Chapter 2

Sunday I worked my eight to two shift and then went home. I didn’t walk over to the Dairy Queen to meet Pauline when she got off her shift. We had already made a date to go roller skating at Skate City. I wondered how long she would wait before figuring out that I wasn’t coming.

The answer to that question was fifteen minutes. Pauline got off work at three and at three-fifteen the phone rang and mom answered it. “It’s for you Rob. It’s Pauline.” I took the phone from her and said hello.

“Why didn’t you meet me when I got off work? Did you forget we were going skating?”

Didn’t forget. Just didn’t want to go. Goodbye Pauline.”

I hung up the phone and wasn’t at all surprised when she didn’t immediately call back. Pauline could be a bit headstrong and I knew she would save what she wanted to say until we were face to face. Something for me to look forward to on Monday.

In the morning it was the usual group that gathered together for the walk to school. Bev paired up with me and started asking how Wrigley’s was to work for. Turns out she was looking for a job and had heard Wrigley’s was hiring. I answered her questions and by then we were at school.

Pauline was waiting at my locker, but I had taken what I needed for my first class home with Friday to work on the paper that was due and I had it with me so I just walked by her. By the time she figured out I wasn’t stopping at my locker and started after me I was at the room of my first class and the teacher was already there so Pauline couldn’t come in and go off on me. I didn’t expect to see her again until lunch period.

I lucked out and got to the cafeteria before Pauline and lucked out again when I spotted the open seat between Marlene and Dick. The other three vacant chairs were at the other end of the table,

The guys were talking about the tryouts for the football team that were coming up in the next week and it seemed like all of us were going to try out. Dick saw Pauline come in and asked me if he wanted me to move so she could sit next to me.

“Don’t you dare!”

“Trouble in Paradise?”

“Big trouble. I don’t want to be anywhere around her right now.”

I said Pauline was a bit headstrong and she walked up and asked Dick if he would mind moving so she could sit with me.

“Can’t. Rob would hurt me if I did.”

Pauline turned to Marlene and asked the same question and I thought “Oh shit!” figuring Marlene would do it, but she surprised me by turning to me and asking:

“Are you going to start talking to me again if I say no?”

“Absolutely” I said so Marlene told Pauline that she was comfortable where she was and didn’t feel like moving. Pauline said:

“You can’t duck me forever Rob” and she turned and walked away.

The of course everyone wanted to know what was going on and I didn’t want to say anything so I changed the subject to the football tryouts. I managed to avoid Pauline for the rest of the afternoon and when classes let out for the day I figured I was good until the next day.

Of course I was wrong.

Pauline didn’t live in the same neighborhood as the rest of our little group so she had never walked with us, but she was there waiting with everybody else when I came out of school.

I hadn’t wanted to have it out with her in front of others, but it seemed that’s the way she wanted it so I just walked up to the group and we started home. Pauline moved next to me and said:

“We had a date last night Rob; why did you blow me off?”

“I just don’t want to date you anymore.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Simple Pauline. When you told me that you were going to get with Roger Clayton I just decided to stop seeing you.”

“That’s not fair Rob. You agreed I could date another guy for letting you take Nancy to the dance. All Roger is is the date you owe me.”

“Nice try Pauline, but it won’t wash. The deal was if you wanted to do something on a night I had to work you could go out with another guy. A night I had to work Pauline! I’m not working tomorrow and Tuesday being the one day we both have off work was supposed to be OUR date night. Not yours and Roger’s. I’m starting to think you already had this date with Roger in your head when you came up with this “You will owe me” idea.”

“You can’t possibly think that of me!”

“Of course I can. It was only forty-eight hours between the time you said it and your telling me about your date with Roger. I’d bet the date was already made and you were wondering how to break it to me when the thing with Nancy came up and gave you an out.”

She grabbed my arm and stopped walking and said “We need to sit down and have a serious talk.”

I pulled my arm away from her, said “No we don’t” and hurried to catch up to the group. I left Pauline standing there watching us walk away.

When I got back to the group Marlene said “I got first dibs” and Bev said “Oh no you don’t” and Nancy Wilde laughed and said “Rock, paper, scissors.” Nancy Neubert didn’t say anything and mouthed “Call me.”

