"You know, Crystal, I want you in both choirs," Mrs. Mitchell said. "I think your voice is mature enough for the chancel choir, but you'll still be a special case."

Crystal agreed to all the conditions. As the choirs started up for the fall, she was the only sophomore in the chancel choir, indeed, the only high school student.

"I'm trying to recruit more young singers," Mrs. Mitchell told her. "There will be the Morgan boy, too. Craig is his name."

It turned out that she was talking about JG Morgan. He was a college student, nowhere near her age. His father had moved to town since Mrs. Morgan, JG's grandmother, thought she needed companions due to her illness. Her house was huge, and JG and his father had been fixing it up over the summer. It was the sort of church, the sort of town, where everybody knew your business.

Crystal's dad sometimes quoted something about "If it weren't for the honor, I'd as soon walk." It was supposed to have been said by a man who was tarred, feathered, and carried out of town on a rail. Adult choir was something like that. It was still uncomfortably hot in the choir loft, especially in the robes. She could get a ride home after Thursday-night rehearsals, but only by staying and socializing. These weren't her friends; they weren't bad people, for the most part, they were just awfully old. Some of them were the parents of her friends.

On the other hand, they sang every week. The youth choir rehearsed on Sundays after church and sang on special occasions. And Mrs. Mitchell did give Crystal hints for developing her voice.

Then, too, belonging did give her something of the status as an adult. She was too smart to join in the complaints about how the minister acted, but she was not excluded from the audience towards which those complaints were directed.

High school had begun soon before choir did. The high school and university years were half the reason for the long summer break. The other half was the unbearable stuffiness of the choir loft at the height of summer. At first, seeing kids she hadn't seen all summer was fun. Soon, however, class work became as boring as ever. Then the high school dances started. At first she went without a date, as she had the previous year. Then Dan asked her.

Her father thought she should wait another year before dating. "We did say last year," her mom pointed out, "that you couldn't date your freshman year. I'm not sure about this Dan, that's all."

"That's fine," Crystal said. "Dan's the one who asked me. First you say 'not yet, ' then you say 'not with him.' What's your next excuse? Everybody else had dates last year."

She won that battle. One thing which her dad insisted on was that she carry two quarters with her on all dates. "Any time you feel that you want to come home, call. I won't hold it against you."

"Why should I want to call for a ride?"

"You might not," her mom said. "That's fine. And your father isn't talking about just needing a ride. But any time you're uncomfortable with how the date is going, any time you feel that you'd rather call home than continue in the boy's presence, call home. You don't even have to talk about it afterwards." As if all her friends wouldn't be talking about it afterwards for weeks if she chickened out on a date.

"Let's put it this way," her dad said. "If you have to call for me, I have to come pick you up."

After their second date, Dan kissed her. To her surprise, he stuck his tongue in her mouth. That led to a row and a breakup. When Josh asked her out, her parents were much happier with him.

Crystal wasn't sure. Okay, Dan was a creep. He was only interested in girls for one thing. But he had been interested in her. Josh seemed to invite her to the dances because it was the thing to do.

Besides, Josh was in the youth choir with her. And he could barely hold the notes. Worse than that, he spoke about how he looked forward to getting out of singing. He was such a contrast to JG. The basses stood in the rear of the choir for the anthems, and it was a treat to be standing right in front of that deep, rich, voice.

One day after church her mom was in a meeting of the finance committee. Her dad waited outside the meeting, reading a book. Crystal decided to walk home rather than wait. She saw JG among the kids in the parking lot. Mary Butler, a fourth grader, ran up to JG, squeezed his nose, and ran away. JG said, "Ho, Ho, Ho" slowly, his voice started deep and got deeper on every syllable. Then he chased Mary. He had the legs. She dodged when he got close, but his long arms got her. He turned her upside down in his arms. She screamed. When he put her down, he slapped her lightly on the backside. She was laughing when she ran away.

Crystal was surprised to find herself jealous of little Mary. What would it mean to have JG hold Crystal? (Not upside down, thank you.) What would it mean to have him slap her backside?

