Samantha
The summer of 1976 was the first of the two summers Samantha Jones worked at the local Dairy Queen, which was the social center of Farmington, Illinois. As the Dairy Queen got ready to close down for the night, the high school kids would start to gather in the parking lot, knowing that Samantha and the other two girls who worked at the Dairy Queen would sneak them free ice cream cones. After the store closed for the evening, they would sit on the hoods of cars and talk, maybe sneak a beer or two if the cops weren't around. Sometimes they would go out on Rabbit Road and do more than talk.
Sure during the daytime hours, it was the preserve of the local businessmen came for lunch or the town elders would nurse a cup of coffee for a couple of hours and reminisce about being in the military or cars that they had owned. Samantha would flirt even with the old men. Their eyes would always light up and they would swear she was a pistol. Flirting indiscriminately was Samantha's way. Everyone who knew her understood that and it was harmless.
Last summer she had been a carefree fifteen-year old with her first boyfriend, Billy Hurley. Billy was her age, but big for his age so he seemed a little older. Most afternoons, he and Samantha had sat around the pool in the Hurleys' backyard. She would slather herself with Coppertone suntan oil and she took great pride in her dark golden tan. Around two o'clock on those afternoons, Mrs. Hurley would serve them Kool-Aid and cookies. She kept herself willfully and blissfully unaware of what her son and Samantha did in the pool house when she wasn't around.
At the end of the summer, Billy's family had moved off to Racine, Wisconsin. The other girls in school expected Samantha to be sad, after all, she and Billy had been together more than a year, an eternity in teen-aged romance time. But Samantha wasn't sad, not at all. She had been looking for a way to quite Billy. He had been okay as a starter ****. But Samantha just knew that there had to be more out there for her than the awkward fumblings of a fifteen year-old boy. She was ready for a more experienced teacher.
This summer Samantha felt so much more adult this summer. She had responsibilities, even though those responsibilities included making sure the ice-cream freezer was properly cleaned each night before closing. She was going to be able to buy her own clothes when the time came in a few weeks when she was to start her junior year of high school. This was also the summer of Scott Pollard.
Scott had been the golden boy of Farmington High School from which he had only just graduated in June. He was tall and had by universal acclaim considered been the best-looking boy in the school. He was also been the quarterback of the football team and the president of the student council. Scott's father ran both a small jewelry store and a real estate title business, which made him the most prosperous businessman in town. Scott seemed all set to follow in his footsteps.
It came to no surprise to Samantha one June evening when Scott began paying attention to her. She was well aware that she was pretty and was even beginning to understand that she had a sexual allure which went beyond being pretty that drew men in. One night, Scott was one of the boys in the parking lot, waiting in the Trans Am that his father had bought him as a graduation present. He and Samantha began talking, which soon enough became laughing together, which soon enough became serious flirting.
The next thing Samantha knew, she and Scott were parked on Rabbit Road. They made out for a while. Samantha was intoxicated with the nearness of his firm, young male body. He was beautiful, a word that Samantha had never thought to associate with a guy before but it fit.
Just when Scott began to unbutton the blouse of Samantha's uniform, a couple of cars pulled up behind them. She immediately recognized the teens who piled out of the cars. Judging by the way they were laughing and making whooping noises, they were drunk. The next thing she knew, they began shucking their clothes and making their way through the trees down to the river.
Scott joined got out of the car to join them, tripping over his jeans in his haste to remove them. "Come on," he said to Samantha.
Samantha paused a moment. Up until now the only naked boy she had ever seen was Billy. Suddenly there were a whole variety of naked bodies in front of her – male and female, thin and chubby.
"Come on. None of this children's shit. Take your clothes off," a boy in the group demanded.
"Yeah, come on, Samantha," another taunted. "Take your clothes off and come skinny dipping with us or we're going to come make you."
Samantha finished unbuttoning the blouse of her uniform and unzipped the skirt. She made a pile of those and her panties and bra on the top of a large rock so that she could be sure to find them later.
By the time she made her way to the river, the others were already splashing and playing. She saw Scott, his body illuminated by the moonlight, swing out on the rope and drop into the water.
She understood what was expected of her. She had been out to this spot before, but only during daytime hours. It was easy enough going out on the rope swing during the day. It was downright scary to do so at night. But, as she had been doing all evening, she threw caution to the wind and swung out over the water and managed to let go at just the right moment. This was the most exhilarating night of her young life – by far.
Later Scott drove Samantha home in his new car. He talked about his plans to start college the next month and the renovation plans that his father had for his office. Samantha hardly paid attention. She was in the car with Scott Pollard. It was if she had passed through a barrier no one could see but everyone knew was there. Even though Scott would not be at school this year, the fact that they had been together during the summer would change everything with the popular clique at school. They would have to accept her now.
