She was kissed for the first time at her sixteenth birthday party by a boy named Frank Simms, whose father worked out at the gun factory. She blushed furiously, and then quickly raised her eyes to where her father stood in the doorway gently smiling, and hastily lowered them again. The university boys discovered her when she was seventeen, as inevitably they had to, but her mother approved of her dating, and in fact encouraged it. She knew that Chickie was a good clean girl who would probably marry young and raise a houseful of kids, so why not someone with a college education? Chickie, in her seventeenth year, was proud of her appearance, not a little annoyed whenever she asked her father how old she looked, and he smilingly replied, "Why, seventeen, luv," when she knew damn well she looked much older. She was taller than most of the girls at school, with very good breasts she had had from thirteen, and wide hips that everyone said were excellent for the bearing of children, and a narrow waist, and shapely legs — you were supposed to have good legs if the ankles were slender, which hers were. Agnes had taught her to carry herself as tall as she was, and not to slouch the way some big girls do, so she wore high heels with authority even when dating shorter boys. Her walk was rapid and direct; she never pranced or paraded the way a lot of the other kids did, as if they practiced wiggling their behinds when they were home in their own rooms. Chickie thought of herself almost as her mother did; she was good and clean and wholesome, and she was sure her innocence accounted for her fresh good looks, the shining green eyes and fine complexion, the full mouth touched with just a bit of lipstick, the red-gold hair trailing halfway down her back because it had never been cut, or sometimes swinging across her mounded sweater front in twin braids, tiny green bows picking up the color of her eyes. She thought of herself as an English girl or something. A healthy English country girl. She did not know she was just a townie.
They taught her that in the first six months of 1957, after she had dated the president of one of the most powerful fraternities on campus, or so she had been told. In fact, one of the reasons she began dating Buddy was because she knew he was the president of a big fraternity, and knew it was powerful. She could not imagine what kind of power a fraternity could wield, but the notion was intriguing nonetheless, and a little frightening. Perhaps nothing would have happened were she not both frightened and intrigued, perhaps that was all a part of it. Even now, when she thought back upon it, she could feel a tremor of fear, and she quickly pulled her skirt down over her knees, very flustered all at once — the image of a frightened girl on a station platform, that girl on the empty platform.
They had parked after the movie, and Buddy was kissing her — she let most of the boys kiss her, but never on the first date — when he gently tugged her hand toward him, and she realized he had opened his zipper, and he said, "Take it, go ahead." She said no, she didn't want to, but he kept insisting and pulling her hand toward him while she kept saying No, No, and suddenly he let her go and thrust his own hand up under her skirt, and she slapped him. The automobile was very still for perhaps a minute, it seemed like a year, and then Buddy said, very softly, "You shouldn't have done that, miss," and started the car and took her home.
She did not know why she was so frightened in the two weeks that followed, unless it was remembering the tone of his voice and the word "miss," which seemed to be promising something terrible. She had no idea that they were carefully mapping out their campaign in those two weeks, or that she would assume the importance of a military target in the patient months that followed. She did not know that men could be that way, or would want to be that way. She only knew that she was frightened. And yet, oddly, she kept waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for Buddy to call.
The campaign started on a Saturday afternoon two weeks after she had slapped Buddy. It started in her father's drugstore, and it started with an apology from Buddy, who was all smiles and embarrassment and who told her he had behaved very badly and wished she would forgive him. He was with another boy, a good-looking blond boy named Paul, whom Buddy introduced as a brother and one of his closest friends. Paul nodded shyly, and they all chatted for a few more minutes, and then left Chickie. She felt very happy about the chance encounter with Buddy, and not a little relieved that she had misread the tone of his voice that night two weeks ago. The next morning her telephone rang, and she was surprised when her caller identified himself as Paul, "You know, we met yesterday in the drugstore."
"Oh, sure, Paul," she said. "Hi."
"Hi. Listen, I hope this isn't out of line."
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Well, Buddy is a fraternity brother, you know, and
"Yes, I know that."
"I didn't want to ask him whether you were, you know, whether you had any kind of an understanding or not. But if you have…"
"No, we haven't," Chickie said.
"Well, in that case," Paul said, and he sighed in relief, "I was wondering if you'd like to go see a movie tonight. I know this is sort of short notice, and tomorrow's school and all, but I promise I'll get you home early, that is if you'd like to."
"Well, it is short notice," Chickie said.
"Yeah, I know that."
"And I'd have to ask my mother."
"Well, would you want to?"
"Well, if she says it's all right, I guess I would."
"Well, fine." He paused. "Would you ask her?"
"Sure, can you hang on?"
She asked her mother, who said it was all right, as long as they didn't get home too late. Paul picked her up at seven that night, and they went to a movie in town and then stopped for hamburgers, where they met a few other fellows from the frat, all of whom were formally introduced by Paul, who seemed very proud of her, and who watched with a sort of quiet glow while they offered their hands and very gentlemenly said, "Pleased to meet you, Chickie." He took her home early, as he had promised, and did not even try to kiss her good night. She learned later, only much later when they told her all about it, that the meeting in the drugstore had been no accident, that Paul had made his first call from the frat house, with the other fellows standing around him, and that the subsequent introduction to the boys in the hamburger joint had all been carefully planned and synchronized because they were out to get her. But she did not know it at the time, and she felt only flattered and not at all suspicious when Paul called again on Monday to ask if she'd like to have a soda or something Wednesday night, and she said Yes, she'd love to. He took her home at ten-thirty, and again did not try to kiss her good night. She wondered about that a little, somewhat puzzled, but figured he was just a shy boy. On Thursday, a boy named John called to say he had met her Sunday in the hamburger joint, "Remember me, I'm one of Paul's brothers, I've got straight brown hair?"
"Oh sure," she said.
"I know this might seem a little forward," he said, "calling when we hardly know each other, but there's going to be a party at the house tomorrow night and look, I'll be honest with you. A girl who was supposed to be coming down from Bryn Mawr for the weekend got a bad cold and she can't make it, and I'm really up the creek. I thought maybe, well… I know I'm not putting this right, and I wouldn't blame you for saying no. But it's just that I really am hung up, and I honestly would like to take you to the party. If you think you'd like to come with me. Though I know this is all very sudden."