Not that JG noticed her. That was a problem; he didn't seem to notice her. He wasn't rude, like some of the older kids in school; he said hello when it was appropriate; he even commented on her voice. He knew that she was a fellow church member and a fellow choir member. What he didn't seem to notice was that she was a female. Mrs. Mitchell, the pastor, many of their fellow choir members, saw them as the same age. JG saw Crystal as a little girl -- not even that -- as a little kid.

As the year went on, the choir loft stopped being too stuffy because the air conditioning in the church didn't reach it. Soon, it was too stuffy because the heat from the furnace did. Her dad went out to the garage, turned on the car's heater, and drove the car closer to the front door before Crystal got in to go to school. Even so, she wore her heaviest coat. She went back to wearing a pair of jeans under her dress to church. Nobody thought it odd to see girls, even some women, removing a pair of pants in the cloakroom.

Most of the dozen or so choir regulars weren't solo material, and they knew it. Mrs. Driscoll and Mrs. Jenkins (Angela and Melissa) were the best soprano and the best alto, respectively. JG was the best bass, the best voice for that matter, the best male voice by far. The four tenors were, mostly, better than the other bass, but not solo material. Crystal knew she hadn't reached the level of the top three singers yet, but she wanted to. And, to give the devil her due, Mrs. Mitchell was trying to bring her along.

The cold really set in. Now the choir loft wasn't stuffy at all. Now she didn't bother to change out of her jeans before church. One Sunday, she was even tempted to keep her coat on. She knew, of course, that this would have frozen her solid when she walked out.

"Did you know," her dad asked one night at dinner, "that there is a major parcel of land between Lake Superior and the Arctic Ocean."

She knew that, even knew that they called that "major parcel" Canada. "Yes."

"Would you tell the weatherman that? Seems to me this weather came directly from the North Pole."

Her mom suffered through this in silence. Something snapped in Crystal, though. "Why should I? Why should the weatherman pay me the slightest attention? Nobody else does."

"Who," her mom asked, "aside from your parents, isn't paying you the slightest attention?"

Well, JG Morgan wasn't paying her the slightest attention. He didn't know she was alive. She couldn't say that, though. Why should he know that she was alive? "Aren't the two of you enough?"

"You might not believe it," said her dad, "but we think about you all the time. We don't necessarily give you what you want," (they never gave her what she wanted) "but we think about you." No, she didn't believe it, but she saw no sense in saying that.

The choir was scheduled to do "I've Come From the Fountain" as an anthem. "I want to see how it sounds with one response from a soprano, one from an alto, and one from a bass," Mrs. Mitchell said. "We could do it the last Sunday in Advent. Angela, Melissa, Craig, what do you think?"

Mrs. Jenkins said, "I can't guarantee anything around that time." She gestured towards her belly. "Crystal, do you think you could solo?"

"I could try."

"Well," Mrs. Mitchell said, "the baby is more important than the anthem." It didn't sound too sincere, but nobody really believed that Mrs. Mitchell thought anything more important than an anthem. "Why don't we try it?"

Crystal privately thought that the song was hokey in the extreme. On the other hand, she got a solo, if only five words; better, the entire choir sang "Crystal, Crystal, do you love Jesus?" once before the church and time and again in rehearsals. Best of all, she stayed after the regular rehearsal times with just Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Driscoll, and JG. Sometimes, when JG didn't have use of his family van, Mrs. Mitchell drove the two of them home. JG stuffed himself in the front of the Mitchell car after Crystal had climbed into the back.

On the first such ride, Crystal had a suggestion for Mrs. Mitchell. "You know," she said, "everybody calls Craig JG. That would fit the rhythm better than, 'Cray yug, Cray yug, do you love Jesus?'"

"They call you JayGee?" Mrs. Mitchell was surprised. "Why do they do that?"

"It's because of my voice," he said. "Maybe my height as well. My sister started it. You know Jenny? She called me the Jolly Green Giant. That shortened to Jolly Green, and then to JG."

"You are so good with the smaller tykes. You too, Crystal."

Oh great! Mrs. Mitchell was equating her with a "tyke" -- and in front of JG.

