Lincoln Park

The girl was startlingly beautiful.  She looked much older than her age.  As she stood before the pop music rack at Juan de Fuca Music, scanning the piano version of "Up Up and Away!" V. J. Dixon nearly lost his breath.  He had recently graduated from piano school, and had begun to take some music courses at Peninsula College.

V. J. had lived in Port Angeles since the sixth grade, when after his father's death, he'd moved in with his Aunt Hermes.  Never, but never, had he seen such a lovely girl in this mill town.

Tentatively, he approached.  Cannily, he had his line ready.  "Might I be of service?"

"Do you work here?" the beautiful vision asked with a voice so musical it almost stopped Dixon's twenty-one year old heart.

"Well, no."

"Then I guess you can't!" she said with a sweet smile.

"But I'm soon going to be tuning their pianos," he said a bit breathlessly.  Maybe a bit too breathlessly.

"How interesting," she said, a small smile playing on her perfect lips.  She went back to scanning "Up Up and Away!"

"So that nearly makes me an employee."

"Dad says close only counts in horse shoes," she said with a little laugh.

"So, would you like to go out for dinner?" V. J. Dixon heard himself suddenly blurt.  Then his face went pink.

"Absolutely not," said Denise Fogarty evenly.  "In the first place, Denny would kill you, even if he is only fourteen.  Then, my father Ted, would kill you, then I would have guilt pains for running out on Denny, and I would kill you, and then my sister Sharon would kill you for hitting on her little sister, then my mother Nancy, well, she wouldn't kill you, she would just hit you over the head with a fry pan, and, come to think of it, that might kill you too.  So, you see, you'd likely have to die five times, four if you were lucky with the fry pan, but that might be painful."

V. J. Dixon was utterly speechless.

"But on the other hand, if you play your cards right, my older sister might think you are as cute as I think you are.  Though Denny has you beat by a country mile.  Oh, well.  Not every man can be as cute as Denny Mason.  We're going to be married."

"What?" asked a confused V. J. Dixon. "You're about to marry a fourteen-year-old guy?"

"Nono nono nono," Denise laughed.  "We won't marry for eight years, until we are twenty-two."

Speechless was becoming a habit for V. J. Dixon. 

Mariel's eyes were moist.  "What a love story.  Denise and Denny."

"Yeah.  Quite a couple.  They've got triplets now.  They live in Longview, Washington."

He'd have to make time to visit.  He hadn't seen his nieces and nephew in over a year.  He smiled at the memory.  Three sandy-haired youngsters.  They'd be two now...

When V. J. gazed out the window of Juan de Fuca Music, still standing mute near the amused teenager, his eyes suddenly locked on the most incredible sight he'd ever seen.  Approaching the store was Denise's mirror image, only obviously a hand full of years older.  He gasped audibly.

"You like?" asked Denise, while sister Sharon hesitated on the sidewalk to talk to an elderly lady.

This world of tongue-tied post-adolescence would soon shoot his blood pressure off the scale if it continued.

"Sharon likes bashful types like you.  Don't put your foot in your mouth, and I think I can do something for you," said Denise over her shoulder as she started outside to the sidewalk.  "Follow me."