She Loves You

By Rhonda Batchelor

Although it is 1969 and the end of a decade that has brought tremendous social change even in southweatern Ontario, 14-year-old Annie Ward has experienced little of "love, peace, and understanding." A diehard Beatles fan and highly intelligent but lacking in social graces, Annie is still grieving over the death of her father and also misses Zoe, the one "best" friend she ever had, who has moved away due to less-than-friendly circumstances.

Lonely but proud, Annie has distanced herself from everyone, even her mother. then, amid highschool rumours of her supposed homosexuality, Annie is challenged by her guidance counsellor to confront her "problems" by writing about them. In an awkward attempt to make friends, she is drawn to a group of ragtag local hippies. One of them, Sweet William, is even more bereft than Annie, and not by choice. The 1960s may have jump-started a cultural revolution, but for many people the old prejudices are slow to let go. Still, perhaps "all you really need is love …"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Jul 14, 2008
• ISBN: 9781770704909

Rhonda Batchelor

Rhonda Batchelor is the author of two collections of poetry, Bearings and Interpreting Silence. She has been anthologized in Windhorse Reader: Choice Poems of 1994, Because You Loved Being a Stranger: 55 Poems Celebrate Patrick Lane, and New Life in Dark Seas: Brick Books 25. She lives in Victoria, BC, and is the manager of The Hawthorne Bookshop. She is also the publisher of Reference West chapbooks.

Book preview

SHE

LOVES

YOU

SHE

LOVES

YOU

Rhonda Batchelor

Copyright © Rhonda Batchelor, 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Editor: Michael Carroll

Design: Jennifer Scott

Printer: Webcom

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Batchelor, Rhonda, 1953-

      She loves you / Rhonda Batchelor.

ISBN 978-1-55002-789-1

I. Title.

PS8553.A825S54 2008     jC813’.54     C2008-900662-3

1     2     3     4     5          12     11     10     09     08

We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on recycled paper.

www.dundurn.com

For Ben and Joanna of the Enlightened Generation.

Peace.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank P.K. Page for urging me to dig this story out of the drawer and the Canada Council for the Arts for allowing me to complete it in a timely manner. I am also indebted to wise readers Linda Rogers and Paula Nasmith for their insightful comments.

Prologue

The girls didn’t know they were being watched. One followed the other in the deep snow. The steps that led down the gentle hillside to the city park were buried, so the two girls slid along a diagonal slope where they imagined the path to be. It was no longer snowing, but the sky was heavy and it would soon be dark. They made their way to the small playground that would swarm with children in the summer but was now silent and abandoned. The swings had been dismantled for the winter, their tall, rust-covered frames outlined in the dusk. The slide, too, was a snow-covered sculpture. The wading pool had disappeared with the ground.

For a long moment the teens stood gazing up at the pewter sky, then the shorter girl began to sweep her arm across the top of a wooden picnic table, clearing away the snow for a place to sit. The taller girl did the same. Once seated, they brushed the excess snow from their sleeves with their mittens. Their bulky coats were touching as they sat together. Their wintry breath mingled in the cold air. It was very quiet.

The first girl spoke. The yellow-and-black-striped scarf wrapped over the lower half of her face muffled her voice. The figure watching from the thicket just behind them couldn’t hear what was said, but dared not move any closer. The second girl, the tall one, lowered her head and shook it, slowly and sadly, from side to side. No.

The first girl watched her carefully and then, glancing around, put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. The tall one was crying now.

After another long moment, the first girl withdrew her arm and stood to face her friend still sitting on the table’s top. More words were exchanged. In one quick motion the standing girl reached up to lower the scarf from her face, leaned forward, and kissed the other girl. Then she turned and began to walk quickly away across the park.

The girl who had been kissed let out a small cry. She scrambled down from the table and stumbled after her departing friend, still crying, still calling out. The first girl disappeared over the crest of the hill, not looking back.

Chapter 1

The bell sounded for fifth period, and the floodgates opened.