The next morning, Samantha woke up in the same world she had always known. After socializing with the town gentry the night before, it seemed a little jarring. Her ten year-old brother and five and seven-year-old sisters were insistently nagging her to make them breakfast.
She went to the kitchen started the Mr. Coffee and poured her siblings each a bowlful of Fruit Loops. She turned on the television and watched the cartoons with the kids.
The pictures of her parents, which sat on the mantle of the faux fireplace caught her eye. On the left, there was her mother's senior picture from high school. She was so pretty and fresh. Her smile was a little mischievous and she looked happy. It seemed to reproach her: "Don't end up like I did. Don't screw this up." Next to it, there was a picture of her father, a handsome boy with a thick blond head of hair. Next to that was their prom picture. And then there was their wedding portrait. Her mother was wearing a strapless white lace dress which, her mother always told her, was a nearly an exact replica of the on Elizabeth Taylor wore in A Place in the Sun. (Though the dress no doubt had looked a bit dated since the movie had been released seven or eight or so years before the Jones had wed.)
Ken Jones had been handsome as a boy, but not a particularly good student. College had never been in the cards. Instead, he went to trade school and learned auto mechanics. He married and took his job at the local Chevrolet dealership the same month. Over the years he has been promoted a few times. He was now in charge of the parts inventory in the service department.
He drank … a lot. Never enough that he was incapacitated in his work, but he had a few beers every day and a few shots after work with his buddies a few times a week. He kept a flask discretely tucked away in his desk at work. It was a rare day that he didn't end it by being somewhat drunk.
Rosemary Hill Jones was the acknowledged beauty of the town in her youth. She had hoped to go to secretarial school in Chicago. She saw that as her future, and had counted on it heavily as her ticket out of town. She spent many hours practicing her typing skills, hoping to increase her speed.
It seemed natural that she and Ken would go out. They were both good-looking and their families attended the same church. She hadn't taken him all that seriously – after all, he had small-town written all over him and she had her eye on the big city. The next thing she knew, she was pregnant. Her options were to spend the summer in a home for unwed mothers and give the child up for adoption or a shotgun wedding. She chose marriage. She was never quite the same.
After Ken began drinking in earnest, she increasingly withdrew from it all – her marriage, her children and life in general. She played bridge with some of her friends occasionally, but that was about it. The one thing she didn't do was numb her disappointment with liquor the way Ken did. At least there was that, she told herself.
Samantha had understood all this from a young age. Her mother because the template on how she would not live her life. From the time she was in sixth grade, she knew her life would not be in Farmington. She would succeed where her mother had failed. She wanted her life to be more than a drunk husband and a bunch of kids. She hadn't quite found her ticket out, but she had complete confidence that she would recognize it and pounce the moment it arrived.
"I saw you cruising the drag with Scott last night," said Sandra Barnette, one of the girls who worked with Samantha at the Dairy Queen. "He's such a stud. You're so lucky. Are you going to start going together?"
"He already has a girlfriend," Samantha replied with equanimity.
Sandra was confused. "He has a girlfriend? Do you think he going to break up with her and start going with you?"
"Nah, I'm just using him for sex," Samantha retorted and then walked off to bus the table in the corner where Pastor Jacobs and his wife had just been sitting.
The conversation left Sandra feeling a little stung. She looked up to Samantha, even though they were in the same grade in school, and now Samantha was saying that she was having sex, and having sex with a boy who wasn't even her boyfriend. She didn't quite understand why Samantha was doing that, but it was disappointing.
Jennifer Blaine was Scott's girlfriend. She lived in the next town over. Jennifer was a cheerleader and Samantha had seen her at the football and basketball games. She was a very pretty girl long, apricot-gold hair and perfect peaches and cream skin. Everything about her, her soft, plump features and her white, straight-toothed smile suggested beauty at its most wholesome. Her father was the president of the local bank and her mother owned a small beauty shop in the back of their home. That was about all Samantha knew about her. That and the fact that she and Scott would be attending colleges on the opposite ends of the state in a few months.
Jennifer always seemed to be perky and smiling. To the degree to which Samantha thought about Jennifer at all, which was very little, she held the older girl in contempt.
"I'm going to marry Jennifer," Scott declared one night as he and Samantha sat naked in the back seat of his car. Samantha liked how Scott could talk frankly with her rather than in language laced with all the meaningless emotional chow-chow the way that Billy had. Scott was promising her nothing; but he was showing her the time of her life.
He showed Samantha a snapshot of Jennifer wearing a "Jesus Saves" t-shirt and Bermuda shorts and smiling at the camera. "This one was taken at bible camp last spring." Jennifer was saving herself for marriage. Scott hand mentioned that before "We'll marry just as soon as we both graduate from college. In the meantime, I'm gonna' to sow my wild oats. I'll be going up to the university early so I can go through rush. It's going to be out of control."
