EVOCATIONS - Four Details From GEORGIE GIRL

Happy Friday, all! I thought I’d go all creative on you this week and share four fun deets from GEORGIE GIRL. There are a few not-so-fun parts of the novel, but to avoid spoilers, I won’t share them here. Ready? Here we go!

“The boys were back. I dove into our old family car as a jostling crew of them cascaded the steps of Hampton Hall like marbles onto a ballroom floor. Approximately five hundred boys in grades 8-12 enrolled each year in The Browning School. As faculty daughters, my best friend Lacey and I had cut our teeth surrounded by the big, sweaty creatures. But no longer would the boys pat our heads and say we reminded them of the little sisters back home. This year, the underclassmen were the same age as us …”

“I inched up the backseat and peeked out the window. The last boys had cleared the car and were heading down the hill to the playing fields …”

“I followed my mother and little brother up the moss-spackled back steps of Hampton unable to resist peeking over my shoulder at the last students to move down the hill … I caught a whiff of the honeysuckle that drooled along the old brick parapet and plucked white blossom from the vine. I drew the stamen out and sipped at the bead of nectar. But it wasn’t as sweet as I remembered. It tasted like … change.”

“The next morning, I trailed my family to breakfast at the dining hall like a straggler on a death march. Each year faculty families were assigned a group of boarding boys who would sit with them for dinner weekday evenings and breakfast on Mondays. That morning we would meet our boys, and I faced death by embarrassment.

The new crop gathered around the long table, their faces expectant. My father introduced each boy in turn. Thinking of them alliteratively helped me remember their names: Andy from Alabama, blade-thin with an avocado of an Adam’s apple; William from Memphis, wholesome-faced with warty fingers; Philip from Bedford, polite with a pimply chin; Frank from Virginia Beach, frankly fidgety, as though he might take flight at any moment; Truman from Atlanta–and here my eyes came to a screeching halt–gorgeous, eyes the blue of a peacock’s neck, shoulders like Greg’s on The Brady Bunch. No alliteration necessary…”

Kelly rides to school with Lacey’s anarchistic big sister Karen, Lacey, and a mortified Georgie:

“Miss Sassy, Kelly’s mother, suddenly appeared at Karen’s door. ‘Karen, dear,’ she said, her umbrella dripping onto Karen’s shoulder, ‘My car won’t start. Could you take Kelly with you today?’

I stared wildly at Lacey and then at the empty seat beside me, my heart thundering in my ears.

The back door sprung open.

A slash of lightning spiked the sullen sky.

Miss Sassy jumped and giggled. ‘Thank you, Karen. Have a good day, all!’ Kelly–his face a dull plum–dropped into the seat and slammed the door. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered in Karen’s direction.

‘Buckle up, kids,’ Karen said. [LOL.]

We passed through the Browning gates and onto the main road in roaring silence, my eyes counting the hairs on the back of Lacey’s head, my hand inching towards the door, to clutch the metal handle. The rain fell in torrents.

Karen adjusted the windshield wipers, whack-whack-whack-whack! ‘Shit, I can barely see the road.’ Her shoulders bunched over the wheel. I peered at the red smears of brake lights ahead, my heart pounding.

Kelly sighed and a surprising wave of minty toothpaste met my nose. He tapped a polished loafer on the floor mat to John Lennon’s Instant Karma! on the radio, the legs of his trousers perfectly creased … Lacey lowered the passenger side visor and peeked at me in the little mirror, raising a brow. ‘Kelly’s good looking now,’ she had said the other night. Stop it! I told her now with my eyes.

As Kelly ran a hand through his damp hair, I caught a whiff of musk oil. Dancing in her seat, Lacey turned the radio up loud. ‘Daydream Believer’ my favorite!‘ Was she showing off for Kelly?

Kelly turned to me and shook his head. 'Bubble gum music,” he said as though we chatted every day, and sending a note of caution to my stomach.

I nodded, my neck feeling like a dashboard hula dancer’s. 'Hmm.’

Karen glared at her sister. ‘Lacey, cut it out; I’m trying to drive.’

Lacey turned the volume down, her cheek in profile, pink. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered and tucked her chin. Lightning illuminated the inside of the wagon. I counted one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, and a terrific crack of thunder shook the car, making us all jump–Kelly’s knee bumping into mine.

‘Man,’ Lacey said, her eyes wide in the mirror. ‘That was close!’

I pulled my skirt down over my knee, certain that the imprint of Kelly’s–so big and boy-square in his trousers compared to my softly rounded one–would be visible. He let out a low hum of a laugh, and his dark gaze brushed my cheek.

I opened my French book, my anchor.

The rain lashed at the car. In the rind of my periphery, Kelly’s eyes ran the length of my hair. The temperature in the backseat was stifling, heat seeming to radiate from his body.

Btw, if you haven’t ordered GEORGIE GIRL yet, it is available from my website, https://www.elizabethsumnerwafler.com, or from Amazon.

Love and light,