Chapter 32

During the walk to school on Tuesday morning, I was so bubbly that Debbie kept asking me why. I couldn’t tell her about Mr. Roman. About our upcoming date at his apartment on Saturday. In just four days. A date? It wasn’t a date. He had said he wanted to talk to me outside of school. But I was going to his apartment. My heart beat fast whenever I thought of that.

To put an end to Debbie’s interrogation, afraid I would let something slip, I changed the subject to her last date on Saturday night with a boy named Ralph. I didn’t remember his last name. She was the one who was now bubbly. Gina, on the other hand, scowled and put a little distance between her and Debbie and me. I didn’t care. I was sick of Gina acting that way simply because she wasn’t allowed to date.

When we made the turn onto the street the main entrance to our high school was on, a sleek car was parked across the street from us. A 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible, red with tan interior. The tailfins and trim were sexy, but two other things caught my eye. First, the top was down. That was odd because the temperature had dropped from the nice Indian Summer days we had been having. Second, four boys were sitting in the car, two in the front and two in the rear. All four were staring at us.

“Hi, girls, wanna go for a ride?” the driver shouted.

Debbie grabbed my arm and hugged it to her side as she walked faster. I kept up, but Gina lagged behind.

Looking over my shoulder as Debbie practically dragged me down the street, I said, “Gina, hurry up.”

But Gina didn’t hurry up.

“Come here,” the driver said.

Gina stopped and pointed to her chest. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. The cute one.”

When Gina started crossing the street, Debbie and I stopped walking and stared. I shouted for her to come back, but to my shock she walked to the car and stood about two feet from it. I couldn’t hear what was said, but Gina did a lot of nodding.

“Gina, we have to get to school,” I shouted.

She turned and gave me a dismissive wave. She said something else to the boys in the car and only then turned and walked to where we were waiting. Her smile was ear to ear and she had a bounce in her step. The car had been running, I guess to keep the heat on, and the driver revved the engine. It was a thunderous roar.

“See you again,” the driver shouted and waved when the noise died down. He floored it. The car shot into the intersection and the tires screeched when he made the hard turn to the right. It was a good thing there wasn’t a car in the intersection.

“Why did you talk to them?” Debbie asked Gina.

“Why not? Jealous?”

“You don’t know them.”

“I do now. They said I was cute. And they’re older than high school boys.”

We gave Gina the “don’t talk to strangers” talk, but she ignored us. She was floating with a huge smile on her face all the way to school. And she still had it in the cafeteria at lunch.

I was agonizing over Gina until Band class. Then I remembered my upcoming “date” with Mr. Roman at his apartment and thoughts about Gina were forgotten. Before the class began, Mr. Roman walked over to where I was sitting and asked me in a whisper how my lip was. I pushed my tongue against it to check it out. Unsure, I shrugged. He told me to try blowing on the clarinet in the soundproof room, and if it hurt I would be excused from performing.

I went into the room and closed the door. It brought back memories of the kiss, and butterflies fluttered in my tummy, but class was about to start so I assembled my mouth piece, wet the reed, and played a few notes. My lip was healed. When I returned to my seat, I lifted my clarinet and nodded at Mr. Roman. He acknowledged with his own nod. I was once again part of the class.

The next morning when we made the turn onto the street where the hot car had been, Gina’s smile faded and her shoulders slumped. It wasn’t there. She didn’t say another word all the way to school and was depressed during lunch and the walk home after school.

But on Thursday morning, the car was waiting. Gina didn’t wait for an invitation. Without being summoned, she bolted across the street to the car. Debbie and I stood in shock watching her talk to the boys in the car. Today there were only three. Two in the front and one in the back.

“Let’s go, we’ll be late,” Debbie shouted from across the street.

Gina was leaning on her forearms on the side of the car next to the driver with her butt sticking out. She looked over her shoulder at us without standing up.

“You go,” Gina shouted back. “I’ll go soon.”

“You’ll be late,” Debbie shouted.

“So what? Go without me.”

Debbie and I looked at each other not knowing what to do. Gina was once again talking to the boys in the car. After failing one more time to convince Gina to come with us, we left for school. I worried until lunchtime when I expected Gina to tell us what the hell she was doing, except Gina didn’t come to the cafeteria. Now I was really worried, especially at the end of the school day. She wasn’t where we met to walk home.

Thankfully, the next morning on Friday, Gina was with us again.

“Where were you yesterday?” I shouted as I flew down my front cement steps and rushed to her and Debbie.

“I already asked her,” Debbie said.

“And?”

“And nothing.”

I stared at Gina. “You cut school, didn’t you?”

“So what if I did?”

“So what? That’s not like you. What will your parents say?”

“Screw my parents. I’m sick of them controlling my life.”

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“For a ride.”

“What! You got into the car?”

“What’s the big deal. You and Debbie go on dates. It’s the same thing.”

I thought back to my date with Butch. “It’s dangerous,” I said.

“Well it wasn’t. They were nice. I like them. So there.” Gina stuck her tongue out at me.

