The screen door snapped shut behind him.
“Yes sir,” George called back, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he slid closer to Lily and started to play with a rebellious curl at the nape of her neck. “I’d sure like to make you my girl this summer,” he said, “but I’m afraid you still have some growing up to do.”
When Lily tried to object, he pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m a Yale man. I need a girl who can ride around with me.” He nodded toward the front door. “Someone without a bedtime.” He stood up to leave. “Maybe we should try this again when you’re a little older.”
Lily hopped up from the step, grabbed George by the shirt, and set her mouth against his ear. “I’m old enough to do as I please.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said, and whistled all the way to his car.
After that night, George would send Little Frankie over to the Morgans’ house when he wanted to be with Lily. Seventeen-year-old Franco Colangelo, a runt of a kid with oversized ears and slicked-back hair, looked closer to thirteen, so as George explained to Lily, her father would see him as less of a threat. Frankie lived over in Bull’s Head, a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Scranton where his uncle ran a numbers racket out of a speakeasy behind the barbershop. Since Frankie supplied the Green Ridge boys with homemade vino and directions to the occasional game of chance, they allowed him to pal around with them, as long as he kept his hands off their sisters.
When George wanted to see Lily, he’d have Little Frankie go over to her house with enough pocket change for both of them to take the Northern Electric Streetcar to Lake Winola. George’s family had a cottage up there, and he and his friends spent the better part of their summers at the lake, unchaperoned.
The plan worked well for most of July. Frankie had a crippled sister whom Lily sometimes visited, so no one thought it odd when he came by the house to pick her up. Lily was thankful that George was willing to go to such lengths on her account, and George seemed happy to have her on his arm without the watchful eye of her father.
George couldn’t live without Lily, he told her the afternoon he kissed her in the front seat of his Nash. They’d gone alone to pick up corn for the roast that night, and on the way back, ended up necking on the side of the road. Lily wanted to yell Stop!; she tried to yell Stop! but the word melted in the heat and slid off her tongue.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said, placing a hand behind her head, pressing his weight on top of her.
A whispered “No” slipped past her lips like steam from a kettle.
His fingers searched for the hem of her skirt, and he pushed it past her garter. “I thought you wanted to be my girl.”
“No!” Lily stretched her arm and pointed out the window.
George shot up. There, on the driver’s side, Little Frankie stood with his face pressed against the glass.
“Get the hell out of here, you greasy Guinea.” George slammed his hands onto the steering wheel.
“Everyone’s out looking for you.” Frankie watched as Lily tugged her skirt down past her knees and adjusted her blouse before dropping his eyes. “Thought maybe you was wrecked somewheres.” Frankie blushed, stepped back from the car, and raised his hands. “My mistake.” He turned and started to walk away.
George lunged from the car and took a swipe at Frankie’s head. “What do I always tell you?” He glanced back at Lily hunched over, crying in her seat. “Never come looking for me!” He climbed back into the car and started the engine.
Lily made George drop her off at the Northern Electric stop, a mile over from the lake. After trying to placate her with words of affection and consolation, he yelled something about seeing her when she grew up, and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Sweat trickled down her face as she stood waiting for the streetcar in the late-afternoon sun. What had she done? What had she almost done? The streetcar finally arrived, and she took a seat in the rear, away from the handful of passengers who boarded with her. She closed her eyes and felt the burn of his hand on her thigh. Even with the windows open, the smell of him clung to her skin and stirred some unnamed feeling within her.
Little Frankie showed up at Lily’s house the next day to apologize. He said he hadn’t thought George would try that—not with a girl like her. He was just worried when they didn’t come right back. He felt responsible for her since he’d brought her to the lake in the first place. Lily thanked him, said she understood, but told him she needed to be alone.
For the rest of the week, Lily thought about what had happened that afternoon. She’d been embarrassed, but that didn’t mean she had to run home like a child. Now she’d ruined everything. George hated her, she was sure of it. He’d find another sweetheart, someone older, like Debbie Tomasetti, the lanky blonde who always showed up at the lake uninvited. Or worldlier, like Janetta Baugess, the voluptuous one with the big eyes. Lily needed to talk to George, but what would she say? That she was sorry? That she loved him? No matter. Seeing him was out of the question. She knew if she spoke to him, smelled the sweetness of his breath, she’d surrender to the dangerous longing she’d felt every minute since he’d pulled her into his arms.
When Frankie came by a few days later, Lily’s heart raced. She was sure George had sent him, that he wanted a chance to make things right. What would she do? Resist? Succumb? But Lily didn’t have to worry. Frankie had stopped by out of concern for her. And no, he hadn’t seen George for days.
By the end of the summer, Lily returned to high school and George to college. Though the longing continued, it started to burn more slowly. She tried to convince herself that she was over him, and she succeeded for the most part—until the hayride.
Lily hadn’t expected to see George that day. He was supposed to be off at college that first full weekend in September. She’d gone to Grayce Farms with Little Frankie, in part due to her mother’s prodding. “Get outside and blow some of the stink off you”—her way of telling Lily to stop sulking. She noticed George at the far side of the wagon, but just as she started toward him, Janetta Baugess, the most buxom girl in Lily’s grade, pushed past her, settled next to George, and took his hand. “Stop teasing,” the girl was saying. “You know very well how to say my name.” She held up a finger as if to chide him. “It’s Jane,” she paused, “and etta.” She laughed. “My mother knew I’d never be a plain Jane.”
Lily dropped onto the bench across from them, pressing her palms into her lap to stop them from shaking. As Janetta prattled on, Lily learned that George had come home for his sister’s birthday, and intended to return to school on Sunday. Until then, the couple planned to spend every moment together. Lily looked up at George, trying to see the truth of the situation in his eyes, but he turned away from her and watched the horses. Being ignored is worse than being hated.
When the driver pulled up alongside a table of cider and doughnuts put out by the ladies of the church, Lily allowed Frankie to take her hand to help her down from the wagon. “Why, you’re the sweetest boy I know,” she said, at a volume that rivaled Janetta’s. Frankie grinned. Once on the ground, she held his hand for another minute or two, long enough for people to notice.
“Little Frankie,” George called, patting the pocket of his coat, “my turn to provide the hooch.” George motioned toward a line of white birch trees at the edge of the pasture. When Frankie nodded toward Lily, irritation registered on George’s face. “She can come, I suppose.” His eyes slowly traveled up and down her body. “Providing she’s grown up some.”