As summer was drawing to a close, one Saturday afternoon Samantha turned on the television. A local talk show was on. The girls who had been the bicentennial summer festival princesses earlier in the summer were the guests. Samantha groaned a bit in disgust and got off the sofa to change the channel. "And here's your bicentennial summer festival queen: Jennifer Blaine. Tell me Jennifer, what are your future plans?"
There was Jennifer, her hair teased and feathered to a magnificence that Farrah Fawcett herself would envy. She had a big, mincing smile on her face. Her perkiness grated on Samantha even more than it usually did.
"I just finished high school and this fall I will be going to Illinois State to study to become an elementary school teacher."
"That's wonderful, Jennifer. There are certainly going to be a lot of pretty teachers. Just lovely. Thank you, Jennifer and best of luck in your studies."
That night Samantha and Scott were cruising the drag, listening to music and talking about nothing in particular when suddenly Scott tried to push her head down. "Get down! Get down! Jennifer's brother is in that car. If he sees me with a girl in the car, he's gonna' rat me out so fast. He hates me so bad anyway."
Samantha was outraged. She grabbed Scott's hand that he was using to hold her head down, dug her nails in and scratched.
"Owww! You bitch! You don't get to leave a mark on me."
For one fraught moment, Samantha thought Scott might hit her, but he didn't. From the time Samantha was old enough to understand such things, she knew that most of the town judged her on the basis of her family's relative poverty and her father's drunkeness. She had enough inborn self-confidence that she had never taken it to heart. Suddenly, for the first time in her life, the weight of years of social censure crashed upon her. "Take me home. Now."
Scott turned the car around and headed toward the Jones house. When he dropped her off, Samantha checked to make sure that all the lights were off. After she had made sure, she emitted a heavy sigh of relief. After the tumult and disappointment this night had brought, she couldn't bear another scene.
She unlocked and opened the door as quietly as she could and turned on the table lamp be the door.
"There you are, Missy. What were you doing out this late?"
It was her mother. Oh damn. "Oh just cruising the drag with some friends," she said, trying to sound casual.
"Uh huh. I know mighty well what goes on in this town after midnight. It wasn't that long ago I was your age myself. You oughtn't to be riding around with boys in cars in the middle of the night. I'm grounding you for a month"
"Whatever. I need to go to bed now. I have to be at work tomorrow."
"Go one to bed then. But we are going to talk more about this tomorrow. No more cruising the drag. You're a pretty girl and you make good grades in school. The last thing you need in this world is to get yourself in trouble and spoil your future. Good night now, honey."
Samantha thought, "Ruin my future. Why don't you say it, ruin my future like you did yours?"
"G'night, Mama."
The next night as the Dairy Queen closed, Samantha saw Scott's Trans Am drive into the parking lot. When she left to go home, he was waiting for her. This time Samantha didn't want to see him, but there he was blocking her path. "Hey, Samantha."
Samantha had nothing to say and continued on her walk home.
Scott started to walk along side her. "I guess you must be pretty mad at me for last night, and I'm sorry." He grabbed Samantha wrist to stop her. "Look, I have something for you." He pulled a small box out of his pocket and opened it. It was a pair of diamond stud earrings. "They're for you. They're over a half-carat each."
"I don't want them."
"No, really, it's okay. They're yours. I just wanted to say good-bye. I guess I won't be seeing you around. I'm headed off to college first thing tomorrow." He pressed the earring box into Samantha's hand and headed back to his car.
Samantha wasn't sure what to do with the earrings. She didn't want them. For a moment she thought about just dropping the box on the parking lot for someone else to find. After a pause, she opened her little, blue, cloth clutch bag and dropped the box inside. She still not sure what to do with them but right now she just wanted to go home. She'd make up her mind later.
When she got home, her mother was there to nag her about getting home late the night before and the younger kids were fighting. As soon as she could excuse herself, she went into her room. She hid the earring box in her underwear drawer. They stayed there for several years. Her parents and siblings never knew about them. Gradually she came to see them as a sort of savings account.
After Samantha graduated from college, she sold them to pay for her first month's rent and living expenses in New York City.
Samantha saw Scott only once more, at the homecoming dance her senior year. He was with some of his buddies. Their eyes caught for a moment, but neither approached the other. And just like that, he was gone again.
Samantha had heard through the teen-ager grapevine that he and Jennifer had broken up because all of the womanizing that Scott had been doing at college had gotten back to her. They eventually reconciled and married anyway.
They were only married a few years, but long enough for them to have three kids. He took over his father's business interests. That's all Samantha knew. She didn't make it to Farmington much.
Carrie Chad Charlotte brother's friend, Miranda, unnamed gay guy.