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Yes! thought Cecy.
“What?” asked the girl, as if she’d heard.
What’s your name? asked Cecy carefully.
“Ann Leary.” The girl twitched. “Now why should I say that out loud?”
Ann, Ann, whispered Cecy. Ann, you’re going to be in love.
As if to answer this, a great roar sprang from the road, a clatter and a ring of wheels on gravel. A tall man drove up in an open car, holding the wheel with his monstrous arms, his smile glowing across the yard.
“Ann!”
“Is that you, Tom?”
“Who else?” He leaped from the car, laughing.
“I’m not speaking to you!” Ann whirled, the bucket in her hands slopping.
No! cried Cecy.
Ann froze. She looked at the hills and the first stars. She stared at the man named Tom. Cecy made her drop the bucket.
“Look what you’ve done!”
Tom ran up.
“Look what you made me do!”
He wiped her shoes with a kerchief, laughing.
“Get away!” She kicked at his hands, but he laughed again, and gazing down on him from miles away, Cecy saw the turn of his head, the size of his skull, the flare of his nose, the shine of his eyes, the girth of his shoulders, and the hard strength of his hands doing this delicate thing with the handkerchief. Peering down from the secret attic of this lovely head, Cecy yanked a hidden copper ventriloquist’s wire and the pretty mouth popped wide: “Thank you!”
“Oh, so you have manners?” The smell of leather on his hands, the smell of the open car from his clothes into the tender nostrils, and Cecy, far, far away over night meadows and autumn fields, stirred as with some dream in her bed.
“Not for you, no!” said Ann.
Hush, speak gently, said Cecy. She moved Ann’s fingers out toward Tom’s head. Ann snatched them back.
“I’ve gone mad!”
“You have.” He nodded, smiling but bewildered. “Were you going to touch me?”
“I don’t know. Oh, go away!” Her cheeks glowed with pink charcoals.
“Run! I’m not stopping you.” Tom got up. “Changed your mind? Will you go to the dance with me tonight?”
“No,” said Ann.
Yes! cried Cecy. I’ve never danced. I’ve never worn a long gown, all rustly. I want to dance all night. I’ve never known what it’s like to be in a woman, dancing; Father and Mother would not permit. Dogs, cats, locusts, leaves, everything else in the world at one time or another I’ve known, but never a woman in the spring, never on a night like this. Oh, please—we must dance!
She spread her thought like the fingers of a hand within a new glove.
“Yes,” said Ann Leary. “I don’t know why, but I’ll go with you tonight, Tom.”
Now inside, quick! cried Cecy. Wash, tell your folks, get your gown, into your room!
“Mother,” said Ann, “I’ve changed my mind!”
