Benediction by Diane Salvatore

Author:Diane Salvatore [Salvatore, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Gay, Lesbians, Girls' Schools
ISBN: 9781935226116
Google: jcdfzgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1935226118
Publisher: Spinsters Ink
Published: 1991-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Grace’s fingers were burning inside her soaked mittens. She and Glen had been working for two hours on the snowman in his front yard. The storm last night had stopped just short of dumping enough inches to get classes canceled. Still, hardly anyone had been able to concentrate all day on anything much but snowball fights, sledding parties, and the plain old high-spirited clowning that only calf-deep snow could elicit. When Glen had shown up outside Immaculate Blessing with the announcement that they were going to build a snowman together, Grace didn’t hesitate.

“I think he’s ready,” Glen said, stepping back and narrowing his eyes critically at the snowman. He had shown an engineer’s passion for getting the three balls of the body in perfect proportion, and had refused to be distracted when Grace stuffed snowballs down his back or raced away to track up the fresh snow on lawns in front of houses where no one had come home yet.

Glen reached into a brown bag he had brought along and pulled out a shiny black plastic derby. “Now all we have to do 106 Diane Salvatore

is use these two twigs as nails,” he said, fixing the hat on the snowman’s head, and boring the twigs into holes in the hat’s brim. “How’s that?”

Grace frowned. “No. Needs more of an angle.”

Glen made the adjustment. “Here. You do the buttons.”

In her bulky mittens, Grace had a hard time handling the big slippery buttons, but she pressed them as best she could into the snowman’s stomach, hearing the satisfying squeak they made as they bit into the hard-packed snow.

“Now his scarf,” Glen said, running around the snowman to wrap it, muffler-style, around its throat. “Another twig nail in the back here,” he said, “and we’re all set.”

Glen put his arm around Grace as he stood appraising their work. “The first thing we made together,” he said, grinning lewdly at her.

“Very funny,” Grace said, breaking free and scooping up some snow to throw at him.

Glen pushed up the bulky sleeve of his coat to look at his watch. “Come on, let’s go in and get warmed up. I can’t feel my feet anymore.”

He led them inside through a side door so they could deposit their snow-caked boots and wet jackets in the well at the top of the basement stairs. “Hot chocolate?” he asked.

“Okay, but then I really have to go,” Grace said, sitting down at the table in the gold and brown kitchen.

“Can’t you stay for dinner? My mom said I could ask you.” He positioned the mouth of the tea kettle under the kitchen faucet.

“No, my mother’ll be mad. I have to let her know way ahead of time if I’m not going to make dinner.” The truth was, the idea of meeting Glen’s parents filled her with dread. First of all, it would somehow implicate her more deeply than she cared to be.

And besides, they intimidated her: his father was a lawyer and his mother worked for a public relations company in Manhattan.

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