We went to school without saying anything more about it, although I was worried and knew I needed to talk to Debbie when Gina wasn’t around. But what could Debbie and I do to dissuade Gina? We couldn’t tell her parents. She’d be grounded forever and never speak to us again. One didn’t do that to a friend.

Saturday finally arrived. I had been looking forward to it all week. Mr. Roman had told me to meet him on the corner of my school. Not near the main entrance and not in sight of the football field. It was the farthest point from my house. I planned to take the path I took to go to school, but instead of going into the double doors in the middle of the block, I would walk past them all the way to the corner.

I left my house right after lunch. I felt like a sneak because my parents thought I was going to hang out with my neighborhood friends until dinnertime. I didn’t tell them that, but I didn’t tell them I wasn’t. I let them assume that’s where I would spend the afternoon. I dressed accordingly in corduroy pants, sneakers, long-sleeved sweater top, and jacket. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

When I got to the bottom of the cement stairs in front of my house, I paused to look back to make sure I wasn’t being watched from my house. Why would I have been? It was simply paranoia. Feeling somewhat safe, I dashed toward the corner like I did when I walked to school, in the opposite direction of going to my friends, and sprinted across the street. My heart was pumping fast as I caught my breath. I was now out of sight of my house.

My intention was to keep walking to the next corner, cross the main street, and then walk one more block to the corner Mr. Roman had told me to meet him on. But I noticed Gina walking on the street we went to school on. I had been so busy looking behind me that I had missed her. She was almost at the corner we turned on to get to the main doors of the school. Where was she going? I should have taken the route I had planned, to be out of sight from my house, but I needed to know. I waited for the light to turn green and then dashed across the main avenue that fronted my house. I could now be seen from my front porch, but I was compelled to follow Gina.

When I got to the corner, I instinctively paused. I peeked around the corner to see where Gina was heading. The red Chevrolet Bel Air was parked there. For once, the convertible top was up. I got there just in time to see Gina climb into the back seat. I was stunned and stood as still as an ice statue as the car sped off. With one of my best friends inside it.

There was nothing I could do so I turned the corner and continued walking to the end of the block. A little two-seater sports car, a black convertible Corvette with red interior, was parked at the curb. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It wasn’t that I was into cars, but this one was sexy. I looked around for Mr. Roman’s car, but my eyes kept returning to the sports car. And then I saw Mr. Roman’s face through the passenger window inside the Corvette. He was leaning toward me as he cranked down the window.

“Get in,” Mr. Roman said through the half open window.

I opened the door and leaned inside. “This is your car?”

Mr. Roman’s head was turning in all directions as he looked around. “Yes, get in.”

Mr. Roman was wearing black corduroy pants and a black turtleneck sweater. Did he ever wear any other color? Even his car was black. At least it had red interior. I got into the car and rolled up the window. Sitting in the bucket seat in the small car was nothing like I had ever experienced. I was so intrigued by it that I jumped when Mr. Roman started the car. He shifted into first gear and took off. I felt like I was in a racing car, although Mr. Roman wasn’t driving too fast. It’s just that the car was so low to the ground. I turned to look at him and imagined him on a motorcycle weaving between cars as he sped down the street.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Not far. I used to live in the Village, but took an apartment in Brooklyn when I got this job. It’s a short distance to the Brooklyn Bridge so I can get to the Village pretty quickly.

“You mean Greenwich Village?”

“Yes, I used to have a pad there.”

“Why do you go back?”

Mr. Roman stared at me for a few seconds before his eyes returned to the road. “It’s a gas. A lot of cool cats and chicks live there. I have a lot of friends there. You’ll like them.”

Had he just said he would take me to Greenwich Village to meet his friends? Like a date? My heart beat faster.

In no time, we were in an area with a lot of brownstone houses. It must have been an older area of Brooklyn than mine where the houses were red brick. The mature trees were now bare of leaves but must have been beautiful in the spring and summer. Mr. Roman slowed the Corvette down as he searched for a parking place on the crowded street. Spotting one, he zipped into it effortlessly.

I gazed at the houses. They were magnificent. When Mr. Roman got out of the car, I opened my door and also got out wondering which house was his. He walked around the car and took my hand. Mr. Roman was holding my hand. He started walking so I fell in stride. We ended up in front of a six-story building. It looked like a block of bricks with windows and fire escapes. Out of place in the old neighborhood. But that’s the building we went into.

Mr. Roman led me to the elevator that we took to the sixth floor and then to a door that had the number 6F on it. He unlocked the door and held it open with an extended arm. I ducked under his arm and went inside his apartment. He followed and closed the door. A small kitchen was to the right with a dinette table and chairs outside it where I was standing. Past that was the living room with a window looking out on the street we parked on. To the left was a hallway that led to another room—his bedroom.

“Let me take your jacket,” Mr. Roman said.

When I took it off, he hung it in a coat closet to our left. He pulled his black turtleneck sweater over his head and laid it on the back of one of the dinette chairs. He was wearing a polo shirt underneath the sweater. Black, of course, with “Juilliard” printed in white letters on the front. At least the walls in the apartment weren’t black. The kitchen and dinette walls were painted a pale yellow, the living room a beige color.