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All the Promises

By Deborah Raney

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Chapter One


“Good morning, Kansas!” The radio scratched out static over deejay Kris Kristiansen’s lilting baritone. “Keepin’ cool on another hot, hot August day. Thanks for waking up to KGRV…music to get you in the groove and out the door.”
Out the door? Michelle Penn squinted at the clock on her nightstand. Six-thirty. She flopped onto her belly and covered her head with the plump feather pillow. Too early. And she’d thought Mom’s “yoo-hoos” were bad, floating up the farmhouse stairs at the crack of dawn every morning. Now, while she was glad to have her own place in town, no deejay could serve up the aromas of bacon and French toast that had always come with Mom’s wake-up calls.
Outside the third-story window of her apartment the leaves of the locust tree brushed the window screens and some sort of yellow-breasted bird sang his heart out. Already it was so hot that she was tempted to turn on the air cooler propped in the window of her kitchenette. But by the time the cool air made it back to her bedroom, she’d be out the door. Besides, her landlord had warned her to watch her electric bill if she ran the cooler. And her budget didn’t leave much room for error. At least not until her first payday.
But it was all worth having her own place, and she did love her cozy apartment over the Jacksons’ nineteenth-century Victorian. The pitched ceilings and unique nooks and crannies in every room—all three of them—had a charm the new apartment complex on the edge of town could never offer. Not that she could have afforded one of those places.
She rolled over on her back and said the short ritual prayer that began every morning. “Please, God, keep Kevin safe wherever he is today.” She snoozed through Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime,” but when Tony Orlando and Dawn “knocked three times,” she took the hint and eased her legs over the side of the bed.
Instantly the butterflies in her stomach fluttered to life. First day of her new job and she couldn’t have felt less prepared. Especially when she thought about Kathy and Carol. Her best friends were no doubt sacked out in the dorm, slumbering with the sweet knowledge that they could skip class if they didn’t feel like getting up till noon.
Two years of that life had spoiled her, but there wasn’t enough money for her and Allen both to go to college. Dad needed her brother on the farm, but being in college just might keep him out of Vietnam. So today, Allen would take her place at K-State. She didn’t mind that much. Dad was right that college was a waste of money for her. She’d been there two years, and she still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.
Well, that wasn’t true either. She knew. She’d known what she wanted to do with her life from the time she was twelve years old, and she’d been on a fast track in that direction ever since. But Kevin Ferris derailed her dream when he signed on the dotted line at the recruiters’ office two years ago. It still hurt like it was yesterday.
But now, armed with only a few undergrad credits and the dubious experience gained during a work-study job shelving books in the campus library, she would begin her first real job at Bristol’s weekly newspaper.
“I’m the city reporter for the Bristol Beacon.” She rehearsed the words aloud, hardly able to make them seem true. Why they’d had her start on a Thursday she didn’t know, but at least she only had two days before the weekend. Not that she had anything exciting planned. With all her friends away at college and her love life down the drain, she may as well work every weekend.
She staggered to the shower, and twenty minutes later peered into the mirror in the tiny bathroom. If that snooty lady who’d hired her could see her now—cardboard orange juice cans pinned to her head at various angles and an army of freckles brazenly at play on her nose—she’d surely have second thoughts about hiring Michelle Penn.
Singing along with B.J. Thomas on the radio, she unwound her hair from around seven orange juice cans. “Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head,” she crooned, “And just like the guy—” She stopped mid-verse and stared at a frizzy lock of hair. Those stupid raindrops may as well have been falling on her head. Seventeen Magazine had promised the juice-can method would smooth her unruly curls into sleek perfection. Fat chance.
She ripped the remaining cans from her head and tossed them into the trash. Tugging a hairbrush through the dishwater blond mess, she tried to coax it into submission. She finally gave up and pulled it all into a frizzy ponytail on top of her head.
One look at the clock and she gasped. She pulled on a miniskirt and peasant blouse, stuffed her feet into the new wedge sandals she’d bought for the occasion, and flew out the door.

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