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THE JOYS OF YOUTH

 

          I have been thinking about the joys of youth, fondly remembering them now, after a long time. For guys, the joys of youth refer to women, sports – basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and anything else you can pass hit or kick; guys care about women, shooting rabbits, catching largemouths so big they almost break a fishing rod, women, and, of course, women.

          I want to tell the story of one woman, Kitty O'Donnell, my cousin. She's a character in a new novel that's out. It's called Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx , and it's selling well on Amazon (www.amazon.com) in the U.S. and the U.K. The joys of youth are precious at any time, but especially in time of war. The back-cover copy – what's literally written on the back of the novel – says, "A woman's love, a brother's hand, a father's faith, this is a story that will make you laugh and cry, and remember how it was."

 

MARY McHUGH

 

The story of Kitty O’Donnell begins, as it must for all of us, with the story of her mother. And the story of Mary McHugh, for McHugh was Mary O’Donnell’s maiden name, begins in the Roaring Twenties during the last century. Bear with me now, because this is important, if you want to understand my cousin and her story, famous as she is in the new novel Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx ( www.amazon.com ).  

Anyway, two men loved Mary McHugh, for she was a beauty, and lively on the dance floors and in the saloons of that time. The first was Del Searfoss, who met her at John White's Tavern, on a Labor Day weekend in 1928, when White was still selling his draft beer out of coffee mugs because of Prohibition. She was the prettiest girl in the room, and she had a look about her. Her black hair was fashionably bobbed. Her white teeth flashed into a broad and laughing smile with everything she said. And she had a way of tilting her head to the side when she talked to him. She accepted his invitation to dance, even though she was an inch taller than he. And, as they moved about the floor, she focused her deep blue eyes on him and smiled, tilting her head to one side or the other in a way that made him believe she was hanging on every word he said.

They danced several times that night, and, for weeks thereafter he would stop for her at seven o'clock when she finished her shift at the General Hospital. It was the first year of Ford’s new Model A; and, only a few weeks before he met Mary McHugh, Del had paid $460 for a cream-colored four-door phaeton, with forest-green fenders and a fold-back canvas roof of the same color. On the fine fall evenings they would fold back the top and drive across Market Street through Westmoor to the lake highway, or up Wyoming Avenue to Howard's Barbecue, where huge haunches of beef turned slowly on the rotisseries in the window. There, with curb service, they could get two beef barbecues and two bottles of beer for half a dollar and sit in the car, talking, for an hour or more.

After that, Del would drive her home. Mary McHugh would kiss him lightly on the lips before skipping up the steps and into the house. Then Del would stop at John White’s for an hour before driving to work all night in the Dupont powder mill. Mary McHugh never pretended that she was seeing only Del, but, to him, she was the only girl in the world he could love.

         Then Joe O’Donnell came on the scene. He stood over six feet tall. He had broad shoulders and black hair that he parted in the middle. He was 30 and had taken over his family's speakeasy in the Hill Section of Scranton. He also met Mary McHugh at John White’s, and he also fell in love with her.

         Then began their rivalry. Some evenings, Del would pull up to the hospital entrance, only to find O’Donnell already there. Other nights, if Joe O’Donnell was delayed on his trip down from Scranton, he might arrive just in time to see Del's Model A whisking her off. If he saw them, he would follow in his Sainte Claire, and he often pulled in beside them at Howard's or showed up on the dance floor at Fernbrook Park.

They battled back and forth that way through the winter and spring, jockeying for position with Mary McHugh, who never gave one or the other any indication of her favor until a Saturday night in early May when she was dancing with Del to the music of Rudy Vallee at Fernbrook Park.

“Joe’s asked me to marry him,” she said.

Del stopped dancing. “He’s what?”

“He’s asked me to marry him, and I think I’m going to.”

“Oh, no. No! You know I want to marry you. We’re right for each other, Mary McHugh. We’d be happy together.”

“I just have this feeling for him, Del,” she told him, tears forming in her eyes.

“And you don’t have it for me?”

“I just don’t know what I feel. Joe’s asked me to marry him, and I think I’m going to.”

 

MARY McHUGH’S WEDDING

 

They were married in July at St. John’s Church, and, after an outdoor reception at the Garden Restaurant in Forty Fort, they drove to Scranton and caught the Phoebe Snow to Niagara Falls.

Del’s heart was broken. Right up to the wedding, he called her every day and begged her to marry him. On her wedding day he got drunk and missed work. He stayed at home four days and almost lost his job. John White tried to arrange dates for him with several pretty girls, but he would have none of it. Mary McHugh, now Mary O’Donnell, had settled in with her new husband in an apartment over his Scranton tavern. Del began a custom that he would maintain for several years. Every night, before he went to work at the powder mill, he would drive up to the mountains above Scranton and, parking at an overlook, he would gaze down at the city’s lights, knowing she was there. Then he would begin to cry.

In December, he learned that she was expecting her first child. The baby girl, Marian, was born the following June. Through all the months, Del’s routine never varied. He ate. He drank. He slept poorly. He went nowhere. He walked in the woods behind his mother’s house, where he lived with his two unmarried sisters. Every night he drove to Scranton and gazed down, hopelessly, at the city lights.

Del had not seen her since her marriage. From mutual acquaintances, he heard, occasionally, that she was happy. In another year, she had a second child, also a daughter. Later he heard that she was expecting again.

Then, one night at the bar, John White began talking about Joe O’Donnell.

“Sur’n he’s breakin’ the rules,” White said. “If you’re tendin’ bar, you can’t drink with the customers. You can’t keep it up, night after night.”

“Is there a problem?" Del asked.

“They say he’s been doin’ it for years. Now the Depression’s hit everyone, it’s catchin’ up with him. He has his worries, same as we all do. People have seen him fall down behind his bar.”

“And what about Mary McHugh?”

“She loves him, Del,” John White said. “For better or worst, y’know.”

That night, before he went to work, Del wrote her a brief note saying, in the simplest possible words, that, if she ever needed help, she could count on him.

 

JOE O’DONNELL

 

In three more years, Joe O’Donnell was dead. Between the cost of his final illness and his debts, his widow had nothing left. Forced to give up the tavern, Mary O’Donnell took her three young daughters back to Wilkes-Barre and moved in with her sister. True to his promise, Del visited her and her daughters every Saturday that she would allow him, always bringing with him a bag of groceries or something for the children. When she wasn't in her nurse's uniform, she wore black in mourning for her husband.

And so it continued. She was the only woman for Del. For a long time she wanted no man. By the time she was able to think of a man again, though, she no longer had any dreams. His presence had become a comfortable habit. On her part, perhaps out of gratitude – and on his, out of devotion – they began a relationship that they carried forward through the years. She was protective of her children. She had no interest in seeing other men. He helped her with the food bills, and she set a place for him at her table every night. When Kathleen fell ill, Del was as devoted as any father could have been. But Mary O’Donnell would not allow him in the house if the children were not there, and she would not let him sleep with her. They went to John White's on Saturday evenings, to the Mayfair roadhouse on special occasions, and to the 115 Club with friends from her old neighborhood. Before Del went home at night to his mother's house, after the children had gone to bed, he would go down to the cellar to help Mary shake the grates of the coal fire and damp it for the night. She would let him kiss her there, before they went back upstairs. And that way it went on.

 

A BEAUTIFUL BABY

 

I’ve told you that, and now I can bring on Kitty O’Donnell, my cousin, who, after all, is the reason I’m writing this.

I’ll not go through all the ups and downs with her, when she was a baby and in kindergarten, or whatever, except to say that she was a beautiful baby, as everyone said. But one day when she was twelve, she came home from Gate of Heaven Elementary School with a terrible sore throat. She didn't like school. She didn't like the nuns who taught there. She hated Sister Mary Margaret, who, at the beginning of the year, had forced her to stand with her nose against the blackboard one morning when she forgot her homework. She often made up excuses to stay home: she had an upset stomach; she had a headache; she was having bad cramps from her period.

But her sore throat was different. It had begun after the morning recess, and by noon her throat felt as if two white-hot coals were burning at the back of her mouth, on each side.

“Kathleen O’Donnell, is this another story of yours?" Sister Mary Margaret asked sternly when my cousin wanted to be excused.

“No, sister," Kitty told her. "My throat hurts awful.”

"I seriously doubt that, Kathleen O’Donnell," Sister said. "You have no idea what pain is. Now you go back to your seat and think about the sufferings our Lord had to endure."

Kitty tried to do that, but her throat became more and more sore – so sore that she could barely swallow. Her face burned, and her eyes watered so that she could hardly see to the front of the room. Midway through science class, the water in her eyes became hot tears. Putting her right elbow on her desk, Kathleen supported her head with her hands, covered her eyes, and began to cry.

The figure of Sister Mary Margaret in her black habit loomed over her.

"Kathleen O’Donnell, what is the matter?"

My poor cousin couldn't answer. She tried to stifle her tears, but the hot coals in her throat burned all the worse.

"Stand up, Kathleen!" Sister commanded. "Come over here to the window and let me look at your throat."

There was a titter of nervous laughter in the c1assroom.

"Silence!" sister commanded. "Get busy, class, and do the next five questions at the bottom of the page."

She took Kathleen to the window at the back of the classroom and told her to open her mouth. Then, tilting Kathleen's head back and using the end of a ruler as a tongue-depressor, Sister Mary Margaret peered into her throat.

"It is a little red, Kathleen O’Donnell, but nothing to make all this fuss and commotion about. What would our Lord think of all this, Kathleen O’Donnell? However, you may get your coat from the cloakroom and go straight home. And for disrupting the class this way, you may do the twenty questions at the end of the chapter for homework.”

