Chapter 29

After what had happened with Mr. Roman, I was nervous in Band class the next day. I squirmed in my chair while everyone got settled. Mr. Roman was reading something on his desk, not once looking up. Not once looking at me. I couldn’t believe he had put his finger inside my mouth. Why the hell had I sucked it? What the hell had I been thinking? I hadn’t meant to do it. I just did. Why wouldn’t he look at me? What was he thinking? Or was he even thinking about me? Shit, I sure was thinking about him. Mostly what he was thinking about me.

I sat there trying to shield my face as I went through the Q-T exercise. Yesterday, I had practiced it when I got home until the muscles in my mouth burned. And when the pain went away, I did it again. I wasn’t going to disappoint Mr. Roman again. He had said I was one of his better students. I was going to be his best student.

The bell rang.

Mr. Roman looked up. His eyes met mine, but only for a fleeting moment as he scanned the room. He stood up, walked around his desk, and leaned against the front in his customary position. Then he started the class.

I didn’t make a mistake the entire class. At least not one he called me on. I was relieved to flee to my next class.

When school ended, Debbie, Gina, and I walked home. We spotted the moving van in front of my house from a block away.

“What’s that for?” Debbie asked.

“I guess my new tenant is moving in,” I said.

“The college boy,” Gina said, excitedly.

Could my new tenant be a college boy? Our pace speeded up and soon we were lingering in front of my house. Two men carried boxes and furniture from the van to the apartment. But they were the only ones we saw. Not my new tenant.

When Debbie and Gina had to go, I sat on my front porch waiting to see the single guy. A college boy. Hopefully a good looking one. The front door to my house opened and my mother appeared.

“There you are,” she said. “Come in and do your homework.”

I had no choice but to do what she said. I stopped at my front door to glance over my shoulder one last time. I had a gut feeling my new tenant was there. He wasn’t. My shoulders slumped as I went into the house.

“Maybe I should ask him if he needs anything,” I said to my mother.

“Who? What?”

“Our new tenant.”

“Leave the poor guy alone. He’s busy moving in. It’s hard when you’re alone.”

“That’s what I mean. Maybe he needs help.”

My mother’s forehead creased and then she raised an eyebrow. “Don’t bother him. He’s been through enough. Just leave him alone.”

Now I was really curious. What had he been through? My mysterious new tenant had a secret? It was getting better all the time.

The days passed with no sign of my new tenant. I went to school every day with the hope of getting a glimpse of him leaving for college, but he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he left before me. Or maybe after. I didn’t think college started as early as high school. I was tempted to peek into his windows from my back yard, but his curtains were always drawn. If I hadn’t seen the moving van and the men carrying boxes and furniture inside, I would have thought the apartment was still empty.

Debbie and Gina kept pestering me about my new tenant, especially Gina. They bombarded me with questions that I had no answers to. I think Gina thought I was hiding something from her. She was changing. Ever since that time playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, she behaved differently. Or maybe it went as far back as me dating Joey. She had been so jealous of that. Maybe that’s why the kissing and feeling of her breast in the closet was so important to her.

My routine was the same every day. Go to school, do my homework, watch some television with my parents, and go to sleep. Well, masturbate and then go to sleep. Mr. Roman seemed to have forgotten about me sucking his finger. But I hadn’t forgotten the hard-on that it had caused. I played it in my mind while masturbating and, in class, I’d stare at him dreamy-eyed at times. Sometimes that caused me to miss an instruction and he’d scold me for not paying attention. If he had only known where my mind was.

One day, I was late for lunch and rushing to the cafeteria. A tall boy came out of nowhere and jumped in front of me. I screeched and leapt backward, slapping my hand over my chest as I gasped. I would have dropped my books if I hadn’t just put them in my locker. With my heart beating fast, I took a step to the left. The boy, like a good defender in basketball, quickly moved laterally, blocking my path. My breath caught and my hands trembled. My tense body was ready to bolt.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Julie, why?”

“I saw you around and wanted to talk to you?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re cute.”

My heart fluttered. Only a conceited girl wouldn’t react that way when a boy told her she was cute. For me, a teenage girl in 1957, the words made my heart flutter. I looked at the boy for the first time. I mean really looked at him. I knew that he was tall when he had blocked my way, but he was cute in the rugged way. Straight nose and a face longer than round. His hair was jet black and shiny from a cream, probably Brylcreem like Alan Klein used. But this boy had a pompadour that reminded me of Elvis. His shirt collar was up in the back and his short sleeves were rolled up and tight around his bulging biceps. I had never seen him before and he sort of scared me. But part of that unknown sent tingles throughout my body.

“I’m Butch,” the boy said.

