Chapter 2: Useful

He shone in class, if not in his social life. And he sent his college apps off in good time. Dad, who had insisted that Andy work, seemed to expect that his father would provide the checks for the apps. Andy was perfectly happy. It wasn’t that he was greedy. He didn’t push the old man for an allowance, but he didn’t offer to pay his own money for anything, either. It wasn’t as if Dad were starving. He no longer wore the same suit two days in a row.

One Sunday after service, Mr. Schmidt came up to him.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure.”

“Jim, I’ll drive Andy home.” This was going to be a serious talk, and Mr. Schmidt didn’t move the car when they were in it.

“You don’t have a girl, do you?”

“No?” Did he think he was gay?

“What do you think of Brittany?” He must mean the Junior girl and not the French province. At least, he’d seen the girl.

“Nice girl. Pretty enough.” She was no Marilyn, but she was no hag either.

“What I’m going to tell you, you can’t repeat to a living soul, ever.”

“Okay.”

“She just broke up with her boyfriend. She feels dumped, and in the dumps. If somebody asked her to the next dance, she’d feel much better. You do dance, don’t you?” Of course, Mr. Schmidt dealt with the kids on an MYF basis. The dance chaperones were an entirely different group of adults.

“Sure. I’ve been going to the school dances stag.” Well, he’d gone to two dances stag, but details weren’t necessary. “But you don’t know who you’re talking to. I’m low man on the school totem pole.”

“You’re a senior. Don’t sell yourself short. If you wanted to ask her, I’ve got her phone number. But you can’t tell a soul.”

“Okay.” And he got a slip of paper with his ride home. He dithered. The phone call wasn’t as easy as Mr. Schmidt thought it was. But Brittany had the same lunch period as he did. He waited until she left the line and went to a table of girls.

“Brittany?”

“Yes.” She set down her tray and started unloading it. She was one of those girls that were too fussy to eat off the dishes on the tray.

“I know this is late, and I’m sorry, but would you be my date for the dance Saturday?”

“Why, thank you, Andy. I would be honored.” That was a lot more formal than he’d expected. But he could match that.

“The honor is mine, but I’d better get my lunch and eat it before they drive us out to classes.” That night, he checked with Dad that he could borrow the car. He phoned Brittany for her address, one detail that he’d neglected.

When he picked her up on Saturday, her dad grilled him and insisted that they get back by a time that would be one hour after the dance let out -- maybe a little less, because of delays, but the clock time, not the period after the dance, was what mattered.

She danced well. Nobody else tried to dance with her, and he didn’t know how to tell her to make herself available. He didn’t even know how girls did that, except by standing against the wall, which was what he’d looked for. He excused himself after one dance to go to the men’s room -- prominently labeled “boys” to tell what the school administration thought of the students -- but she went to the ladies’ at the same time.

After the dance, he pulled into a decent parking spot and felt her freeze up. He put his hands on ten and two on the wheel.

“Look where my hands are.” She looked. “They stay there, but your parents were so insistent about the curfew that they’d flip if I drove you home now. Look, you’re a lovely girl, and I’d enjoy making out with your body. But you don’t feel for me. What would it make you if you made out in return for a dance invitation? What would it make me if I demanded that you do?” She looked at him. Then, slowly, she relaxed.

“Want to tell me about it?” If not, they could gossip about school. they could even gossip about MYF.

“Well...” She took a deep breath. “Well, Jack...” She began to tear up. “I loved him, really I did. And I thought he loved me, too.” She burst into sobs. The Kleenex box was on the rear ledge. He reached back but it was impossible.

“Wait here.” He got out of the car and opened the rear door. He got the Kleenex box and put it on the dashboard before getting back in. “Here.” She cried a little longer, then bent forward to get the Kleenex. He patted her back. In another situation, he could hug her and let her cry it all out. He’d done that for April -- even for Molly, long ago. If he did it in a car after a dance, he’d break his promise. Well, he’d broken his promise to keep his hands on the wheel, but as long as they stayed on her back she wouldn’t object.

“He said if I really loved him, I would. I said if he really loved me, he wouldn’t. Well, he didn’t really love me.” She burst back into tears, and he wondered briefly what the debated act was. Going all the way? Touching her breasts? It couldn’t be the last -- he remembered his own junior year. Something really perverse? And, of course, Jack’s version would be that she didn’t love him -- didn’t love him because either she hadn’t -- and Brittany’s description was far from clear on that, on anything -- or she hadn’t been really willing when she had.