Still, she changed the choir's words at the next rehearsal. She never told the others that it had been Crystal's suggestion, never had any reason to do so. But JG knew.

The anthem was a great success. Then came Christmas, with all its excitement. The following weeks were a letdown. School resumed, and she didn't have any special role to rehearse. Mrs. Jenkins had her baby, a boy named Jacob, and Crystal was temporarily the lead alto.

There was a big snowstorm, and it got warmer. It wasn't warm enough to melt the snow, but it was warm for the upper peninsula in February.

Mrs. Jenkins rejoined the choir. She brought Jacob with her to rehearsals, and occasionally nursed him there. This embarrassed Crystal a little, although she would never have said so. She felt worse when she caught JG sneaking a peek while Mrs. Jenkins was nursing.

In the first place, adults -- especially amazingly masculine adults of skyscraper height, athletic build, and fog-horn deep voice -- should be beyond such childishness. In the second place, if JG did want to peek at somebody, Crystal was available. He would come after Jacob and Mr. Jenkins with Mrs. Jenkins. And, so far as she could tell from remarkably close observation, he wasn't interested in Crystal at all.

Crystal hid her disappointment while in rehearsals. Late at night, in her own room, she brooded on the unfairness. JG held small kids; he ogled old women. (Mrs. Jenkins must be twenty- five if she were a day.) He didn't glance at Crystal. She stopped undressing to look in the mirror. Were those breasts so bad, so small? They were a lot smaller than Mrs. Jenkins's of course, but Mrs. Jenkins was nursing.

She felt hers, rubbing the tips. What would it mean for him to look at these? Would he stare? She would let him get a good look, not some dirty peek. Her nipples stood farther out, and she brushed them. She brushed them more gently.

She started to take off her panties in her usual style, hands at her sides. She stopped suddenly. She pushed them down in back and front, rubbing her hands over her body as she did so. Would he like to see the view she saw in the mirror? One hand covered her delta. She caressed the sparse hair there, raising her hand and looking at what was revealed.

She shivered. The cold struck her, and she whipped her thick nightie on. Turning off the lights with one click, she burrowed under the covers and shivered there. The cold nightie was covered by the cold sheets. Still, what would it mean to have him want to look at her? She rubbed lightly over her chest. Would he like to see her there? Would it make a difference if her nipples stuck out like this?

She rubbed her nightie against the hair between her legs. She knew that boys always wanted to see that, and that girls were supposed to be very careful that they didn't. Would that interest JG? Would it be better than Mrs. Jenkins's breasts in a nursing bra? The feeling was good, even through the nightie. She pulled that up and felt all over the triangle of hair there with her bare fingers. It felt especially good at the bottom of that triangle.

She pushed against that point, very gently, very carefully. Would JG want to look, would she let him look. The picture of him watching while she poked and pried excited her. She couldn't quite see it herself at the best of times; she was completely invisible under the bedclothes. Would he want to watch, would she let him watch? Would she open herself like that? Would she spread those lips like this? Between those lips, she was even more sensitive. She rubbed there, very carefully. It felt even better.

Suddenly, in the midst of her exploration, she forgot her imagined audience. Instead, she thought only of herself as she stroked herself into greater excitement. It got more intense, and she rubbed harder. Then she exploded.

Her hand dropped down; her legs dropped to the bed. She lay there in inexplicable bliss. A moment later, there was a knocking at the door. She shoved her nightie all the way down and spread her arms to her sides. "Yes," she called.

"Darling." It was her mom's voice. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm asleep."

"I thought you called."

"Nothing."

"Good night, then."

"Night."

Everyone wanted to hold and play with Jacob. Mrs. Jenkins had strict rules, but she did let church members have their turns. Once, Crystal's mom held him. When she was done, she kissed his forehead. "Look," she said, "this is probably nothing. Still ... He seems awfully salty to me. That was a warning symptom when Crystal was that age. I'm probably just making this up, but could you mention it to the doctor on your next visit."

Mr. Jenkins came by the house some days later. "You were right," he said to Crystal's mom. "It's cystic fibrosis."

"Oh dear!"

