Chapter 15

On Saturday, I paced in my bedroom while my mother cooked dinner for her and my father. Not for me. I was going out to dinner with Joey. I wore my favorite sweater and a pleated skirt with my hair flowing freely down my back. I had originally pulled it into a ponytail, but I wanted to look older, more elegant. It was a date. A dinner date like lovers had in the romantic movies I had seen. Joey was going to pick me up at my house this time and meet my parents. No more lying about a date. What if they didn’t like him? What if they thought he was too old for me?

The doorbell rang.

My breath caught.

I bolted from my bedroom, rushed down the hallway to the top of the stairs, made the sharp turn by holding onto the knob at the end of the bannister, and flew down the stairs. I came to a sudden stop two thirds of the way down. My father was opening the front door. My heart pounded. My breathing was ragged. I gripped the railing and waited for my fate.

“Hello, sir, I’m Joey D’Angelo.” Joey held his hand out. “I’m taking Julie to dinner.”

D’Angelo! I never knew Joey’s last name. Julie D’Angelo had a ring to it. My father shook Joey’s hand and welcomed him into the house. I released the breath I had been holding, but gulped in another lungful when my mother joined them. She was wearing her normal housedress. I wished she had worn something nicer. At least she had taken off the apron.

“You must be Joey,” my mother said, smiling.

Smiling! Holy shit!

I walked down the remaining stairs on wobbly legs, holding the railing to keep from falling. My father was asking Joey about his car and my mother was asking him about school and what he was going to do after he graduated. I wanted to push them both aside, grab Joey’s hand, and flee with him out of the house. But I just stood at the bottom of the stairs afraid to speak, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

“Oh, here’s Julie,” my mother said as if she had just spotted me standing there. She turned back to Joey. “It was nice to meet you, Joey. You two have fun.”

I reached into the coat closet, flung my jacket on, and grabbed Joey’s hand, dragging him onto the front porch. I didn’t let go until we were at the bottom of the cement steps and standing next to his car parked at the curb in front of my house.

“Your parents are nice,” Joey said.

“They’re a pain in the ass.”

Joey chuckled. “Tell me about it. You should meet mine.”

Meet his parents? I would meet his parents when we were going steady. I couldn’t wait.

Joey held the passenger door open for me like a gentleman so I got in, sweeping my skirt under my thighs as I swung my legs inside. He closed the door and rushed around to the other side. I wanted to ask him if I was dressed nice enough for the restaurant, but refrained. He was dressed like he was going to school. Nothing fancy. Joey drove off and, when we were away from my house, patted the seat next to him. I slid over until we were touching. Joey’s arm went around my shoulders.

“You look nice,” he said.

My heart fluttered. He noticed. Instead of answering, I laid my head on his shoulder and was rewarded with a squeeze on my upper arm.

This date was going to be one I’d remember my entire life. Dinner in a nice restaurant. Just the two of us. Romantic. I didn’t think the smile would ever leave my face. But it did when we pulled into the parking lot of Coby Diner. Definitely not a fancy restaurant. Just a family diner. Booths along the windows, some with torn vinyl seats. Tables without tablecloths. Screaming kids. Rude waitresses. The times my father took us out to eat, it was either the Chinese restaurant a few blocks from our house or Coby Diner.

As we walked to the restaurant door, Joey asked, “Ever eaten here?”

“Yeah. We come here sometimes.”

“Great hamburgers. This place is tops.”

Tops? As in one of the best? It was one step above a dive. A place my father took us to. Nothing special. It wouldn’t be the setting in a movie for a romantic dinner. But I remained silent and followed the hostess to a booth by the window. When I sat down on the bench seat, Joey bumped into me as he sat next to me, so I scooted closer to the window. That was nice. He was sitting next to me, not across from me. My heart fluttered. Romantic.

“What are you gonna have?” Joey asked.

“I don’t know,” I said looking at the menu. “Maybe fish sticks.”