Annie’s dad used to say that. I get home from a long day in surgery and look forward to my pipe and some peace and then the floodgates open. Someone get that blasted telephone …

Caught in the flow of fellow students, Annie Ward was swept along the hall as if in a fast-moving river. It was just as well. She had only eight minutes to descend four flights of stairs to the locker room and to be changed and ready for Miss Christian’s Grade 10 girls’ gym class. Latecomers, or those not adequately turned out in clean, pressed, blue gym suits, with white running shoes and white socks, would be made to run laps around the outside track. Exercise as punishment was a concept that didn’t make a lot of sense to Annie, like much of what went on at Albertford Collegiate Institute and Vocational School. As its name implied, ACI was an old-fashioned high school, slow to catch up to the rapid changes of the 1960s. A current outrage, to Annie’s way of thinking, was the double-standard rule that allowed only boys to wear blue jeans. Girls were permitted to wear only non-denim trousers with side zippers. Females who tested the rule were immediately sent home to change clothes and to obtain a note from a parent promising it would never happen again.

On this day Annie was wearing a pair of tapered trousers made of fine grey wool, slacks made for a girl, but sporting a forbidden front zipper — a fly. I can fly! Annie smirked to herself as she launched herself off the last three steps before the change-room door. Annie’s heart sank as she recognized the all-blond cheerleading contingent from her homeroom blocking the doorway. Debbie, Karla, Kathy, and Kelly — or Debbie and Ko., as Annie secretly referred to them — were all popular, pretty, and from wealthy Albertford families. Debbie’s dad owned a new-car dealership, Karla and Kelly were lawyers’ kids, and Kathy’s dad was a pediatrician. Annie had been a doctor’s kid, too. Once.

As Annie attempted to reach for the door, Debbie, the Blonde Supreme, stepped sideways to block her way. What’s the hurry, Lez? Don’t want to be late for gym?

It’s Annie. Annie forced a tight-lipped smile, and lowered her head to push her way through. Excuse me please, Debbie.

Oh, such manners! A real gentleman, I’m sure.

Debbie’s troops closed in around Annie, forming a tight circle of fuzzy sweaters, thrusting breasts, and chewing-gum breath.

So which is it, Lez-bo? Can’t wait to watch all the girls undressing? Or do you and Miss Christian have a date in the shower? Debbie was bold, having a great time in front of her loyal fan club.

Annie’s face burned with anger. Get stuffed, Debbie.

"Oh-oh. Now where are his manners? Oh, well. Here — Debbie waved the other girls back and made a show of holding open the door for Annie — after you, I’m sure."

Annie hesitated before stepping forward, but as soon as she did, Debbie let go of the heavy door, wedging the two girls face to face. They were almost the same height, both tall for fourteen. On the stairs behind them a few other girls, also late for gym, were anxious to pass but unwilling to interfere.

Under her breath Debbie snarled at Annie, We’re on to you, you know. We’re spreading the news.

Annie met her gaze. What news would that be?

"You know — lesbian." Debbie spat out the word.

Yeah, right. Annie pushed through the door, head held high.

In the change room she kept her back to the others and hummed the first Beatles’ song that came to her. Let me take you down, ’cos I’m going to … Strawberry Fields … nothing is real … She concentrated on imagining John Lennon’s face, his hooded brown eyes behind round, wire-rimmed glasses, looking down his long nose, contemptuous, slightly amused at the stupidity around him, his thin lips set in a knowing smile. That was how Annie wanted to feel. That was how she tried to see herself. And nothing to get hung about ...

Stripped down to her white bra and panties, Annie stepped into her one-piece gym costume. All the girls called them bloomers, faded blue cotton suits with the owner’s first name machine stitched on the back and the leg holes clenching thighs in elastic grips. Hastily fastening the front buttons, she turned to find Debbie suddenly beside her, one long leg raised to the bench as she tied an elaborate bow in the laces of her right running shoe. Annie noted that Debbie had replaced her white laces with pink. Where on earth did she find them, Annie