"It's not good, but it's better if they catch it in time. Thanks to you, they did. Melissa and I owe you. Anything you want, ask us."

"What I really want is for Jacob to be all right. And you can't deliver that. As far as you could, you'd do it anyway. Look, he's a baby. Anybody would look out for a baby."

Life in the choir had an odd rhythm. Lent was spent rehearsing Easter music. They had weeks of "Up From the Grave He Arose" before there was any mention of the crucifixion. Mrs. Mitchell recruited the little kids into a "Cherub Choir." Crystal felt that not all the members had earned that name. Jennifer Morgan was one extreme example. The brat had no good word for anybody.

Being in the youth choir and the chancel choir gave Crystal a double loyalty. She was too old to run around like the little kids, but not too old to occasionally want to. On the other hand, she was one of the adults now, and the little kids in the youth choir sure didn't treat her that way. (Not that they were particularly obedient to adults other than Mrs. Mitchell, the pastor, and their own parents.) Still, she knew that some of her new friends expected her to at least tell the little kids not to run in church. And some of her old friends were very sure she shouldn't.

Ashley Morgan was in the youth choir, but not one of the problems. Indeed, it was hard to believe that such a small voice belonged to JG's sister. Crystal tried to be civil with her. On the one hand, a friendship with her would be likely to lead to an acquaintance with her brother. On the other hand, she didn't want JG thinking of her as one of the friends of his little sister. He should think of her as one of his fellow adults in chancel choir. And, after all, Ashley -- in junior high -- didn't have anything in common with Crystal.

Geometry class got rough. "I wish I had taken general math," she said at home, "that's all you have to take, you know?"

"Oh?" said her dad. "And how did you plan on paying rent?"

"What rent?"

"You can't take general math and expect to live here."

"That's my room."

"It's my daughter's room. And my daughter wouldn't take general math."

"Now that you have each made your points," said her mom, "are you willing to help your daughter with plane geometry?"

"Of course. When would you like to have the lessons?" he asked Crystal.

She didn't have a choice. They settled on Tuesday and Saturday evenings.

What her dad would not do was to teach her to drive. Her birthday came too late for her to enroll in driver's ed that year, and all he would do was say, "Well, you can take the course in school come September." It was totally unfair, that she could be sixteen and still not allowed to drive the car all summer. Many of her friends had started well before their birthdays. He emphasized, though, that if she ever distrusted the driver's ability -- whether because he or she was drunk, or for some other reason -- she should call home and he would pick her up. As if Crystal would. And her friends didn't do drugs, which she was sure was "some other reason," and then drive. They did far fewer drugs than she thought he thought, really.

The cherub choir sang the Sunday after Easter. The youth choir sang twice. JG and Mrs. Driscoll each got two solos. Mrs. Jenkins begged off twice, but she sang a solo in June. Then the choir broke for the year. If anybody remembered Crystal's singing they didn't mention it.

There had been more than the usual amount of dissatisfaction with the current pastor. Crystal heard fourth and fifth hand reports that the staff-parish committee had asked that he be replaced. That she did not hear directly from her own dad, who was on the staff-parish committee, could have been a complaint of Crystal's. Instead, it was one of those things which she tolerated in silence.

In June, right after the end of school, he moved out and the new pastor moved into the parsonage. It was Rev. George Powell, with his wife Barbara. The chancel choir sang its last anthem the first Sunday that Rev. Powell preached. People welcomed him and said nice things about his first sermon; they complimented his wife. The most enthusiastic comments, however were about his young daughter. Shannon was terribly cute, and Crystal felt herself succumb as fast as the other girls did.

Crystal had outgrown most of her summer clothes. Her mom took her shopping. She bought new bras, B cups since the old ones didn't fit any more. Her mom suggested that she get ones which would snap at the closest point -- more growing room that way.

She found the cutest swim suit, but her mom wouldn't let her buy it. "One piece. Your father would have a cat fit if he were asked to pay that much for such little coverage."

Swim suits aren't priced according to the amount of material, but still they left the shop with a one-piece suit. Compared with what her friends would be wearing, it would qualify her as a nun.