It was a raw March afternoon. Kitty carried her books and her uneaten lunch as if they were the heaviest of burdens. She imagined herself bearing a cross, and she staggered haltingly under its heavy weight as she made her way over the uneven slate sidewalk. When finally she turned the corner onto Sharpe Street and saw her home, she began to cry again.

Her mother worked as a nurse at the General Hospital and wouldn't be home until after four o'clock. Her two sisters were still at school. Kitty had her own key. She dropped her coat and her books on the livingroom floor, went straight through the narrow first-floor rooms to the kitchen, and took two St   Joseph's aspirin tablets. Then she turned on the parlor radio, pulled down her mother's brightly crocheted afghan from the back of an armchair and drew the afghan over her as she curled up on the bumpy davenport to listen to Young Widow Brown.

The O’Donnells did not think of themselves as an impoverished family, but they were not well off. Mary O’Donnell, at 42, had been raising her three daughters almost alone since their father died. I’ll fill that in for you. After living with her sister for a year, Mary O’Donnell had used the little bit of her husband's insurance and what she made at the hospital to put a down payment on the small frame house in Westmoor. Her parish, St. Ignatius, helped her keep the girls in Catholic schools. They ate macaroni and cheese at least once a week, fish on Mondays and Fridays, and toasted-cheese sandwiches on Saturday nights. When they had pork chops, Mary O’Donnell cut the meat for her children and took what was left for herself. "The sweetest meat is close to the bone," she would say. She was a loving mother and a principled woman. Only Del Searfoss had paid attention to her since the death of Joseph O’Donnell. Yet she had never allowed him to be alone in the house with her when the children were absent. That’s a lot different from what it is today, of course, but those were different times, and I’ll make no excuse for it. On Saturday evenings Mary O’Donnell and Del would walk down the block to the 112 Club and sit with neighbors, smoking, talking and drinking beer from short, clear glasses. Mary liked Old Gold cigarettes and collected the coupons for merchandise prizes.

"Playin' hooky!" Kitty's younger sister cried when she came in the door at 3:30. "I waited for you after school, until Sister came out and said you went home early. I knew you were playin' hooky."

"I'm not!" Kathleen shot back. "I have an awful sore throat."

Elizabeth Ann was eleven. She had her father's black hair and dark eyes. He had called her Betsy.

"If Mom wants to go to the movies tonight, I bet you don't stay home," Betsy taunted her sister, taking off her coat as she headed for the kitchen   "And you better pick that stuff up off the floor ‘fore Mom sees it," she said, turning back for another jibe.

"Oh, Betsy. I feel so sick. I ache all over. Won't you please hang it up for me?" Kathleen begged her.

"I'm not your servant," Betsy said. Then she thought a moment. "What'll you give me if I do?"

"I'll do the dishes for you tomorrow night."

"All my turns for two weeks?"

"Please, Betsy!"

"All my turns?"

Kathleen slid off the davenport. Her knees, her elbows, and her wrists ached. She got her books and her coat, and, turning toward the stairs, started up to her room.

"You'll be sorry!" she cried.

 

RHEUMATIC FEVER

 

Finally, it had turned into rheumatic fever.

The sore throat had been a streptococcal infection and had led, as strep throats often did then, to the even more serious condition that had damaged Kitty's heart. Three weeks after she had the sore throat, she awoke on a Thursday morning with searing pain in her left shoulder. She had never felt such pain, and she cried out for her mother, who called Doctor Carey as Kitty writhed in agony.

"I'll have to take blood tests," he told Mary O’Donnell downstairs after he had finished examining Kitty. "But it's rheumatic fever. I can already hear the gurgling in her heart."

Mary O’Donnell put her hands to her face. "She has heart damage?"

"It's typical of rheumatic fever," Dr. Carey said. "The disease causes inflammation in the heart, and that inflammation causes a narrowing and thickening of the heart's valves, especially the mitral valve. The pain in her shoulder comes from the rheumatic or joint symptoms of the disease. She'll have intense pain there for several more days. It will go away, but it will come back somewhere else – in her elbows, or her wrists, or her ankles. The thing we have to be especially careful about is that she doesn't have relapses. Rheumatic fever does its worst damage when it recurs. Thank God we have penicillin now. I'll start her on it today. I'll be coming in every day to see her. She'll need to stay in bed. That's important. She mustn't do anything or have any physical exertion that would strain her heart."

Altogether, Kitty spent nearly a year at home, much of the time in bed. For a 12-year-old, the months were an eternity. Outside, the world was alive and spreading itself in every direction. From her bedroom window she could see cars, trucks, and trackless trolleys hurrying up and down Wyoming Avenue. One morning the sun shone brightly on new-fallen snow: The snow clung to the branches of the maple tree, tracing lacy white patterns against the hard blue sky. Children she knew threw snowballs and skated along the sidewalk as they made their way to school. She wanted to open the window and call to them, but Del had nailed it shut so that she wouldn't be in a draft.

 

EASTER

 

Easter came. Her girlfriend, Barbara, helped her color eggs on a scarred oak table next to the bed. Then they cut triangular patterns out of thin cardboard and laughed at the funny costumes they made for the eggheads. Two old-maid sisters who lived next-door came over and brought her a huge chocolate butter cream Easter egg from the Candy Cottage Shoppe. Her mother took the trackless trolley to Wilkes-Barre to do her Easter shopping. When she came home, she had three baby chicks, one for each of the girls. Kitty's was dyed rose red; Marian's was blue; Betsy's was purple. Holding the fuzzy red ball against her cheek and feeling its softness, Kitty named her peep Elmer.

On Easter morning, Del arrived before dawn to take her sisters for spring water. It was a ritual they had always observed. Mary O’Donnell would wake them silently in the darkness. They would dress without speaking a word and go out to the car where Del was waiting. Then they would drive in silence to his home on the mountain, where they would draw clear gallon bottles of pure water from the spring on the hill behind his house. The day before, Del would have cleaned the spring of every leaf and twig. The sparkling water, in which they would wash their faces and hands at home that morning, held special power: It would bring them health and good fortune.

When Kitty heard the door close and the car drive away, she felt utterly alone and forgotten. Always before she had been the first one her mother had awakened. Kitty had been the one of the three girls who had most appreciated the solemnity of the moment. No sound or word was to be uttered, and anyone who made an audible noise was disqualified from going. The year before, Betsy had felt too sleepy to get up and had spoken deliberately, her mother pushing her back down beneath the warmth of the covers. They would arrive at the spring as the first light of the new day broke though the trees. Sometimes, if Easter came early, they would have to break the thin skims of ice on the spring's surface.

She envied Betsy, who was taking dance lessons. Her body was well-shaped, and she had special costumes for the dance recitals. Del had bought her sister a small turquoise case to carry her tap shoes and the tutu she would change into at the studio. The shoes were shiny black patent leather and had silver buckles. She had pink and yellow ribbons for her hair, and she could wear lipstick and make-up for the shows.

Kitty's rheumatic fever ebbed and flowed. Her joints would become swollen and so painful that her mother couldn't touch them: first one joint, her right thumb; then a joint

on her left foot, then others. Her mother would rub the joint carefully with an analgesic that burned and smelled strongly of wintergreen. Rheumatic fever had acute and dormant stages. The joint would swell painfully for a week or so. She would lie in bed and cry into the pillow, until it became wet with her tears, begging for the pain to go away. Then there would be no pain, yet she would have to endure absolute bed rest, even though she felt perfectly normal and wanted to go downstairs and eat breakfast with her mother and her sisters. She would call down to them and ask them to bring something upstairs for her.

Her mother carried all of her meals to her on a polished wooden tray spread with a thin flower-print dishtowel. Mary O’Donnell fried delicious chicken, and they had smashed potatoes and canned asparagus, with chocolate cake for dessert. Or sometimes they had a supper of sausage that Del bought from a farmer to circumvent the wartime rationing, and golden brown pancakes that her mother flipped on a black, cast-iron griddle.

 

OLD MISS RUDDY

 

Often old Miss Ruddy, one of the visiting teachers who came to her house every day after school, would stay for supper. Miss Ruddy taught her arithmetic and science on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She was fat, and Kitty dreaded to hear her wheezing as she made her way up the steep staircase to her room. She wore flowing suits that were at least a size too large, even for her. And her thin gray hair always seemed to be caught in the act of escaping, a strand here and there held back by the bows of her glasses. Miss Ruddy would arrive close to five o'clock. She would sit, spread-kneed and sweating, on the chair next to Kitty's bed and drill her in long division. She would finish at sometime after six, and, putting her books and tablet into her worn leather briefcase, she would start down the stairs. "My, that smells like pork chops," she would say at the bottom as Mary O’Donnell came out of the kitchen to fetch her coat.

"Yes, it is," her mother would reply politely. "Would you like to stay? We have more than enough."

"Oh, no. I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble," Miss Ruddy would say, beginning her charade.

"It's no trouble at all," Mary O’Donnell would respond. "You just sit right down and rest. I'll have it on the table in a minute – just as soon as I fix Kitty's tray."

"I hope she's not gaining weight. I've been thinking to myself the last few times I've come here that she might be putting on a pound or two, lying in bed all day doing nothing."

Kitty's mother had bought her a red buckram diary with a brass clasp and a lock to help her pass the time, and on many pages, as the months crept by, Kitty would write:

"Miss Ruddy stayed for supper again tonight.   I HATE MISS RUDDY !!!"

