Summer

Summer is remembered through Willowdean Dickson’s account of how her connection with Bo became more intimate and more difficult to define. In a tender conversation with Ellen, she recounts their encounters and admits that Bo wants them to become a couple, while she fears the ridicule that could follow at school.

Recalled Developments

As Willowdean tells Ellen about the events that have shaped her feelings, she moves from Bo at the mall to his failure to tell her that he was changing schools. She also includes Mitch, the dance, Halloween, and her return to work at Harpy’s. The recollection gathers these separate moments around Bo: Willowdean tells Ellen that she would like him and that he wants to be her boyfriend.

Intimacy and Disclosure

The conversation is physically affectionate as well as confessional: Ellen sits up, Willowdean lays her head in Ellen’s lap, and Ellen runs her fingers through Willowdean’s hair while Willowdean tells her everything. The gesture gives the account a private, trusting setting, distinct from the public scrutiny Willowdean fears. Her disclosure also makes clear that her feelings for Bo are not a passing detail among the events she recounts; she returns to him and explains what he wants from their relationship.

Public Labels and Fear

Willowdean resists putting a relationship label on them because she expects that they would be ridiculed at school. Ellen does not deny that people can be cruel; instead, she points to her relationship with Tim, noting that people laugh at them because he is much shorter than she is. In this exchange, the summer romance is framed not only by attraction but by a question of whether fear of public judgment should decide what the couple can be. The evidence establishes Bo’s wish to make the relationship official and Willowdean’s anxiety about that prospect, but does not resolve the question here.