Chapter 14C

Anita didn't always attend Fiore's class, so I was pleased when I saw her there Monday morning and I walked up to her and said hello, and she returned it, and we joked around for a moment as if we had known each other for months.

I told her, "See, you're not intimidating at all."

She said, "Of course I'm not. I never was. That was all in your mind."

During the workout I caught her looking at me during a particularly tricky exercise that the class was going through, and we saw each other having a tough time and trying to look graceful during the movement. It made us both break up and start laughing, which stopped the whole class. The instructor joked with us, telling us he'd have to place Anita and me on opposite sides of the room if we kept it up. After the class I wagged my finger at her as we passed in the hall, kidding her, "Now, you behave yourself," and she gave me a charming laugh.

All of which was making me so horny I could barely stand it. As I lunched with Ronnie Tuesday, with Anita's date with me only a couple of hours away, I found myself having to keep myself steady. The work-outs and vitamins, the physical blooming, Ronnie's gentle face and cute figure, the vision of beautiful Anita ahead of me, the echoes in my head of Martha's sounds as she came and came...

I found myself muttering to Ronnie as we ate, "I gotta stop takin' those vitamins."

Ronnie asked, "Why? What's the matter?"

"Nothin'," I said, cutting my meat and taking a bite. The world seemed to be moving faster and faster. I said quickly, "Who's Jessica?"

Ronnie looked up at me. "Oh, she's some student Martha knows."

"So what's the big thing about Jessica?"

"Martha wants you two to meet."

"When?"

Ronnie put a hand on my arm. "Hey. Hey, slow down."

I looked up at her, and I kept chewing away. She was smiling at me, baffled. "Hey, what's got into you?"

I said, going back to my meal, "I dunno."

She joked, "Wasn't Sunday enough? I should have hung around a while."

"When's my first posing job?"

"Soon. Probably tomorrow. I'll let you know. Why?"

"I want a camera."

"Okay, so you'll work and get yourself one. Hey, slow down. I don't like it when guys eat too fast. They end up making those stupid burping sounds."

I burped, completely by accident, and we stared at each other and then both of us started laughing.

Ronnie said, sighing painfully as she settle down, "Steven, that is *not* attractive!"

I arrived early at Anita's requested meeting place on Christopher Street in the west Village. I removed my eyeglasses, still too insecure about wearing them, and I wondered if Anita would notice they were missing. And then when I met Anita in the Village and as we toured several art houses, I had to keep saying to myself: Okay, pal, settle down. Steady, now. Steady. Exercise a little mature self control. Take a cue from this lovely, poised, mannered young woman, and just settle down. And don't start getting any big ideas.

She was not a giggly, self-absorbed, scatterbrained kid. She was seventeen but was years beyond her peers in bearing. My admiration for her conflicted with my own anxious feelings. Anita was a well bred young lady from a prominent family and was a friend of Martha's, and many of Anita's friends knew that Martha had introduced us. One stupid move on my part, and Martha would be slandered along with me.

So I was in a perfect position to be blown away when Anita and I were sitting at an outdoor table in front of a restaurant on West 8th Street, and we were talking jokingly about our experiences with Martha, and Anita laughed about something and then asked me, "And did she ever start asking you about your sex life?"

I lowered my eyes toward my bowl of ice cream on our table and said, "Oh, sure. All the time."

Anita said unabashedly, "I was so startled when did that. But she's so uninhibited, I found myself spilling everything. She did that to you, too?"

"Uh, yeah. Couple of times."

"Well," she said, dipping into her ice cream, "Did you blush as much then as you're doing now?"

I blushed. "Yeah. How about you?"

Anita grinned her demure, charming grin, "I considered disappearing into the floor."

So I took a big chance and saw that she didn't seem threatened by the subject, and I swished the ice cream in my mouth and thought and considered and weighed and calculated, and I asked casually, "So when she asked about it, what did you tell her?"

With her mouth full of ice cream she tightened up and held back an embarrassed laugh, and while she wiped her lips with her napkin she gave me a naughty frown, and after she swallowed she said, kidding me, "Now, no fair. No fair, Steven." She wiped her lips again and held back another laugh and said, "And that's what I told her, too. I said," and she raised her voice in a mock whine, "But that's not fair! First she sets me up to be totally honest, you see, she makes a big production out of it, and then she asked me that. And I just sat with my mouth open and said, 'No fair!'. But she's so sweet. She really is. And I'm glad she taught me to open up and develop a more objective view."

Anita dug into her ice cream again, and she looked at me for a moment and asked, "Do you think she's pretty?"

"Of course. Very pretty."

"She's beautiful. All the boys fall in love with her. It's like lightning, all it takes is one look."

"It's her eyes," I said.

"Yes. You're right, yes it is. Oh, I wish I had such eyes."

"Nothing wrong with your eyes."

