The Seven Second Kiss

The Seven Second Kiss

By Bill FG Williams

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Copyright 2012 Bill FG Williams

ISBN: 978-0-9917053-0-6

Smashwords Edition

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In 1934 seventeen year old Connie Neiland faced with an unexpected pregnancy runs away from her small town home to New York City where a taste of the big time makes her want more.

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Dedicated to

Annabelle Lee Haston, Manders and Rob Hammond

for their help and encouragement.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Morning, February 7, 1934

Chapter 2: New York, New York

Chapter 3: A Voice and a Taste

Chapter 4: Revelations

Chapter 5: New Friends

Chapter 6: Audition

Chapter 7: After Hours

Chapter 8: A Proposal

Chapter 9: Back and Forth

Chapter 10: Signing Up

Chapter 11: Preparation

Chapter 12: Showdown

Chapter 13: The Detective

Chapter 14: Long Distance Call

Chapter 15: Pressure

Chapter 16: Worry and Things

Chapter 17: Banter

Chapter 18: Risk

Chapter 19: Getting Ready

Chapter 20: Progress

Chapter 21: A Hard Decision

Chapter 22: Last Chance

Chapter 23: Coda

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Chapter 1: Morning, February 7, 1934

Connie awoke minutes before the setting on her alarm clock. She tossed onto her back. Her stomach churned. She tried sitting up and the room swirled around her. She fell back on the bed and rolled over landing on her hands and knees. She crawled the few feet to her door and then stood unsteadily and ran to the bathroom trying not to wake her mother and father in their nearby room.

She slipped as quietly as she could manage into the bathroom, pulled the door behind and put the hook in the eyehole locking the door. With all speed she lifted the lid on the toilet and opened her mouth. For what seemed like a very long time her system seemed to settle.

Fleetingly she remembered doing it with Bernie after the dance a month and a half ago, the first time for both of them. He had acted like a little puppy dog begging for its dinner. Her curiosity and something else she felt made her compliant to his need. It only lasted a few minutes. She didn’t enjoy it.

Suddenly her stomach contracted hammering the back of her throat with the remains of her semi digested dinner from the night before. Meat, peas, corn, potatoes, stomach acid, bile, and mucus erupted from her body through her nostrils and her mouth. And when her stomach emptied she knelt on the cold gray linoleum before the white porcelain bowl retching and heaving without anything coming out of her.

It finally stopped. She turned over and sat supporting her weight on the seat of the rim of the toilet while some of the sick on the floor stained her night dress. The door rumbled. Then she felt more than heard banging on it.

Are you going to be long in there? came the deep gruff irate voice of her father picking up resonance from the closed door.

I’ll be a minute, she said.

Well, hurry it up!

She pulled at the toilet paper roll to get enough paper and busily sopped up every trace of her ordeal. She sat and peed and felt some relief from that. In one motion she flushed and took off her night dress and washed off any remaining sick from her body. She rolled her night dress up so that the stain did not show and wrapped herself in a towel. She swirled some Listerine around in her mouth and spit in the sink.

Her father banged on the door again more impatiently this time. Come on, Connie! I have to go!

She took one last look to make sure no trace remained and then opened the door and smiled at him as sweetly as she could manage. It’s all yours, Dad.

What’s that smell? Are you OK?

Must be the Listerine. I’m fine. She bounced into her bedroom shut her door and collapsed onto her bed sobbing quietly. She heard her mother pad by outside in the hallway. Her alarm went off.

When she went down for breakfast she saw her father reading the morning paper. She read the headline and commented, Riots in Paris; fifteen killed?

Terrible, said her father, but I’m more interested in sports.

Anything about Babe Ruth?

Not today. Go eat your breakfast, Connie, and let me read without interrupting.

Alright, Dad. He looked up at her as she walked into the kitchen and smiled but she didn’t see that.

At her locker in the hallway at school before classes started she saw Bernie, though she thought of him now as ‘Bernard.’ He smiled possessively at her, greeted her absent-mindedly and strode off to his morning class. She watched him walk away from her. She remembered that the next time she saw him after what happened at the dance he stood taller and walked with a swagger where before he seemed to creep furtively about. She felt that he now treated her as if she was something he owned. Shortly after that night she had seen his friends, Bobby and Everett, looking at her, leering and whispering to each other. She knew right away Bernard had told his friends what had happened between them and felt all her fondness for him turn to something else.

She also knew that word would continue to spread among the students. It would soon reach the girls and she expected a very unkind response from them, completely lacking in empathy or understanding. She lived in a small town. News of what had happened would get out of the school and into the community. Her parents would find out.

She looked at her future, all the coming days at school, all the days at church, all the stares and leers at her as she began to show and then grow and waddle, all the derision and shame, visits with her family doctor, abuse from her parents, questions from her aunts, uncles and cousins. She wanted to die.

She spent her day at school with her mind in another place, while the events around her faded into a translucent memory and that even included Miss Brown’s scolding for incomplete homework. As she sat at the table in the cafeteria for her spare at the end of the day absent-mindedly turning the page of her biology text book she came to a decision and the world around her came back into sharp focus. Before the final bell of the day rang she had formulated most of her plan. She took a piece of paper and began to write.

After school she went to her job at the local grocery store. Instead of putting on her work clothing and starting in with her usual tasks she went to her boss, Mr. Herman and handed him a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and read the few lines she had written there. He looked at her over the top of his glasses and said, You know there are a lot of people who would like to have this job.

Well, now one of them has an opportunity, I guess. Look Mr. Herman, I am grateful that you hired me and I really liked working for you, but there’s something I have to do.

