A Natural

But Steve was wrong. Carol Dann did like me. One night I got a call.

"Hello."

A girl's voice came on the line.

"Is this C.S.?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who this is?"

"No."

The voice went on to giggle and ask me questions which I dumbly answered. I could hear other girl voices in the background.

"What would you say if I said Carol Dann liked you?"

I didn't know what to say.

"Really?"

"Yes. She thinks you're cute."

That went on for a while, giggling, chatting, girl's shushing each other, listening. I tried to picture it in my mind, girls sitting around the phone in someone's bedroom. I was scared.

And then it was Carol to whom I was speaking.

"Meet me at my locker after second period," she said.

I did.

She was a knockout. She wasn't big even though she was older, but petite with brown hair and the figure of a girl. Carol had not become a woman in the way Olive had. Maybe she never would. She wore a khaki 'gator skirt and a plaid shirt with cordovan penny loafers on her feet. Her smile was real and perfectly natural.

"Hi," she said.

I felt the difference between us. This is a joke, I thought. People will jump out of the bushes and begin to laugh at any moment just like on Candid Camera.

But they didn't. The entire meeting took place in two minutes, maybe less. Everyone was scrambling. We had to get to class.

"You want to walk me home?" she asked, grinning.

The ground fell away from beneath my feet. I was falling without going anywhere. It sucked the air from my lungs.

"Sure," I managed.