Excerpt



The car hood slammed shut with a bang. Startled, I jumped back a step. My gaze involuntarily abandoned Slingshot McCaley and darted in the direction of the noise. Slingshot's brother, Emmet, stood in front of the car, his head bent, checking the hood latch. His light brown hair was a curly mass of confusion, his shoulders wide and muscular. I watched him unaware of my watchfulness until he raised his eyes and saw me staring. He straightened looking back with interest and smiled.

Emmet's eyes locked into mine, mesmerizing me with their clear brilliant blue, making me forget everything around me, drowning me within their depths. He smiled to me, warm and friendly. An unfamiliar sensation jolted through me, a gloriously new, strange feeling more powerful than any I had experienced, as if my soul had been loosed from its hitching post and taken flight. The flood of swirling emotions rendered me helpless to turn away from those incredible blue eyes. As if he sensed the turmoil he brought to my soul, his smile softened. He spoke, still caressing me with his eyes. I was too shaken to understand.

"What?" I asked, barely forcing the word out.

"That's a very pretty dress," he answered, his husky voice holding a note of tenderness.

I was frightened by the emotions he evoked, and too confused to reply. I longed to run and hide from the intensity of those arresting eyes, but I knew they would all think me foolish. Had I discarded their opinions of such an action, I couldn't have fled Emmet's gaze. My body lacked the strength to move. I stood statue still, my thoughts scattered, unable to catch one and hold it. Those blue eyes were all that existed.

"Going to a party?" Emmet asked, his lazy smile crinkling the corners of eyes still fixed on me.

"She's graduating from the eighth grade," Ray answered before I could form a reply. My face flamed with embarrassment when he added, "From the way she's acting, you'd think no one ever graduated from grammar school before."

An expression of annoyance replaced Emmet's smile and his eyes left me briefly darting to Ray. Ray's smug superiority withered under Emmet's disapproving glare. Ray turned away from Emmet and busied himself with gathering tools. It was my turn to feel smug. I had witnessed my cousin being put in his place at last. It was indeed a glorious moment.

Emmet spoke, his words invalidating Ray's unkind remark. "Graduating from the eighth grade is important. I remember when I graduated from Riverside Elementary. You can bet I was excited."

Emmet's kindness eased me back to reality. I could feel the hard packed Georgia clay beneath my feet again.

"You look real pretty, AJ," Uncle Don said, wiping grease from his hands.

"You're Will's niece, AJ?," Emmet asked, a look of surprise and interest on his face.

"Yes," I answered, my eyes downcast. I turned shyly away from Emmet to face Uncle Don. "Will you tell Susie to come up to my house when she gets home?" I asked Uncle Don.

"Sure will," he answered.

Forcing myself to move slowly, I left the garage and walked up the steep embankment and past Uncle Don's chicken coup. The feeling that I was being watched was strong. I stopped and looked back in the direction of the garage. Emmet stood at the garage entrance. I was too far away to see his handsome face, but somehow I knew he was smiling. I bolted, running the rest of the way up the hill, wanting to look back but afraid. Dashing through the front door, I slammed it shut and leaned back against it, out of breath from my sprint up the hill.

Mom took little notice of my silence as she helped me out of my dress. I left her at her sewing machine making the necessary alterations and went to my room. Closing the door, I lay down across my bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling.

What had happened to me, I wondered. Why had I reacted so strangely to Emmet McCaley? Why had my knees turned to jelly when he looked at me? Why had I felt as if his eyes had looked beyond me, penetrating my heart and confusing my mind? My heart pounded with the memory of those probing eyes. The uncomfortable sensation of helplessness that had overtaken me had not been to my liking, yet I yearned to see Emmet McCaley again, to submerge myself in those hypnotic blue eyes and explore the mysteries hidden there. They held the answers. Somehow I knew that those soul searching blue eyes held the answers to all my questions.

I looked around my room seeing everything as if for the first time. The pink bedspread Mom had quilted for my last birthday seemed softer to my touch. The French Provincial bed and chest Mom had bought second hand with the money she earned doing other people's laundry held added luster against soft pink walls Mom and I had painted.

Crickets chirped outside my window heralding evening. A whippoorwill sang its soulful melody. I listened quietly to the music of Georgia at dusk and pictured Emmet McCaley's eyes. Had there ever been eyes bluer or more capable of provoking emotion?

A car passed on the dirt road in front of our house. Flipping over onto my stomach, I pushed aside white Pricilla curtains and peaked out my window watching as the back of Preacher Callahan's black Ford receded behind a cloud of red dust.

A vision of Emmet's eyes returned hauntingly. They seemed unreal now, as if I had dreamed them up in my adolescent brain. I wondered again why I had experienced those strange emotions when he had looked at me. Mom would have said it was another aspect of what she called "painful puberty." The confusing emotions evaporated into the Georgia heat leaving behind only a vague yearning I couldn't understand.