In the evenings Del often sat with her and played game after game of Parcheesi, rolling the dice and intentionally losing. After he went down the stairs to bank the furnace for the night and go home, Kitty would turn on her radio and lie in bed listening to the Lux Radio Theater or to Minnie Pearl on the Grand Ole Opry.

 

FIRST LOVE

Or she would share secrets with her sister Marion, about boys. There was one boy she loved. She didn't tell Marion about the pledges she made to God if he would only let Michael Starenski love her. Michael had rich black hair, dark eyes, and a cute little mouth. Walking from English class, before she got rheumatic fever, she had heard Michael say, "Hi,” and her heart had raced like a motorcycle. Even now, she was sure he had said it to her; he was looking at her as they passed in the crowded hall. Night after night, she dreamed that Michael kissed her and embraced her. He told her he loved her. "Oh, God! If it were only true," she thought. She imagined them dancing on air. It was wonderful . The orchestra was beautiful.

There was a crisis in July. Two of her girlfriends, Barbara and Eileen, had begun going to the Catholic Youth Center dance every Saturday night. The CYC was on South Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre. Barbara and Eileen took the trackless trolley across the bridge to Public Square, then walked the remaining two blocks. The next day Barbara would report every detail to Kitty. They danced most of the dances; Westmoor girls were popular with the Wilkes-Barre boys. They had to leave at 10 o'clock, but usually one or two of their dance partners would walk them back to the Square; sometimes they would even stop at the Betsy Ross and share a chocolate ice cream soda.

One Saturday night, after 11 o'clock, Barbara called on the telephone. Michael had been at the CYC dance. Kitty felt her heart leap into her throat.

"Did he dance with anyone?" she asked.

"Mostly he stood on the side and watched. Eileen and I talked to him a little."

"You did?” Kitty felt the pangs of jealousy.

“Well there wasn't anyone else he knew. He didn't seem to be having a very good time."

Kitty was satisfied. She imagined herself dancing with Michael.

"Eileen asked him to dance once," Barbara told her.

Kitty’s heart fell.

“He wouldn't do it. He said he had to catch the streetcar. He was staying overnight at his aunt's house, on Blackman Street. Then he left."

When she put the phone down, Kitty wept into her pillow. Her mother had bought her a padded training bra that day, and later, after she had stopped crying, Kitty tried it on again, and sat up in bed so she could see herself in the dresser mirror, looking first at one side and then at the other.

That fall, every time the doctor came, she would ask, week after week, when she could go back to school. Dr. Carey, at 38, was a still-handsome man, though lines that bespoke fatigue were beginning to creep into his face and across his brow. He chain-smoked Chesterfield cigarettes, and their ashes clung to his always-rumpled suit. Kitty loved his brilliant blue eyes and the gentleness of his hands.

"I wish I would die!" she sobbed to him one day when the pain was gnawing at both her wrists.

"Kitty," he whispered, holding her as she cried, and soothing her tears. "This won't last much longer."

"But it'll come back!" Kitty sobbed.

"It may, but soon there will be a time when it won't come back. It's almost run its course. I promise,” he told her.

"But it hurts so, Dr. Carey!"

 

FIGHTING A WAR

 

"Kitty, we're fighting this together. I come here to see you, and we make our plans. Overseas, thousands of men are fighting for our country. We need to fight the same way they're fighting. You hear H. V. Kaltenborn on the radio – doesn't he have a funny voice?" Kitty giggled between her tears. "He talks about our men working together to destroy the enemy on the land, on the sea, and in the air. We have to do the same thing, Kitty. You're the soldier fighting the enemy, and I'm the general making our battle plans. I'm telling you that we've almost won our battle. You can't retreat now. If you do, Kitty, all our men overseas will have to turn back too. Why should they fight on, if we don't? Each time you feel the pain, I want you to remember that you're stronger than the rheumatic fever is. I want you to say it, over and over. Say it now, Kitty."

"I'm stronger than the rheumatic fever is."

"Say it again, Kitty."

"I'm stronger than this rheumatic fever is."

"Again," Dr. Carey urged her.

"I'm stronger than this darn rheumatic fever. I hate it!"

"That's the girl, Kitty. This war of ours will be over soon. And we'll win . I promise you," he said, hugging her gently.

 

**

 

Well, my cousin isn’t a schoolgirl anymore, of course. She’s the beautiful woman who falls in love in the novel, Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx, that everyone’s reading ( www.amazon.com ). But, before I go on to that, I want to tell you about the night the powder mill blew up.

 

THE EXPLOSION

 

Years after the explosion, Del Searfoss could remember exactly how it had sounded. “Boooooooooommmmmmm!” he would cry out after drinking four or five glasses of his favorite beer, which we called Stegmaier in our town. I heard him tell it many a time myself: “Boooooooooommmmmmm! Like that, only louder than thunder.”

He was lucky to be alive. “I had to take a piss,” he would say, and then, seeing the reproof in Mary O’Donnell’s eyes (for she would tolerate no bad language at her table), he would change his story: “I mean, I had to go to the bathroom.” This quiet little man who loved her and had courted her more than 25 years had worked all that time in Dupont at the dynamite plant, as I said earlier. The night of the explosion, he had felt the need and had turned to Walter Kissak, his partner in the mixing block, and had said, “Walter, I’m goin’ down the hill for a minute. I gotta take a piss.”

Kissak had not looked up from mixing the nitroglycerin but had waved his right hand, acknowledging the call of nature. They worked with two other men, Charley Andrews and Tom Gruvers, mixing the ingredients of dynamite in one of the separate concrete blockhouses that made up the plant. All of the Dupont Chemical plant’s departments were in separate and widely spaced blockhouses – “blocks” the men called them – so that an accident in one would not kill everybody at the plant. There was no toilet in the blockhouse. There was nothing in it that might throw a spark. The men wore anti-static overalls without zippers or snaps, and gum-rubber boots to minimize the chance of static electricity.

         The toilet was at the office, and Del had walked quickly down the hill on that warm September night. He was in the men’s room when the blast struck. “I had my . . . pecker in my hand,” he later told his friends in a shaken voice, hardly able to get the words out. The explosion had thrown him to the floor, but the walls of the office – like the walls of the other buildings – were foot-thick concrete, and they had saved him. “I pissed my pants though,” he would say, if he were telling the story at John White’s Tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue.

         “I think I was knocked out for a minute,” Del would continue. “Then I heard everyone shouting. I had a cut on my head, from where I hit the floor, but I got up and ran outside, and, Jesus Christ!, there was smoke everywhere, so thick you couldn’t see anything. And the powder smell was so bad I choked and couldn’t get a decent breath. All the men from the night shift at the office were out there, and men were runnin’ towards us from all the other blocks. We couldn’t see the mixin’ block at the top of the hill – we couldn’t see anything in the smoke – but fine bits of something were fallin’ on us from up above, like dry rain. It was like a drizzle. I don’t know what they were – I guess pieces of the roof.”

“You’ve told this story a hundred times, Del,” Mary O’Donnell admonished him.

“Well, I'll tell it again if I like," he said bristling and a little drunk.

“I don t want the girls hearing it," she told him with finality. "It's not good for them."

“I don't have a thing to say in this house, do I?"

"You don’t pay the mortgage. I do. And, until I say you can, that's the way it is.”

He got up and took his hat.

"I’ll be goin’ to John White’s Tavern then,” he told her. “Good night to the girls," he said, leaving.

 

JOHN WHITE

 

         I need to tell you a word about John White, since I’ve mentioned him and his famous tavern a few times: John White was the dean of the old school tavern-keepers. He had been a city policeman many years earlier, and one of his two sons was a city councilman. He had white hair and a long, ruddy-cheeked Irish face, and he loved people, politics, music, and dancing. He had been known to break into a soft-shoe shuffle behind his bar on more than one occasion.

Like the good tavern-keeper he was, he remembered the name of everyone who had ever been in his saloon, and he was one of the last who conducted the old brewery establishment houses, holding strictly to Stegmaier Brewing Company products on tap. His had been a Stegmaier house from the time he opened it before Prohibition, and, from the day it opened, John White's was the place to be for anyone who liked big drinks, bear hugs, and boisterous conviviality. For three decades, the magic pull of his personality, and his endless fund of stories, had brought a long and faithful list of old friends flocking to him.

         "Women is one thing," Del told him at the crowded bar after White had brought a short glass of Stegmaier. "But a club like this is somethin' else.”

"Ah, and has herself been after you again?" White inquired solicitously.

“Drove me out of the house."

“Well, they have their moments. And their times of the month, if you know what I mean."

"No. It's not that. I was telling her about the time the powder mill blew up, and she didn't want to hear it."

         "We heard the blast that night all the way down here. I wonder you survived it with any ears left at all," White commiserated.

         "It was a terrible thing to see," Del said. "We went up the hill, and there was nothing left standing but the walls. The roof, the mixing tables, our equipment, and poor Walter Kissak and the others – nothing left of them. Only the damned smell of burnt powder and the little pieces of things floating down from above. The only thing they ever found of Walter was his shoe in a tree and his foot still in it."

        

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

 

         Now I think of it, there was another time that Mary O’Donnell drove him out of the house, for, as good as she was, she had a terrible Irish temper, God rest her soul. It was on St. Patrick’s Day, as a matter of fact.

         St. Patrick's Day, of course, was important. Del would buy Mary O’Donnell the largest, reddest brisket of corned beef he could find, along with two very green heads of cabbage, and he would parade into the house with them, as if he were a king.

"This is for you, Mary McHugh," he'd announce, and of course it was a mistake.

"It's quite a way you have. Is His Holiness behind you?" she would say.

