Morning by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online Page B

foolish story but not without its humble truths, and no one knows how it is that with one glance a boy can break through into a girl’s heart. Jeremy and I might as well have worn locket and key, for we responded to each other on sight and when we were together we were complete and satisfied. In spite of our different interests, we wereintellectual comrades, and I told him about the symmetry of poetry; he told me about the symmetry of math. We both felt separated, apart from our families and peers, different. We could put on a good show, but we were lonely most of the time, even with others. Together, we were blissfully content.
Every night after lights-out we would sneak out of our rooms and walk down to the pond together. It was really the only way we could be together for any amount of uninterrupted time. We would hold hands as we walked, and we would talk about everything, and finally we would lie on the grass by the pond and hold each other and kiss. That was all. We did not make love. Jeremy didn’t insist, although we lay on top of each other and pressed against each other, wanting to make love. He told me he loved me and that he wanted to work out a way so we could see each other after camp ended. I told him I loved him. Jeremy Gardner came closest to me that summer of all the things in the world, and I could bear the daytime, when I was with the Outsiders or walking alone, surrounded by the hot whispers of the eastern girls.
The third week I was at the camp, an eastern girl named Dottie Collier became friendly with me. She was in the writing and literature class and she wasn’t stupid; after I had read aloud my story about the locket, she approached me, smiling. “That was a really good story,” she said. She left the classroom with me, and walked and talked with me as we went down the hall to lunch. She asked me to sit next to her at the table with the eastern girls. The others ignored me, but Dottie kept talking to me—we were telling each other about our favorite novels, and in that were caught up in a spell.
Dottie wanted to be a writer, too. When we had a chance, we told each other the plots of the novels we would like to write, but there was never enough time, camp was always so regimented and busy, with classes in the morning and sports and homework in the afternoon. I was surprised but thrilled when Dottie suggested that she trade rooms with Olivia so we could talk to each other during the free part of the evenings and after lights-out. Olivia was glad to trade, and from then on, how delicious campwas! Still I swam in the afternoon with the Outsiders or played bumbling games of volleyball with my breasts thumping against my chest; but I had the nights to look forward to, talking in my room with Dottie, then sneaking out much later to meet Jeremy.
“Jenny?” she would whisper, when I came sneaking back into the room. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes,” I would sigh. “Did I wake you up?”
“No, no, I’ve been awake. I worry about you, you know. You know how boys are—you aren’t letting him do anything, are you? I mean—you aren’t doing it , are you?”
Dottie’s voice was so warm, she was so concerned. I was wrapped in bliss.
“Of course we’re not doing it,” I said, sliding out of my clothes and into bed.
“Well, girls can get pregnant so easily, and boys just slip away,” Dottie said.
“That won’t happen to me,” I promised. “I’m not a fool.”
But I was. I lay awake, in my joy telling Dottie everything, telling her that Jeremy was going to help me find ways to apply to eastern colleges, to get scholarships, that he was going to write me, that he was going to try to come to visit me at my farm on his school vacation that fall. The night after Jeremy told me that, and I in turn confided it to Dottie, I met Jeremy at the pond as usual. We lay together, wrapped in each other, rapt in each other, and so we did not hear Mr. McCausland, the headmaster of the camp,