I shrugged and said “You all need to know I’m done with all of this boyfriend girlfriend stuff until I’m older, have a driver’s license and a car or access to one. Until then I’ll date anyone who will have me.”

After I said that for the rest of the walk home the girls argued over who would be first and us guys just shook our heads at the silliness of it all.

That is just what I did. I dated anyone who would say yes. I wrote the names of all the girls in the group on a piece of paper (Bev, Marlene, Carol and both Nancy’s) put them in a paper bag, mixed them up and then drew them out one at a time. The lineup came out Nancy Neubert, Bev, Marlene, Nancy Wilde and Carol and I asked them to date in order.

There were other girls I would like to have asked out, but I had to face up to the fact that I had limited time to date. I had my job that took twenty hours of my time and I had football that took out another chunk of time.

My boss at work was pretty understanding and he scheduled my hours around my practice times and I always had Friday off which were game days. I also had dance nights off, but they were scheduled for after the football games. What it boiled down to was that I could date on Saturday after five and on Sunday after four.

The date rotation idea worked out well for about two months and then the inevitable happened. It was Carol’s turn and when I called she said sorry, but she already had a date for that night. I called the next on the list and got the same thing. The next on the list said yes and that seemed to be the pattern from then on. Work down the list until one said yes. The simple fact was that no girl was going to sit around for the week or three before her name came up in the rotation.

The next (I suppose inevitable) thing to happen was when I called Carol and was told she was seeing George Bauer and they decided to go steady. Next to go was Nancy Neubert who started going steady with Brad Meinike. She was followed by Marlene who took up with Barry Shores. My list was down to Bev and Nancy Wilde. Both Bev and Nancy worked on me to just settle for them alone, but I just did not want a steady relationship again.

And of course Pauline was always around trying to get me to sit down and talk with her and I wouldn’t. On nights I did date I always seemed to run across her out on a date and her date ALWAYS was with and older guy who had a car and that pretty much solidified the thoughts I’d had when she hit me with her Roger date.

On the home front things were better between my mom and my father. He had joined AA and seemed to be towing the line. Things had never been warm between us since the day he whipped me with the belt and while he did seem a bit wary around me since the frying pan incident the atmosphere between us wasn’t hostile we just didn’t have much to do with each other.

To be honest it was mostly me avoiding him. I had it in my mind that he was just waiting for the right time to get back at me for what I did to him with that frying pan. Of course mom noticed and one day she asked me why I was avoiding him and I told her.

“That’s just nonsense” she said. “He’ll never let you know it, but he is proud of the way you “Manned up” as he put it. You don’t need to be afraid of him.”

She might have believed that, but I never could bring myself to. It surprised the hell out of me when he showed up in the stands for my first football game. I wouldn’t have known he was there if Dick hadn’t seen him and told me.

A few words here about football. I loved the game and I loved playing it, but I was never going to be an all-star. Good enough to play, but there were no athletic scholarships or pro contracts in my future. But my father never missed a game. He even made it to the away games. I don’t think he ever knew that I knew he was there. He always sat mid-way up in the stands with a lot of people around him and he never mentioned it to me.

As I said, I wasn’t a star, but I did have my moments. I recovered several fumbles – two that stopped scoring drives – and I did block a few punts and two field goal attempts, but my father never mentioned them to me.

The upshot was that I was starting to think my mom might be right when she told me he was proud of me. I started thinking that I should try and have a relationship with him when it became moot.

In a case of supreme irony the reformed alcoholic had just left his weekly AA meeting and he was run down and killed by a drunk driver as he was crossing the street to get in his truck.

My mom was devastated. Regardless of how he treated her before he reformed she had loved him deeply. Many were the nights I heard her cry herself to sleep. Things were somber around the house for a while and I cut back on my outside activities (mainly dating) so I could be at home if she needed me.

The one thing mom didn’t have to worry about was finances. My father had mortgage insurance on the house that paid it off. His life insurance had a double indemnity clause that paid double in the case of an accidental death. Mom’s brother Steve was an attorney and he told mom to go after the man who killed my father. The man was a well to do local businessman and he settled without going to court. Mom used the money to set up college funds for Ilene and me.

