Rayette

          When I was a little girl, I fell in love with Rayette on the parade grounds at a war college in Norfolk, Virginia.  My dad was  at the school and we lived on the army base.  She lived there, too, but she was older by two years and my big sister knew her from school.

One day I was running around barefoot through the grass and I stepped on a yellow jacket bee.  It was like fire, and sudden, and I started screaming.  Rayette swooped down from out of nowhere, dried up my tears and carried me across the neighborhood like a baby, all the way to my door.

I fell for her right then.  She had a thick french braid of long blonde hair and her wrist, right where it met her hand, was thick, too, which I really liked.  I told her I could read her palm so I could hold her hand the next day, and she laughed while I pretended and gave goofy answers like a fortune teller.

The day after that I made a picture for her in first grade.  It was a horse because she reminded me of a cowgirl for some reason.  I was big on cowgirls at age 7.  I started following her all over the place and hanging around where she would be at the park and before long she invited me over to her house.

I threw down my school stuff and said, "Mom, I'm going to my friend's."
But it was Dad at the dinette set, not Mom.
"Whose house?  What friend?" he barked.
"Just my friend, Rayette."
"Naw, you aren't going over to that sergent's house."
"Dad?! Why?"
"You got no business over there."

And that was the end of my budding love affair with Rayette.