can tell me what’s going on.”
I blow my nose, then study the folds on the damp tissue. Steph is my best friend, and she has been through almost as much as I have.
The kids at school tease her terribly about Cherie getting pregnant. Her mom has just about gone crazy with grief and has taken it out on Steph. Clint must have stopped championing her, because now Buzz has been saying nasty things to her for weeks, but Steph just raises her chin a notch and doesn’t seem to pay any attention to him. Even I don’t know what’s really going on at her house, when they’re all shouting and banging things around.
But Steph and I have always had each other. Before I realize it, I’m talking. My voice sounds serious, almost like a news reporter talking about an important event. It’s like I’m telling Stephanie about something that happened to someone else.
I tell her about me being alone in the house with Kevin. I tell her about the awful feeling of the counter cutting into my back, how I couldn’t move.
I tell how Daddy hung up on me before I could tell him I needed help.
I tell her about riding the bus alone to the colored part of town. About how scary it was to be where I’m the different one.
I explain as best as I can what Flossie taught me.
Steph is crying. Big, fat tears roll down her cheeks and her bottom lip trembles. She stares at me, then grabs me in a hard hug.
“Oh, God,” she says. “Oh, God.” Her fingers dig into my back. “I’m so sorry, Mellie. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
She grabs my shoulders and holds my gaze with hers. “It’s all my fault. Me and my big mouth.”
“It’s not your fault, none of it is your fault. At first, I thought I did want Kevin to kiss me.”
“No, you didn’t. Not really. You only thought that because I kept nagging.” She shook her head. “Oh, Mel, I’ve ruined everything. All the boys at school say horrible things to me. They think I’m slut because Cherie got pregnant and had to get married. I didn’t help matters by flirting with all the boys and trying to get Buzz to kiss me. I was so stupid.”
“You’re not a slut, Steph. I don’t think Cherie is, either. People are just small-minded and mean. You know what Flossie told me? She said that we aren’t to blame for the meanness in other people.” I take a deep breath. “Their lies can’t change us unless we let them. And, Steph, we won’t let them change us. We’re both smart. We’re both strong.”
She blows her nose. “So, are you okay? You didn’t have to go to the doctor or anything?”
“No.” I swallow, realizing that I really am lucky. Even though Kevin hurt and scared me, so much worse could have happened.
“Listen, Steph. I didn’t tell Mama what happened.”
“But, Mellie—”
“No, I can’t. I’m not hurt, not physically, anyway. She was so upset and afraid when I came home from Flossie’s.” I shrug. “There’s nothing she can do to change what happened.”
I glance toward the door, and in my mind see Mama clutching my favorite toy.
Steph watches me in silence.
“Just like the torn rabbit, Mama can’t fix it. She’s had a hard time with the baby and being so sad and all. She just couldn’t take it, you know?”
Looking at Steph, I notice for the first time how different her eyes look, so much older. We’re different girls than we were back when school started.
She takes my hand and nods. “Yeah, she doesn’t need to be hurt like that. Sometimes I think stuff like this is harder for moms than for us. I know Cherie is doing a lot better than my mom.”
Kneeling on the floor again, I reach under my bed and drag out my torn shirt. “Will you do me a favor, then?”
She stares at the shirt. Slowly, she nods.
“Can you get rid of this somehow? I don’t want Mama to see it.”
Our fingers touch as she takes the shirt from me. We look into each other’s eyes and for an instant, it seems like we see in each other the long road of hurt and happiness that lies ahead.
Steph wads up the shirt.
Friday, November 2, 1962
MELANIE
Birdie bangs on the bedroom door and shouts, “Mama said to come watch the news. President Kennedy is on.”
Stephanie and I leave our homework on my bed and follow Birdie into the living room. The familiar knots of nerves are tight in my gut.
Mama and Daddy are holding hands with their eyes glued to the TV. Steph and I sit on the floor in front of the television.
The president says that progress is now being made toward the restoration of peace. The missile bases are being dismantled.
“Daddy,” I whisper, “does this mean it’s over? That we won’t have a war?”
