November 1958
Alice Newberry peeked nervously from behind the stage curtain in the Oresville High School Auditorium.
She wasn't nervous about singing in the talent show because she had been singing on the radio with her Uncle Jacks country band since she was ten years old. Her Uncle Jack did a live show on KLRK in Little Rock on Saturday mornings from ten to eleven.
Damn why had she done what she did the day before? That's why she had that ‘butterflies in her stomach' feeling.
Alice spotted the object of her affections sitting in the second row of the center section of the auditorium. Rita Carson, the most popular girl in high school was sitting between her two best friends.
Sandra was a curvy beautiful blonde with pale blue eyes. She had been homecoming queen, was captain of the cheerleaders and dated the star quarterback for the Oresville Miners.
Alice had a crush on Sandra since the sixth grade. She didn't quite understand her feelings she just knew she badly wanted to kiss and caress Sandra.
She and Rita had never been friends. Alice was considered different from all the other girls her age and didn't have any close girl friends.
Alice had always been a tomboy and in her early teens could throw a baseball harder and a football further than most of the boys her age. She was the star of the girls' basketball team, leading in scoring and rebounding.
Alice had always been taller than most of her classmates and was a late bloomer. She had just turned eighteen and her five foot eleven body had sprouted nice average but pert breasts. She wished her boobs were as big as Rita's best friend Shirley Gaston. Shirley had to be about a 38 DD.
Alice was a pretty girl with light brown shoulder length hair with eyes the color of dark chocolate.
The curtain was being pulled back and Larry Justice her best friend was the MC. of the senior high talent show.
Larry was a rebel and marched to the beat of a different drummer like Alice.
She had lost her virginity to him when they were fifteen. Alice knew Larry still loved her and her parents thought they were still going steady but he was just her beard now.
He idolized James Dean and had watched every showing of Rebel Without A Cause at the theatre in their small mining community.
He loved to read Jack Kerouc and most times would have a paperback copy in his back pocket of one of his books.
Larry's father had been killed in action in France following the invasion of Normandy.
Larry and his mother, Wanda, lived with her parents in a grand two story home that was built in 1903.
Wanda's father was the assistant superintendent of mining operations for Alcoa; the second highest ranking job with the company.
Larry was very intelligent but didn't make good grades, just enough to get by to graduate.
He wanted to either be a performer of some kind. He loved Steve Allen and maybe a show late at night might be his goal.
He also thought about owning his own magazine, one like Playboy.
He actually had been in the magazine business already two years earlier. Before school he would go to the company store (everybody still called it that even though it was now privately owned.)
He would take his empty zipper notebook and steal movie magazines from the rack and sell them to the girls at school for a dime. He was making some nice pocket change until he was caught.
His mother and grandparents were shocked and he was grounded for six weeks and had to make restitution to the store. He wasn't charged with anything and the town residents said it was because of his grandfather's status with Alcoa.
Larry wasn't the most popular guy in school, far from it. The truth was that he was extremely shy. His shyness made his classmates think he was stuck up.
He was small standing only about five six and maybe weighed a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet.
He was so cute though. Brown hair worn like James Dean, beautiful blue eyes that could almost hypnotize a person.
Alice heard Larry introduce the first act and walked off stage to stand by her.
"Hey good looking did you do what you said you were going to do?" he asked making Alice blush.
"Uh…yeah I did. I'm scared now Larry."
"Hey be cool. You're not the only lesbian in the world" he told her patting her on the shoulder.
"Larry, I don't even know if I am a lesbian. I don't even know what two girls do together."
"I do" Larry said laughing thinking of his secret stash of magazines a cousin of his had brought from Europe and given to him.
"I wonder if she even found the note." She had slipped the note in Rita's Trig textbook.
Knowing a big test was coming up Alice was sure she would find it.
"Tell me what it said again?"
"I just said I had a really bad crush on her and maybe even loved her and the two songs I'm singing today are dedicated to her."
Larry was doing a really doing a good job with his patter between the acts. He was used to entertaining and loved it. He did a three hour show at a small radio station in Bensenville, the county seat about five miles away.. He loved rock and roll just like Alice and loved spinning records and doing dedications.
Larry kept the show moving right along until it was Alice's turn as the last act.
Girls were not allowed to wear jeans or pants to school but Alice had received permission to wear a pair of men's slacks and a sport coat. The pants were pink with little black arrows down the side. The sport coat was white with a black silk shirt beneath the coat. White buck shoes of course.
"Okay all of you cool cats get ready to rock and roll with the Oresville female Elvis…Alice Newberry."
Alice strapped on her Gibson J 5 and took the stage amid polite applause.
She adjusted the mike and hit the opening notes of One Night With You. She didn't do the Elvis version because he had changed the words of the original. She used the original lyrics of one night of sin like in the Fats Domino version.
She found herself bumping and grinding like Elvis but she couldn't help it.
She was afraid to look at Rita and kept her eyes closed most of the song and when she did open them she focused on the back of the auditorium.
Alice looked like she was fucking the mike stand but was so into the song didn't realize it.
She finished the song and was met not with polite applause but a rousing cheer of more, more with wild clapping.
She stole a quick glance at Rita and the beauty looked really pissed.
She strummed her guitar and did Love Me Tender. She sang it like an angel putting all the feelings she had for Rita in her performance.
"Thank you very much" she said trying very much to sound like Elvis and set her eyes on Rita. Her face was red as a lobster and she looked even angrier.
She walked off the stage as fast as she could.
Larry grabbed her and hugged her tight.
"God Alice you are so great. That was cool man."
"Thanks. I'd better change for lunch hour." She slipped into the small dressing room and changed back into a tight black skirt with a white sweater and put on her bobby sox and shoes.
The school cafeteria was full by the time Alice arrived. She was greeted by snickering and loud laughing coming from Rita Carson's table.
She looked for Larry but didn't spot him; he must have gone home for lunch.
Finding an empty seat she sat down and all conversation stopped. The table was occupied by several underclassmen.
Alice gulped her food down just wanting to get out. Dammit why had Rita told her friends about the note? She had asked her to please not say anything if she wasn't interested. Now it would be all over school and probably all over town.