"His Holiness is not behind me. There's no one behind me. I've had no one behind me all my life," he would retort in anger. "I've had no one behind me as long as I've known you, woman."

"Mind your tone, gentleman," she would tell him then. "Mind your tone!” It was important to her that she had raised her own family, and made the sacrifices she had made, and owed no one, as she thought.

And on such days, again, Del would spend his evening at John White's, thinking about the world and his tribulations. Nevertheless, the next morning Mary O’Donnell would unfailingly call his house and make it clear that she expected him on the seventeenth. She would boil the corned beef all day in her blue-speckled pot and then, late in the afternoon, add the cabbage and potatoes. She would bake the Irish soda bread, with its crown of rounded crust, and he would be there at five o'clock sharp.

By that time, now you understand, Kitty was no longer the little girl. She was a woman, a beautiful young woman, 19 that year as I would calculate it, with lovely brown hair and lustrous green eyes. So it was no wonder that the boys would come around, if they were smart. And one who did was Rhys Lewis.

They had met, in fact, on Valentine’s Day, just a month before. Now, Rhys was Welsh. You pronounce his name “Reece,” if you don’t know. There were a lot of Welsh in our old coal-mining valley in Pennsylvania, for the Welsh – as well as the Irish, like me – were strong, coal-mining men, if I hate to admit it. And Rhys was a coal miner, though he disliked it thoroughly. He was 19, the same age as our Kitty, who was in her last year of nursing school.

   It was Valentine's Day, as I said. There were five couples who were all tangled up in the way they knew each – the men were in the same Army outfit, two of the girls worked together, and one of the others knew Kitty’s sister, Marion, who was also grown up by now. Ginger Jones, who was the friend of Marion’s, had originally tried to arrange the blind date with her. But Marion already had a date for Valentine's Day and had volunteered Kitty for Rhys Lewis. And so that’s how all this came about.

 

FOGARTY’S ROADHOUSE

 

       They were making an evening of it at Fogarty's, a fashionable roadhouse with four tall Corinthian columns and wide picture-and-casement windows off the lake highway near the town of Luzerne. The table, which normally would have seated eight, was laid with a pink linen cloth and had a floral centerpiece of short-stemmed pink and white carnations with an unlighted white candle. Ten place settings of silverware and what passed for crystal glasses gleamed all around. Boots Johnson sat with his back to the bandstand, which, at eight o'clock, was still empty. "There they are!" he said, pointing toward the door, where Rhys Lewis and my cousin, Kitty O’Donnell, were arriving.

       He had pointed toward the door with his left arm that had been draped across the bare shoulders of his date, Annie Sullivan. Next to her sat Sue Gray, in a green taffeta dress. The next three around the table were Harry Dunne, Ed Jones and Ginger, his wife, who I told you about. The fifth couple were Peggy Brokenshire, who was Ginger's lifelong friend, and her husband, Moe, a senior at the same college Harry and Ed attended.

       "Well, the gang's all here," Rhys said as he and Kitty came up to the table. She and Rhys took the two seats next to Boots, and a fat, middle-aged waiter in a tuxedo appeared with menus.

       For Kitty's benefit, Ed Jones made quick introductions. Rhys knew everyone at the table.

"Shit, it's cold, isn't it?" he said. "Had trouble getting my dad's car started, even though it was in our garage.”

       “Was he late?" Ginger asked Kitty.

       "A little, but that was all right," she smiled. "I wasn't quite ready anyway."

Fogarty's had a liberal policy about drinking; the fat waiter didn't ask anyone's age. Rhys ordered bourbon for himself and a vodka collins for Kitty.

       The women ordered chicken in several guises, the most inexpensive entrees on the menu. All but one of the men decided on either chops or Salisbury steak. Ed Jones ordered a Delmonico steak, and his wife looked at him severely. They had been married since September, just before the start of Ed's senior year. In the first six months of their marriage, making ends meet had been harder than Ginger had expected. As a special treat, in fact, her parents had given them the money they were using for Fogarty’s. She and Ed lived in a three-room apartment, sharing the bathroom with the owners, a retired couple who lived downstairs. Ginger worked as a teller at the Miners Bank, Wilkes-Barre's largest, where her father was a vice president. She and Ed had been sweethearts since their sophomore year at Westmoor High School. He had been a high school wrestler, progressing upward from the 118-pound to the 165-pound class as he grew bigger and stronger from his sophomore to his senior year. At wrestling matches, Ginger had watched him from the crowded second-floor balcony of the boys' gymnasium, where she could gaze down on him as he defeated one opponent after another on the spotlighted gray mat with the maroon circle. The muscles in his bare shoulders had bulged through his one-piece wrestling uniform of sleeveless gray athletic shirt and maroon tights, and she had fallen in love with him almost before she had known what love was.

         They were finishing dessert – vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce – when the band appeared. Most of its members were in their fifties, and they were well known throughout northeastern Pennsylvania. Bandleader Skits Downing, who played the saxophone, had toured with the Harry Morgan band, until his wife had given him the ultimatum that he choose between the road and her. And its lead singer was the famous Jack Gallagher, an Irish miner who had only one arm but a voice that, as more than one newspaper writer had said, could charm the angels out of heaven. He was featured in the second number, Mona Lisa, and all five couples moved out onto the gleaming oak floor.

They danced most of the numbers, until it was almost midnight, the men exchanging partners from time to time until they had danced with all five women. They jitterbugged to the swing tunes and danced close when the band played a slow song, and the men laughed with glee and beat their hands on the table when they heard I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.

 

DREAMLAND

 

They had ordered another round of drinks and were sitting at the table.

"Remember when we used to go up to Dreamland?" Ginger asked Peggy. Dreamland was a four-room furniture display on the top floor of the Boston Store, Wilkes-Barre’s largest department store. Ginger and Peggy and hundreds of other high school girls over the years had spent afternoons wandering through the completely furnished rooms, dreaming about their future lives.

"I'll tell you," Peggy said quietly, "I'm finding out what Dreamland was really all about."

"What do you mean?"

Peggy turned slightly and glanced over her shoulder at her husband. Moe had been drinking steadily through the evening. His voice had grown louder; his face was flushed, and his hair was slightly out of place. He had run his right hand through it twice in a half hour, as he emphasized points he was making in a conversation with Rhys and Boots that, Ginger could tell, was growing more intense.

"It isn't what I thought it would be," Peggy said, turning back to her friend and inclining her head a little more toward her.

"We were . . . ," Ginger reached for the thought.

"Naive,” said Peggy, looking at her directly.

“I guess we were," Ginger continued. "But that wasn't exactly what I meant. It’s . . . it’s never what you think it will be. I’m not sure there’s anything in life that is.”

“I thought we would do things together, and have time to be together, and talk. I thought when we got married we'd have a wonderful little place, and I'd be there waiting for him when he came home at night. But he goes to school during the day and works at the gas station nights. And I work all day at the Boston Store. Three or four nights a week he doesn't come home until I'm already in bed, and he's in the condition he's in now. The little time we do have together we're trying to figure out how to pay the bills."

"My mother used to say that when the bills flew in the window, love . . . ," Ginger stopped herself.

"Yes, I know," Peggy laughed soundlessly, a bitter laugh. "That's what I meant about Dreamland."

Moe might have heard what she was saying, or perhaps, in some form, he sensed it. He turned toward Peggy, put his arm around her bare shoulders, and pulled her close against him.

“And I have the best little wife in all the world," he said, looking around the table and raising his voice so that everyone could hear. "Pardon, pardon me, Ginger, I know that you're a wife. You're a great wife – not that you're my wife. Now, Ed, believe me, I don't know anything about her that way.”

The men all laughed, including Ed Jones.

Peggy was alarmed. Moe was encouraged. "But I know a secret. It's supposed to be a secret. It’s a Valentine’s secret; that's what it is. But I know I can tell you, because you're all our friends, and I'm so happy about – w e're so happy, I mean, Peg. We can tell them, can't we? It's Valentine's Day. I want to tell everbody here how much I love my wife."

"No, Morgan, don't. Please,” Peggy begged, looking at him and pulling back a little from him in her embarrassment.

"Oh, it's all right, Peg. I'm gonna have a baby." The men laughed again . "Oh-Oh. I guess it slipped out, Peg." There was general laughter around the table, and even the table next to them. Only Peggy and Ginger didn't laugh.

“I mean we’re gonna have . . . baby,” Moe added quickly, pulling his wife back to him and kissing her wetly on the left cheek. “You're gonna have a baby! Our baby.”

Peggy was furious. Her face was crimson with embarrassment, and she felt as if she might burst out in tears.

The men were offering Moe their congratulations, leering, and slapping him on the back. "Mighty man!” she heard Rhys tell him.

"It's wonderful," Annie said, leaning across the table toward her. Ginger took Peggy's hand and squeezed it.

"I think it's time for us to go," Peggy said in a tone that Moe had come to recognize over the past few months. He felt suddenly cold. "Please ask the waiter for our check," she added.

"Well, I guess I. . . done it," Moe said to no one in particular.

 

MOE IS IN TROUBLE

 

When the waiter came, he said, “My wife's not feeling well. Get us our damn check!"

They got up and walked to the cloakroom. Ginger and then Annie followed. Ed, Boots and Rhys accompanied Moe, a step behind.

"Don't worry," Ed told him. "These things happen. She'll be fine tomorrow. And, hey, it's great news! You're the first."

When Moe and Peggy had left, the others started back to the table. The band was playing a slow tune. Boots stopped at the edge of the dance floor, and then led Annie out on it. Ed put his arm around Ginger, and they, too, took a few waltz steps, but she didn't want to continue.

Rhys sat down next to Kitty.