There was also a bit of good fortune for me. I know this is going to seem cold and dispassionate of me, but you have to remember that since my beating with the belt we had not had a normal father/son relationship. In fact we didn’t much have any relationship at all. Mom told me that when I got my driver’s license father’s pickup truck would be mine.

After a little more than two months mom made me get out of the house.

“You don’t need to crutch me Robert. I can handle things. Get out with your friends and start living your life.”

I did get out a bit more, but I still tried to be there for mom if she needed me.

By the time I got back to dating all of my women were gone. And yes, that is how I thought of the core group (Bev, Marlene, Bothe Nancy’s and Carol). They were my women. Anyway, they were all in relationships with other guys.

All except for Pauline. She dated a lot of guys, but never got into a relationship with any of them. She called me at least once a week wanting to know if I was ready to talk to her yet. I always said no and that we didn’t have anything to talk about. Her wanting to talk made no sense to me. I wasn’t anywhere near the kind of guys she was dating. She finally decided to force the issue.

I hadn’t been to a school dance since my father died and I hadn’t planned on going to the next one, but mom kept pushing me to go.

“You need to get your life back on track honey. Go! Do me a favor and go.”

More to please her than because I wanted to go I went. The decision to go came too late to get a date so I went stag. Two other guys I knew and two girls I also knew came stag and we ended up sitting together. Mary Beth and Jolene were in my class and while I knew them I’d never dated them or hung out with them.

The two guys, Josh and Hank, and I took turns dancing with the two girls. I’d just finished a dance with Jolene when I got my first surprise of the night. Alicia came up to me and asked me for a dance. I looked around, but I didn’t see Snider. She caught my look and said:

“He isn’t here. I haven’t seen him since that day in the school lunchroom.”

I offered her my arm and we moved out onto the dance floor. As I took her in my arms she asked:

“Any chance we can become friends again?”

“I don’t see why not. Is your date going to be upset with your dancing with me?”

“He can’t be. He is dancing with Carla Meadows. Which is why I was free to ask you.”

We talked some more and when the song ended I walked her back to where she was sitting. She was looking out onto the dance floor and said:

“I guess this is payback for what I did to you.”

“What?”

She gestured toward the dance floor. The next song had started and I looked to where she was pointing and I saw Frank Tate dancing with Carla Meadows.

“Frank your date?”

“Yep.”

“Well if things go south you don’t need to call your dad. I’ll run you home.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

I went back to where I was sitting and Mary Beth said “My turn” and pulled me out onto the floor. Maybe thirty seconds into the dance Pauline walked up, tapped Mary Beth on the shoulder and asked:

“May I cut in?”

Mary Beth said “Don’t forget you owe me one” and she moved out of the way so Pauline could take her place. My first thought was to turn and walk away, but I quickly put that out of my mind. It might create a scene and I didn’t want that.

“This was a setup” I asked as Pauline moved into my arms.

“You bet.”

“Why?”

“I needed a way to get to you.”

“Again, why?”

“Because you broke up with me without ever talking about it.”

“There wasn’t anything to talk about. You did what you did and I wouldn’t buy into it so I stopped dating you.”

“But the date with Roger didn’t mean anything. He needed a date for a family function. If he would have shown up alone he would have looked like a lameo to those who were there. All I was doing was being arm candy for the event.”

“Still not buying it Pauline. I’m betting that you already had the date with Roger set up when you told me I could take Nancy to the dance. It wasn’t even a full twenty-four hours between the dance and when you told me about the date with Roger. Not only that, but at the time you told me you were going to the movies with him. That means you either lied to me then or you are lying to me now with this arm candy story.”

By then the music had stopped and the band had taken a break and Pauline and I were on the dance floor and seemed to be the center of everyone’s attention.

“We need to get off the floor” I said. “Where are you sitting?”

“I don’t want to go there. We still need to talk.”

I didn’t think we did, but I decided she would keep after me if I didn’t so decided to let her speak her piece so I started us toward a corner of the room where there weren’t many people. Once there I said: