"Jackie, just hear me out!" Stella exclaimed, holding her ground. The ex-wife of Phil Burnside was a headstrong, iron-willed woman, and she fully intended to do exactly what she thought was best for her troubled young daughter. And anyway, the mother consoled herself, it wasn't as if she was trying to get Jackie to do anything. All she wanted to do was get the young girl to listen!

"Okay, Mother," the blonde girl replied sullenly. "But if you're going to try to fix me up with a date again…" She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. Stella knew well enough what the pretty blonde teenager was referring to. It was that ill-fated blind date she had arranged for Jackie last summer.

Gary Starkoff was a football player who had graduated from high school in June, in the same class with Jackie. He'd taken a summer job in his father's stationery store, two doors down from the Double-X Theater, and like every other red-blooded man in the area, he had become immediately infatuated with the magnificently proportioned older woman who sold tickets in the glass booth out front. He'd invent excuses to walk by, and when the stationery store closed at five, he'd come over to talk to Stella between movies. A couple of times, she even gave him tickets to see an especially exciting feature, like the time Candy Knockers came to the stage in person.

Stella had never personally had anything to do with young Gary Starkoff, although Lord knows she would have liked to. He was one of those Eastern European broad-faced, husky types – a strapping big boy with maturely broad shoulders and an endearing, almost innocent smile. His eyes were intense, cadet blue, his hair was sandy blonde-brown, and he lumbered around like a kindly bear.

One night, he had heard Stella answering the phone which was hooked up to the ticket booth, and he had gasped in disbelief when he heard her say into the receiver, "Yes, this is Mrs. Burnside…"