"That was nice, wasn't it?" he said.

"I think he had too much to drink,” she replied.

"Yeah, I guess he did. Seems like you oughta be able to celebrate something like that though."

"I suppose so. I think I would have been a little embarrassed." She blushed. "I mean . . . when I'm married."

"Want to dance? The band's gonna quit."

After that, the evening broke up. Each of the men paid his own check. The women waited, then accompanied the men to the cloakroom to get their coats and hats. From there, they went out into the cold.

"We're stopping at McDermott's on the way home," Boots said as they started across the parking lot. "What do you say? Ed? Rhys?” He had left his car at Annie's, and they had driven to Fogarty's with Harry and Sue, because the two girls worked together and were good friends.

"Kitty has a curfew. I have to get her back to the nurses' home," Rhys said. "We'll catch you another time."

When they left the others at Fogarty's, after the Valentine's dance, Rhys Lewis drove down Union Street to Wyoming Avenue. A few blocks farther on, when they came to the Top Hat Diner, Rhys asked her if she wanted to stop for coffee. He asked her because she was pretty and warm, and he wanted to show her off and spend a few minutes more with her before he had to take her back to the nurses' home. She smiled shyly at him, and, taking that for an affirmative, he parked his father's Ford on the southbound side of Wyoming Avenue, almost across from the Westmoor Theater. They were in front of the Little Candy Shoppe, and, as Rhys helped her out of the car, Kitty's glance fell for a moment on the display of Valentine hearts and candy in the window.

 

A ROMANTIC GIRL

 

She was a romantic girl, an Irish girl, as you can probably imagine. The months she had spent alone in her room, listening to the afternoon soap operas on the radio and dreaming of boys and imaginary loves, had opened her heart to a yearning that made her whole body ache more than when she had the fever. Even though it was a first date, a blind date on Valentine's Day arranged by Ginger Jones, Rhys had somehow touched Kitty's heart. Her green eyes shone brightly, and her skin seemed to glow with the warmth of what she was feeling.

As they crossed Wyoming Avenue to the diner, with its big top hat in lavender neon out front, Kitty clung to his right arm. Inside, stainless steel cases and counters gleamed. Men in suits and women in dresses sat talking in a half dozen leatherette-upholstered booths. Most, like Kathleen and Rhys, had been out to Valentine's dances and were savoring a last moment before going home. Rhys guided her to a booth facing the window, and they ordered coffee.

Kathleen had a special late curfew because of Valentine's Day, and they still had half an hour.

"I had a great time tonight," she said.

"The band was really good, wasn't it?"

"You're a good dancer."

"You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," Rhys blurted out.

Kitty blushed, heightening the color in her cheeks.

"I'm not beautiful," she said. "I was an ugly duckling in high school."

"I think you're beautiful," he told her. "Would you go out with me again?"

She looked down at her hands, shyly.

"Oh, yes,” she said.

 

**

 

Well, in fact, that’s the way it began. Kitty agreed to go to the movies with him the following Monday. So, on Monday night Rhys called for Kitty at the nurses’ home shortly after eight o'clock. It was an old frame building whose walls knew many secrets and had watched nearly three generations of girls become women, listening all the while, sympathetically but without comment, to their laughter and their tears.

          "You look beautiful," Rhys told her when she came down the stairs to the livingroom where the student nurses were allowed to meet their dates.

Kitty was wearing a tailored green skirt and a jacket with a narrow, turned-up collar, whose flared cuffs stopped just below her elbows. On Saturday, to go with the skirt and jacket ensemble, she and Barrie Mascioli, her roommate, had walked up to the Public Square and bought a new beige print blouse without a collar. She had worked a 12-hour shift at the hospital, until seven o'clock. Then she had just enough time to shower, do her nails and fix her short brown hair, which was back from her face and brushed up on the sides.

Rhys helped her with her coat. It was soft gray with a high, wide collar and cuffs. Kitty signed out, and they went down the steps to the car.

"Did you have a good day?" Rhys asked as they drove down Hazle Street to South Main.

"We're having OB classes," she told him. "I helped with two deliveries."

'You mean, you were helping deliver babies?"

"Well, I was the circulating nurse with Mrs. Francis. I was just there to observe with Mrs. Zoner."

"What's it like to see a baby born?" Rhys asked her.

"It's wonderful. I really like OB. One minute there's nothing, and the next minute there's a new life."

"Don't the women have a lot of pain?"

"They do in labor, especially at the end, but they forget it later. Once they go into the delivery room, they get anesthesia. We try to do it just before the baby is born, so it won't be sleepy and have trouble breathing."

 

THE PARAMOUNT

 

They had reached the Public Square. To park in the lot behind the Paramount theater, Rhys had to go past it on the Square, then drive a short block across East Market Street. Then he would turn right at Washington Street, which was one-way, and pull into the lot.

"I'll drop you off here in front of the theater and park the car," he told her when they came around the Public Square.

"I'd be glad to walk back with you," she said, glancing at him.

"That's okay. Look, the line's pretty long. Would you mind saving us a place until I get there?"

The movie was "Never a Dull Moment" with Irene Dunne and Fred MacMurray. Rhys parked and, taking a shortcut, jogged through an alley that came out two doors up from the theater. When he reached the place where Kitty was standing in line, there were still nine couples ahead of them.

“Why don' t you go into the lobby and sit down?" he suggested, hoping that she wouldn't. "It will only be a few minutes. I'll be right in.”

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling and putting her arm through his. "I'd rather be with you."

The Paramount theater was a palace. Even the sidewalk on which they were standing was intricately patterned pink Italian marble. The marquee overhead spanned 50 feet and had thousands of crystalline lights, all of them moving in sequence, like flowing water. The theater's front facade was bronze and stainless steel, as was the ticket booth, which stood under the marquee as an island on the Terrazzo sidewalk. Behind it was a 50-foot expanse of 10 polished bronze and glass doors that moviegoers passed through on their way into the theater.

The line had brought them up to the ticket booth. Rhys paid $1.50 for two loge seats. After buying their tickets, he and Kitty paused for a moment at one of the gleaming display windows on either side of the entrance to see the coming attractions.

"Look," Kitty said, "'All About Eve' is coming. I'm dying to see that."

"You don't have to die," he laughed. "I'll take you."

She blushed. "I didn't mean. . .   .”

"Will you go with me?" Rhys continued.

"Yes,” she said, looking up at him and holding his arm tighter.

A doorman in a brass-buttoned uniform, wearing a long maroon coat, opened one of the heavy bronze doors. Plush maroon ropes guided them through the first lobby, the promenade with it’s fluted columns, past blue upholstered benches and rose-tinted mirrors, to a second, almost identical set of bronze doors. There a uniformed usher took their tickets, handed Rhys the stubs, and opened the door for them, passing them into the theater's three-story rotunda.

The rotunda was decorated in a Byzantine style, with pastel colors laid over walls of gold. Red tones predominated in its deep pile carpeting. Above, an immense glass chandelier with facets of emerald, sapphire and ruby illuminated the huge room. At one side was a popcorn and refreshment stand. Behind it and on the other side, wide, carpeted staircases with bronze and chromium railings rose to the mezzanine. Even moviegoers who would sit on the orchestra level often went up to the mezzanine to lean against the bronze railings, gaze down on the crowded lobby, and enjoy the romance of their evening out.

Loge seats were off the mezzanine, at the front of the balcony. The low-ceilinged mezzanine was darker than the Paramount's outer lobbies, as if the theater's architect had intended to prepare the eyes for the darkness of the auditorium. There were couches and banquettes upholstered in blue velour. A water fountain on the wall was black onyx. Men waited there while their dates went into the women's lounge to fix their make-up. The lounge was a lovely room, finished in natural birch with mohair furniture and closed, silver-gray Venetian blinds set in the windowless walls. Herons and fawns also decorated the walls, and there were rose-tinted mirrors and velvet-upholstered chairs and couches

When Kitty returned, a uniformed usher with an Eveready flashlight guided them to the loge, where the seats were wide apart and restful as easy chairs. Rhys helped Kitty with her coat and pulled off his own brown topcoat.

"This is wonderful!" she said.

 

THE EYES AND EARS OF THE WORLD

 

When the movie began, the curtains pulled back electrically from the wide screen – the Paramount had been completely remodeled the previous September. They watched a Paramount newsreel, "The Eyes and Ears of the World.” The newsreel opened with the devastation tornadoes had wrought in four southern states – Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. The camera swept across scenes showing blocks and blocks of houses torn apart like the Plasticville houses under a Christmas tree. The narration said the storms had killed 44 people, including six members of one Tennessee family – and pointed out the irony that the name of the town where it had happened was Hurricane Hills. Observing Lincoln's birthday, President and Mrs. Truman had laid a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Next the newsreel showed the Jersey Joe Walcott fight with Harold Johnson; Johnson had taken a controversial dive in the third round, and the state athletic commission had held up the purse for both fighters. Finally, John L. Lewis, the bushy-eyebrowed president of the United Mine Workers, celebrating his seventieth birthday in Arlington, Virginia, said that he had told striking soft-coal miners to return to work.

Next came the cartoons, and they laughed at Bugs Bunny – Kitty liked the way Rhys laughed. He had slipped his arm across the back of her seat, and she glanced at him when he wasn't looking.

Then came the feature. It was a romantic comedy. Beautiful Irene Dunne met and married Fred McMurray. She had come from New York, where she was a successful songwriter; and, as the movie went along, she had to adapt to her husband's flannel shirt and blue jeans life out west in the mountains of Wyoming. There were ups and downs, and she got into a lot of trouble, but it worked out all right in the end.

