Chapter 4

The first thing I did when I got home was go over to Valerie’s. Her dad answered the door.

“Good evening, young man,” he said, formally. “I understand you are escorting my daughter to the Valentine’s dance.”

“It’s me, Mr. Carter,” I said.

“I know who you are.”

“I’ve gone with Val places lots of times.”

“Not on an official date,” he said.

“Is this an official date?”

He smiled. “It had better be. She’s pretty excited about it. Do I need to ask you what your intentions are towards my daughter?”

“Intentions?”

He leaned closer and winked.

“Are you going to see what you can get away with?”

I blinked.

“You mean try something with Valerie?” My voice rose. The very concept was ridiculous. She’d break my arm.

“Exactly,” he said, looking serious and folding his arms over his chest.

“Who is it, Dear?” asked Mrs. Carter, and her face appeared over his shoulder. “Oh, it’s you, Bobby.”

“I was trying to divine his intentions toward my only daughter,” said Mr. Carter, still very serious.

“Don’t harass the poor boy, Ed.” She looked at me. “Come in, Bobby. What’s up?”

“I need to find out what color Val’s dress is,” I said. “The one she’s going to wear to the dance,” I added, just so there wasn’t any confusion.

“I don’t think she knows, yet,” said Mrs. Carter. “She’s been trying on dresses all afternoon.”

“How many dresses does she have?” I asked, surprised. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Valerie Carter in a dress. Then I remembered a wedding we both went to when we were ten or eleven. She wore a dress then. And she’d worn a skirt one time to another dance.

“More than the average tomboy,” said Mrs. Carter, smiling. “You staying for supper with us?”

“No, I have to get home. The lady at the flower place said I was ignorant and that if Val’s dress is going to be white, I have to call her and tell her.”

Both adults laughed, which I thought was pretty rude.

“It won’t be white,” said Mrs. Carter. “Not this time.”

I wondered which time it would be white, but decided not to ask. I knew what I needed to know.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Carter. “When she decides, I’ll call your mother and let her know what color it is.”

“The lady said the corsage will be two white orkins, or something like that.”

More laughter. It was a rude night.

“Valerie will be pleased,” said Mrs. Carter, when she stopped laughing. “Orchids represent grace and beauty.”

“They do?”

Mr. Carter grinned and patted me on the shoulder.

“At least I know my daughter’s virtue is safe.”

“Ed!” said Mrs. Carter, clearly chastising him with that one word.

“Well if he doesn’t even know what the flowers he’s giving her mean, then he’s clearly not sophisticated enough to seduce her.”

“Ed Carter!” Now she sounded mad.

“I’ll just be going,” I said, turning to leave.

As the door was closing I heard Mrs. Carter say, “And what if she’s the one doing the seducing?”

I thought about that for about twenty feet or so. Valerie? Seducing me?

Not a chance in the world.

Not that I’d mind, of course. If she did, I might get to see those breasts I was so interested in.

But there was no way.

Especially if she’d already seduced any of those other guys she’d gone out with.Or them her.

My stomach hurt by the time I got home, but by the time my mother interrogated me about the corsage I’d forgotten all about seduction and what I had finally admitted was jealousy on my part.

After all, she was going to the dance with me, right?

Okay, okay. I was going to the dance with her.

I’d been to lots of dances. I was always a little nervous about it, while it happened. I was always nervous in groups of kids. You never knew when somebody would pull some prank, or try bullying you. Things could go terribly wrong in the blink of an eye, and at no fault of yours.

But this time my mother was putting me in a suit. And there was the whole corsage thing, and the lessons my mother suddenly decided were required on etiquette. Such as going up to the door to escort Valerie to the car, and opening her door for her and all that kind of thing. I was pretty sure she’d beat me to the car and open her own door. She had a tendency to dash everywhere, and it was entirely possible she’d actually be offended if I opened doors for her. I could just hear her saying something like, “What are you doing? I’m not an invalid. I’m perfectly capable of opening my own door. Get away from me!”

Then there was the assumption, on the part of my parents, that I was taking Valerie out to eat before the dance. When Mom started in on how I was supposed to seat her at the table, I held up my hand.

“Who said we’re going out to eat?” I asked.

