Chapter 5

Kisses on the cheek and other small affectionate gestures became quite commonplace the rest of that year. Then, in August, Tabby once again escalated things.

On Labor Day weekend, we went out to Vancouver Lake again, Tabby wearing a billowy sarong thing that floated around her in the hot summer breeze. It wasn't nearly as hot as it had been last year when I almost drowned out here - I figured it was probably about eighty, but it was hot enough to do some swimming. There weren't a whole lot of people out here for some reason. Maybe they all went to hang out at the Washougal River or someplace.

"I've got a surprise for you, Bobby," Tabby told me, once we were out of sight of her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Langston were set up under an umbrella with books or something, and Tabby dragged me behind a clump of bushes into a private section of the lake.

"Should I be afraid?" I asked, pretending to look around like a character in one of those werewolf movies.

"No, fool," she laughed. "You're going to love this." And then, without any further ceremony, she dropped the sarong thing she was wearing. It billowed lazily in the warm summer air before settling without a sound to the sand.

Tabby was wearing a yellow bikini. It didn't have any polka dots on it like the song, but it was brief (for the era anyway) and it showed that she was becoming all woman. Her breasts were swelling and her hips were rounding. Her legs weren't quite as long and coltish anymore and she was turning into one hell of a pretty girl.

She did a slow twirl and my glands did a bit more than roll over in their sleep. I got hard and my heart speeded up. "You like?" she giggled.

"What's the deal, Tabby?" I asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

She spun back around and faced me. Her breasts weren't big enough to jiggle yet - they were still only faint swellings so far, but I almost saw that they soon would be. A vision of Tabby-yet-to-come or something.

"We are teenagers now, Bobby. You have to start seeing me as a girl instead of some buddy you hang around with. This is my first step to getting you there. I realize I'm not big up top yet, but I will be. And I want you completely under my spell before some other girl snatches you up. Remember what I said to you almost a year ago."

"Um, Tabby, I've always known you were a girl," I said, looking at her like she was crazy.

"nuh uh," she said, shaking her head and sending all those curls flying everywhere. "Up till now I've been this super best friend who happened to be a girl. I want you to see me as a girl, not a friend who happens to be a girl."

I shook my head, confused. "Um, what's the difference?"

She threw her hands up, exasperated. "Bobby, you're having the toughest time keeping your eyes on my face instead of what's in this bikini. That means you're already almost there. I'm a girl, not your fucking friend who just happens to be a girl."

I suddenly thought I understood. I gave up the battle and just let my eyes drink her in, from the top of her nappy head to the tiny feet in the sand. I saw her nipples plump up on the bee stings of her breasts as I let my gaze travel back to the top of her head again.

Taking a deep breath and mentally crossing my fingers, I asked the dreaded question.

"Tabby, will you be my girlfriend?"

She gave me an incandescent smile and jumped at me. "Of course I will, you big jerk," she said, and then she kissed me.

It was awesome. She tasted of sunshine and strawberries and her plump lips met mine with warm, gentle friction. Her arms wrapped around my waist and my hands found themselves buried in that mass of wild curls as if by magic. Standing there in the sand by the shores of Vancouver Lake with the smell of the evergreens in my nostrils and the feel of warm summer sand between my toes, I felt like I woke up for the first time.

The kiss was brief, lasting only about ten seconds, but I felt like I had traveled whole universes. We broke apart, Tabby's face flushed and eyes heavy lidded. She looked very mature in that moment. Her hands were laced together at the small of my back while mine continued toying with her hair.

"Wow," I said, breaking the sudden hush.

"Am I a girl now?" she smirked, rubbing my nose gently with hers.

"Yeah," I breathed. "You're definitely a girl."

She smiled and leaned in for another sweet kiss. "Good. I'm glad we got that settled. Now let's go swimming."

