Chapter 42

After having talked to the police, my walks to and from school were different. Debbie was oblivious to me keeping my eyes peeled, combing the streets for the red Bel Air. It was nowhere to be seen. Maybe Mr. Roman had scared them away. I also checked every car for plain clothes policemen, but didn’t see them either.

Mrs. Jacob would bump into me sometimes in the hallways. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence the second time it happened. In a low voice, she always asked me how I was doing. I should have thanked her for her concern, but word got out that I was chummy with the principal which sometimes put me in an awkward position with my fellow students.

Mr. Roman and I had little time to chat. I yearned for him to meet me at the end of the school day, but didn’t ask him because I didn’t want to put him on the spot. I still remembered the look Mrs. Jacob had given him in her office. In fact, even the policemen had eyed him funny. I hoped he would ask me to meet him, but he probably thought Mrs. Jacob was keeping an eye on him.

It was nearing the end of May when Mr. Roman told me to wait after class. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so it was personal. My breathing quickened. We would finally get to talk. When everyone left the Band room, Mr. Roman walked to where I was sitting.

“Can you get away Saturday night and stay out a little later than normal?” Mr. Roman asked.

I got even more excited. “Another party in the Village?” I asked, hoping he’d say yes.

“Not a party. Just you and me. I want to take you to the Village Vanguard.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a club in the Village. They used to have a lot of poetry readings and folk music there, but it’s becoming a jazz club. This cat Miles Davis is going to play Saturday night for Memorial Day weekend. You have to hear him. He invented cool jazz with his ‘Birth of the Cool’ album released this year. I plan to incorporate cool jazz in my class next year. You know that my background is classical. Well, cool jazz has arrangements influenced by classical music techniques.”

“Like what?”

“Like polyphony.” Mr. Roman stared at me with one eyebrow raised. “Remember what polyphony is?”

“Um,” I squirmed in my chair wracking my brain, “something about two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody that are harmonized together.”

Mr. Roman chuckled. “Yeah, something like that. So will you be able to go?”

“What time will it end?”

“That’s a problem. It starts late and ends late. We won’t be able to stay to the end. But I want you to hear him play. You’ll go ape when you hear him. He’s the coolest cat. And what a sound.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll let you know.”

People started filing into the Band room so Mr. Roman walked back to his desk as if all he had done was speak to a student. I gathered my stuff and left for lunch, not giving Mr. Roman a second look, just like any other student would have. I hated having to hide our relationship. I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that I loved Mr. Roman and that he loved me and that we were going to get married. I just had to finish this year and then one more year of high school and then my life would be perfect.

But right now I had to figure out how to go out with Mr. Roman behind my parents’ backs.

Later, when I got home, I went upstairs to my bedroom as usual and changed. I didn’t know what time Paul got home from school. I didn’t even know where his school was and where he lived. I sat on my bed, got up, paced, sat down again, got up again. I couldn’t wait any longer and ran into my parents’ bedroom.

I called Paul while keeping an eye on the open door and listening for footsteps coming up the stairs. My father was at work and my mother was doing something in the kitchen while listening to her soap opera playing on the television in the living room. She did that often. She was used to listening to shows on the radio before we had a television. I used to laugh when she dropped what she was doing to run into the living room when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize, like a new character added to the cast.

When the telephone stopped ringing, it wasn’t Paul who answered. It was his mother. I had never met Mrs. Nimo since Paul had never brought me to his house, so it was awkward for our first meeting to be me calling Paul. But I shrugged it off and asked for Paul as if it was the most normal thing to do. When she told me he wasn’t home from school yet, I asked her to have him call me when he got home. She agreed, but then started asking me questions that a boy’s mother would ask his girlfriend who she had never met. It was awkward because I wasn’t Paul’s girlfriend, but I answered them with the best lies I could muster. All the while, I kept an eye on my parents’ open bedroom door and finally told her that I had homework to do.

When she hung up, I rushed back to my bedroom and waited. This time I didn’t get up and down. I sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with my forearms on my thighs, wringing my hands hanging between my spread knees.

The telephone rang around fifteen minutes later. I bolted from my bed to the upstairs banister and leaned over it. The ringing stopped and then my mother shouted that it was for me.

“I’ll take it up here,” I shouted back.

I ran to the telephone in my parents’ bedroom and picked up the receiver. “Hello,” I said.

“It’s Paul. My mom said—”

“Mommy, I got it!” I shouted with the telephone a little away from my mouth so that she could hear me both in the house and on her extension. I also did it so that Paul would not incriminate me by saying anything more. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to know that I had called him.

“Okay,” my mother said into the telephone.

I waited, but didn’t here the click. She was still listening.

“Mommy, hang up,” I said, this time into the mouthpiece.

There was a pause and then a click.

“Paul, thanks for calling,” I said.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I was wondering if we could do the pretend date thing again this Saturday.”

“You mean go to the school and make out?”

“Yes,” I said, and then after a pause added, “after you pick me up for the date.”

“Sure, that would be neat.”

“Can you pick me up a little later this time?”

“How much later?”

“An hour.”

His silence was painful. Paul was my only hope for going on a date with Mr. Roman. A real date. Just the two of us. Boyfriend and girlfriend. To a club for adults.

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “That would be hard for me to explain to my folks.”

My world was crumbling. I had to think fast.

“Okay,” I said, quickly, “pick me up the regular time. Then we’ll have an extra hour to make out.”

This time there was no hesitation. “Yeah, swell.”

I gave Paul the information and hung up. The next day I made the final arrangements with Mr. Roman. I was going on a date with the love of my life. I had spent a lot of time with Mr. Roman in his apartment and had gone to that one party in Greenwich Village with his friends, but this was a date. Just the two of us.

Saturday finally arrived and Paul came to my house at the planned time. Well, as I had planned. Paul was going along with it. I felt bad for him. He was a nice boy, but I wasn’t looking for nice. And Paul wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He was getting something out of it. I was probably the only girl he even got to kiss and he was getting more than kissing. That made me feel a little less guilty.

My parents, especially my mother, were talking to Paul at the front door. Normally I would push them aside and whisk him away, but I had an extra hour to kill so I let them talk while I stood at his side.

“Where are you two going?” my mother asked.

Paul’s head whipped around and he gawked at me as if he had been asked how to make an atomic bomb. Shit! Shit! Shit! I hadn’t prepared him for that question. Now what?

“We’re going to a party at my friend’s house?” Paul said.

My mother smiled. “Okay, have fun.”

I could have given Paul a big, sloppy kiss right there. I took his hand, but didn’t pull him. I just squeezed his hand. Then we left and drove to my empty high school.

“Thanks for the party thing,” I said while walking to the school doors.

“I didn’t know what else to say.”