Friday: May 30th |1947|
Ever since you-know-who—aka that movie-star level handsome Professor—got here, things have been different all over. Not that I exactly mind...after all, what's so awful about spending time with a guy who's actually smart for a change?

Still...even at school no one's been able to shut up about the whole thing, and it's starting to drive me crazy.

"Is it true he's from France?" wondered  wide eyed Mabel as the five of us—me, Mary-Rose (of course, because who else would braid my hair while we watched those dumb guys nearly kill themselves trying to impress us with lame soccer moves that nobody even cared about in the first place?) dumbish Mabel Glave, prudish Phyllis (aka Lissie) Chatfield, and that loud mouthed Vivian McCrystal—all sat out on the soccer field early this morning.

"Yup, Paris." I replied, before blowing a bubble with the gum I'd just gotten at the five-and-dime with Mary-Rose. It was so early I could see my breath fog up in the dewy air. I felt like some sort of mythical dragon fairy in disguise.

"And he really looks like a movie star?" Vivian skeptically asked.

Rose cut in before I had a chance to reply. "Duh, haven't you seen him!?"

Vivi shook her head. "The guy never leaves the house!"

"Except to mow the lawn," said Mable, with that high pitched hyena laugh she thought was a cute dainty giggle. "Did you see him out there on Saturday? What a dream..."

With a sour sort of look on her face, Lissie cut in. "So what? He's old."

"That doesn't mean he isn't cute..." I replied, but my voice was so soft that only Mary-Rose heard.

"Besides," Rose began, giving Mabel the eye-roll of a lifetime. "The guy's staying at Dolly's house, so technically he's already hers."

"That's not how it works!" I exclaimed, picking at the blades of the emerald green grass that stained my skirt and socks. "Is it...?"

~~*~~

Thursday, May 30th 1947
Summer came early, but for all the wrong reasons. The entire school got shut down 'cause of some dumb old thing the grownups are calling an 'abominable' flu, or something like that, and there's nothing fun to do in this boring old town. Even worse, today was even hotter than the last two year's 4th of Julys put together.

Of course, that didn't seem to bother Mother too much, but only because she got to sit inside reading Cosmopolitan and sipping pink lemonade. Meanwhile, Louise had called in sick, so I was the one who got forced to go out in the blazing hot sun to hang heavy laundry up on the withered old clothesline.

The garden was hot, sticky, and stuck in a soft apple green light that seemed to pour in through dancing oak branches. Mother had twisted my hair back into double dutch braids just hours earlier, but before long the strawberry satin ribbons holding them in place slipped to the ground from the dampness of the air, and with a soft little sigh I shook my wavy curls loose. Some stuck to my dewy shoulder blades, while others went with the flow of the flitting summer breeze.

Just next door, Kenny Knight was tossing around a beat up old football with his father and older brother. We didn't share much more than a quick glance from across the way before the three of them headed back inside for lunch. Mother called Mrs. Knight's deviled eggs "unsophisticated" at the Easter picnic, so she's been making deviled lobster instead. Who knows if she really does like it better, or the whole thing's just out of spite.

Now, almost every afternoon just before 2 o'clock, you can smell the lobster boiling from a mile away. But on this particular Thursday, which just so happened to be the very last one of the month, Mr. Knight didn't have a chance to make it down to the docks, and the neighborhood's noses were blessed with chicken pot pie and lazy daisy cake.

The neighboring yards were filled with a sense of life that somehow, despite the crisp lilies and blooming hydrangeas, had been sucked out of the one I was standing in the middle of. Most the time I couldn't help but feel so strange and lonely amidst the dewy stricken glisten of the overgrown grass...but today, there was this creeping sort of sensation on the back of my neck that told me I wasn't quite alone this time.

After what felt like an eternity of feeling watched, I finally turned back to the house, whose white canvas had been bathed in a pale green glow from sunlight filtering through the trees. My eyes flitted up to the study-turned-guest room on the second floor, expecting only to see my own sun-kissed reflection, but instead landing on him. Oh, you know who... the handsome, old-but-not-too-old professor who'd just moved in.

From the second our eyes locked, my heart started racing like crazy. I wasn't sure if it was from excitement or fear—but either way I spun around and went right back to hanging up that endless pile of laundry until my arms were aching.

Soon enough, Professor H. strolled right out onto the patio. He glanced around for a minute, checking if the batty witch who was starting to fall head over heels for him was anywhere to be seen, and once he knew she for sure wasn't, he stopped to stare right down at me. I was still sitting on the ground, fidgeting with my untied shoes laces, and cuffing my blue jeans in an attempt to put a damper on the heat. He looked eight feet tall, and made me feel like a little kid who didn't know left from right. Sometimes, I still don't.