Her final selection of jeans wasn't much better. They fit like farmer's overalls.

Still, she had clothes for the summer. Josh started taking her to movies in town about every other week. They sat down front where they could see everything. Many of their friends sought the back rows, but Josh didn't seem interested in her; he seemed more interested in being seen with her.

The rest of the time, she started going with her friends to Portage Lake. Despite the still-cold water, she swam -- one thing which could be said for her mom's choice of swimsuit, you could swim in it. Then they lay around on big towels working on their tans. Josh wanted to be near her, but they had separate towels. He helped her with her sunscreen, but otherwise kept his hands to himself.

She noticed that some of the boys she knew from high school watched her on the beach. At first, this made her a little nervous; after the second day, she gloried in it. She didn't flaunt anything -- what did she have to flaunt after her mom had dressed her like a nun? But, when she had noticed some boy looking her way, she sometimes spread her legs a little to get more sun on the thighs.

There were a lot of holes in church during the summer. Faculty and students took long vacations. She didn't get to go anywhere. The farthest she had been in her life was Manitou Island. Her father read physics journals and taught summer school, rather than exploring the USA or the world like other faculty members did. JG was away, working rather than sight- seeing. Still, she missed him.

Some of her friends went to the beach on Sunday. The changing rooms were closed, the lifeguards weren't there, but nobody tried to prohibit swimming. "Crystal," Janice said, "you have to come."

"Why?" She couldn't leave the house before Sunday dinner was over, anyway.

"Just come." It turned out that there were boys there, boys none of them had ever seen before. They were men, really, students from the university who all worked together at some mine through the week. Sunday was their only day off, and they spent it at the lakeshore.

What was more, and despite the competition from some of the other girls -- Amanda wore a bikini which wouldn't have made a decent handkerchief -- some of them were interested in Crystal. She went back the next Sunday.

There was always a big celebration on the Fourth of July. Most of the town was there. Families ate a picnic dinner, and then watched the fireworks after dark. She went in her swimsuit covered by blouse and jeans. She went swimming early, and then decided not to cover up for the rest of the day.

Each family would claim a small patch of ground, but everybody visited back and forth. Her friends would go to their parents to raid the picnic basket, then visit somebody else's family, then gather at the western end of the beach, which was their place. Some would go in the lake again; some would wander off with their special person. The nearby woods were full of couples.

Crystal visited many of her friends and their parents. She visited some choir members. Then she came upon the Morgan family. "Hi, Ashley," she said. Ashley gave her the look of recognition which was all the conversation Ashley ever offered. She then resumed reading her book.

"Hi, Crystal," said JG. She had known he was off work that day.

"Young Crystal," said his grandmother. "You look a lot cooler than I feel."

"Well," Crystal said, "any time I get too hot, I can always go back in the lake."

"That's the real advantage of being so young. But isn't the water awfully cold?"

"And any time I get too cold, I can come out again." Great, now she was having a conversation with his grandmother, and a silly one at that. Still, it beat hanging around in silence. And some students at the university found her attractive in her swimsuit -- fit for a nun, or not.

After a minute, JG wandered off. She got away not too long after.

Somehow, the fireworks were a letdown that year. Her dad and mom talked about how nicet hey were all through the drive back, but she didn't contribute much to that conversation.

She continued to go to the beach, she met with a bunch of people from the high school on weekdays, and her special friends and their friends from the university Sunday afternoons. On most weekdays, she could get a ride there from her dad; some Sundays, Jan or Amy drove; some Sundays they got there by walking or hitching. Usually, they all hung out together, swimming, lounging around, swimming. Then the men would get back in their powerboat to cross the lake to where they were parked. Her friends would all go back in the woods to pull their jeans and tops over their swimsuits.

As the summer went on, some of the more daring girls would take walks with some of the boys on the paths in the woods. Other girls, mostly those with special boyfriends, stopped coming on Sunday afternoons.

Crystal didn't go off alone, partly because she had been warned about Lyme disease. She had two special friends among the crowd from the university, Bill and Chris, who each had asked her. She let them understand that she hadn't decided yet.