“Judy did,” said my mother. “She called to ask me if I knew where you intended to take her.”

“Her mother wanted to know where we were going to go eat?” This was getting weird.

“Valerie is allergic to shellfish,” explained my mother.

“Shellfish,” I said, uncertainly.

“Yes, like clams, or oysters, like they have in fancy restaurants.”

“I can’t afford to take anybody to a fancy restaurant,” I said.

“Sure you can, just this once,” said my dad. “We’ll help out with that. We want you two to have a good time.”

“This is starting to sound like prom,” I said.

“We can discuss prom when it happens,” said my mother, sounding businesslike.

“Yes,” said my dad. “One soiree at a time.”

“This isn’t a soiree, Dear,” said my mother, obviously correcting my father. “It’s a semi-formal.”

“Whatever,” said Dad, and I could tell he was losing interest. I was too, for that matter.

“Since I didn’t know we were going out to eat, I’ll have to talk to Val and see where she wants to go,” I said. “Or if she wants to go.”

“I gathered it was her idea,” said my mother. She frowned. “And a gentleman of good breeding should take charge and establish where he will take his lady fair.”

“The last time I tried to take charge, Val slugged me,” I commented.

My dad laughed.

What was it with all the rude people tonight?

The day of the dance finally arrived. They were having it on a Saturday night, which meant my mother had all day to fret and fuss and issue last minute instructions on gentlemanliness and etiquette. In the years since all this happened, I’ve heard more than one bride-to-be bemoan the fact that her mother was intimately involved in planning the wedding, and that, as a result, the bride was thinking seriously about eloping.

I get that.

But finally I escaped from my house, car keys firmly gripped in my hand. I was being required to drive the whole seventy-five feet to the driveway next door, so I could escort my date to the car without making her traverse any grassy swards.

It turned out that was actually a pretty good thing, because Valerie had on high heels. And they’d have sunk right down into the moist earth of our yards.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Remember those lifetime memories I mentioned at the beginning of this whole thing? Well seeing her come into view that night, as I stood inside their front door, is another one of mine.

Her dress was dark blue. I believe they call it Royal Blue. It fell to just above her knees, which surprised me, because I expected it to go down to the floor. Another thing I hadn’t expected was for it to fit her so well. The only formal or semi-formal attire I’d ever seen was at weddings, and in people’s prom pictures, and a lot of the women in those look like a big colored puff ball. Valerie’s dress fit her like a glove, and I suddenly saw that she had the same hour glass shape that I saw in some of the pictures of naked women in my collection.

She wasn’t naked, of course, but my eyes went to her chest anyway. The neck of the dress was what I think they call a scoop. It was rounded and went down and back up, exposing maybe three or four inches of cleavage. It wasn’t as much as her halter tops exposed, but somehow it looked just as alluring. She had a cream colored clutch purse in her right hand, and she stepped carefully on high heeled shoes that matched the purse. I could see the tiny wobble in her ankles and the concentration on her face as she walked. There was a shawl draped over her shoulders, and hanging down by her arms. It was ivory too.

She stopped, and looked hesitantly at me.

“Wow,” I sighed.

“Do I look okay?” she asked, in a voice that sounded very unsure.

Her father snorted. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t look at anything except Valerie.

“Better than okay,” I said. I know, it wasn’t suave, but it was what came into my mind.

“You look good too,” she said, her eyes ranging over my suit. I felt stiff and uncomfortable in it, and figured I looked like it.

The weight of the box containing her corsage intruded on my mind and I lifted it.

“I got you a corsage.”

“Okay,” she said.

It was obvious that she was nervous. That was odd, because Val was never nervous. But it made me feel better, somehow, because I was nervous as hell.

“Well don’t just stand there,” said Mrs. Carter. “Put it on her.”

I opened the box and reached in for the corsage. I’d looked at it before. My mother had oohed and ahhed over it. Even I thought it was pretty. But I hadn’t thought about what it would take to attach it to her. I pulled it out and turned it over. There were two huge pins sticking through the stem part of the thing. They were obviously to pin it to her dress.

I looked at Val, at that scooped neckline. There was plenty of room for it on either side. I approached her, pulling the pins out of the stem.