He puts his finger to his mouth for me to be quiet.
The president is saying he will follow closely the completion of this work through a variety of means, including aerial surveillance, until such time as an equally satisfactory international means of verification is effected.
Daddy looks at us all and smiles. “I think it might be over, girls. But it seems like the jets are still going to be making a lot of noise.”
I can’t believe it. I feel like I can really breathe for the first time since DC was born. Maybe everything
will
get back to normal now. Mama reaches over and gives me a big hug.
So much has happened, and now it’s really all over. I wonder about all the stuff we have stored in our classrooms at school. I guess we’ll bring it all home, huh? I picture us carrying blankets on the bus, and smile.
Birdie tiptoes across the floor, waving her Halloween magic wand, bouncing to make her tulle skirt float up and down. She stops in front of me and Steph. She trills, “I’ve made everything wonderful with my magic touch.” She taps my head three times with the baton wrapped with ribbon and topped with a tin-foil star.
“Ouch.” I rub my head. “Hey, knock it off, Tinkerbell.”
Birdie spins around and dances out of the room.
With a much lighter step, Steph and I go back to my room. “See,” she says, “I told you that Russia wouldn’t do anything.”
“I think we were just plain lucky. I’m just glad it’s all over.”
We haven’t really talked about much since Tuesday, when I told her about what Kevin did. But, I have one more thing to tell her. Something I didn’t think I would ever share, because it was too special, too precious.
Now, I need to bring it into the light and let it shine. I need to see how it really looks next to the dark things that have happened.
“Steph, there’s one more thing I want to tell you.”
Her eyes get round, like she’s scared. Then I see her pull something together inside her, that same thing that I know is inside me. She’s ready for whatever I have to tell her.
I smile, and she relaxes a little.
“Well, come on,” she huffs. “Don’t let me die of exasperation. What else do you have to tell me?” She pauses for a second. “It must not be all bad because you’re smiling a little.”
“I did have a special kiss.”
Steph shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about that stuff anymore. I was stupid.”
“No, Steph. This is different. Really.”
She looks at me, waiting.
Thinking about Robert’s kiss, I realize that it was special, no matter what Brooke said about Robert kissing her, no matter what Kevin said about what he saw Brooke and Robert doing.
I know what I felt like when Robert kissed me and it was…indescribable. The glow of it rises up in me. I feel it shining all through me.
“Robert kissed me.”
Steph’s mouth drops open. For once, she’s speechless.
“The night of his going away party. He walked me home.”
Steph shakes her head. “Wow, I can’t believe you kept a kiss from Robert Taylor a secret for so long!”
As I tell her about Robert’s kiss, I know that I’ll find something that special again one day.
Even though I was changed by Kevin’s kiss, and still hurting from it, I’ve been changed by Robert’s kiss, too.
I’ll figure everything out some day. Right now, it’s enough for me to understand that I experienced a good thing before a bad thing.
I know the good thing will last forever.
THE END
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• Download a playlist of early ‘60’s music to accompany your read. Talk about total immersion, right?
• Listen to President Kennedy tell the nation that Russia is setting up missiles in Cuba and what the US is going to do about it.
• Read accounts of Navy personnel aboard the
USS William R. Rush
as they are recalled from shore liberty during the crisis.
• Wondering what the clothes looked like? The cars? The hairstyles? Take a peek so you can visualize the characters of
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Bibliography
Blum, John Morton.
Years of Discord: American Politics and Society
, 1961-1974. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991.
Epstein, Dan.
Twentieth Century Pop Culture.
London: Carlton Books, Limited, 1999.
Freedman, Lawrence.
Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Hurst, Sr., Rodney L.,
It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke
. Livermore: WingSpan Press, 2008.
Medina, Loreta M., ed.
The Cuban Missile Crisis.
San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002.
Olian, JoAnne.
Everyday Fashions of the Sixties: As Pictured in the Sears Catalog
. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1999.
Wright, E. Lynne.
It Happened in Florida.
Guilford: The Globe Pequot Press, 2002.
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