drabble

Young, handsome, unmarried preacher. The girls of the district perked up and went into hunt mode. You could get hurt in the bathroom before youth meetings with all the primping going on. They sighed when Rev. David played piano, asked earnest questions about the sermons, and volunteered for committees.

The whispers were amazed and disbelieving when news went out that he and I had disappeared from the annual zoo trip to eat pizza and play pinball in his old neighborhood.

It's always the quiet ones.

Very good drabbles ita and connie. Funny!

The Sunday I was home from college and he kissed my cheek in front of the entire congregation was an occasion for an audible gasp to go through the church. I think some of the girls contemplated taking out a contract on me. He got transferred to another district, though, so that ended that.

Wow, Reverend Hottie. Filled them with the spirit, did he?

Ah yes, the young, single pastor/youth pastor/music director. Nothing like someone who can simultaneously fuel a young church girl's dreams of both holiness and hot sex.

Two drabbles, in an effort to write something unlike the wip:

Sleep

It’s a pet cliché of romance writers to say someone looks younger and more vulnerable asleep. Take your rugged hero, have him sleep next to the heroine (usually after they first consummate their love), and she’ll notice how boyish and sweet he looks.

As is the way of clichés, there’s truth in it. But I never expected it to fit a one-year-old. Awake, Annabel is a child. She’s slender and strong-boned. Her eyes are alert with mischievous intelligence, and she’s just learned to run. But asleep she curls in on herself, all soft and round and fragile. She’s a baby.

It’s All Relative

A grocery store on a weekday afternoon. Annabel sits in the shopping cart, wishing I’d steer it close enough to let her strip the shelves of all those lovely bright red cans of processed tomatoes. Another mother passes us, with a baby still in a bucket car seat. “Jaden, look at that big girl.”

Safeco Field on a Sunday afternoon. Annabel and I stroll the upper level concourse. She accepts the enchanted smiles of fellow fans and ballpark employees as no more than her due. Along our path there’s a family with a screaming three-year-old in a stroller. I try to pass them, politely blind and deaf, but Annabel pulls me to a stop so she can investigate. “Look, Hannah, that little baby is smiling. I bet she took her nap.”

Both of them are lovely, Susan.

I've always thought it was grossly unfair that babies - who don't need to look like perfect roses while sleeping - are so gorgeous when they sleep. Adults? Not so much.

drabble

Sweet sixteen and never . . .

He's a senior from the play we're in. He sidles up in the high school cafeteria. "Why not come for a walk with me after lunch?"

"Um, what?"

"Come out to the parking lot with me."

"Why?"

He smiles, leans closer. "Get to know each other better."

"Uh . . ." Confused, I just slip off to my usual table and friends.

It's years before I realize what he might have wanted with a redhead with big, naive blue eyes and a startlingly precocious bustline.

Ignorance is bliss.

HA! connie, I was about to post one that's not only on the ignorance is bliss theme, but on the same experience.

Ignorance is Bliss: February 1970, the Capitol Theatre, Portchester, New York

Ah, innocence.

The Dead just finished. It's two in the morning, the last Manhattan train left an hour ago, I'm in a miniskirt, and it's snowing.

Garcia sees me peering out the backstage door. "Miss the train?"

"Yes." Snowflakes spatter my face. "FUCK!"

He grins. "Want a ride?"

"Yes! Manhattan, right?"

"Nope. North - New Palz. But you can catch a ride."

I blink. wondering why he thinks I'd want to go north. The band's manager leans over, looking amused. "Deb," he whispers, "the only thing you're going to catch in New Palz is the clap."