I first noticed him out of the corner of my eye, towering over me like a great big redwood. I jumped up faster than either of us could say a word, and began nervously fidgeting with the cartoon cherry-print kerchief top I had been wearing since it's been so hot out.

Still silent, he took a seat on the apple green porch: surrounded by tropical hanging houseplants, and this morning's rain that stilled dripped down from the veranda. I didn't really think much of it at first (maybe he wanted to smell this morning's rain...?) So I skipped over to the porch, and took a seat right on the very top step—just a teeny-tiny bit away from him.

After what felt like hours of silence, I slowly tiled my head back and let an exaggerated sort of sigh escape my lips. I still felt his gaze on me, though. So, bored out of my mind, I picked up a few pebbles from the ground beneath my bare feet, and began tossing them against an empty milk bottle. Still beyond bored, I gave another little sigh, letting the sleeves of my unbuttoned gingham sweater slowly fall all the way down to my forearms.

"Do you like staying here?" I wondered aloud, turning to look at the lanky Professor.

"Of course I do." he replied, with a nod and gentle smile. He talked the exact exactly you'd expect a professor to talk: slow and smooth, sophisticated and refined—the whole nine yards!

"How come?" I glanced up at him, scrunching up my nose the way a bunny-rabbit would.

"I don't need a reason, do I?"

"I guess not," I said with a shrug, staring up to the weather-beaten sky.

"How come you were gonna stay with those rotten old McCoos in the first place?" I couldn't help but wonder, all the while studying the peach and purple speckled bruise on my knee. I got it last Monday, falling out of the Mellbrooke's great big cherry tree.

The second he heard that, the Professor let out a small burst of laughter. It was first time I ever heard him laugh. It was a nice laugh, too; strong, and gentle, and deep enough to feel it right in my chest. But it was light at the very same time, and made me feel happy.

"I suppose they were the only people I knew. The only ones in New Hampshire, anyways."

"But that's just it...why would you ever come here when you could've stayed in Paris? I hear it's very glamorous, y'know."

"Is that so? Well, I suppose I thought it was time I got better acquainted with little America." he paused for a second before laughing again. This time, it had even more of a spark to it. "Besides, you don't know Paris like I do—it's terribly gloomy, you know."

"You say that like it's a person!" I said with a laugh, and a faint smile crossed his face.

"I must ask, did you know the McCoo family well?" he asked, taking a seat next to me on the porch step. He smelled like aftershave. Not the kind Daddy used to wear, though. This one is a whole lot lighter... sorta like his laugh.

"Ginny McCoo was in my class. She's mean, and lame, and crooked-nosed." I replied, glancing up at him with a smile.

Again, he let out that terrific laugh, leaning back for a moment as his hands lightly grazed my shoulders.

He'd never touched me before...and when he did, I didn't have a single clue whether I wanted to laugh, or cry, or sling my arms right around his shoulders and give him a great big Hollywood kiss. Like the kinds Lauren Bacall gave Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not.

God, do I adore that terrifically glamorous movie. Please, God—or Daddy, or Gramma, or anyone who may just be listening way up there—please, someday let me be as good an actress as Lauren Bacall is. Maybe Professor H. could ditch being a professor and we'd be the next "it" couple of Hollywood that everyone's throwing a fit over.

Shattering my thoughts into a million, Mother walked out the back porch from completely out of the blue. She was smiling a great big corny smile, and there was a great big clunky camera clasped between both of her hands.

She turned to face the both of us head on, and with a click of the camera, grinned and said:

"Now, doesn't this already feel just like home?"

~~*~~

Professor H. has been in his study all night, and I can't stand it. I mean, really, the guy sure is terrifically handsome—almost like one of Hollywood's heartthrob characters in real life—but all I really wanna do is talk to him again. Even if just for one teeny-tiny second. But instead, here I am: stuck watching "Highway to the Stars" with my Mother, who insisted on doing my hair.

I still don't know exactly why I have to wear my lacy white Sunday dress, or have my hair curled with a big satin ribbon tied in back. It's not like the queen of England is coming for dinner.

"Mother, I don't understand why we're doing this—my hair already has curls in the first place!" I exclaimed with a roll of my eyes.

"Those curls are unruly." she replied; a bobby pin was clenched between her teeth as she slowly tied the pearly white ribbon in place, tugging at my hair in the process. "We want to give the Professor a good impression, now, don't we?"

"No, you're the one who wants to give him the good impression—and I know why!"

"You most certainly do not."

"I do, too! It's because you have a big fat c-r-u-s—" before I got a chance to finish spelling exactly what it is she has, Mother cut me off by swatting my arm with a nearby magazine.

"Enough, Dolores. Don't act smart, and don't you dare ruin this night. It means a lot to me, you know..."

"Fine." I shook my head full of flowing pin-curls before turning back to add: "But I'm not gonna lie about your age anymore!"

