Stranger at the Door

“How was the dance?” Grandmama asked later, her eyes sparkling in giddy anticipation. I stood in the living room doorway, mute with embarrassment.

Mother looked up from her darning. “I’m sure she enjoyed it, Mama.” She turned to me. “Didn’t you, Isabel?”

“It was all right.” I started toward my bedroom, eager to strip off the scratchy dress and remove the glittery rhinestone barrettes from my hair.

“Tell us more. Who did you dance with?” Hearing my grandmother’s plaintive tone, I knew a debriefing was unavoidable. Surrendering, I sat beside her and did my inventive best to paint a glowing picture of the debacle.

When I finished, Mother, a triumphant gleam in her eye, said, “See, Mama, I told you Isabel would do us proud.”

That night as I lay in my bed watching the moon rise over the treetops and feeling the restless breeze cool my body, I had the strongest premonition that something important was expected of me. Something involving boys.

Shortly before I closed my eyes, a shaft of moonlight settled on the billiken sitting on my curio shelf. For the fraction of a second, he seemed to wink at me.

EVEN THOUGH TWINK’S parents had bought an antebellum Southern mansion and drove the latest model cars, they were carpetbaggers in Springbranchian eyes. Mr. Montgomery had made his money in stocks, a specious enterprise in our part of the agricultural South. Mrs. Montgomery, called “Honey,” defied convention by hosting cocktail brunches on Sunday and driving to Shreveport to have her hair done.

I reveled in the sense of the forbidden whenever I was in their home, where full liquor decanters and a silver cigarette box sat on a table right in the living room. If my mother had known, she might have forbidden me to be friends with Twink.

Best of all was the gazebo at the back of the Montgomerys’ deep yard. Shaded from view by hundred-year-old oaks, it was our secret hideaway. One hot July afternoon following our eighth grade year, we took lemonades and a Monopoly set out there. But before we set up the board, Twink looked around, making sure she wasn’t being observed, and then pulled a soft-covered book from beneath her sleeveless camp shirt. “Want to see what I found?” In her expression excitement mingled with disgust.

Prickles traveled down my spine. “What?” I pulled my legs under me and waited.

“This was in my mother’s dresser drawer, way in the back underneath her nightgowns.” As if it were a hot potato, she handed me the slim volume.

I had intended to ask why she’d been snooping in her mother’s bedroom, but I couldn’t. Not after reading the shocking title. Sexual Secrets of Happy Marriages.

“Open it.” Twink’s voice sounded tinny.

I gripped the book between my fingers, sensing I was on the brink of a fateful decision.

“Go ahead, Izzy.”

Twink’s use of the special nickname committed me in a way nothing else could have. “Okay.” I turned to the middle of the book, then blinked, certain I could not be seeing what was there on the page in black and white. “Twink?” Light-headed, I held out the book for her inspection. “Are they doing what I think they are?”

“Yes.”

Incredulous, I studied the photograph of the naked couple. I knew vaguely about sperm and eggs and ovulation, but no one, not my mother and not the health teacher, had ever explained in detail about the sex act.

“See—” Twink pointed to the picture “—the man puts his thing in her. Listen here.” Turning the page, she read me a graphic account of the mechanics, then flipped to photos of other contorted positions.

“Twink, this is revolting.”

“It’s icky to think about our parents doing this, isn’t it?” she said in a hushed voice.

“My parents!” It’s a wonder the neighbors didn’t hear my shriek of outrage, but the mental image of Irene and Robert Ashmore coupling was utterly incomprehensible.

Twink and I never opened the Monopoly set. Instead we spent the afternoon devouring every lurid detail, alternately horrified and titillated.

Only later, walking home, did the full import hit me. Husbands and wives did this. That’s how babies were made. I would someday have to do that thing myself. I remember leaning against the trunk of a tree, on the verge of being sick, trying to catch my breath.

Then another thought came. Grandmama and Mother kept asking me whether I had any beaux. But if they knew what men and women did…

In bed that night, I thought about Laidslaw Grosbeak and Jimmy Comstock. Even Tab Hunter. Then I made a solemn promise to myself. I would die an old maid before I would ever do that.

One afternoon with “the book” had shattered the idealized image of Southern womanhood for me. However, all that knowledge couldn’t prepare me for what was to come, and before too long, I discovered life always has the capacity to blindside us.

ARMED WITH THE back-to-school issue of Seventeen, Twink and I assembled our wardrobe for the most momentous step in our lives—high school. The three-story brick building, two blocks off the town square, had not yet been remodeled. Tall, heavy-sash windows opened to whatever breeze might come, desks rested on polished wooden floors and freshly cleaned blackboards bordered the rooms. But to Twink and me it was Valhalla—the place where the gods and goddesses of our adolescence resided.

On that first day, although I had mastered my locker combination, I was fearful about getting lost. What if I was late for a class? To add to my insecurities, I caught sight of the head cheerleader, the varsity quarterback and the senior class president, whose green eyes and dimples made me weak in the knees. I had never felt so out of place or awkward.

But that changed when I walked into algebra and saw Taylor Jennings. He had the dark good looks of a Creole grandee and a sultry voice that transported me to moonlit bayous. Sitting at my desk, feeling his gaze on me, the hairs on the nape of my neck stirred. In the pit of my stomach were funny, unfamiliar sensations. Unbidden, the photos in “the book” rose in my memory, and I felt myself blush.

Walking home with Twink, I mentioned Taylor.

“He’s handsome, all right,” she agreed. “If you like freshmen.” She smirked, then did a jig step. “I’m setting my sights on Jay Owensby.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “He’s a junior.”

She giggled. “So? I’ve always adored older men.”

“Aurelia Mae Starr Montgomery, are you keeping secrets?”

“I was going to tell you. Dad hired Jay two weeks ago to mow our lawn. You should see him without a shirt.” She made a play of fanning herself. “Anyway, we’ve been talking, and last night he came over to pick up his check. One thing led to another and…”

I wanted to shake her. “What do you mean?”

“He asked me to go for a walk and we ended up in the park.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, Izzy, it was di-vine!”

“What was?”

“The kiss.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “The kiss?”

“Believe me, it was nothing like those stupid games of post office.” She shivered with delight. “I can’t wait for the next one.”

I wanted details, but at the same time I felt like a novice in the presence of the initiated. “Are you two, like, dating?”

“He’s taking me to the football game this weekend. He has a car. Who knows? We may end up at the lake for a smooch.”

“A smooch?”

She put an arm around my shoulder and leaned closer. “And maybe more.”

“More?” In my bewilderment, I couldn’t stop parroting her.

“Oh, Isabel, it’s all starting—just like in the movies. I’m so glad we’re growing up.”

By the time we reached the corner where we parted ways, we had changed the subject, yet all I could think of was the change in Twink.