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"Okay, okay. The lines." He stood up, brushed back his hair, took a sip of his beer and after he regained his composure, we began.

We practiced for nearly an hour, with his interrupting every once in a while to kiss me and then, pull back with his hands up, claiming he was just trying to get to know me better. I had to laugh, even though I had just come the closest I had ever come in my life to making love. He didn't know it, but he had been only seconds away. I had nearly lost control of myself and even felt some regret that I hadn't, but that was something I wasn't going to let him know.

I told him I had to get back home and I insisted. He was disappointed, but we left.

He took me home the same way, over the back roads. At the house he kissed me long and hard again, running his hand over my breasts and down my stomach to my thighs before I pulled away and got out.

"What about tomorrow?" he asked. "Same time?"

"No. My guardian is coming home and I should be here to help out," I said.

"Maybe one night after school this week?"

"Maybe," I said.

"You're going to make me work hard for you, huh?" he asked, half-jokingly.

"Won't that be a big change for you," I said and he laughed.

"Good-bye, Emily Webb."

I watched him drive away, a part of me relieved, but an even bigger part of me sulking at my self-control. Yes, he was rich and arrogant, but he was so handsome and as he showed me by telling me about his family, he could be very sensitive, too. I couldn't help but wonder what Grandmother Hudson would think about all this, especially if Corbette and I actually became an item.

As I was going up the stairs, Merilyn called to me. "You had a phone call," she said. "Someone named Roy."

"Roy?" I hurried back down. "Oh when?"

"An hour ago."

"Is he calling me back?"

"He didn't say."

"Did he leave a phone number for me?" peppering her with questions.

"What did he say?"

"He just asked for you. I told him you were studying lines from a play with a boy from school and he said to tell you he called. That's all. I wasn't hired to take messages for you," she added and marched away.

Disappointed, I walked slowly up the stairway and threw myself on my bed, my heart feeling jumbled. Pictures and sounds ran up and down, back and forth across the screen of my memory. Corbette's eyes faded into Roy's and Roy's voice was overtaken with Corbette's. Their kisses, their caresses nudged that part of me that had awoken with each small explosion of passion Corbette and Roy had created.

I lay on my back with my eyes closed and moaned softly, wondering if I should have

surrendered myself, wondering what it would have been like, wondering what danger and what ecstasy waited on the other side of that door, a door I had nearly opened.

.

Merilyn had left before I went down to prepare myself some supper. I was standing in the kitchen, looking through the pantry and the refrigerator, reviewing what my menu choices would be when the phone rang. I lunged at it, snatching it off the cradle, hoping it was Roy, but it was Audrey.

"Hi," she said in a tiny voice. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I wanted to call to see how Mrs. Hudson was doing."

"Oh, she's doing fine, Audrey," I said, not able to hide my disappointment. I felt bad about it and quickly added, "but it's nice that you called."

Her voice grew stronger, bolder.

"I was worried about you too," she said. "The play's coming along really good, isn't it?"

"I guess so. It's my first so I really have no way to judge."