Columbus, OH – Image via Wikipedia

Chapter One 

I met Trey in a club.   I guess that should have been my first clue.   My mother always said that church was the best place to meet a man.   She hadn’t followed her own advice when she married my father, but I assumed she knew what she was talking about.  I wasn’t even old enough to be in the club in the first place.  My best friend, J.C., and I had just walked in with her older sisters.  We looked old enough, so nobody asked any questions.   We’d started hanging out in clubs by the time we were 16.   A little make-up, the right clothes, and Voila!  We were instantly transformed into twenty-one.   And we could dance – boy, could we dance! We hardly got off the dance floor with one guy before some other guy was dragging us back out there. 

By the time I was 19, I could get into any club in Columbus, Ohio with no questions asked.  The legal age was 21, but I’d been out there so long, everyone was used to me being there.  I met Trey on the first weekend after he arrived in Columbus.  He was in the Navy, and had just started working at the Columbus Recruiting District.  He was out with a fellow sailor who’d befriended him, and when the two of them saw a table of six women, they made a bee line for us. 

I heard a deep bass voice ask, “Can I have this dance?” I looked up and there was this fine, light-skinned, wavy-haired, green-eyed brother looking at me.  I, of course, accepted.  We danced most of the night together and, when it was time to go, Trey helped me on with my jacket and kissed me gently on the neck.  “I wish I could do more,” he said.  We exchanged phone numbers.  I reminded him that I was only home from school for the long Thanksgiving weekend, but I promised to keep in touch while I was away.