One Sunday, when she and all her friends had hitched to get there, Bill hadn't been able to come. Towards the end of the afternoon, Chris asked her to walk in the woods with him. It was about time; Crystal didn't want to be kissed in front of her friends, who would tease her afterwards. One of the boys was off with her friend Amy. As the boys didn't go off when a friend was in the woods, Crystal delayed her acceptance until Amy would get back.

Suddenly, they heard a scream. Amy came back, all right. She was holding the top of her swim suit in her hands. There was a bit of shouting, some of the boys yelled at the guy who had gone with Amy. Then they all piled in their boat. The girls were left on the beach. Amy was sobbing and incoherent.

Somebody brought her clothes. She pulled on her top without fastening the top of the swimsuit; the string on the back seemed to be broken. "Now what?" asked Jan. "She can't walk back dressed like that. It must be a mile and a half to her house. Do we hitch?" Amy was incoherent, but plainly wasn't happy about that choice.

Crystal saw what was needed. She pulled on her own jeans and fished some coins out of her pocket. There was a pay phone near the closed concession stand. "Dad, you said I could call you if I needed to. I'm at the lake, and I desperately need a ride home."

Crystal had planned to put Amy in the front seat. Instead, Amy headed for the back, and Nicole and Sarah got in with her. Crystal rode in single glory in the front. Her dad let the back seat off a block from Amy's back door. The girls had a plan to get her in unseen. Without asking, her dad drove back to the beach to pick up the others. He dropped them off at their homes, making their house the last stop.

"I told you there would be no problems if you called, but could you tell your mother what happened? You can be as explicit or as discreet as you wish, but she'll be worried. As for me, my lips are sealed."

Crystal explained as much as she understood about Amy to her mom. She left her decision to walk in the woods with Chris out of it. "Well," said her mom, "I think that this is the time to call in your father. Ryan," she shouted. He came.

"Apparently," her mom said, "the need wasn't quite Crystal's. Was it all right to call?"

"Well, I've been thinking about that. The rule is that if she needs to call, I need to pick her up. She felt she needed to call. I'm not going to second-guess her." He turned to Crystal. "I think you did the right thing, kid."

And that was the last time that either of them brought that up. Amy's dad wasn't quite so forgiving. Amy, naturally, tried to keep the secret of what had happened in the woods from her parents. And, naturally, it didn't work. Amy's dad learned what had happened, probably a lot more than Crystal ever learned. And her dad, who had been some sort of buddy with Crystal's, thought Crystal's dad should have told him.

Nobody went back to the lake the next Sunday. Amy stopped going until the next Fourth of July. When the more daring of Crystal's friends did go back on a Sunday, the boys from the college had stopped visiting.

Amy didn't tell Crystal what exactly had happened, and Crystal didn't ask. She was not that naive, though. Amy had returned not wearing her top. She thought about what had happened to Amy. She thought about it happening to her, some boy holding her breasts.

As hot as it was, closing the door to her room tended to block the flow of air conditioning. She closed the door, though. She thought of the boy holding Amy's breasts. That thought increased the sweat in her cleft. Then she thought of Chris holding her breasts. What did it matter? She thought of JG holding her breasts. That made her cleft run with sweat. She rubbed it around until her excitement peaked. Now all of her was running with sweat. She threw on a robe and ran for the bathroom. She felt cool and comfortable after a shower.

When school began again, Crystal was in second year algebra and in driver's ed. Algebra was easier than geometry had been. Still, her dad continued the tutoring sessions. He absolutely refused to do the assigned problems for her, though. What help he thought she would get from the tutoring, Crystal couldn't see.

Mrs. Mitchell gave her a special reminder of the first rehearsal for he chancel choir. She didn't provide any solos, however. A Betty Miller moved to town and joined the church. Crystal was no longer the newest alto. Mrs. Miller needed a strong voice near her to keep her on pitch. JG was back. His voice was as interesting as ever. He didn't seem any more interested in Crystal.

Driver's ed, after the first few weeks, was almost as boring as the other classes. Still, she would be free to drive herself as soon as the class was over.