Pictures of the Past Read Online Free PDF Page A

make-up to distraction. As a late bloomer in many respects except for intellect, she transformed during that summer from an awkward girl into a beautiful young woman. She walked and slimmed down by accident, not by design. It happened that she was just interested in saving some extra money, so she didn’t take the bus to work. She missed reading while riding, but the stopping every block and re-shifting of sweaty bodies on the busy route was too distracting anyway. So she began to walk to work. And as she became more intent on applying makeup at home in the morning, not heavily, but perfectly, she found time would get away from her and then she would need to get to work almost in a run. Within the first month, her body, which had not been fat, but somewhat round, soon took on a delicious new form. By July, she was literally turning heads, boys’ heads, as she moved from table to table at work. The attention made her feel more powerful than her class rank ever had. This is ridiculous, she thought. I’m not some shallow high school cheerleader. But she didn’t let the attention go to her head, and maintained her beautiful, enigmatic quality.
    She first noticed Courtland (Court) Woodmere because he seemed so solitary among his group, not as full of himself as the others. They were, obviously, the Northwestern boys. His dark auburn hair was in such contrast to the wheat-colored shags of the others at his table. And there was something about his eyes… Finally, the third time he came in with his fraternity brothers, he touched her hand when she brought him his Coke. Then he gently grabbed her arm when she returned with fries. By the time she was serving the pizza, he had his hand around her waist, escorting her to the dance floor.
    “Just for a moment,” she insisted, whispering. “I’ll get in trouble if I’m not working.”
    “Oh, I don’t believe that for a second. You’re the reason they’re packing them in, not the bands. You should be on display more; it would be better for business,” he said, twirling her around and ending in an old-fashioned dip.
    After the dance, he suggested they get to know each other somewhere besides Last Chance. He offered to drive her home that night, but she quickly declined. She didn’t want to tell him right out that dates with Gentiles were forbidden in her household, but she did say that her dad insisted on picking her up himself each evening. But during the drive that very night, she began thinking of a way to spend time with Court. It’s the summer of love and excitement, she thought, and I want something to remember it by. Despite her intelligence and pragmatism at work, she and her friends were mostly naïve and unsophisticated girls, giggling in corners and swooning with crushes.
    And as it evolved, three days later, on Saturday afternoon, Court pulled up for her outside the movie theater, as she waved good-bye to her sworn-to-secrecy and frozen-in-astonishment friends, and was off in a red Mustang convertible.
    Sitting beside him, she was giddy. My God, he was cute, she thought. Then she corrected herself. Cute did not begin to do him justice. He was magnificent! She tried not to stare at him as they drove, but she needed to reassure herself that he was real, not just another post-adolescent fantasy she had conjured. She kept readjusting her position in the passenger seat, hoping he would not pick up on her self-conscious maneuvers. Luckily, the car had bucket seats and a center console, so she did not have to agonize over how close she should sit to him, as she had on past first dates, trying to calculate the perfect distance between date and door, so as to appear neither too easy, nor too frigid.
    Soon she was in a whirlwind of clandestine encounters, and whenever they were together she was magnetized by his charm—his elegant, polished manners. He always escorted her into the car first, closing the door gently, making sure her sweater or purse was neatly arranged on