A sleepy little hamlet near Cooperstown, New York in 1969.
***
"Hello," Melody Burns said as she leaned on the sill of the open window of her bedroom and spoke to the the gardener who was walking past. "Didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't little girl," Sam Royal replied as he stopped to wipe his brow. "I seen you there watching me most of the morning."
"Sorry. Kind of bored," Melody said. "I'm Melody."
"Sam," the burly black man replied, squinting in at the redhead with the freckles around her pug nose and green eyes which were bright as the grass he had been cutting. "You the preacher's little girl?"
"Yes sir."
"How come you aren't in school? It over already?"
"Yeah. Last week," Melody said.
"And you're bored already?"
"Yeah. I wish they would let me mow the lawn. Give me something to do, but I'm kind of a klutz," Melody shrugged.
"Then I'd be out of a job," Sam said. "They will probably let you do it when you get older."
"Older? I'm going to college in the fall."
"College?" Sam said with a dubious expression on his face. "You one of them geniuses or something?"
"I wish. I do okay though. Why?"
"You look like a little kid is why," Sam said.
"I'm 18," Melody sniffed. "Going to college in September and then next year I get to do missionary work for my sophomore year."
"You a do-gooder like your folks, that right Melody?" Sam chuckled.
"We try."
"If you wanted to do real good you could get me a drink of water," Sam suggested. "Hot as blazes out here."
"Sure Sam!" Melody chirped, and as she got up and went across her bedroom and out to the kitchen the gardener watched the skinny thing depart.
"Wonder if the preacher and Momma know you walk around the house like that?" Sam mused as he got a glimpse at the pale legs exposed by the nightie Melody was wearing, and although she was wearing a bra under the nightie Sam thought he caught the bottom of her butt cheeks when she had turned the corner.
"Damn," Sam sighed as the girl came back into the bedroom with the tumbler of water, and although the nightie came half way down her freckled thighs there were no panties under there because he got to see the shadow of what looked like a big red bush though the fabric.
"Here Sam," Melody said as she reached down and handed the gardener the glass before sitting back down and putting her elbows on the sill.
"Much obliged," Sam said as he took a drink and looked at the pale waif. "Doesn't look like you get much sun."
"I burn easy," Melody said, shrugging her skinny shoulders.
"I've heard redheads are like that," Sam said, his eyes twinkling as he nodded in her direction. "And you surely are a redhead."
"Me?" Oh!" Melody said when she noticed he was nodding at the spray of burnt orange hair that sprouted out of her armpits and visible the way she was sitting.
"You one of those hippie girls?" Sam leered.
"Me? Lord no," Melody said. "Daddy would kill me. He says that we should stay as we were created."
"That so? How come he doesn't have a beard then?"
"Uh - I dunno. I think that's just for girls," Melody mumbled.
"Oh," Sam said, and when he noticed the girl was blushing he added, "Didn't mean to embarrass you or anything - about your armpit hair. Matter-of-fact I think it looks sexy on you. Makes you look older."
"It does?" Melody said and her hands squeezed her opposite elbows. "Girls used make fun of me in gym class though, a lot of them anyway."
"Who cares? You won't see most of them ever again after you go to college," Sam said.
"I guess."
"You got a boyfriend?"
"Me? No."
"Daddy don't let you?"
"Well, he would let me go on a date but the boy would have to come and get like interviewed or interrogated I think," Melody said with a giggle. "I think that scares them off. That plus I'm not all that good looking."
"Nonsense, you're fine looking Melody. You mean if I wanted to go out on a date with you all I would have to do is talk to your Daddy?"
"No silly. He wouldn't let me go on a date with you."
"Oh, you mean because I'm black?" Sam suggested.
"NO!" Melody said. "He isn't like that. None of us are. I was brought up to treat everybody the same, Negroes and..."
"Negroes?" Sam chuckled.
"Well, that's the word Daddy uses," Melody explained.
"Kind of an out of date word. After all, I am black, right Melody?" Sam asked while extending his hand up to her.
