El Goodman spends her first two years of high school at Mount Vernon High where she first fell in love with Phil Boydon, who now goes to Newberry Military School. Once popular, she is now shunned, while Phil learns that military school can be rough. The hardest thing, however is trying to see each other.
Elaine Goodman looked at the clothes lying on her bed. Never had a selection of clothing seemed more important to her. She had to look mature enough to be thought sensible by not only her parents, but by Phil’s parents as well. In addition, she had to be mature but not sexy in any way. She thought her selection was as good as she could manage.
She drew on the white blouse with its closed Peter Pan collar and three quarter sleeves. After she buttoned it over the ring Phil had given her for her fourteenth birthday, she pulled out the thin gold chain with the natural green crystal cross so it lay demurely between her small breasts. She knew she risked a comment, as it was Phil’s first present to her, but El always wore it on special occasions. She checked. Yes, the blouse was thick enough to hide the outline of her slip. El stepped into her pleated kilt of dark red and green and buttoned and zipped it. Her lowering of the hem worked fine. It broke right below her knees so that only a small bit of calf showed before her matching socks covered the rest of her legs. She slipped her feet into the shined brown penny loafers and turned back to the mirror at her dressing table and began to put her bright chestnut hair into a ponytail, her practiced hand working with the rubber band that was almost the same color.
With her hair properly prepared, she then took her palest lipstick and applied it lightly so that her lips just took on a slight gloss. She looked at her three bottles of perfume and decided that was not a good idea. Too many implications in perfume. She’d just have to smell like Elaine. Well, she thought, what was it Phil said that paratroopers yelled when they jumped out a plane? Geronimo. That was it. Okay, Geronimo. She opened her top drawer and looked at the uniformed boy’s picture. “Wish me luck, Phil. We’re going to need it. And good luck to you.” She was about to get up when the record player paused for the drop of the next one. What was it, she thought. And she heard the first notes of “The Wayward Wind,” Phil’s army brat song. A good omen, she thought and listened until the last wailing notes. Then she turned the record player off and left the safety of her room, headed downstairs and to battle.
Excerpt
"You aren't supposed to be here, Phillip," Mrs. Goodman said and Phil raised his head to look at her. He noticed, for the first time, just how much her mom looked like El, just older and fuller.
"I know, ma'am. I'm going to get in trouble at home. But I had to talk to you, ma'am. El's in trouble at school. None of her girl friends will talk to her. They think she's bad. It's all my fault, Mrs. Goodman. It's all my fault. I love El and I've ruined her life and everything. How can I make it up to her? Or you and her dad?"
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