There was a circular clock, lighted with lavender neon, on the right side of the theater, and it was almost eleven when the movie ended. They had an hour before Kitty had to return to the nurses' home. They walked back to the car with Rhys's arm around her.

"I'd like to live out west," Kitty said as they were walking.

"So you liked the movie?" Rhys asked her.

"Yes. It was good.”

"That was nice country, out west. I could live there."

"There’s nothing like we have here, with all the burning culm banks. I 'd learn to ski, and I’d hike in the mountains."

"We could go hiking here. I could take you up to Buttermilk Falls."

"Where's that."

 

HUNTING RABBITS

 

"On Russell's Mountain. It's not a bad hike. The water from the falls comes down – it must be 150 feet. Boots and I go there sometimes when we're rabbit hunting."

"Do you have a dog? You need a dog to hunt rabbits, don't you?"

"Yeah, I have old Pudge."

"What kind of a dog is he? Is it a he?"

Rhys laughed. "Oh, yeah. Pudge is a he. He's a hound dog. He's a good hunter. He has big old floppy brown ears. He flushes rabbits out like you can't believe."

"Do you eat them?" Kitty looked at him.

"Yeah, I like rabbit. Didn't you ever have it?"

"Oh, yes. I like it too. I haven't had it too often. No one in our family hunts. I guess Del did years ago. But I only have two sisters."

          "You could go out with us next fall, if you wanted to."

          They were at the car. Rhys opened the door for her, then went around to the driver's side. She leaned over and unlocked it.

"Do you want to go for a barbecue?" he asked her, starting the car and turning on the heater.

Kitty smiled and slid across the seat next to him. She wanted to be with him as long as she could. "Mmmmmmmm! A ham barbecue and french fries," she said.

He drove down Washington Street, then over to South Main, and from there to Carey Avenue. They passed Myers High School, where he had scored two touchdowns in the last game of his senior season. It seemed like a million years ago.

The Half Circle Barbecue had curb service, and it was famous for its large barbecue sandwiches. They were 35 cents. Rhys asked for two ham barbecues, an order of french fries, and two cokes. Even at 11:15 there were a lot of cars in the parking lot.

"I hope we get served fast," Kitty said, glancing at the green dial of the dashboard clock. "I have to be back by twelve."

"Like Cinderella," Rhys teased her.

She blushed. They looked at each other for a long moment, and he kissed her. It was a tentative kiss, a gentle kiss. He only just touched her lips. There was soft music on the radio.

She inched closer to him, and put her arms around his neck. She kissed him and pulled him closer. He was warm and he smelled of Old Spice aftershave, like Del's. Her face felt flushed. She felt as if she were going to melt, as if all of the things she'd ever hoped for were coming true. She was beautiful. She was Irene Dunne in the arms of Fred MacMurray.

She was sorry when the barbecues came.

"Would you like to go up to Buttermilk Falls?" Rhys asked her as they were eating.

"I'd like to. Yes," she told him. "When?"

"How about Saturday?"

"What if it rains?"

"There's an old cabin up there. We can get in out of the rain if we have to. Maybe Boots and Annie would go too."

"We could pack a picnic lunch."

 

A LAST KISS

 

         They came up Dana Street at eight minutes to twelve.

" There's a place to park," Kitty pointed a few doors below the wintergreen-colored nurses' home. It was the residence of a city judge in the early years of the century, before the hospital had bought it to train nurses. There was an empty space directly in front of the building, but no girl coming home ever had her date stop there, where Mrs. Morgan, the housemother, could see them from the wide front window.

Rhys turned off the key, and reached over to kiss her one more time. Kitty relaxed in his arms, enjoying the kiss and running her left hand up behind his head and into his black hair. She felt a wonderful warmth below her diaphragm.

"You take my breath away!" she told him.

"I'm sorry . . . ."

"No, I like it. I like it!"

She brought her face close to his, and they kissed again. She opened her mouth a little and touched the tip of her tongue against his lips. He hugged her tighter, touching his tongue to hers. She twisted slightly in the seat and slid her upper body in front of him, so that he was holding her. He pulled her tightly against his chest, and they kissed even more deeply.

"I have to go," she finally told him, her voice shaking a little. "I don't want to, but I have to. It's almost twelve."

She sat up and straightened her skirt.

"I had a really good time," she said, feeling almost as if she would cry.

"So did I. I love being with you. Do you want to go to Buttermilk Falls on Saturday?"

"I'd love to. I'll make some sandwiches."

"Or we could build a campfire and cook hot dogs and buns, too."

"I'll bring some hot dogs and buns."

They got out of the car, and Rhys walked with her up the steps to the front porch of the nurses' home. There was a place beyond the window, just before they got to the door, where a girl and her date were out of sight of Mrs. Morgan. They stopped. She lifted her face to him. Rhys put his arms around her, and they kissed one last time.

 

ANOTHER TIME

 

After that, the two of them got more serious. In their time, of course, I couldn’t have told you what happened next. But we’re not in those times anymore, and, with people having hook-ups and such things now, I’m going to tell it like it happened, even though you might not approve. I might not approve.

Anyway, Del Searfoss had read the Joe Palooka comic strip, and he was reading Major Hoople in the Times Leader , as he did every night, when Rhys Lewis knocked at the door.

"Is Kitty at home?" asked the young man standing on the porch, when the door opened.

Del backed a step into the living room. "Kitty!" he called up the stairs.

"Ask him to come in, Del. I'll be right down."

"Come in, Mr. . . ?”

"Uh, yes. Thank you. I'm Rhys Lewis."

Dressed in his brown topcoat, his hat in his hands, Rhys stood in the small livingroom.

"Cold out, for March," Del observed.

"Yes sir. It is. And there's still some ice in the streets."

"You need to be careful driving."

Mary O’Donnell had come into the room. "This is Mrs. O’Donnell," Del introduced her.

"You're Rhys!" she said, smiling with approval and a distant memory at his black hair and his ruddy cheeks.

"Yes, ma'am. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Kitty told us you'd be by." She gestured toward the other upholstered chair. "Why don't we sit down? Let me take your coat and hat."

Rhys heard Kitty's high heels on the stairs. Then she was in the room, her face beaming. She held her coat out to Rhys. He could smell her perfume.

"Don't you want to sit down for a moment?" Kitty’s mother asked her.

"We're a little late, Mom. We're going to Hottle's to get something before the show. Rhys, you met my mother and Del?"

"Yes," he said amiably, reaching for the doorknob. "It was a pleasure meeting you."

Kitty slipped through the door in front of him, and they went down the four steps from the porch. She could see her mother and Del standing together in the doorway, looking after them. Then Del turned to get his coat. Her sisters were at a basketball game.

When they were in the car, she pulled herself close and kissed him on the cheek.

"Mmmmmm! You look great!" he told her, pleased at the kiss.

She was wearing a rust-colored velveteen pleated skirt and weskit combination with an ivory blouse under the weskit. Rhys turned on the radio, driving down North Main Street and halfway around the Public Square. He could see a Saturday-night line in front of the Paramount for "Pardon My Sarong," the Abbott and Costello movie. Four long avenues led to and from the square: East and West Market streets and North and South Main. Hottle's was in the third block of South Main. After dinner, he would leave the car in Hottle's parking lot and they would stroll a block back up South Main to the Penn Theater.

 

HOTTLE’S RESTAURANT

 

Hottle's was one of the city's treasures, a place where people had gathered since the 1930s when Ray Hottle, a short man with glasses who had been a miner since his boyhood, opened his narrow restaurant at 243 South Main Street. A long line of dark wooden booths faced the bar, and Hottle was always there, making sure everyone was satisfied. Beer drinkers at the bar ate Limburger cheese sandwiches with onion slices, but patrons in the booths ordered steaks or seafood. Hottle would scurry down into the cellar himself to slice the three-quarter-pound cuts of filet mignon. The most famous item on his menu was the Buckaroo, an open-faced soft-shelled crab sandwich with two slices of crisp bacon and the sharpest cheddar cheese he could find.

Rhys and Kitty ordered scallop platters, a mound of deep-fried scallops with french fries, cole slaw, tartar sauce, bread and butter for $1.25. Tall draft glasses of Stegmaier were a quarter each.

"How was your week?" Rhys asked her.

"How was yours?"

           "Oh, it's about the same in the mines, from one week to the next. We were opening a new gallery.”

           "A what?"

  "A gallery. It's a big tunnel. We have to blast through rock. They think there's another vein of coal about a hundred yards south of where we're working. We're driving this gallery toward that area."

   She could see the fatigue in his face. "It's harder?"

   "It's always harder when we go through rock. Blast and load. Blast and load. Picking up rock is a lot harder. Rock is heavier than coal."

   She smiled at him hopefully. "I wish I could rub your shoulders. I'd make you feel better. They taught us how to give massages in training. I give a great massage," she laughed.

   "I'll sign up for that! It would beat my dad's."

   "What does he do?"

   "He rubs wintergreen on my shoulder muscles, and I rub it on his. He has the rheumatism. I've been falling asleep at seven o'clock every night."

   "Well I'll get you home really early tonight," she teased him.

   "No way! I've been looking forward to this. It's Saturday!

   Their scallops came, and they ordered another beer.

“Really,” he asked her, "what did you do this week?"

   "We had a terrible test. I studied and studied. But we all think we failed."

   "What was it in?"

   She frowned. "Anatomy. Bones and muscles. I know right where those muscles of yours are sore, believe me."

   She reached out and gently stroked the back of his right hand. She could see scratches on it, and black lines inscribed in his knuckles. As much as a miner scrubbed his hands, he could never get the coal dust out of the creases.

