Wouldn't You Love to Love Her?

June, 1966

'Thanks Andie!'

Stephanie Nicks, more commonly known as Steph, occasionally known as Stevie and known to her immediate family as Teedee quickly thanks her friend Andrea as she pulls up to curb of her house in a quiet street in Menlo Park, CA. She doesn't say much more as she exits the car, unable to trust her voice, she is on the verge of tears and she doesn't want Andie, or anyone to see how upset she is.

'Are you still coming into San Francisco with me and Julie on Tuesday?' Andie calls out the open passenger side window of the car, her mom's Chevy Caprice, as Steph walks hurriedly up the path towards her front door and the safety of her room where she can cry in private.

'I don't know, you know what my mom's like' Steph calls over her shoulder trying to keep her composure for a few seconds longer.

'Call me when you know, it'll be a blast!' Andie calls out before driving off.

The second Andie pulls away, Steph bursts into tears. She fumbles, shaking, in her purse for her key as she reaches the front door, hoping her parents will be too distracted by the television to notice how upset she is. She takes a steadying breath before opening the door and walking into the house. She hates the layout of this house. The downstairs living areas are open plan - this house, the fifth she has lived in since starting middle school is a new build and it is the new thing apparently - and the den, with its TV and record player, where her parents like to spend their evenings is located straight to the left of the entryway, before the stairs and it makes it hard to sneak in late, or to get from front door to bedroom without having to see her parents first.

Her parents are engrossed in some TV show and she hopes she can get past them without having to talk but as she is about to close the door but at the last second her hand slips and the door slams shut with a short, sharp bang.

'Teedee, your back early!' Jess, her father says warmly.

'How was your night?' her mother Barbara adds.

'It was good I guess,' Steph mumbles quietly her tears threatening to overflow at any moment, 'I'm really tired, I'm gonna go to bed,' she adds quickly, heading any suggestion that she join her parents off at the pass. She walks up the stairs quickly, running would be too conspicuous and enters her room, not even bothering to remove her shoes before collapsing on her bed and finally giving in to her tears.

---

Barbara Nicks sighs.

Her oldest child and only daughter Stephanie, has come home from a party upset and it isn't the first time.

Until recently Stephanie, who she still affectionately calls Teedee, seemed to be coping well with adolescence. She seemed to fly through the physical changes of puberty without a problem, her first period, which Barbara had been dreading, came and went with little fanfare and although Barbara had occasionally overheard her daughter complaining to her friends that she is too short and her breasts are too small, the recent change in her personality seems to have been attached to the entry of boys into her social realm.

Teedee's friends, especially Andie and Julie, her two closest friends here in Menlo Park have become completely boy crazy since the start of this year. Stephanie though, something feels off and Barbara thinks it is maybe because she has kept Teedee too close to her. Barbara was 20 when Stephanie was born and she was the love of her life, Barbara loves her husband and her younger son Chris deeply too, but she has always felt a special bond with her daughter, greater than, and different from the bond she has with either Jess or Chris. She feels immense guilt that her daughter seems to be struggling so much. Maybe if she had started letting go a little earlier, or maybe if they hadn't moved so much for Jess's job - another reason she had always kept Stephanie so close, there were times when they moved four times in a year, and while Teedee was a pretty adaptable kid, there had to be times when it was lonely for her - things would be better for her.