“Don’t like burgers?”

“I like burgers.”

“Ever have the pizza burger?” Joey asked.

“What’s that?”

“It’s really good. Only place I know that makes it. It’s a burger, but has mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce on it.”

I studied the menu. I had never seen the pizza burger on it before, but hamburgers weren’t my first choice so I never really looked at that part of the menu.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

We both ordered the pizza burger and fries. I wondered why it didn’t come with spaghetti since it was more Italian than a normal hamburger. But it came with french fries and was delicious.

Joey and I ate and chatted. I learned about his job and his parents. Joey, not being an only child like me, had two brothers. Both older. One was in the Army stationed in Germany and the other worked in an office in Manhattan. Somewhere near the Empire State Building. Or maybe it was inside the Empire State Building. I was more interested in Joey than his brothers.

After dinner, we drove off. I was sitting next to Joey with my head on his shoulder and his arm around me. The only times he took his arm off me was when he had to shift gears. It was so peaceful driving at night with the radio softly playing and the heat on. I might have even dozed off a few times.

I became alert and sat up straight when I recognized Canarsie Pier.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You don’t have to go home yet, do you?”

“No, but— I mean— I just didn’t think— Never mind. It’s nice here.”

I felt like a stupid kid. This was what boyfriends and girlfriends did on a date. I hoped Joey didn’t think that I was just a little girl. After all, he was a senior with a car and I was only a sophomore.

Joey pulled into a dimly lit spot and turned off the parking lights he had used to navigate to it. We sat side by side, staring through the windshield. The moon that night was a mere sliver.

“Aren’t you going to turn the engine off?” I asked.

“Need it for the heater. Don’t worry, I have plenty of gas. In fact, it’s kind of warm in here. Move over.”

When I slid next to the window, Joey shifted out from behind the steering wheel to the middle of the seat, removed his jacket, and placed it between him and the driver’s door where he had been sitting.

“Are you cold?” Joey asked. “I can turn up the heat.”

“I’m not cold. It’s warm in here.”

“Then give me your jacket. I’ll put it with mine.”

It was toasty inside the car. Maybe that’s what had been putting me to sleep during the drive there. I took my jacket off in the tight quarters. Joey even helped me remove it and then placed it on top of his. He turned toward me.

“I missed you so much,” Joey said. “I wanted another date so bad.”

“Me too.”

Joey pressed his lips to my mouth while I was saying “too” so my open mouth was already puckered. It felt like the heat in the car was turned up. A warmth spread throughout my body, but when his tongue entered my mouth and met mine, it sparked a flame between my legs. A simple kiss did that. I was learning more and more about my body. My body liked to be touched. I didn’t fight the urges that I always had. I enjoyed the feeling, the arousal, and the orgasms. My body didn’t just like it, it craved it. No less than a thirsty person craving water. And I liked when Joey touched me even more.

I grabbed the back of Joey’s head and kissed him harder than he was kissing me. Our heads moved side to side and tilted in a passionate kiss. I flicked my tongue against his and tried to catch it to suck it. I accomplished that a few times, but soon our tongues were flapping inside my mouth. His tongue not only found my tongue, but the soft skin underneath it and my gums and my teeth and the inside of my cheeks. Sometimes I thought his tongue would go down my throat. All the while my hand clasped the back of his head, crushing his mouth to mine. I never wanted the kiss to end.

But my tongue stopped moving and I gasped into Joey’s mouth.

His hand was on my tit outside my sweater. I moaned when he squeezed it, and I flung my leg over his hip. I didn’t know that I had done that. It was automatic, a reaction to the itch between my legs. I needed relief, needed something to scratch it, so I ground my groin on his thigh. I didn’t even care that my humping caused my skirt to ride up.

Joey jerked his head back, breaking the kiss. My mouth remained open, panting, waiting for his return.

“Joey, don’t stop,” I said.

“Do you want to move to the back?”