From then on we went everywhere holding hands. We kissed goodnight and cuddled on the couch. There were no steamy make out sessions yet, and we never investigated anything that was covered up by clothing; our romance was pretty much like a made for TV movie. We were far too young for any of that other shit.

Nevertheless we grew closer every day just by coming to a full realization that we were destined to be together. I have to admit that most of the realizing was done by me, being the clueless male that I was. Tabby knew it from the first day.

Her parents viewed our blooming relationship with I think a little amusement. I don't think that they believed we were going to last beyond high school, but were willing to let things progress naturally. I never got one of those "if you hurt my daughter..." speeches from Mr. Langston, thank god. Mrs. Langston smiled a lot when she saw us holding hands or cuddled on the couch doing homework, but it was like one of those "ain't the kids cute" smiles.

Things progressed like that pretty much all the way through junior high and into the start of tenth grade, which was when the next bit of drama happened.

Over those couple of years Tabby bloomed. She grew another few more inches, stopping at about five foot eight, very tall for a girl back then. Her chest and hips shot out alarmingly and her legs rounded and became succulent. She began to take more care with her hair too; instead of letting it run wild she styled it into a sleek cut that floated enticingly around her face.

I grew up too. By the time we went into tenth grade I was five ten and one sixty, not exactly a hulk but no beanpole either. All that helping around the farm gave me some decent muscles and I had taken up running a little. Nothing serious, but a good jog three or four times a week.

High school was different. A lot of other boys saw what a beauty Tabby was turning into and began to flock around. It didn't matter to most of them that she was black, she was still a hot girl.

Tabby rebuffed them all though. She was polite about it, but firm. But then trouble struck. And once again it was that bitch Rosie Devlin and her asshole brother Brian who did it.

Rosie had stayed out of our way over the past couple of years. Her daddy's farm went bust because nobody fucking liked him and wouldn't sell him the right equipment. He ended up trying to do everything by hand and he apparently didn't have a clue how to farm properly, so all his crops failed and he ended up reselling the land and moving into Vancouver. He was now operating a pawn shop downtown with his wife, Angelina and his spawn, Rosie and Brian. They all lived in the little apartment over the store.

The fact that their father was a complete and utter failure made no difference to Rosie and Brian, the latter of whom was two years older than us. They continued to strut around their respective schools like proud peacocks and acted as if their shit didn't stink. Brian managed to get himself on the football team and Rosie joined the cheerleaders when she entered high school.

By the time we were in tenth grade and Brian was in twelfth, I had managed to learn my guitar pretty well. I was no Chuck Berry, but I could chord and strum pretty good and even do a few lead licks.

I had upgraded my guitar a little bit and bought a Fender Bassman amplifier. I had also managed to get together with Barry Schwartz, Mike Smith and Stan Baker to form a loose band. Mike played bass, Barry did lead guitar and Stan did drums. We were a pretty good band, I think. Barry was our lead singer and Mike, Stan and I were backups, because neither of us were brave enough to be frontmen. We were still nameless, the right name just hadn't occurred to us yet, so on the bulletin board we just called ourselves the Barry Schwartz Quartet and let it go at that.

When all the trouble started, our little band was approved to play for the Halloween dance and we were staying over at the school, using their music room for rehearsals. Tabby usually hung around to observe, as did the other band members' girlfriends, but today Tabby needed to get home to help Mrs. Langston with something and the other girls were busy doing stuff for the dance.

We ran through about two dozen songs, from rock tunes to jazz standards for slow dancing. We even threw in a few country songs, "He'll Have to Go," "The Battle of New Orleans," and a rockin' version of "Your Cheatin' Heart" played with a boogie pattern and speeded up a few BPM.

I left that rehearsal with a good feeling. Playing good music in a group is a high you can't really explain. When the music flows so well and effortlessly, it's like you've captured a little of the energy that fuels the universe and swallowed it whole, making you feel like you can fly for hours. It is probably why so many musicians are so god damn promiscuous. You want to share that energy you get after playing good music. It's a high better than drugs and you want to share the joy.

