Chapter 28

It was a scorching August day with high humidity that pasted my clothes to my clammy skin. No matter how many times I wiped off the sweat beading on my face, more collected on my upper lip and forehead. And the back of my neck even though my hair was pulled off it in a ponytail. Debbie, Gina, and I were in Debbie’s bedroom, but even with the window open it was too hot to be indoors. So we went outside and sat on her front porch. Not that it was much cooler there. At least there was an occasional breeze which was much better than her stuffy bedroom.

I was sitting on the rocker and didn’t even want to exert the energy to rock it. Like a wilted flower, my shoulders slumped and my arms hung limply at my sides. Gina must have felt the same because she kept fanning herself with an open hand. Debbie just looked uncomfortable. She was slouched in the chair with her butt on the front edge, her spine curved, and her chin resting on her chest. Her long hair was flipped over the back of the chair to keep it off her neck and bare shoulders. And her legs were extended straight out in front of her with her feet resting on her heels, toes pointing skyward, and spread wide to allow any breeze to find the gaps at the loose-fitting leg openings of her shorts. By the darker shade of white at the front button and top of the zipper, it was pointless.

I was thinking about asking Gina to bring her lawn sprinkler to my back yard. That would cool us off. But that reminded me of Mrs. Russo’s story of Mr. Russo watching me jumping over it. That triggered something my mother had told me.

“I’m getting a new tenant,” I said. “My mother said he’s single.”

“A college boy?” Gina asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t ask my mother that. She’d want to know why I wanted to know that. Her point was that I wouldn’t be babysitting like I did for my old tenants.”

“I bet he’s a college boy,” Gina said. “School is starting. Probably a freshman. I hope he’s cute.”

I grinned. “If he is, I’ll set him up with you. You can play Seven Minutes in Heaven with him.”

Gina scowled. “That’s a kid’s game. We could do a lot more than that.”

That caught me off guard. Gina wasn’t even allowed to date. Had a kiss and a squeezed tit in the closet changed her? It was scary. But then I thought about me. My friends would be shocked if they knew about my secret life. A life I missed greatly. Maybe my new tenant was a college boy. A freshman. That would make him Joey’s age. We wouldn’t have to have sex in his car at Canarsie Pier. He would have his own apartment right downstairs from me. I knew how convenient that was.

The rest of the summer was uneventful, although I always looked forward to my birthday on the first of September right before school started. This birthday was number seventeen. Three more years as a teenager. Two more years of high school.

Starting my junior year of high school was painless compared to my frightening sophomore experience. I had a year of high school behind me so I knew what to expect. When I got my class schedule, I had all new teachers except for Band class. Mr. Roman was the only Band teacher at my high school. Most of the kids in my Band class were the same, too. We were a tight knit group, playing, practicing, and performing together. Many had been bandmates in the same junior high school.

When I saw Mr. Roman the first day of Band class, he still had the blond sideburns and goatee I remembered. He was still sexy. Maybe more so now that I had experienced Mr. Russo. Maybe because I was older. Or maybe because I had gone without sex since Mr. Russo had left. For whatever reason, Mr. Roman didn’t seem as old as he had the year before. Last year I had thought of him as a sexy older man. Now I simply saw him as sexy.

I was sitting in the same seat I had the year before—front row, near the middle. It seemed everyone had taken the same seat from the previous year. That meant I was closer to Mr. Roman than those in the curved rows behind me or near the ends of the rows. Being near the middle, Mr. Roman often stood in front of me. Sometimes when he talked to someone behind me, he didn’t bother to walk up to them. He stood right in front of me and spoke over my head, so close that our knees almost touched. I would stare at the crotch of his black corduroy pants he always wore, a foot or two away from the tip of my nose, focusing on the shape of the lump—his cock. My breathing would catch every time.

Mr. Roman was leaning on the front edge of his desk as we played a tune we had played countless times before. It wasn’t something we’d play in a performance. It was more an exercise. His trained ears listened for every mistake.

And then Mr. Roman pushed off the desk and shouted, “Stop!”

The room fell silent except for the clanging of instruments and scraping of chair legs. Absolutely no talking. Barely any breathing. We knew that tone. To my shock, his eyes fell on me.

“Julie,” he said, “have you practiced over the summer?”

“I, um, I was, um, I—”

“Quiet! I’ll take that as a no. It shows. Your embouchure is weak. I can hear air coming out of the corners of your mouth, making the sound fuzzy. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I didn’t have time,” I said.

“Maybe you don’t have time to be part of this Band class. Maybe we should have your schedule changed.”

My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had punched me in the gut. I loved playing in the band.

“No, I want to be here,” I said.

Mr. Roman glared at me and then said, “See me after school.”

His attention returned to the class and I did my best to sound great, but anyone who played an instrument knew it took practice to play well. Certain muscles need strengthening. Techniques require practice to perfect. That class was the longest of my life. I feared he would call me out again. Each time I made a mistake, Mr. Roman’s eyes darted to me, but he didn’t say anything. It was a horrible first day of school.

I told Debbie and Gina that I had to stay after school and to stop by my house on the way home to tell my mother. To tell her that I had an unexpected band practice after school because the teacher wasn’t happy with what he had heard. I didn’t mention that it was only me who didn’t sound good and only me who had to stay after school.