After a while, the spasm passed. You can be gloomy for a long time, but you can’t cry a flood very long -- even if you can get a drink, which they couldn’t. He checked his watch -- less than half an hour to go. She looked at him.

“Can’t be the most fun you’ve ever had on a date.”

“Well, you needed to cry.” Girls need to cry, something his dad had said many times to his sisters. Sometimes, he’d said that Andy needed to cry, too, but not for years. They sat like that without talking at all. when he checked his watch again, they had ten minutes.

“Why don’t you get your face in shape?” When she got her stuff -- including mirror and lipstick -- out of her purse, he warned her, “I still expect a good-night kiss on your front porch.” He didn’t particularly want to scrub lipstick off his face. It was a cheap price for a long session of passion, but a lot to give for an instant of gratitude. On the other hand, using that mirror was thoughtful of Brittany; he’d seen girls twist the rear-view mirror around for their convenience. When she put the stuff back in her purse, he started the car and drove her home.

“Wait here,” he said when he’d parked in her driveway. He got out of the car and walked around to open her door. It was, after all, a date. He stopped her while he was one step below the porch. This was much more convenient kissing range. She turned around, and he lifted her chin with his finger. He bent down to give her a closed-mouth kiss. Surprisingly, she threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Andy, you’re the nicest guy!” Her kiss was thorough and enthusiastic, if still closed-mouth. “Good night and thank you.”

“Thank you.” He watched her into her door, returned to the car, and drove home.

“How was your date?” Dad asked when he returned the car keys.

“Interesting.”

“Um. Do you remember what I told you in that long talk a couple of years ago?”

“It wasn’t interesting in that way, but yeah.” He’d been embarrassed enough, but not as embarrassed as Dad had been. He didn’t want the talk repeated. What he wanted to learn about the factual side of sex and contraception -- which was plenty, if he spent less time on it than on the fictional and imaginary side -- he could get from books.

On their second date, he told her that he wouldn’t object to her accepting dances from other guys. She did. They had a couple more dates, and he started dancing with other girls occasionally. She always was his first dance, his last dance, and a few other dances. They sometimes sat out while he bought them pop or Kool-Aid. The pre-Easter clean-up was coming up.

“I think I’ll go. do you want me to pick you up?” He’d walk to the church otherwise. She lived much further away, but boyfriends picked up their girlfriends for such events, sensible driving or not.

“I wasn’t thinking of going. We never have before.”

“Well, MYF is doing it this year. I really think that we should.” And, since couples either both participated or neither did, they participated. The turn-out wasn’t what Marilyn wanted, but there were definite MYF contingents inside and out. He was beginning to see that Marilyn would never be satisfied with the turn-out.

Dad and he visited the U of I campus at Champaign-Urbana. It looked nice, although looks were low on his priority list. The whole weekend was focused on the school experience. He wanted to learn about electrical engineering; he wanted a degree that would tell future employers that he had learned that. U of I would give him both, but he’d known that before he went.

Brittany came to him in school one day not too long afterwards.

“Um, Andy, Carl asked me to the dance Saturday.” Well, so had he, but...

“I hope you accepted.”

“Not quite. I said I had to do something first. Oh, Andy, you’re the nicest guy.” And he went to that dance stag. By that time, though, there were girls who were interested in dancing with him. They’d seen him with Brittany, after all. They weren’t the prettiest or most popular girls. They were girls who didn’t have a date, and most of the girls who had broken up recently stayed home. Still, some of them could dance quite well, and he didn’t ask the real dogs.

MIT didn’t come through. He hadn’t expected it to, though he’d hoped enough to apply. IIT came through, but he did not want to go to school in Chicago. U of I came through, and he accepted. Well, September was taken care of, now for the summer. Dad didn’t need to nag, but he nagged anyway.

“Look, I worked my way through college.” Dad had said that before, but they were a family. If they didn’t repeat things, they wouldn’t talk.

“There are scholarships for kids whose parents can’t afford tuition; there are none for kids whose parents want to duck tuition.” He had said that before, but...

“Well, I’ll pay tuition, room, and board. But there are a lot more costs to college than that.” How much more? he wondered. He had thousands in the bank from the last two summers. And, to be fair to Dad, what he worried about was Andy’s working. He wasn’t tight with him.

Every Tuesday, Andy took a shopping list from Mrs. Bryant. He bought groceries -- except for the meat and fish she didn’t trust him to select -- after dinner. He gave the bill to Dad and got back the amount the next day. Dad never questioned extra pop, snacks, or the occasional frozen pizza. Anything that Andy wanted to eat at home, unless it was a quite sudden desire, he bought, and Dad paid for. He knew from his friends the fights they had with their parents about spending and chores. While he’d never say so, not to them and certainly not to Dad, he had it easy.

