Only Flesh and Bones by Sarah Andrews Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Andrews
box.
Some thoughts are as seductive as chocolate or liquor. This thought—this question, Why had she married him?— picked at me, wheedled at me until it finally launched me out of bed and across the floor to that box held shut by the laughable protection of my boots.
I removed my boots and pulled back the cardboard flap. I was confronted with a stack of cheap record books, the kind bound in cardboard that’s printed in black and white to look like leather. The bracket on the front of each was neatly lettered, indicating inclusive dates in a tidy, if somewhat looping and naïve, hand.
I carried the first volume back to bed and climbed in. And, with the dreadful sinking of conscience a glutton must feel on the way to the refrigerator, I opened the journal and began to read.
NINE
T HE first entry was dated October 17, 1965:
Dear Journal,
It’s my fourteenth birthday and Dad gave me this book so I could write things down. He says that keeping a journal is good practice for writing, and I can keep things secret that should be secret. Here goes. Today when I walked home from school Tom Jarret threw a snowball at me. He’s real cute. I never thought he’d notice me, but wow!
Miriam Menken’s journalistic muse must have arrived slowly, because the next entry was dated weeks later.
December 2
Dear Journal,
Tom Jarret is a pimple head. Today at lunch, he made a disgusting noise at me.
The hormone-ridden Tom Jarret continued to make Miriam’s fecal roster for several weeks, until a school dance improved his rating with the young journalist:
December 16
Tonight at last was the Christmas Cotillion. Tom Jarret asked me to dance and he’s a great dancer! Why do I like him when we dance together, but when I see him at school I think he’s disgusting?
There was a question for the ages. As Miriam’s school year continued to mire in the valleys of scholastic routine and glory atop the poignant peaks of sweaty-palmed socialization, Tom Jarret’s reported character continued to fall and rise. With the close of school and the coming of summer, Tom lost out to Hal, and after Hal came Jakey. They appeared to have certain traits in common, foremost among them social ineptitude and acne, but all were compared unfavorably to Tom Jarret when it came to dancing. That Tom must have been something when the rug was rolled up.
I got to skimming, searching for the first mention of Josiah Carberry Menken. I found it in the second volume, halfway through Miriam’s first term at college, dated October fifth:
That Joe Menken just won’t take a hint. I wish he would quit asking me out.
I flopped back against the pillows with a sigh of exasperation: with this entry, my curiosity was at last confronted by the full ethical prudishness of my puritan soul. Should I read on and have a good laugh at my former employer’s expense, or behave myself and leave the social stumblings of the young J. C. Menken to obscurity? I hadn’t expected to find this candid a view of dear old J. C., and it jarred me into the awareness that, in spite of the sour and derisive attitude I held toward such things as bosses, I still liked the man and wanted to respect him. Rationalizing that Miriam’s opinion of him must have improved somewhat if she’d married him, I read on.
October 10
At the Harvest Dance tonight I met a really great guy everyone calls Chandler. He’s blond and has this big handsome face like a lion. He’s tall and built, and a terrific dancer. He taught me the Texas two-step. He’s such a strong lead it was easy to follow him. I hope he asks me out, not that Joe Menken.
October 15
Chandler asked me to go walking with him tonight. I guess that’s a date, right? Anyway, we walked around the quadrangle. He wanted to go down by the athletic fields, but I said no, so we turned around. I hope he doesn’t think I’m too slow. I really, really like him.
October 16
That dork Joe Menken asked me out
Some thoughts are as seductive as chocolate or liquor. This thought—this question, Why had she married him?— picked at me, wheedled at me until it finally launched me out of bed and across the floor to that box held shut by the laughable protection of my boots.
I removed my boots and pulled back the cardboard flap. I was confronted with a stack of cheap record books, the kind bound in cardboard that’s printed in black and white to look like leather. The bracket on the front of each was neatly lettered, indicating inclusive dates in a tidy, if somewhat looping and naïve, hand.
I carried the first volume back to bed and climbed in. And, with the dreadful sinking of conscience a glutton must feel on the way to the refrigerator, I opened the journal and began to read.
NINE
T HE first entry was dated October 17, 1965:
Dear Journal,
It’s my fourteenth birthday and Dad gave me this book so I could write things down. He says that keeping a journal is good practice for writing, and I can keep things secret that should be secret. Here goes. Today when I walked home from school Tom Jarret threw a snowball at me. He’s real cute. I never thought he’d notice me, but wow!
Miriam Menken’s journalistic muse must have arrived slowly, because the next entry was dated weeks later.
December 2
Dear Journal,
Tom Jarret is a pimple head. Today at lunch, he made a disgusting noise at me.
The hormone-ridden Tom Jarret continued to make Miriam’s fecal roster for several weeks, until a school dance improved his rating with the young journalist:
December 16
Tonight at last was the Christmas Cotillion. Tom Jarret asked me to dance and he’s a great dancer! Why do I like him when we dance together, but when I see him at school I think he’s disgusting?
There was a question for the ages. As Miriam’s school year continued to mire in the valleys of scholastic routine and glory atop the poignant peaks of sweaty-palmed socialization, Tom Jarret’s reported character continued to fall and rise. With the close of school and the coming of summer, Tom lost out to Hal, and after Hal came Jakey. They appeared to have certain traits in common, foremost among them social ineptitude and acne, but all were compared unfavorably to Tom Jarret when it came to dancing. That Tom must have been something when the rug was rolled up.
I got to skimming, searching for the first mention of Josiah Carberry Menken. I found it in the second volume, halfway through Miriam’s first term at college, dated October fifth:
That Joe Menken just won’t take a hint. I wish he would quit asking me out.
I flopped back against the pillows with a sigh of exasperation: with this entry, my curiosity was at last confronted by the full ethical prudishness of my puritan soul. Should I read on and have a good laugh at my former employer’s expense, or behave myself and leave the social stumblings of the young J. C. Menken to obscurity? I hadn’t expected to find this candid a view of dear old J. C., and it jarred me into the awareness that, in spite of the sour and derisive attitude I held toward such things as bosses, I still liked the man and wanted to respect him. Rationalizing that Miriam’s opinion of him must have improved somewhat if she’d married him, I read on.
October 10
At the Harvest Dance tonight I met a really great guy everyone calls Chandler. He’s blond and has this big handsome face like a lion. He’s tall and built, and a terrific dancer. He taught me the Texas two-step. He’s such a strong lead it was easy to follow him. I hope he asks me out, not that Joe Menken.
October 15
Chandler asked me to go walking with him tonight. I guess that’s a date, right? Anyway, we walked around the quadrangle. He wanted to go down by the athletic fields, but I said no, so we turned around. I hope he doesn’t think I’m too slow. I really, really like him.
October 16
That dork Joe Menken asked me out
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