Summer's Child

Sleepy Jean

October 1967
"To a daydream believer and a homecoming queeeeeeen!"

"You realize singing in an enclosed space would hurt someone's ears at that volume, even if you owned a bucket to carry that tune?" Harry wanted to keep his eyes on the road, but they kept drifting over to Jillian gleefully singing in his truck's bench seat. "How are you so up right now anyway? You just worked like 8 hours at ye olde dairy house?"

"It's not the olde dairy house!" Jillian had a musical laugh; it was the first sound Harry remembered when they moved to New York from Cheshire when his mom died; the first thing that made him smile. He was in the principal's office, about to start the first day at this new elementary school, and sulking because his whole life had changed seemingly overnight... and he was missing recess. The window was open and her lilting laugh (it hadn't changed) floated in the window. The adults were so immersed in their conversation, they didn't notice he had gone moved to the glass he looked out. It was then he got his first sight of Jillian. She was riding the swing with another girl, and when it was her turn to go backwards, she'd leaned way back, her friend's weight anchoring her to her swing, her blonde, baby fine hair trailing the ground and her laughing in a way that made him sure it would all be okay. If somebody could laugh like that here, this must be an ok place. And if the blonde girl with the magic homeplace laugh would be his friend, he could make a life here, even without a mom. It would be okay.

It was, and it wasn't, okay. But, her laugh was the same, tonight, a decade or so later in his truck. Her hair had thickened up and wasn't that tow head shade of blonde anymore, but something sandier, frutier. She had gorgeous hair. Yet, that he could ignore or simply acknowledge. But her body had changed in a way Harry really tried to ignore but couldn't, and would never acknowledge. Not out loud. Jillian was always a beauty, just recently she knocked him out with it, her changes. He was pretty sure that he loved her then, when they were in first grade. He loved her the same and different now. Same because of her unchanging laugh, and different because of the things they carried together, and that filled out form taking up half his front seat and every inch of his brain.

"It may as well be 'ye olde dairy house.' Why is a restaurant called 'dairy barn' at all appetizing? I do not want to eat with my meal's sister you know?" He glanced over expecting to see her biting her lip so she could pretend he wasn't funny and instead got a glimpse of her tonsils. "Oh, my scintillating company putting you to sleep now? You were so lively a second ago. It just hit you?"

"Yeah, and you talk so slow it makes me doze off." She gave him a lax smile that he took his eyes off the road to catch. "You could just eat the fries, when you come to see me. I was just reading this article about how people in California, in San Francisco, are giving up meat, and even cheese!"

There was her spirit and obsession. "No dairy barn in San Francisco then?" He dimpled her way. "Where will you work when you move there?"

"I dunno! Wherever! Oh! Maybe a rock venue! A coffee shop, hell, I'll wait tables at a diner.  As long as I can get a bed in the Haight." She got quiet suddenly and Harry had to look at her from the way she changed the energy in the car. The way she could do that, flip the feelings around her on a dime, made him ready to give her the hundred dollar bill he got for hauling lumber that one time, every coin

"What?" He elbowed her lightly, she scooted closer. "Don't go all quiet on me now.

"You'd go with me? Right?" Her eyes were so big. And he knew their exact shade of blue green, even though he couldn't make it out on the moonless night in their small town. He was driving them out to the small house she shared mostly with her mom.  They were past the streetlights now.

"Go with you where?" He was glad the road was empty as he drifted to the middle line.

"Go with me to California! Of course!" She smiled. "For the smartest boy in school you sure lose the plot sometimes Harry." He couldn't help but think there was a lining of knowledge along the curl of her lip. He lost the plot because it was her story, and he'd been thinking more about the sound of the instrument forming it than the lyrics. He loved Jillian's speaking voice, too. He loved a lot about her. Mostly everything.