Tag: The Novel Serialised
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Chapter 47: Wild in the Country
We are wasting away the day, lying on the sofas in the TV room at Tilly’s family’s country place. “What a party,” Tilly mutters, placing a bag of ice on her forehead. I laugh. “Good though.” “Happy New Year,” I say. “Happy New Year, Birds.” She groans. “Can you get up and change the channel,…
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Chapter 46: The Idle & The Wild
“Am I glad to see you!” Tilly picks me up at Idlewild Airport. She’s back from Europe, and she looks so English now it makes me chortle. She notices. “I’m transmorphing into that little English rose you arrived as,” she smiles, then adds, with bite: “A bit more sophisticated, though.” She adjusts her hair in…
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Chapter 45: I’ll Have a Blue Christmas Without You
The boy is vexed that I haven’t seen Love Me Tender, so he takes me to Loew’s that evening. He whispers all the way through, pointing out what he wishes he’d done differently. “We could’ve watched this at home, and you could’ve talked as much as you liked,” I tell him. He looks surprised. “What?…
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Chapter 44: God Only Knows
Turns out I’m a little more sensitive than I thought.Thank God for Johnny and his guys taking me out last night. Johnny sees things clearly; he’s thoughtful. We talked about Jerry Lee, “Killer,” as they call him, how wild he is, yet how much of a genius. “He’s like a rock ’n’ roll Mozart,” someone…
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Chapter 43: Million Dollar Quartet
Jerry Lee is playing piano on the session. I chat with Marion, sweet and wonderful as ever, the voice of reason. We listen in. It’s going well until the doorbell rings, and in comes the boy, accompanied by a mature-looking woman with a brown updo. He hasn’t seen me yet, and I consider slipping out…
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Chapter 42: Anything That’s Part of You
Topper has been in Europe, visiting friends from school. He’s sent postcards from everywhere he’s passed through, Athens, the islands, Florence, the Cinque Terre, Monte Carlo, Nice, and Antibes. He writes that he’s happy to be back, and that he needs to see me in Pennsylvania. Tilly’s gone abroad for the semester, studying Modern Languages…
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Chapter 41: I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
On the morning of my twenty-first birthday, I’m woken by the boy, eager to show me his present. He pulls me out of bed and drags me downstairs.“C’mon, you lazy thing!” he laughs, hauling me through the kitchen, where Miss Mary has laid out a proper birthday feast.“Morning, sunshine,” she greets, opening the back door…
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Chapter 40: There’s Always Me
The boy doesn’t pick me up at the airport, Red West does, driving the boy’s new car. I giggle when I see it: a lavender Lincoln Premiere, similar to my old Cadillac. “He wanted to be here,” Red tells me. “But it’s mayhem around him these days.”I pretend to understand. “Well,” I say, “it’s good…
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Chapter 39: Summertime
The coursework is getting harder, so I’m being kept busy, and I can’t wait for summer to arrive. There are highlights, too. I go up to see Topper at Harvard when I can, and I visit Cornelia at Radcliffe as well. She’s found herself a boyfriend, a cute, scatterbrained boy with a soft heart and…
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Chapter 38: Trying to Get to You
Texas, 10 April 1956 Dear Birdsong, I’m flying around the country for personal appearances. I can’t begin to tell you about it, so I won’t! But I can promise you one thing: if you’re back with Miss Mary for your birthday this year, I will be too. I miss you, but you don’t seem to…
