Lolita's Perception

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚒𝚟𝚎

Friday: May 30th |1947|
Ever since you-know-who—aka that movie-star level handsome Professor—got here, things have been different all over. Not that I exactly mind...after all, what's so awful about spending time with a guy who's actually smart for a change?

Still...even at school no one's been able to shut up about the whole thing, and it's starting to drive me crazy.

"Is it true he's from France?" wondered  wide eyed Mabel as the five of us—me, Mary-Rose (of course, because who else would braid my hair while we watched those dumb guys nearly kill themselves trying to impress us with lame soccer moves that nobody even cared about in the first place?) dumbish Mabel Glave, prudish Phyllis (aka Lissie) Chatfield, and that loud mouthed Vivian McCrystal—all sat out on the soccer field early this morning.

"Yup, Paris." I replied, before blowing a bubble with the gum I'd just gotten at the five-and-dime with Mary-Rose. It was so early I could see my breath fog up in the dewy air. I felt like some sort of mythical dragon fairy in disguise.

"And he really looks like a movie star?" Vivian skeptically asked.

Rose cut in before I had a chance to reply. "Duh, haven't you seen him!?"

Vivi shook her head. "The guy never leaves the house!"

"Except to mow the lawn," said Mable, with that high pitched hyena laugh she thought was a cute dainty giggle. "Did you see him out there on Saturday? What a dream..."

With a sour sort of look on her face, Lissie cut in. "So what? He's old."

"That doesn't mean he isn't cute..." I replied, but my voice was so soft that only Mary-Rose heard.

"Besides," Rose began, giving Mabel the eye-roll of a lifetime. "The guy's staying at Dolly's house, so technically he's already hers."

"That's not how it works!" I exclaimed, picking at the blades of the emerald green grass that stained my skirt and socks. "Is it...?"

~~*~~

Thursday, May 30th 1947
Summer came early, but for all the wrong reasons. The entire school got shut down 'cause of some dumb old thing the grownups are calling an 'abominable' flu, or something like that, and there's nothing fun to do in this boring old town. Even worse, today was even hotter than the last two year's 4th of Julys put together.

Of course, that didn't seem to bother Mother too much, but only because she got to sit inside reading Cosmopolitan and sipping pink lemonade. Meanwhile, Louise had called in sick, so I was the one who got forced to go out in the blazing hot sun to hang heavy laundry up on the withered old clothesline.

The garden was hot, sticky, and stuck in a soft apple green light that seemed to pour in through dancing oak branches. Mother had twisted my hair back into double dutch braids just hours earlier, but before long the strawberry satin ribbons holding them in place slipped to the ground from the dampness of the air, and with a soft little sigh I shook my wavy curls loose. Some stuck to my dewy shoulder blades, while others went with the flow of the flitting summer breeze.

Just next door, Kenny Knight was tossing around a beat up old football with his father and older brother. We didn't share much more than a quick glance from across the way before the three of them headed back inside for lunch. Mother called Mrs. Knight's deviled eggs "unsophisticated" at the Easter picnic, so she's been making deviled lobster instead. Who knows if she really does like it better, or the whole thing's just out of spite.

Now, almost every afternoon just before 2 o'clock, you can smell the lobster boiling from a mile away. But on this particular Thursday, which just so happened to be the very last one of the month, Mr. Knight didn't have a chance to make it down to the docks, and the neighborhood's noses were blessed with chicken pot pie and lazy daisy cake.