Not like he believed her, anyways— I mean, Mother is gorgeous and all, but she does not pass for twenty seven.

"Why don't you go upstairs and put these on." she said, handing me a pair of cream-white thigh high socks; they were made of velvety cotton, and trimmed with the exact same type of lace as the kind on my dress.

"Why do I have to go upstairs to put them on?" I wondered with an annoyed sigh.

"Because."

"Because, why?"

"Because, I am your mother!"

"You don't act like it..."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's true!" I shouted while jumping to my feet, socks clutched tightly in hand as I dashed upstairs. "Louise acts more like a mother than you ever have!" I quickly added from halfway up the staircase.

Mother began muttering something under her breath as I dramatically collapsed onto the hardwood floor; rolling my eyes as I carelessly threw on the socks, pulling them both all the way up to my lower thigh.

After a few minutes of making amusing faces in the hall mirror, I stood up and began admiring the lace laden dress that clung to my body. I love this dress for one reason and one reason alone; it's the one out of the practically hundreds of dresses that Grandma Haze bought while she lived in New Orleans, exactly thirty years ago.

The thing is, she kept every single one of those dresses in her closet for almost all of those decades, because they were a million times tinier than the salesman led her on to believe: in fact, all the ladies working in her house, including grandma, thought it was probably just some sort of factory defect. But then, exactly twelve years, five months, and thirty days ago (exactly four days earlier than expected) I came along, and Grandma Haze instantly knew that it all had a bigger purpose.

Grandma always said that everything happens for a reason, even the bad stuff—I'm still not so sure whether or not I believe that, though.

Without second thought, I turned to stare at the door of Professor H.'s study, which was open just a crack. I felt an excited smile creep across my face as I slowly tiptoed towards the door. But before I could even say or do a single thing, I heard his voice from other side of the door. "You're welcome to come in, you know."

"But aren't you busy?" I asked, opening the door further as I slowly peeked my head into the room.

It was dim, but not gloomy: the golden glow was coming from a tall lamp in the corner—softly lighting up the entire room, while at the very same time making it feel strange. Almost otherworldly. For once, the candle sticks were filled, and lit. The shadows of flames flickered against the walls, and the air was filled with rich marigold.

"Not quite..." he replied, before taking a sip of the dark amber liquid that was slowly swirling inside a crystal glass.

Instead of the usual spot at his desk, Professor H. was sitting on the red tufted loveseat in the corner.

"Can I sit with you?" I asked, jumping up onto the couch with him.

"It seems you already are." he replied with a soft laugh.

"I guess so..." I smiled, before running my hand along the lacy doily that Mother had laid out on the coffee table.

He set down his drink before staring me up and down. "That certainly is a pretty dress." His voice was low, and sonorous.

"Oh yeah?" I flashed him a quick smile, inching closer onto his side of the couch. "And what about me—you think I'm pretty, too...don't you?"

"Yes...very pretty.

"Thanks, Professor. I think you're sorta nice-looking yourself!" I exclaimed, laughing as slowly walked my fingers across his arm.

"You aren't required to call me that, you know."

"Then what am I supposed to call you?"

"Oh, I don't know—I suppose Humbert would be alright. Humbert, Hum; whatever you'd like, really."

"And I can call you that whatever I want, right? Even around Mother?"

"I don't see why not." he laughed softly, before stroking his hand along my wrist. His skin against mine felt so strange; it was almost like some sort of barrier that was being crossed.

"Say, are you ticklish?" Hum wondered, with a charming, yet slightly crooked smile.

"I'm not telling—jerk!" I exclaimed, crossing my arms.

"Well, then...I suppose I'll just have to find out." he remarked, his fingers slowly lingering along my hipbones, before moving in sudden, rapid motion.

I tried showing not to show my reaction at first, but it was no use: I immediately began to giggle, all the while my legs swung back and forth uncontrollably.

"Stop that!!" I shouted, between fits of laughter. "If you don't, I'll tell Mother that you ruined my curls she spend a whole whole hour fixing!"

He let out a soft chuckle, before finally slowing down the movement of his fingers. "Well, I think it looks better like this, anyways."

"You mean, all messed up?"

"No...not messed up. It's perfect. Just perfect."

I couldn't help but smile, slowly glancing up as his fingers made their way up the side of my arm; gradually circling along my shoulders.

Suddenly, Mother's voice echoed from downstairs: "Dolores, tell Professor H. that dinner is ready!" she exclaimed, the tone of her voice sickeningly sweet. 

That's just when I started to realize that Mother is a doing a lot worse than I ever thought. I mean, Humbert only just got here a few days ago, and she's already trying to act like he's apart of the family. Even worse: she's pretending like Daddy has come back from the grave.