“I’m Julie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “How do you know my name?”

Butch smiled. He had the whitest teeth I had ever seen. And dimples.

“You just told me,” he said.

My face burned red and I looked down. “I forgot.”

“Would you like to go out with me?”

My head shot up and I studied his face. He wasn’t playing with me. He was serious.

“I don’t know you,” I said.

“That’s what dating is for. To get to know each other.”

“What grade are you in?”

“Senior.”

“You look older.”

Butch paused before saying, “I had to take some time off from school.”

Alarms rang in my head. He looked like someone who, although not a hoodlum, wasn’t like the boys I knew.

“Did you get into trouble?” I asked.

“Is that what you think?”

He wasn’t going to intimidate me. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Then why?” I asked.

“My mother was sick. I stayed home with her.”

“Oh my god, is she better?” I said as I uncrossed my arms and placed a hand over my heart.

“She died.”

My stomach churned and I felt like puking. How could I have accused him of doing something wrong? I couldn’t look at him. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

“After my mom passed I transferred here,” Butch said. “I’m back in school to get my diploma.”

I made eye contact with him. My eyes were watery. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“Like you said, we don’t know each other. Don’t worry about it. So, do you want to go out?”

“Where?” I asked.

“I don’t know. What do you like to do?”

I like to have sex. As soon as I thought that, I scolded myself. I wasn’t a tramp. What I had with Mr. and Mrs. Russo was special. And so what if I liked to masturbate? If every girl knew about it they’d probably do it all the time like me. The look on Butch’s face told me he was waiting for an answer. I thought back to the few dates I had been on, not that there were many.

“I like going to the movies,” I said.

The frown on Butch’s face told me he didn’t like that idea, but his face almost immediately glowed with a smile. “Okay, is this Saturday good for you?”

Why wouldn’t it be? It’s not like every boy was asking me on a date.

“Yes,” I said.

Butch opened the notebook that was on top of his other books, took a pencil from his front shirt pocket, and wrote down my address and telephone number. He told me to choose a movie and meet me where we were standing the next day to finalize the time. When he asked me where I had been rushing to, I remembered Debbie and Gina waiting for me in the cafeteria.

“The cafeteria and I’m late,” I said and hurried off.

Debbie and Gina were halfway finished with their lunches by the time I carried my full tray to their table.

“Where were you?” Debbie asked as I lowered the tray onto the table.

“A boy stopped me in the hall.”

Both of my friends looked interested.

“Who?” Debbie asked.

“A guy named Butch. I just met him. He asked me out.”

Debbie leaned in for more details. Gina frowned and leaned away. I filled them in on what had happened in the hallway. Gina scowled the whole time.

My parents didn’t have a problem with me going on a date on Saturday night, especially when they learned the boy was going to pick me up. I paced in my bedroom as the time neared. What if they didn’t like Butch? He was a senior, but that was only one grade ahead of me now. That was normal. But his hair was like Elvis’s and I remembered my mother thinking Elvis was the devil. But that was ages ago. Elvis was a big star now and she seemed to have accepted him. At least tolerated him.

The doorbell rang.

I rushed down the stairs to answer the door, but my parents were already there. Both of them. I was near the bottom of the staircase when they opened the door.

Butch held out his hand. “Hello, I’m Butch. I’m here for Julie.”

My father shook his hand while my mother studied him from head to toe. I pushed past my parents and joined Butch outside. It was an unusually warm day for September, an Indian Summer day, so I didn’t need a jacket.

“We have to get to the movie before it starts,” I said and took Butch’s hand, yanking it as I turned to leave.

But it was like pulling a mountain. Butch didn’t budge. He was still smiling at my parents.

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” he said to my parents.

My mother actually smiled. “Nice to meet you, too. You kids have fun.”

Only then did Butch lead me down the cement stairs with our hands still clasped. On the sidewalk in front of my house, I looked around confused.

“Oh, I thought you would have a car,” I said. “It’s okay, we can take the bus.”

Butch pointed in the direction I walked to Debbie’s house. “I parked over there.”

I followed his finger and saw an old, rusty Chevy parked at the curb past the entrance to the alley that ran alongside my house. I had expected him to have borrowed his father’s car. Maybe that was his father’s car. Maybe they were poor. He was still holding my hand as we walked to the car. It was filthy. It was one thing to be old, but he should have washed it for our date. Is that what he thought of me? I stopped at the passenger door, but a tug on my hand kept me walking. When we passed the dirty, old car, we stopped.

“Here we are,” Butch said with his toothy grin and dimples.

I stared at the motorcycle. Chrome and black. A Harley.

“I can’t ride on that,” I said.

“Sure you can. The seat is big enough for you to sit behind me.”