   The vaudeville show at the Penn started before the movie, at eight o'clock. Rhys paid the check, helped her with her coat, and they turned up South Main Street.

 

THE PENN THEATER

 

   The Penn Theater stood almost next door to the Orpheum, separated from the city's only other vaudeville theater by a single narrow building. Its facade was a wide arch of terra cotta flanked by fluted columns and female figures representing comedy and tragedy. The ticket office was inside the lobby, across from a huge mirror of French plate glass that made the space seem twice as expansive. Waiting while Rhys bought their tickets, Kitty sneaked a glance at the mirror to see if her hair was in place. From the lobby, they went through a long, narrow corridor of Carrara marble, and then, through plate glass doors, into the grand foyer with its tile floors, its high-domed ceiling, and its Italian Renaissance border.

   More than 2,000 people could sit in the Penn's main auditorium and balcony. An usher found two seats for them on the right, halfway down the orchestra aisle. High above the stage, curving around the proscenium arch, was a mural more than 50 feet wide representing the glowing dawn as the lovely Roman goddess Aurora. Rhys thought she was not more beautiful than the young woman sitting beside him.

            His father had told him of seeing Amos and Andy there in 1935. From the time he was a child.
Rhys had been to many movies and vaudeville performances at the Penn. He had laughed at Mitzi Green, the funny midget, and had been amazed by Blackstone the magician. He had seen jugglers and contortionists, the Happy Hottentots, and Ruth Etting (his father said she was famous) in an old-fashioned dress and parasol, singing "Pretty Baby."

   Men, women and children were streaming into the seats. At exactly eight o'clock the pit orchestra began playing "Bali Ha'i" from South Pacific and continued for a few minutes with a medley of other favorites, concluding with "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from the movie Cinderella. Next, the shimmering ruby curtains parted and a handsome man in a tuxedo stepped to the center of the stage.

   "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "the Penn Theater welcomes you to an evening of wonderful entertainment. We have singers, dancers, acrobats, and comedians from every corner of the earth.”

Rhys sneaked a glance at Kitty. She had a straight, smooth nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes were alight with anticipation.

   The first act was a comedy dancer in bloomers and a bob, who pranced around the stage, sang a few lines with the orchestra, and made Kitty laugh.

   Next came two cyclists, one man in a tuxedo and the other a clown in white face make-up pedaling a unicycle. At one point, a girl in a flouncy skirt rode on the clown’s shoulders.

 

VAUDEVILLE

 

   The star act was Weber and Fields, a thin comedian with a pointed goatee and a derby hat, explaining something at great length to a dimmer friend. The set behind them was the embarkation plank of a steamship, implying that these two – with their wide plaid vests and chin whiskers – had just got off the boat. Both were obviously Jewish and had what sounded like German accents.

   "You shove the knife down the oyster's throat," the thin man said. He was carrying a rolled newspaper in his right hand and he thrust it forward like a knife to demonstrate.

   "And cut his teeth out . . . ," the dimmer man responded as the audience howled.

   "No, we don't cut his teeth out," the taller man said quickly, punctuating his instruction by slapping the portly man rapidly with his newspaper, on the chin, the cheek, and the forehead. "You take him out of his overcoat. . . .”

   "Out of the overcoat. . . ?"

   "Certainly."

   "I wish I had mine. . . ," the other man said plaintively, pulling his thin jacket closer against the cold.

   "You don't need it." He slapped the portly man rapidly again, trying to hold his attention.

   "You lay the oyster down. . . .”

   "And dress it up?"

   "No! You don't dress it up. . . ." There was another round of slapping, and each time the audience laughed. "You get a can . . . .”

   The dimmer man brightened. "A can full of beer?"

   "No!" His instructor slapped him rapidly again with the newspaper, 1,2,3. "There is no beer in it!"

   "Say!" the portly man pleaded, gesturing toward the rolled newspaper. "What's that you got there?"

   "This? This is a newspaper.”

   "It felt like 'rapping paper. . . .” The audience howled.

   "That's the Evening News. . . .”

   "I thought it was a Post ."

 

   After two more acts, the vaudeville show ended. The curtains parted to reveal the screen; the emcee reappeared and urged the audience to follow the bouncing ball.

 

"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer. Do,”   they sang.

 

"I'm half crazy over the love of you.

"It won't be a stylish marriage.

"I can't afford a carriage.

"But you'll look sweet upon the seat

 

They sang a half-dozen songs, and Rhys, who enjoyed singing, was unaware that, somewhere inside her, Kitty's heart was listening to his voice. As the lights dimmed for "Madame Bovary," she snuggled her head against his.

 

FALLING IN LOVE

 

It was almost 11:30 when they reached the car. After the movie, to make the evening last longer, they had window-shopped up South Main Street and around the Public Square. They had mingled with the crowds coming out of the Paramount and the Comerford, the other theater that stood on the Square.

They had been tempted to go into the Betsy Ross for a late-night cup of coffee, but Kitty demurred.

"Let's go home," she had said quickly.

And so they had walked back to the car and made the ten-minute drive back to her house.

There was a light in the front window.

         "Would you like to come in?" Kitty asked, her heart beating rapidly, afraid he would not want to.

         "Your family . . . ," Rhys began.

         She kissed him encouragingly. "They're asleep. They go to bed at eleven."

         He came around and opened the door for her and put his arm around her waist as they crossed the porch. The front door was unlocked.

         "Would you like something warm to drink?" she asked. "It'll only take a minute."

         "Yes," he replied. "The walk got to me at the end."

         "Cold?"

         "A little."

         "Come here and stand over our pipeless furnace."

         There was a grate in the floor between the parlor and the dining room. Even though the furnace fire was already banked for the night, warm air was still rising from it. He stepped onto the grate and immediately felt warm. Kitty stood close, and put her arms around him. She lifted her lips to his, and they kissed. Then she snuggled her head against his neck and felt the warmth of his arms encircling her. "I have to put the kettle on," she whispered. "I'll just be a minute. Why don't you find some music on the radio?"

         From where he was standing, he could watch her go to the kitchen. She reached up, pulled the ceiling chain, and the globe light went on. He could see the white enamel gas stove. She took a wooden match from the box, turned on the gas, and the burner popped on.

         She had baked a rum cake that afternoon, carefully slicing across the two layers, mixing the rum into the half full jar of homemade blackberry preserves, spreading the mixture between the layers, and then putting the layers together again. She stepped out onto the back porch, found the cake tin, and, bringing it in, placed the cake on the kitchen table. The white confectioner's sugar that she had sprinkled over it made the cake look like something elegant as it sat on her mother's pink crystal plate.

         In the parlor, Rhys had turned toward the window and had lighted a Lucky Strike. Kitty could smell the cigarette smoke and see his outline in the half-darkness of the room. She could hear the radio playing softly.

         Before going out, she had set her mother's finely decorated Irish tea service and two bone china cups and saucers on the cupboard. As the water boiled in the kettle she filled the tea ball from the canister and sliced the rum cake. Then she filled the creamer with milk and set it, along with two linen napkins and teaspoons, on her mother's polished wooden tray. A brace of tiny shamrocks decorated the teapot, the creamer, and the sugar bowl. "Lace-curtain Irish," Del would laugh when – once or twice a year – her mother brought out the tea service.

 

RUM CAKE

 

         Kitty poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot, arranged everything nicely on the tray, and carried it into the parlor. Rhys, who had been sitting on the davenport, stood up when she entered and reached to help her with the tray.

         "My mother made a rum cake this afternoon," Kitty told him modestly. "I hope you like it."

         "I've never had rum cake," he said. "It looks good."

         His family permitted no alcohol in their house. He had never tasted rum. The cake smelled slightly overpowering.

         Kitty sat beside him on the davenport, reached for the teapot, and poured the wine-dark tea into their cups. Then she passed him a slice of the rum cake and spread the napkin on her lap.

         She was thinking about the movie. She had cried at the end when Jennifer Jones took her life. But now the scene that kept coming back to her was a memory of the ball, the gorgeous dresses, the mirrors, and the opulence of the room.

         "I liked the movie," she said, tasting the cake.

         "That guy was a real jerk," Rhys said. "She gave up a lot for him, and then he just threw her over."

         "She loved him."

         "But she shouldn't have. He wasn't worth it."

         "I think that's the way it was for my mother," Kitty said   "My father drank himself to death. But she loved him."

         "How old were you when he died?"

         "Four. I don't really remember him. Only one thing: he took us to Nay Aug Park and tried to teach me how to swim. I remember laughing and splashing around. We weren't in deep water, and I had fun. He was very gentle with me."

         "That's a nice memory." The cake's strong rum taste bit his tongue. After a few bites, he found he liked it.

         "Will you have another slice?" Kitty asked him, noticing that he had finished it.

         "Oh, no. I'm full. It was really good."

         "Do you mind if I smoke?" Kitty asked him.

         "No, of course."

         "Can I borrow one of yours?"

         "Sure," he replied, taking out his pack.

         He lighted the cigarette for her, and one for himself. They leaned back against the davenport, relaxing.

         "I had a wonderful time tonight. I like . . . ," she hesitated.

         "What?”

         "I like being with you," she said, blushing.

 

SEEMED LIKE HEAVEN

 

         He looked at her, and then, pulling her close, he kissed her. She felt her face flush. She put her cigarette in the ashtray and wrapped her lovely arms tightly around his neck as he kissed her again. She felt a stirring deep inside her and a warmth that seemed like heaven. She turned slightly so that she was facing him and pressed tightly against his chest. She could feel the nipples of her breasts hardening, and she was embarrassed.

