Joyce J. Townsend has lived in Santa Fe for two years and has worked in alternative education and human services while remaining steadfast in her devotion to writing. Her poetry, nonfiction, and some short stories have been published but not yet a novel, a memoir, a screenplay and a budding volume of short stories.

JOURNEY TO SMOOCH POINT

Mother hunched over Daddy's industrial sewing machine, the grunt of its stabbing needle punctuating the typewriter droning in the front office. In the circle of light from the gooseneck lamp, her hands pushed and pulled what looked like a slab of yellow cardboard.

When she had first unrolled a length from the bolt of duck-the canvas-like material with which Daddy manufactured the potholder pads he'd invented for commercial bakers-I'd wailed, "How am I supposed to wear that?" We'd been to the five-and-dime, I'd picked out a stylish Butterick pattern-high-cut top with cap sleeves, and snug shorts with a two-inch cuff-but we couldn't afford the fabric for the outfit.

"This'll do fine," my mother said, firmly, cutting through layers of duck with my father's heavy-duty shears. After soaking the material and pounding it for days, she had chopped it into three pieces, one for each outfit. I had already chosen the dye; blue to match my eyes, and yellow to contrast with my dark brown braids. The third was to be left off-white, which I thought would showcase my summer tan nicely. Now, with the completed work piling beside her, Mother noted my worried expression. "You're going to look adorable," she promised, tacking down the last cuff.

"There." She bit off the thread, shook out the yellow shorts, and held them aloft. "Hm, not bad, if I do say so myself." She gave me a fond smile. "When have I ever failed you?"

I scowled: she hadn't, but the dire possibility existed at a time when everything had to be absolutely perfect. I'd been elected by our youth group to represent Cleveland at a weeklong mid-western Unitarian Youth Conference in Wisconsin. I crackled with anticipation.

So far, so good: I had the loan of my father's brown leather suitcase (which I'd already buffed to brilliance with spit, shoe polish, and flannel rags); my oldest sister had bought me a brassiere, my first, (pink satin, with spiral-stitched cups marshaling my little breasts to pointed attention); and my other sister had given me two dollars spending money. And now Mother was presenting me with the three new outfits.

But potholder outfits? Grumbling, I slipped into the yellow set and approached the mirror. Behind me, her eyes gleaming, my mother snuggled her chin with clasped hands. "Oh, honey, you look so cute!" Cautiously, I scrutinized my reflection.

Back then, at age twelve-prepubescent in the 1940s-I viewed happiness as if it were an exclusive neighborhood. I'd be set for life . . . if only I could get in.

Pivoting before my reflection, admiring my gleaming brown limbs (and paler midriff) in the yellow shorts and matching top, I felt like I'd just been given the key to the city.

As soon as we finished registration, we raced to our cabins. Mine had ten girls in it, all changing clothes before lunch; the cabin jiggled excitedly on its stilts. My new friend Gwen loved the blue shorts outfit: "It exactly matches your eyes!" Earlier, waiting in line, we discovered we had the same birthday-from then on, we were twins.

Gwen had a brother, Gordon, fifteen, handsome as a movie star. He grinned at me, as if he liked what he saw, and my heart flipped like a hooked fish. The rest of the week, the three of us signed up for as many of the same workshops as we could. We were together as often as we could be: The Three Musketeers, we called ourselves.

Which is why I was so shocked on Saturday, the day before the conference ended, when Gordon caught me alone and said, softly, "Full moon tonight. Wanna walk up Smooch Point later, just you and me?"

Wild happiness flared. Smooch Point was already renowned: according to conference lore, the nickname stood for more than just a creased hilltop. "Sure!" I said. I was breathless, never having been smooched anywhere.

That afternoon, Gwen and I hiked to the wind-ruffled lake, or rather, she hiked and I fell behind. Turning to wait, she called, "Shake a leg, slowpoke!" I called back, "You go ahead. I twisted my ankle!" I hadn't, but I did have a problem. While she searched out pieces of smooth colored glass for her collection, I perched gingerly on a rock and sought resolution.

The problem, too embarrassing to talk about even with Gwen, was that a small inconsequential wart on the fatty inside of my left leg had turned major and was killing me. Contorted over my flashlight in the outhouse, I'd seen how swollen and fiery red the area was. The bulky inseam was the culprit-the cuffs of all my new shorts were chafing the wart raw and turning the simple act of walking into agony. Bandages and Band-aids were no help at all. When no one was looking, I walked with my legs apart; in bed, I cupped my hand over the sore spot, shielding it from contact. But I couldn't very well do any of that while walking up the Point with Gordon!

Solutions darted like dragonflies: Novocain, a cast, an emergency operation, using my two dollars spending money to take a cab up the hill. I brooded, yearning to be clever, like my mother. Suddenly, swooping out of nowhere, a brilliant idea hovered and landed.

It was still light outside although the sun was slipping as easily as a coin into the pursed Point when Gordon and I started out. I wore my yellow shorts set; he carried a rolled-up towel under one arm. He had long legs; my calf muscles could feel the stretch of keeping pace with him up the slope, but the wart, the agonizing wart, was at peace at last beneath the mayonnaise jar lid I'd sneaked from the kitchen and taped over it. My other thigh bumped the lid, not the wart; I forgot all about it as our fingers groped, met and interlocked.

Suddenly, at the very top of the trail, something blue and white dropped with a loud metallic clank and clattered downhill on its edge, picking up speed, flapping its blur of tape like a frenzied pinwheel. Stunned, I froze.

Gordon stopped, looking back the way we'd come. "What the heck was that?"

I watched the mayonnaise lid ahead of us veer off into a clump of high grass. With a deep sigh, I turned and looked back, too. "Hmm, I don't know. Maybe somebody threw something."

"But nobody's behind us," he said, puzzled. Then he shrugged, and we walked on.

I pictured my mother's chapped, sore hands, cutting and pounding, working the cloth to enhance it far beyond its original intentions. I decided I wouldn't tell her about the seam and the wart, but then I changed my mind. She'd fix the problem, but first we'd have a good laughing fit over my bungled apprenticeship at making-do.

We passed through a straggly pine grove. Gordon held branches aside for me, and we stepped into a crowded clearing, where moonlight gilded the bulky shapes of quite a few other couples. He spread the beach towel in a free spot. Hands entwined, we settled down to admire the darkening sky; then, after awhile, we turned to face each other. He stroked my shoulder with a tentative hand. As his face neared, I wondered, fleetingly, how I'd manage to walk down from the Point, but then I thought, why worry-I knew I'd think up something when the time came. Meanwhile, I closed my eyes and puckered up to receive my very first smooch.