Alas, I wasn't going to be getting any from Tabby, not until we were both eighteen. We had made that pledge to each other in a serious talk last August. We had taken a blanket and gone to a little clearing way back in the trees at the bottom of our property to have a little picnic. After that of course we started making out and Tabby had stopped me before things got too heavy.

That was when she told me she intended to remain a virgin until she was at least eighteen. In those days that was a pretty big step; most girls still saved it for their wedding night. That trend pretty much continued on into the seventies, in spite of all that free love bullshit. More eighteen year olds were virgins than not, in 1970.

I said that I understood and I wouldn't force her to do anything. But I think I sprayed about sixty gallons of sperm on the shower walls over the next two years.

Anyway, there I was coming out of rehearsal, still feeling high and almost skipping. It was cold and overcast and drizzly, but even the weather couldn't get me down after the music had flowed so well. I was thinking about borrowing the truck and taking Tabby somewhere to skate, because I really needed to burn this energy.

I had just passed through the little breezeway between the arts building and the gym, headed for the parking lot when I heard a shriek. I had spent almost ten years with Tabby and I recognized her voice instantly. It was coming from the direction of one of the little greenbelts behind the school, and I instantly took off running in that direction. I was glad that I had decided to leave my guitar locked in the arts room closet, because I wouldn't be hung up with it if I had to get involved in something physical. My backpack bounced on my back as I pelted through the drizzle.

Another shriek from Tabby urged me to greater speed. Some asshole was hurting my girl and I was going to fuck them up, big time.

I rounded the block and cut through onto a dirt maintenance track, the sounds of laughter and shrieking spurring me on. I came up upon a sickening sight that stopped me dead.

"Gonna make me a fucking tar baby!" Brian Devlin was screaming joyfully. He scooped up a huge handful of mud and threw it all over Tabby, who was pressed flat on the ground by Rosie. Standing in a circle were four of Brian's buddies from the football team, all laughing like maniacs. "Tar baby tar baby tar baby!" they screamed, stamping in the mud and sending it splattering all over Tabby.

"Now you're really black, you fucking niggerbitch!" Rosie screamed, scooping up more mud and slamming it into Tabby's face. "Teach you to fuck around with white boys!" The mud drooled in thick dollops from Tabby's curls. Her eyes glittered angrily from the mud caking her face.

"Wait, you ain't nearly black enough yet!" Devlin screamed, yanking off Tabby's skirt and tossing it to one of his cohorts. I was really pissed to realize that the guy he tossed it too was my old buddy, Frank Shepard. "Gonna make you reeeeally black now!"

This had gone on far enough. Tabby was shrieking and sobbing and trying to scramble out from under Rosie, who's knees were planted in Tabby's soft belly. They had already half stripped her and I had no doubt they were going to do more to her than cover her in mud.

I grabbed a big ass branch off the ground and rushed out from behind the tree I was hiding behind. I kept my head down and smashed two football players across the back of the head, sending them toppling like trees. Still keeping my face averted, I kicked Rosie in the ass just as hard as I could, sending her sprawling in the mud with a surprised yelp. I leaped over Tabby on the ground and broke the branch across Brian's back, sending him face first into the mud puddle he was scooping out of. His hands shot out to try and save himself, but he ended up knocking the other two football players off their feet.

The whole thing had taken about three seconds. Without stopping, I scooped up Tabby along with her backpack, and, half dragging her, I hightailed it back out just as fast as I could.

By the time they gave chase, we were already in the parking lot. I helped Tabby into the seat of the truck and jumped in after her. I didn't want to take the time to close her door, run around to the other side, open the door and climb up. I slammed the door and scrambled across Tabby's legs to the driver's side and got the tired old motor running, just as Brian was puffing into view from the other side of the parking lot. Then I gave him the finger and just drove away.