You could work for me for the rest of the day.

I’m really sorry but there’s something I have to do right now. Goodbye, Mr. Herman.

She walked down the street to the bank and stood at the end of the shortest line. She fidgeted hoping Mr. Herman would not be seeing either of her parents for the rest of the day. That would complicate things.

She took out her passbook and looked at the final line in it. ‘Is it enough?’ she thought, and for once she felt happy that her mother had made her save her money. She remembered when she started her paper route and then sold magazine subscriptions door to door while doing her route. Whenever she got some money she made plans of how she would enjoy spending it and every time her mother interfered. Now that she needed to use it she knew that she wouldn’t enjoy spending her money at all.

Oh, Hi, Connie! said Francine looking up from finishing off her last transaction as Connie stepped up to the counter and handed her passbook over.

Hi, Francine! How are you?

I’m just fine, and you?

Oh, pretty good, I guess.

What can I do for you, today?

I’d like to close my account.

Francine frowned slightly and said, Why, Connie? Our service has been good hasn’t it?

I like banking here, Francine. It’s just I need the money right now, is all.

Francine looked at Connie suspiciously but went and got her card and then did some calculation to determine how much interest she had earned and added up the total. She wrote a few more lines in the book indicating how much Connie had altogether. Then she closed the account, had Connie write her signature on a document and then counted out her money and handed it to her.

When you get things sorted out I hope you come back, Connie.

Connie counted her money and put it in the inside pocket of her little purse. Thanks, Francine. I will. Bye.

She went outside and looked at the clock on the town hall tower and decided not to go home right away. Her mother would ask questions about why she was home so early from her job and she didn’t want her mother asking questions. Besides she had other things to do.

Connie timed it so that she arrived home slightly later than expected. Go to your room and get started on your homework, shouted her mother sternly from the kitchen in response to Connie’s greeting as she walked in the front door.

Yes, Mom. She felt grateful that her mother gave no sign of having talked with Mr. Herman or Francine. She went upstairs to her room and dropped her school things on her bed. She put an open text book and an open notebook on her desk, opened the lid to the inkwell and placed a pen, pencil and eraser on her notebook. If anyone came in they would see her busy with her schoolwork.

She got down on her knees, bent over and pulled a suitcase out from under her bed. She took things from her dresser and chose things she thought she would need. By the time her father arrived home she had completed packing and slid the suitcase back under the bed. When she heard him come in she sat at her desk and got to work. She could hear him greet her mother and then his slow steady steps coming up the stairs.

He always went to the bathroom as soon as he arrived home and then always stopped by her room, which he did just then. He stopped outside her room, opened her door without knocking and said, Hi, Honey. Studying hard?

She looked up and smiled at him. Yes, Dad.

Keep at it. Supper will be ready soon. He left the door ajar. His habit of doing that annoyed her but a long time ago she had given up asking him to shut it. He, too, gave no sign of having talked to Mr. Herman or Francine. Connie let out a silent sigh of relief and went back to her books.

Supper and the rest of the evening went by uneventfully. She went back to her homework after supper and her mother and father read the daily paper and listened to Bing Crosby on the radio together. She frowned as she saw rain coming down outside. It wouldn’t interfere with her plans but she didn’t like it. As usual Connie went to bed at nine and her parents followed at ten o’clock.

She put her alarm clock on her desk near the window with her blind open so she could see the time from the light of a nearby street light. She lay in bed looking at the ceiling and listening. From time to time she looked at her alarm clock. She knew her parent’s night time schedule. At eleven-thirty she heard her father get up and go to the bathroom. Her mother would do the same at around three in the morning.

At midnight she slipped out of bed and dressed. She put on her coat and a hat. She slid the suitcase from under the bed and then took the note she had written from her school bag and placed it on the bed. It read, Dear Mom and Dad, I love you both very much and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me but I just can’t stay here any more. All my love, Connie.

She crept silently into the hall and down the stairs. Just inside the front door she slipped on her shoes. She opened the door as quietly as she could, stepped outside and gently closed and locked it behind her. She picked up her suitcase and walked down the empty street avoiding the puddles as she went.

It took her about fifteen minutes to walk to the train station. She arrived there just as the night train for New York City pulled in. The conductor opened a door at the end of the passenger car after the baggage and mail car behind the locomotive. He dropped the portable step and climbed down. A small crowd of people got off the train. Connie knew many of the people getting off the train would recognize her and want to know her business at the station. She stayed in the shadows, so as not to draw any attention to herself, as they passed by her on their way to wherever.

As the last one passed by she went over to the conductor, showed him her ticket and boarded the train. She entered the car and took a seat near the middle of the car on the station side of the train where she could watch and see if anyone came after her. For ten minutes she kept her attention on the station and its clock. Right on schedule the conductor called out, All aboard! He handed the step up to a porter, signalled the engineer, boarded the car and closed the door to the car.

Connie saw the station begin to move and then realized that it was her moving in the train. It slowly pulled out of the station and began to pick up speed. Connie relaxed a bit for the first time that day. She leaned back in her seat and tried to get some sleep. She had no idea what lay ahead of her and she tried very hard not to worry about it or think about it.

After the conductor came by for her ticket, which he punched and put up near her seat. She looked out her window at the ever changing landscape passing by. The rocking motion of the car and the sound of the wheels clacking over the rail joints must have had a sleep inducing effect because it seemed to her that a few minutes later she awakened.

Next stop Grand Central Station, New York, said the conductor commandingly. She stood up with indeterminate aches in her body, an unpleasant taste