Chapter 3

Kim
Marietta, GA -1970

"You're from Los Angeles, California?" He asked, eyes wide with awe, as if he expected her to be a movie star or some celebrity. Kim was just getting used to the accent, for the first few days she had wanted to burst out laughing when she heard it. "Yep," She responded smugly, taking a stab at the southern drawl. God he was cute. "So what do you Georgia boys do for fun out here?" He grinned sheepishly, "Horses, motorcycles, guns and outdoors stuff mostly..." His grin faded as he could tell she'd been unimpressed so far. "Uh, and beer!" he added. He quickly resumed his grin when he saw that he had finally made her smile.

"So what are you all doin' out here in these parts?" He asked. "I don't know... something to do with a job my step-dad has to do" She answered, wrinkling her forehead as if she was not one hundred percent sure of her answer. "It's crazy too," she continued, "My Mom is nine months pregnant and about to have a baby, and we still drove halfway across the world to get here... damn that drive!!!" She immediately wanted to take it back. Movie stars and celebrities didn't drive across the country with pregnant Moms in the middle of winter.

He didn't seem to notice, "So, we're having a party up on Butcher Hill this Friday night, wanna come?" She'd been starving for something to do, some kind of human interaction, for the week since they had arrived, and now she had this cute Georgia boy asking her to go to a party! Trying to contain her excitement she responded with, "I guess so." "Do you have a curfew?" he asked. "Curfew? Shit... my folks don't even know that I'm alive most times, they could care less when I come and go as long as I leave them alone..." She thought that maybe it was too much information, but it was true that Movie Stars and Celebrities were typically poor parents. Once again, he didn't seem to notice, "OK, so how about I meet you at the end of the street at seven, and I'll take you up there on my motorcycle?" She smiled and nodded while he added, "I'll introduce you to everybody, you'll love it here!"

She laid in bed that night thinking of her new boyfriend. His thick reddish brown hair, hazel eyes, that sheepish smile. He was tall and muscular too! She loved big, tall guys. He didn't know it yet, or maybe he did, but he would be her boyfriend. She fantasized about him and riding on the back of his motorcycle, visiting new places and living without a care in the world. She'd been so depressed lately, this turn of events was so exciting. Maybe Georgia wouldn't be so bad after all. When she enrolled in school next week, she'd already have friends, and a boyfriend!

Mom had her baby the next day, they named him Darin. He was Mom's fifth kid, with 4 different men. Even though she had contended that Kerri was artificially inseminated, nobody really believed it. She herself had never known her father or anything about him except that he had died while in the Marines before she was born. It had been four years since her Mom's last divorce, when Bert had been forced to tell her that he wasn't her natural father, and couldn't legally keep her. Somehow she had always known, but not wanted to. It had been crushing, to have been lied to all those years. She had loved Bert and thinking about him made her miss Bret and Brad as well, even though they were both turds. Now she was getting a baby Brother at 15 years old, and she knew who would probably have to take care of him too, just like she had to watch Kerri more often than not when she was a toddler. Maybe Kerri would help with Darin, she wondered.

Nobody noticed when she slipped out the back door at 6:30. She walked casually to the rendezvous point, she was early. He was already there, though, bent over, fiddling with something on his bike. "How's it goin'?" She asked before he noticed her approaching. He grinned when he looked up and saw her. 'He's mine!' She thought to herself when she saw his face light up at the sight of her. "You ready?" he asked. "Born ready," she replied.

The ride up into the hills was exhilarating. The wind in her hair and her arms wrapped around his waist, it was just like she had imagined. He sped around curves and across traverses forcing her to hold on tighter and tighter. Later on in life, she would reflect on this ride and say that this was where she fell in love with motorcycles and the men who rode them.

There were about 50 kids up on the side of a hill that looked like it had been cut in half. "That's Butcher Hill," he said. "Ha! I thought some people were murdered up here or something," she replied. "Oh they were! There's more than one meaning to the name." She couldn't get over how cute he was when he said certain things. He introduced her to a bunch of people that night. They had a seemingly limitless supply of beer and it wasn't long before everything went blurry.

When she woke up it was still dark. Laying beside to him on a blanket next to his motorcycle, she could hear his regular breathing. It was cool, but not cold. The stars were amazingly bright. "They don't have stars like that in L.A." she said to herself. "What?" he mumbled as he rolled over and picked his head up to look at her. "Nothing..." she said, "Don't you have to be back home?" she asked. "Yeah, I'll be in some hot water, but you passed out and I couldn't leave ya," he answered. "I'm sorry, it just went to my head... I'm out of practice," she said apologetically. He laughed as he stood up and brushed himself off, "We got enough time to make it back before sunrise, maybe."

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when they arrived back in town. He dropped her off where he had picked her up. "I had fun last night," he said. "Me too, sorry I passed out." She replied. "hey it happens to the best of us!" He flashed his best winning smile. There was a period of silence, awkward, like neither one of them really wanted to leave or knew what to say next. Finally, she spontaneously threw her arms around him and planted a kiss right on his lips, before turning and jogging away without a word. He stared in disbelieving wonder at her as she disappeared around a corner. He shook his head, "WOW!"

"Kimble Ione! Just where the hell have you been?" her mom bellowed at her when she tried to slide in the back door. "Why should you care Janet Clair?" she shot back. She knew that if her Mom had not had Darin in her arms she would have slapped her. As it was she figured she had the upper hand. "You better watch out young lady! As it is you are grounded for two weeks!" It didn't matter, though. She knew that her Mom never followed up on stuff like that and, besides, she was on cloud nine and her lips still tingled from her first kiss with her new boyfriend.

The school year went as well as it could have, she passed all her classes and played on the softball team. She and her boyfriend broke up in July, which was just as well she thought since she would be moving back to L.A. in a few weeks. Six months was the longest time she had ever had a boyfriend before. She told him that she would always love him. He said that they could still be friends, and that he would stay in touch.