11/22/63

I took my hand away from the part of her that is rarely grasped when strangers are introduced and said: “Hello, I’m—” Jake. I came within a hair of giving my twenty-first-century name, but caught it at the very last moment. “I’m George. How nice to make your acquaintance.”

She was blushing to the roots of her hair. I probably was, too. But she had the good grace to laugh.

“Nice to make yours. I think you just saved me from a very nasty accident.”

Probably I had. Because that was it, you see? Sadie wasn’t clumsy, she was accident-prone. It was amusing until you realized what it really was: a kind of haunting. She was the girl, she told me later, who got the hem of her dress caught in a car door when she and her date arrived at the senior prom, and managed to tear her skirt right off as they headed for the gym. She was the woman around whom water fountains malfunctioned, giving her a faceful; the woman who was apt to set an entire book of matches on fire when she lit a cigarette, burning her fingers or singeing her hair; the woman whose bra strap broke during Parents’ Night or who discovered huge runs in her stockings before school assemblies at which she was scheduled to speak.

She was careful to mind her head going through doors (as all sensible tall folks learn to be), but people had a tendency to open them incautiously in her face, just as she was approaching them. She had been stuck in elevators on three occasions, once for two hours, and the year before, in a Savannah department store, the recently installed escalator had gobbled one of her shoes. Of course I knew none of this then; all I knew on that July afternoon was that a good-looking woman with blonde hair and blue eyes had fallen into my arms.

“I see you and Miss Dunhill are already getting along famously,” Mimi said. “I’ll leave you to get to know one another.”

So, I thought, the change from Mrs. Clayton to Miss Dunhill had already been effected, legal formalities or not. Meanwhile, the chair was stuck into the sod by one leg. When Sadie tried to tug it free, it wouldn’t come at first. When it did, the back of the chair ran nimbly up her thigh, hiking her skirt and revealing one stocking-top all the way to the garter. Which was as pink as the roses on her dress. She gave a little cry of exasperation. Her blush darkened to an alarming shade of firebrick.

I took the chair and set it firmly aside. “Miss Dunhill… Sadie… if I ever saw a woman who could use a cold beer, that woman is you. Come with me.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m so sorry. My mother told me never to throw myself at men, but I’ve never learned.”

As I led her toward the line of kegs, pointing out various faculty members along the way (and taking her arm to steer her around a volleyball player who looked like he was going to collide with her as he backpedaled to return a high lob), I felt sure of one thing: we could be colleagues and we could be friends, maybe good friends, but we’d never be any more than that, no matter what Mimi might hope for. In a comedy starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, our introduction would have undoubtedly qualified as “meet cute,” but in real life, in front of an audience that was still grinning, it was just awkward and embarrassing. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, it was very nice to be walking with such a tall girl and still be taller. And sure, I had enjoyed the yielding firmness of that breast, cupped inside its thin double layer of proper cotton and sexy nylon. But unless you’re fifteen, an accidental grope at a lawn party does not qualify as love at first sight.

I got the newly minted (or reminted) Miss Dunhill a beer, and we stood conversing near the makeshift bar for the requisite amount of time. We laughed when the dove Vince Knowles had rented for the occasion poked its head out of his top hat and pecked his finger. I pointed out more Denholm educators (many already leaving Sobriety City on the Alcohol Express). She said she would never get to know them all and I assured her she would. I asked her to call on me if she needed help with anything. The requisite number of minutes, the expected conversational gambits. Then she thanked me again for saving her from a nasty fall, and went to see if she could help gather the kids into the piñata-bashing mob they would soon become. I watched her go, not in love but a little in lust; I’ll admit I mused briefly on the stocking-top and the pink garter.