Leaving Serenity Read Online Free PDF Page A

the summer at football camp, and Adam started college in Chapel Hill. Mama busied herself with Vacation Bible School and Garden Club fund-raisers. Daddy swam four laps in the pool every morning and spent his afternoons playing golf. The silent meals we shared that summer revealed how little my parents and I talked to one another.
    I helped Mama around the house and lounged by the swimming pool. While listening to my favorite 45 rpm record, “ California Dreamin ’,” by The Mamas & The Papas, I did some of my own dreaming. I thought about hitchhiking to California and becoming an extra on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In . I pondered over catching the Greyhound bus to New York and becoming a star like Neely, my favorite character in Valley Of The Dolls . I danced to Tom Jones’ s “Delilah” in front of the mirror behind my bedroom door and dreamed of becoming a dancer in Las Vegas. My fantasies made the summer fly by quickly. Before I knew it, Beth and Jeff were dragging their stuff in the front door, and it was time to enter the tenth grade.
    Homecoming Game 1970
    I sat on the wooden bleachers in my family’s regular spot. A foggy haze crept across the floodlights around the football stadium on that pitch dark night. Beth floated across the playing field on Daddy’s arm. He lifted her hand as she climbed onto the stage and accepted a dozen red roses wrapped in green tissue paper. Beth’s beautiful white evening gown glistened under the lights. My sister was pretty and popular enough to be voted Serenity High’s homecoming queen. I was neither popular nor pretty like Beth. Since the desegregation program started, there had been a lot of fights at school. Hate and prejudice ruled the hallways. Being friends with Kizzie ended any social life I may have had at school. Even though Daddy was the principal, the kids still held it against me.
    I watched the halftime activities absentmindedly. Mama had a bad case of the flu and stayed home that night. I had just turned sixteen. Mama didn’t usually let me drive at night, but she made an exception for the homecoming game. She rarely missed a school event, especially one this important. I wished that Mama was sitting next to me now. I fel t alone in the crowded stadium.
    The band cranked up. I bundled my navy pea coat against the wind and headed to the concession stand for a hot chocolate. I felt invisible in the passing crowd. I shimm ied my skinny body between the bleachers and jump ed to the ground to beat the stagnant line.
    “Yo, Annette.”
                  Jeff’s friend, Greg Sneed, leaned on a rail under the bleachers, smoking a cigarette. He was cute and popular with the girls. He had never noticed me before. I didn’t know what to say. He crushed the cigarette on the ground and blew the s moke out the side of his mouth.
    “You by yourself tonight?”
                  My voice quivered in the cold wind. “Uh, yeah, I was just going for a hot chocolate.”
                  Greg look ed over his shoulder t oward the concession stand.
    “Oh , you wait here. I’ll get it.”
                  He backed away, holding his palms in the air. “Just, just wait here. Do ya want anything else while I’m there?”
                  My heart leapt to my throat as I shook my head . I was so excited that I couldn’t stand still. I thought about Greg’s cool brown eyes and dark, shaggy hair, how cute he was, and how all the girls liked him. I wondered if he’d always liked me , but I just didn’t know it. I thought that maybe he wanted to ask me out on a date. I remembered Greg’s mother from the grocery, her puffy cheeks jiggling at me. She liked me. I wonder if she told her son to ask me out. I’d never been on a date. Dating a popular boy like Greg would make me popular, too. I envisioned walking in the hallway with him on my arm and having dinner with his parents. By the time Greg returned with the drink, my