Dad’s rules on drinking were: (1) Andy had to be cold stone sober before he got behind the wheel of a car, and (2) if he barfed, he cleaned it up. He’d also said once, “If you’re after the taste, I don’t mind your drinking the good stuff; if all you’re out for is getting a buzz, why not stick to the cheap stuff?” but he’d been very clear that this was a request, not a rule. The truth was that Andy enjoyed his head. He could factor a four or five-digit number in his head. He didn’t enjoy losing that power, that cool control. This preference limited his drinking more than Dad’s rules did.

On the other hand, he also knew that some of the school parents would think that Dad had it easy, too. He’d had detention twice in four years. His grades seldom dipped as low as C, even in Gym. The police wouldn’t recognize him. He bathed and shaved with some regularity. His clothes were not garish and were -- even if Mrs. Bryant did the laundry -- clean when he went out in the morning.

Really, they -- partly from mutual accommodation, partly from natural inclination -- made it easy on each other most of the time. And, since he’d get to spend the money, he should probably go along with Dad on this one. On the other hand, he did not want to go back to working for Mr. Vincent. The man was nice; the job was bearable; the commute was nowhere near bearable. On problem was that the ELs and buses were unreliable. The commute could average a little over an hour each way, but he’d learned that he needed to start almost two hours before his work-time began to make sure he got there in time. That meant that if he got a job, he should get another job. He could start with somebody who knew him.

“Mr. Schmidt,” he said after church one warm Sunday, “could I speak to you?”

“Certainly Andy. Walk me to my car.” Mrs. Schmidt was waiting in the doorway.

“I was wondering whether your hardware store ever hired summer workers. Really, I was wondering whether I’d have a chance.”

“Well, we have.”

“I can’t claim any consideration for my need. This won’t put food on the Trainor table or, even, buy me textbooks next year. Dad worked his way through college, and thinks I need to work when I’m not studying. On the other hand, I’ve worked earlier summers, if not in any hardware store. I can give references -- well a reference.”

“You’re not planning to work your way through college. Did you ever ask him whether he worked high-school summers?”

“Working your way through college isn’t practical today. And, of course, I’m not eligible for any need-based scholarships. My Grandfather owned a dairy farm. Dad may not have seen a paycheck before he went away to school, but he did work. His dad told me so.” And, sweeping out a grocery store was better job than “mucking out the barn” sounded. Mr. Schmidt smiled.

“Yeah. Life is easier today for us. How much easier should it be for our kids? Well, we have actual applications. Come down to the store some weekday after school and fill one out. It’s not my store, by the way. I’m the manager, not the owner.”

“Thank you very much.” And he walked home, walking being pleasant in the weather, while Mr. Schmidt drove back to pick up his wife. Monday, he went down and filled out the application. What he really wanted was an early response, but he didn’t know how to ask for one. He figured that he would wait a bit and then go around to grocery stores.

Meanwhile, he was still a high-school student. A lot of his fellow students slacked off when they’d sent in the transcripts with their college applications. They figured that, as long as they passed, nobody would see their grades. Maybe, but Andy was looking for a strong finish.

Mr. Schmidt agreed to hire him.

He heard that Marilyn was going to the U of I, as well. She was prominent enough that people like him heard such news. Nobody was going to gossip about where he was going. Now, if he had got into MIT, that might have been different. He decided to build one more bridge with her.

“You’re going to Champaign-Urbana?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Me too. Maybe we’ll meet there.” Then he thought of what he’d seen on the campus visit. “And maybe, considering the size of the campus, we won’t.” Still, there had to be a way of finding students by name, and he had her name.

Graduation was a formal occasion. The principal said, in the midst of a much-too-long speech, “Now you are adults.” It was nice of him to recognize it, just when they’d never see him again. Dad took a bunch of snapshots; he’d send prints of any that looked at all decent to Mom.

“She doesn’t send you pictures.”

“Well, maybe she will. If not, why be nasty? They’re important to me. Why should I deny them to her?”

“She left you for that turd.”

“Not quite. Your mother has horrible taste in men. You should have seen the two before me. On the other hand, I’m no longer going to pretend that I was the exception. Anyway, spouses are like jobs and houses. If you don’t like the job you have, you look for another one. If you don’t like the house you have, you look for another one. If you don’t see anything you like, you may stick to the old one. Although, of course, people live without any husband or wife all the time.