"Yes," Melody said softly, looking at the massive paw like he was King Kong ready to scoop her up.
"It doesn't come off you know?" Sam mentioned. "You can touch it, unless you're afraid that it."
"I'm not afraid," Melody countered and she reached out to prove it, putting her pale freckled hand onto the back of Sam's. "See?"
"Look how different we are," Sam said as they looked at the hands on the window ledge. "My skin is so black, and yours is so pale and white - except for the freckles that is."
Melody giggled loudly at that, and rubbed her fingers against his skin more to prove to the gardener that she wasn't as nervous as she really was.
"Aw! You're so cute when you blush," Sam cooed.
"Your skin is soft," Melody said as she let her hand slide up to his wrist.
"Yours is too Melody," Sam replied as he reached over with his other hand and touched her freckled forearm, making the down stand up straight in response.
"Your hairs are crinkly," Melody giggled as her hand went up a bit on his forearm.
"Yours is soft as a cloud - what's the matter child? Ticklish?"
"No," Melody said, shivering as the gardener's hand slid up the inside of her bicep and under her arm.
"You like that baby?" Sam purred, stunned that not only was she letting him touch her that way but was leaning out the window to make it easier for him.
"I guess I must. Sometimes I do that to myself - don't even realize I'm doing it. I just sit there and rub my thumb in the hairs because it feels nice," Melody admitted as she bit her lower lip after her confession.
"You sure do have a lot of hair in that little hollow. You know, if I came in there I betcha I could rub it even better," Sam said, and that brought the girl back to earth, causing her to pull back.
"Sorry. Shouldn't let you be doing that."
"Did no harm girl. Now you were saying that boys that want to go out with you would have to talk to your Dad," Sam reminded her. "I would do that."
"He would never and not because of your color either. He would say you're too old. He would never," Melody repeated, although he could see that the thought of it got to her.
"I'm only 51. You're 18. Both of us are adults."
"Wow. You're older than my Dad," Melody said. "You don't look it."
"I'd look better all cleaned up," Sam said. "Kinda sweaty righ now."
"I know," Melody said and watched as Sam took off his shirt and tied it around his waist, exposing
an upper torso that was a little soft in the waist but broad and still pretty muscular in the chest, shoulders and arms.
"Not bad for a old man, huh Melody?" Sam said as he noticed the girl staring at his body.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "I shouldn't be - I mean you have work to do."
"Your Daddy pays by the job not the hour, so my time is my own," Sam explained. "So if you were to invite me in, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that. We could talk and maybe do some more of that touching we were doing."
"Why not?" Sam asked. "Didn't you like it? Seemed like you did. Or is it that you liked it too much? Did it make your tingly inside? I know it did me."
"What's wrong honey?"
"This isn't right," Melody said. "We shouldn't talking like this or touching. Especially the touching."
"No law against it. No law against feeling good when somebody touches you either," Sam said. "Seems to me you liked it when I touched you, didn't you?"
"Still not right."
"It did feel good though, right?
"The sins which lead most souls to hell are sins of the flesh," Melody said. "We all fight our demons on a daily basis."
"By that look in your eyes when I was stroking your arm and telling you how pretty you were - well - it seemed liked you were losing that fight," Sam mused, and while Melody shrugged she said nothing in return.
"Haven't you been with boys before?"
"At school. Half the class were boys."
"I mean doing other things. You know, things that boys and girls do."
"Kissed a couple," Melody said.
"That all?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"I guess."
"Never did anything else?" Sam asked, and when Melody showed a little hesitance in responding he pressed her.
"You saying you never said to yourself, I'm tired of being goody-good and maybe I'm entitled to be a little naughty for once?"
"You won't tell anybody, will you Sam?" Melody said.
"Promise," Sam said as he leaned on the sill.
"Last week after school let out I went into the woods behind the ballpark with Charlie Parks," Melody said. "You know him?"
"Afraid not. A classmate of yours?"