"But hers are so..."

"Electric."

"Yes. You've noticed them, too. Did you fall in love with her?"

I answered immediately, "I sure did."

"You're kidding. You admit it?"

"Sure."

"Seriously."

"Sure."

"So what did you do about it?"

I shrugged. "I wrote her a poem."

"A poem."

"Yes."

"A poem? You gave it to her?"

"Sure."

Anita's eyes were wide and her mouth was open. "Well, what did she do?"

I shrugged. "She cried."

"She... cried?"

"Yes. You know, a little tear, right here. Just a little one. Then she said thank you and we went to a movie."

Anita stared at me, leaning against the back of her chair.

I finished, "And that's all there was to it."

She said slowly, amused, incredulous, "Is this a true story?"

"Cross my heart."

She leaned forward, still not recovering, and said, checking me out, "And then you... went to the movies."

"Yeah." I continued attacking my delicious ice cream.

Anita propped her elbows on the table and her eyes wandered while she thought about something, and she sipped her coffee and said, looking down at her cup, softly, "So you're the type who writes poems."

That sounded a little ominous. I thought: Congratulations, idiot, you just blew her away. She hates guys who write poems.

She murmured into her coffee cup. "Well... that's so nice. A poem that made her cry."

"Not ponderous, anxious stuff, you understand. Just a quickie, you know, like a greeting card verse. You know, there was just one, small little drop. And then thank you very much that's nice, and off we went to the movies."

"But," she said, still looking into her cup, "That's so..." She picked up her napkin and folded it absently and said, "She didn't tell me that about you."

"Really? What did she tell you about me?"

She grinned sneakily. "What did she tell you about *me*?"

"I asked first."

She didn't answer. She gave me an impish smile and leaned forward on her elbows toward me and said, "She said you had nice brown eyes."

I looked at her, smiling impishly myself. "She did?"

"Yes. You do have nice brown eyes."

"So do you." I put my elbows on the table and rested my chin on my fists. "She told me you were independent, talented, sensitive, friendly, diplomatic, and..." I added quickly, "honest, brave, humanitarian, outspoken, and beautiful."

She kept staring at me, the smile getting playful. "You're flirting with me."

"So are you."

She waited, her eyes fixed on me, and then grinned. "You're nice."

"So are you."

"I have to go."

"So do I."

But she didn't move, her eyes and mine playing with each other.

She said, "You're not really eighteen."

"Neither are you."

Her eyes were more intimate now, really looking at me and into me. I was getting a rush of blood to my chest and groin.

She said, "You're very nice to look at."

"So are you."

She waited again, and our eyes looked at each other. She said, "You talk with your --"

And we both finished together, " -- eyes."

That one was easy. I'd been through that before.

Still keeping her eyes on me, she sipped from her cup, put it down, and looked at me and said, "You're a guy."

I said, "Unless my eyes deceive me, you're not." I dropped my voice a little. "You're very much not."

She waited, and I could see by her eyes that she was thinking. She said slowly, "You're going to go for a walk in the woods. All right? This is a very important test."

"Okay."

"You're going to go for a walk in the woods. You approach the woods, walking. What's the weather? What's the time of day?"

I thought, watching her. "It's morning. Early. It's spring. The sun is bright but not hot. The sun just rose a little while ago."

"Mmm. Okay. As you walk through the woods, you see a cup. Describe the cup."

"A cup?"

She said, softly, and I saw her soft, puffy lips form the words slowly, "A cup. What's it look like? What do you do with it?"

"The cup is... a chalice. Silver. It has been neglected, so it's tarnished. I pick it up. I'll carry it with me, take it with me, and polish it, restore it. I'll make it like new."

She continued staring into my eyes, and as she waited her eyes seemed to look deeper, a small, mysterious smile on her mouth. Then she said, "I see." Then her smile became more knowing, "Well, I do have to go." Our eyes kept playing with each other as she stood up and hung her purse straps on her shoulder.

I asked, "Did I pass or fail?"

Her small smile became a slightly wider one. "You get extra points. I think."

I grinned at her.

She said, "I'll see you Saturday."

"Okay."

She took a step or two back, still keeping her eyes on mine, and she said, as if it were an afterthought, "Anyone ever tell you that talking with your eyes is a sign of -- ?" She stopped, seeming suddenly shy, and she was thinking, her lower lip slightly tucked under, making her smile look a little more flirty. She didn't go on.

I said, "So are you."

She grinned. Her departing gesture was a clearly more sexual look, a lowering of her eyelids as she smiled, and she said, almost in a whisper, "See you later." She turned and walked away, toward the 6th Avenue subway. I watched her trim, slim-skirted body as it moved for three blocks, all the way down the street.

When she finally disappeared I leaned my head back and closed my eyes and sighed deeply and said to myself, "Holy shit!"