dreamed of feeling his legs fly out from under him and his hip hitting hard against the dirt as he slid into home plate. He dreamed of going up for a slam dunk and hanging off the hoop. He dreamed of hunting rifles, fishing rods, soft flannel shirts, and blue jeans. But the aunts' duckings and warnings and sighings held him in gentle, unbreakable bondage.
Only in the classroom was it possible to let himself go, and no matter how much the other boys taunted him, he refused to rein in his quick mind. He answered questions in class, did extra-credit projects, and got the best marks in sixth grade.
When he was fourteen, his voice dropped and his muscles thickened. Almost overnight, he shot up until he towered over his aunts' small, birdlike bodies. His wheezing disappeared, but they continued to pet him. They made him wear a white shirt and tie for his first day of high school. Freshman year brought academic brilliance and gut- wrenching, aching loneliness.
The summer before his sophomore year, he was walking home from helping his aunts teach Vacation Bible School when a moving van and a paneled station wagon pulled up to the white clapboard house next to his own. The doors of the station wagon opened, and a man and a woman got out. Then a pair of long, suntanned legs emerged, followed by frayed denim cutoffs. He held his breath and watched as a beautiful girl close to his own age appeared before him. Her hair was arranged in a sprayed blond bubble kept neatly back from her face with a madras headband. She had a pert nose and soft mouth. A man's blue work shirt clung to a pair of high pointy breasts.
She turned to study the neighborhood and her eyes fell on him. He waited for the condescending sneer, the look of superiority, and could barely believe it when she gave him a shy smile. He walked closer, wishing the bible and curriculum book he was holding at his side would become invisible.
'Hi,' she said.
'How do you do?' he replied, and immediately cursed himself for not being more casual. But he didn't know how to be easy like the other guys.
She looked down at the sidewalk. He spotted a little speck of dandelion fluff caught in the top of her blond bubble, and had to fight back a nearly irresistible urge to brush it away. As she continued to stare at the sidewalk, he realized that she was shy, and he felt a great surge of protectiveness toward her.
'I'm Mitchell Blaine,' he said, using the skills that had become second nature to him after nearly a decade of deportment classes. 'I live next door. Welcome to the neighborhood.'
She looked back up at him. Only a dab of soft pink lipstick remained at the bow of her upper lip. She had eaten the rest away. 'Mitch?' she inquired.
No one had ever called him Mitch except the parents he barely remembered. He was Mitchell. Mitchell- Mitchell-Diaper Boy.
'Yes,' he said. 'My name is Mitch.'
'I'm Candy Fuller.'
They stood on the front sidewalk and talked awkwardly. Candy and her family were from Chillicothe, and she would be a sophomore at Clearbrook High that September, part of the class of '64, just like he was. Candy had been a junior varsity cheerleader at her old school, and she wanted to cheer for Clearbrook this year. When they finally parted, Mitch felt as if his life had begun all over again.
For the rest of that summer they met every evening after dinner on the old metal bench beneath his aunts' grape arbor. Candy had to wash the dishes before she could come outside, and she always smelled like Joy detergent. They sat on the bench with the flat dark grape leaves curling about their heads and they talked.
Candy spoke of the friends she had left behind in Chillicothe and her worries that she might not be able to make the varsity cheerleading squad at Clearbrook High. Mitch talked about how he'd like to have his own car and whether or not he would be able to get a scholarship to college. He kept the darker bitterness of his life hidden away, out of fear that her affection for him would turn to disgust.
The adoration in Candy Fuller's deep blue eyes grew stronger every evening. Her reaction left Mitch breathless. No girl had ever looked at him that way. His stomach cramped as he remembered that Candy was from Chilli-cothe. She didn't know about the sissy boy, the diaper baby who wasn't allowed to play sports. All she saw when she gazed at him was a tall, lean fifteen-year-old, with sandy hair, light blue eyes, and a broad, handsome face.
They lived in splendid isolation through those dog days of summer, drenched in the scent of grapes and Joy and the infinite, unspoken promise of young love. The night before school started, they were quieter than normal, each sensing the changes that the next day would bring. Candy scratched a thin white line in the suntan on the top of her thigh.
'I don't hate moving here anymore, Mitch. This month, it's been special. Meeting you. But I'm scared about tomorrow. I'll bet all the girls at school are crazy about you.'
He shrugged, trying to act cool, although his heart was thumping so hard it was painful.
She studied the toe of her once-white sneaker and her voice began to quiver. 'I'm afraid you won't still like me after school starts.'
He couldn't believe it. This soft, pretty, bubble-haired cheerleader with her sweet mouth and pointy breasts was afraid that she would lose him. The stirring of emotions that gripped his chest was the sweetest pain he had ever experienced. 'I'll still like you tomorrow,' he murmured. 'I'll always like you.'
She tilted her face up to him, and he realized that she wanted him to kiss her. Closing his eyes, he leaned forward and touched that sweet Candy-scented mouth with his own. Although dark, sexual thoughts of her had tormented him for weeks, the kiss was pure. It was a gesture of adoration, a symbol of promise, a farewell to summer.
'Will you walk me to school tomorrow?' she asked when they finally drew apart. Her eyes were large and beseeching, as if she still wasn't certain that he cared for her.
'Of course,' he replied. He would have walked with her to the moon.
And then they kissed again. This time it was different. Their mouths met hungrily. Their young bodies joined with a raw, untried passion. He felt the thrusts of her young breasts against his chest and the small bumps of her spine beneath his fingertips. Dark longings raced through his body and heated his blood. A man's need surged through him, its urgency blocking out everything but the feel of Candy's body pressed next to his.
'You can touch my chest if you want,' she whispered.
He couldn't believe he'd heard her right. For several seconds he did nothing, and then he gingerly slid his hand between their bodies. The well-worn fabric of her blouse was soft beneath his palm. When she didn't stop him, he let his hand creep upward, still staying outside her blouse. He felt the bump that marked the bottom edge of her bra and waited in agony for her to push him away.
But she didn't move. He slid his fingers higher until he touched the slope of her breast. Through the fabric of her blouse and the sponginess of her padded bra, his hand closed over her. He groaned and held the soft mound as if it were a fragile baseball. They kissed and he gently kneaded it. The Fuller's back porch light snapped on and they sprang apart.
Her eyes were misty with the depth of her feelings for him. 'I never let a boy do that to me,' she whispered. 'Don't tell anybody.'
He shook his head and silently pledged to keep the precious gift she had given him their secret forever.
At seven-thirty the next morning, she met him on her front porch. He could see that she was embarrassed about what had happened between them the night before, and he was overwhelmed by her fragility. She was so vulnerable, so needful of his protection. As he watched the tip of her tongue flick nervously over her lips, he determined to shield her from all the spiteful demons at Clearbrook High.
'Do I look all right?' she asked, as if her entire future depended on his response.
He took in her white blouse with its gold circle pin on the collar and her pleated green plaid skirt. 'You'll be the prettiest girl in the sophomore class,' he replied earnestly.
They walked to school hand in hand, her small fingers curled through his bigger ones. He felt the morning sun warming his face, and shortened his strides so she could keep up. His shoulders drew back. A slight swagger appeared in his walk. With Candy Fuller walking at his side, he was no longer Mitchell Blaine. He was Mitch. Mitch the Indestructible. Mitch the Mighty. Mitch the Manliest of the Manly.
'Do you think the other kids will like me?' she asked.
An uneasiness passed through him, a vague foreboding. But he was Mitch the Fearless, Mitch the Brave, and he