         They kissed and kissed again. His tongue began to explore hers, and, each time it did, she felt the sensations shoot through her. He rubbed his right hand up and down her back as if he were giving her the most wonderful massage. After a while, he moved his hand farther down and found the gentle curve of her buttocks.

She had never let anyone touch her that way before, but she wanted Rhys to.

"Mmmmmmmm!" she whispered softly. He kept stroking his hand up and down over the curve and then, finally, he reached farther down and, finding the soft hem of her dress, pulled it and her silk slip slowly up the back of her legs. She closed her eyes, feeling the material inch upward until her legs and then her bottom was exposed. He stroked her buttocks, now covered only by her girdle and her panties, and her body tensed as she felt his fingers working their way down between her legs. She shifted slightly, and he found the way open. She could feel herself getting moist. Then he kissed her harder and pressed her closer to him. His fingers touched the secret part of her.

         She was frightened.

         "Oh Rhys! I want to! I want to so much! But we can't here. I've never done it. There'll be blood, and I might cry out. Please, let's wait. I didn't intend to go this far."

         He looked at her, seeming not to understand her.

         "Oh, I'm so sorry! I know this is bad for you, but we can't do it here. We can't!

         "Okay," he said slowly. "Just let me calm down a little.

 

A GLORIOUS TIME

 

         Well, you can’t make babies if that’s all the farther you go. I started off this story telling you about St. Patrick’s Day. Mary O’Donnell, with her sister and brother and Del Searfoss, and the three girls, sat around the table eating their corned beef and cabbage, drinking their beer, and singing their Irish songs. And whether it was then or whether it is now, I have to confess that in our Irish families, on St. Patrick’s Day especially, things occasionally get out of hand: high spirits take the reins, y’know: words are said, feelings are hurt, oaths are hurled, curses are flung back – Oh it’s a glorious time, b’gora! And that’s the way it was that St. Patrick’s Day.

         One thing led to another. Marian and Betsy slipped away and out the door – for they had dates, and they knew what was coming. Rhys was picking up Kitty. She made an excuse and went upstairs, as she had done often enough in her day. She lay on her bed for a while and tried to block her ears against the horrid things being hissed and shouted downstairs. And I can’t but tell you she shed a silent tear or two, her faced buried in her pillow, when she hear the last curse and the door slam behind her aunt and her uncle.

         Her mother ranted and raved beneath the floor, but gradually, as he always did, Del soothed her and calmed her and cajoled her into not ruining the night completely and going as they always did on the night of St. Patrick’s Day to John White’s until he finally closed. Before they left the house, her mother called upstairs to invite her, but Kitty, who had dried her tears as she had done many times before, reminded Mary O’Donnell in a calm voice that she was waiting for Rhys and they would be going to a movie he was dying to see.      

         "Well, lock up when you go out," her mother said as Del went out the door.

 

PLANS

 

         When she was sure they had gone, Kitty tiptoed down the hall to the upstairs linen closet and found a pile of worn-out towels that her mother kept washed and clean for their beds when they had their monthly periods. She took two and went to her bedroom. Although she had lived in the front bedroom during her rheumatic fever, so that she could see things and people in the world outside the window during that long year, she now had the little bedroom that was painted with pink Kem-Tone at the back of the house. It was cozy and always warm. Kitty turned down the flannel sheet blanket and carefully laid the towels in the proper place on the bed. Next, shaking slightly with nervousness, she pulled up her skirt, undid her garter belt and took it off with her stockings. Finally, she pulled down her cotton panties and put them with her other things in the top drawer of her night table. Then, aware of the unusual sensation as she walked, she went downstairs to put music on the radio and get two bottles of Stegmaier from the only remaining case left on the back porch.

         It was but a few minutes before Rhys arrived. Kitty met him at the door, kissed him, and turned the lock.

         "Hi!” she said. "Would you mind very much if we didn't go out tonight?"

         He was disappointed. Then she continued:

         "My mom is out. Marion and Betsy are both out on dates. I'm sure they won't come home until after midnight. I thought maybe we could just sit and listen to the radio until I have to go back to the hospital."

         "Fine,” he said. "I don't care what we do, as long as I'm with you."

         "Would you like a beer?" she asked, helping him with his coat.

         "Yeah, that would be fine." He followed her into the kitchen. She took the two Stegmaiers out of the Frigidaire and found two tall draft glasses in the cupboard.

         "Would you like to dance?" she asked him after a while, when they were back in the parlor.

         Rhys took her in his arms and they swayed to the music. He kissed her and she put her cheek against his. She felt wonderful to him, and he moved his hands up and down her back. She kissed him again and touched the tip of her tongue to his. He crushed her against him and moved his hands up and down her back again, and then farther down until he was stroking the smooth curve of her buttocks. He realized suddenly that she had nothing on underneath her green skirt.

         "I want to make love to you," she whispered. "Do you have a. . . protection?"

         "Yeah," he told her, holding her close. "But your family. . . .”

         "We have time. It's Friday night. Del doesn't have to work tomorrow. On St. Paddy's Day they always stay until John White closes. I have to be back at the nurses' home at midnight, but we have time."

         She took his hand and led him through the dining room and then up the stairs. The hall was dark, but she guided him back along it to her room. Kitty had left the lamp on but had draped a gauzy blue scarf over it. The light was very dim. She kissed him again, encouragingly, and began to undo his tie. As they stood by the bed, she began to unbutton his shirt.

         Rhys pressed her to him and kissed her passionately. Then there was no time: he unbuttoned her blouse and groped blindly for the closure at the side of her skirt. Kitty took his right hand and helped him find it. When he did, her skirt fell to the floor and she stood there in her slip. She found his belt buckle and started to open it, but he wanted her to turn around so that he could take off her slip and her bra. She obeyed shyly, and, reaching down, he lifted the rayon slip up and up, until it was at her throat. Then, as he worked to undo the clasp of her bra, she pulled the slip over her head and took it off.

She was still standing with her back to him. He pressed against her and she could feel the hardness of him against her bare bottom. She felt sick with anticipation, and suddenly she was afraid she might faint. Her legs felt like rubber. She let her body rest against his, and, reaching around her, he put his hands under the loose bra and cupped them over her warm breasts. He could feel her erect nipples. She slipped quickly onto the bed and under the covers.

Rhys tore off his undershirt, kicked off his shoes and pushed his trousers and underpants down together. Kitty looked and turned her head quickly away.

"The . . . ?" she asked, afraid he might forget.

"Rubber?” he said. He picked up his trousers, reached into his back pocket for his wallet, and found the rolled-up condom. He put it on quickly and eased himself into the narrow bed beside her.

Kitty moved into his arms and raised her right leg over his. He kissed her again and again and moved his hands up and down over her body. He found her breast, and, bending his mouth to it, sucked on her nipple.

         "Mmmmmmm!” she almost cried out. "Ohhhhhhhh! Darling!"

         `Her body tensed as he worked his fingers down between her legs. She buried her face against his neck, feeling as if she were on fire.

         "Ohhhhhhhh!” she murmured, wanting him in a way she had never felt before.

         Then his fingers touched her, going back and forth. His mouth was on hers, and she had all she could do to get her breath. Even so, the sensations she was feeling were wonderful and she didn't want them to stop. She felt her body begin to grow very tense.

         "Ohhhhhhhh!” she breathed, clinging to him.

         He was licking her ear and moving his lips up and down the love line on her neck that always made her shiver.

         She placed her hands on his arms, pulling him to her. "Please. . . . now,” she whispered.

         "Are you sure?" Rhys asked her. Then, "What about the mess?"

  "It's okay," Kitty assured him. She drew up her legs for him. For a moment he saw a look in her eyes that was partly fear, partly anticipation.

"Ready?” he asked her gently a moment later.

          Lying beneath him, she nodded and covered her eyes with her forearm.

"I love you," Rhys murmured. Then he moved forward. She spread her legs more and drew her knees up farther. Almost immediately, as he thrust against her, she felt the sharp pain and knew he was breaking her hymen. She gripped his arms and put her mouth against his shoulder to keep from crying out. And suddenly, from something a woman at the hospital had once told her, she remembered the words: “A woman must pluck the first fruits of pleasure from the thorns of the rose."

Rhys suddenly withdrew. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she nodded.

"I can't quite get it in. You're very . . . tight."

She tried to spread her legs wider.

Rhys moved his hand to his mouth. She could see her blood on his fingers.

"Wipe it on the towel," she told him quickly.

It went in easier then. She felt it again inside her, a living presence. She realized she couldn't feel the penis itself, but pressure between her hips, as if it were splitting her open. Despite the pain, she tried to move with him as he pumped in and out, in and out.

"Ohhhhhhhh!” she cried, "Ohhhhhhhhh!”

Then she felt Rhys thrusting harder. She looked up at him and saw in his eyes a look of satisfaction and helpless gratitude that she knew she would never forget. She could feel his body stiffening as he approached his climax.

"I'm coming! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!” Rhys gasped.

He stiffened and began to jerk. One, two, three, four, five, six, she counted his spasms and felt the pressure of his body between her hips. She held him close until he stopped and lay still. Her legs were shaking. Perspiration drenched both of them. Her throat was hot and dry.

She felt his lips softly against her cheek. Then they lay together and were still for a long time.

**

 

Well, as you know, the novel from which all this comes is a love story and you can read it on Amazon. The story of my cousin Kitty O’Donnell and Rhys Lewis is a great love story, and, by and by if you want, I’ll tell you more of it.

With respects, from her cousin Mike O’Donnell.

 

TO BE CONTINUED