That September

A young married girl tries to maintain a platonic relationship with a student after a misstep.It is the year 1958 as we descend down upon the small conservative community of Lakewood Maryland. The residents there abide by certain unwritten rules about how they should conduct themselves in their everyday lives.Carol, has married young, is very religious, attending church regularly. Carol blends in well with the other residents and does her best to lead a moral life, eagerly helping out her neighbors.A few blocks away, the Trenton family also is living a quiet respectable existence, but, their paths will cross as Jimmy Trenton, a high school student, and Carol develop an unlikely relationship.Friendship, love and humor come together in this slow-paced novel as Jimmy and Carol try to move back to what they believe is normal after fate puts them together.Excerpt:Friday was Halloween. It was the worst Halloween I ever had. The ghosts and goblins were not child fantasies but beasts of emptiness haunting inside my mind. I had tasted something very sweet and special the previous day and now it was gone--just a memory.I thought of Carol all day long, through every class. The aching feeling of emptiness drained my body and spirit. If only I had the power to turn back the clock just a few hours to return to that exquisite time I had spent with her the day before. But I had no such power--not even on Hallows' Eve.Saturday and Sunday were awful days that dragged on and on, filled with more thoughts of sweet Carol. She seemed so far away from me now and I was moving even further away from those delicious moments I had spent with her in that magical place on Blue Mountain Road.I helped my dad cut the grass and trim trees in the back yard on Saturday, and on Sunday we went over to my aunt's house for lunch and spent most of the day there. I sat with my dad and uncle in the afternoon, watching football games, but my mind was up on Blue Mountain Road with my forbidden companion.Monday was awful. It rained all day and it felt as if my emotions were churning up inside of me, sharing their time of torturing me with the ghosts and goblins of emptiness. Logic had been replaced with longing. The longing pervaded everything as I struggled through my classes.Carol belonged in another world. I knew it. I had no right to her. She had briefly stepped into a fantasy world with me, but now had gone back to hers, perhaps never to return. Now my world was all torn up. It was the absence of that special and delightful sweetness that bore a large hole inside me that I couldn't fill with anything but Carol. But my forbidden companion was gone--back in her world. As phony as it was--it was her world.