Chapter 19

I made slow progress towards her, keeping a rack of books between us, so that she wouldn't see me approaching her. I paused for just a minute to try to figure out what it might be about her that attracted me so strongly. I had mentioned earlier that it wasn't really anything about her face or her figure. She looked okay, more than just okay, but there just wasn't anything remarkable in her looks, anything that stood out and set her apart from the other girls. I couldn't place what it was, but, whatever it was, she had it. If someone had lined ten girls up, taken at random from her high school, and then had asked passers by to pick the most attractive girl from the bunch, she wouldn't have been picked, not even once.

"My million dollar girl, I've found you again, at last." I had worked my way over to her, making my final approach to her back. She had to turn around in order to see me.

"The nine cent washer boy, from Washington. Fancy meeting you here. What brings you to a public library of all places?"

"I've been looking for you. I've looked everywhere too. This was the next to last place on my list."

"What was your last place?"

"The police department."

"Well, now that you've found me, what's next?"

"Do you date guys that you meet in a library?"

"Sometimes, but not unless they live in the city where said library is located."

"I live in Fullerton."

"I thought you said Westminster?"

"I told you that I was going to move, just to be closer to you."

"I'll have to think about it."

"Would you go out with me if I could guess your favorite color, your favorite movie, and the color of your underpants?"

"Okay. Go ahead and guess. If you get all of them right, I'll go out with you."

<Are you going to help me out here?>

Red, Bambi and white.

""All right. I'm going to turn around so that I can't see what you're writing. Write all the information down, and then I'll tell you my guesses." She laughed, and ripped out a piece of paper from her notebook. I made sure that I didn't turn back around until she told me to.

"Ready. Remember, you have to guess all three correct, or else you lose."

"Let's see. Your favorite color is, red, right?" She nodded, not too impressed with me yet. "Your favorite movie is, Bambi, right?" She nodded that I had guessed correctly again. "Your underpants are..."

Jimmy, wait. She wrote down that she never wears underpants. That isn't true, but that's what she wrote.

"Hold on a minute, yes, I can see two answers here. One answer is what you wrote, and the other is the real color of your underpants. You wrote that you never wear underpants, and yet, you are wearing white ones. How can this be? Let me see your paper." She was just staring at me, shocked at the three correct answers that I'd given. I took the piece of paper from her hand. She didn't resist me. She had written: 'Red. Bambi. Never wear panties'.

"How did you do that? That's impossible!"

"For me, not finding you again would have been impossible, this was just a parlor trick."

"Tell me how you did that."

"I promised never to divulge the secret, sorry."

"Can you do that with anyone?"

"Not anyone, only girls that I'm really attracted to."

"Do it again. Guess my birthday."

"If I do, will you go out with me Tomorrow night?"

"The exact month, day and year. If you can guess that, then I'll go out with you tomorrow."

"Do you have a driver's license?"

"Yes."

"All right, let me think. You have the license in your purse, right?"

"Yes, in my wallet, the one that's in my purse."

March 17, 1940.

"Okay. Be very quiet now while I concentrate on it. I've got it! March seventeenth, nineteen forty. A St. Patrick's Day baby, Right?"

"How can you possibly know that. Nobody can do that."

"So will you go out with me tomorrow night?"

"Sure. Pick me up at my house at seven o'clock." She gathered all of her stuff up, and started to walk away from me.

"Hey, you didn't give me an address."

"I know." She laughed, and hurried away from me.

<She's going to be surprised when I show up on her doorstep at exactly seven o'clock.>

So will the boy that she has a date with at that same time.

<You're kidding. She already had a date?>

Yes.

<So, what do you suggest now?>

I don't have any suggestion for you.

Friday night at ten before seven, I show up at Connie's house with a small bouquet made up of pine cones, pine needles attached to branches, and gardenia's. An interesting combination, one that I'd never have thought of on my own. The lady who put it together for me at the flower shop had looked at me really funny when I had ordered that arrangement from her. Connie came to the door wearing jeans and a sweater, red of course, and carrying a light jacket. I handed her the bouquet and she started laughing when she recognized what it contained.

"I guess that none of my secrets are safe from you now. At the risk of repeating myself for the millionth time, how did you know?"

"Know what?" I tried to look puzzled by her question.

"About gardenia's, pine cones and pine needles."

"What about them?"

"Don't you think that's an unusual combination?"

"I guess they might be around here, but those are the kind of bouquets we always give to our dates back in Washington."

"You're kidding me? Really?"

"Its the combination of smells. I think it makes girls more receptive to passion."

"You think that pine smell and gardenia smell together will get girls hot?"

"Why don't you go ahead and take a big whiff, and then you tell me."

"It doesn't make me hot."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure." She leaned into the bouquet and took a big sniff. "Nope, doesn't do a thing for me."

"That's really strange. Whenever I smell it, it turns me on like crazy."

"Well, maybe I should just leave this in the house then. I wouldn't want you to lose all of your self control."

"That might be better. Just being around you is stimulation enough."

"I had another date for tonight, and I had to cancel it because of you."

"I'm flattered that you did that."

"I always keep my word. Where are we going tonight?"

"Wherever you want to go."

"Money's no object then?"

"Who's going to be paying?"

"You are, of course."

"Well then, I guess that money is an object. I only have enough to buy three rubber washers, four toilet plungers and one kitchen sink, that's it."

We walked over to my car and I helped her in. I drove over to an Italian restaurant, asking her, as we drove, if she liked Italian food. She said that she did, and so I continued driving toward the restaurant. When she asked me about the car, I told her that I had been lucky with some investments.

"Are you rich?"

"Does it matter?"

"Sure, it always matters."

"Well, then, I guess I'm not rich, but I'd like to be someday."

"Where are you going to college?"

"Fullerton JC."

"What are you studying?"

"I just finished a gym class for tennis, a Finance class, and one in Real Estate. Next semester, I'm taking Accounting, and another Real Estate class. I just got my pilot's license a short time ago, and I'm getting in a few hours of flying every week."

"Isn't that expensive? Flying an airplane has to cost a lot of money."

"Yes, too much, but I need to get in some additional flight hours so that my license will have fewer restrictions on it."

"What kind of restrictions?"

"Carrying passengers, flying times, things like that."

"Could you take me flying some time?"

"Not now, but I will be able to by this time next month."

"I'd like to go up some time. I've never been in a small plane before."

"Well, they want me to get more hours in before I take up passengers. They think it's important that I be able to bring you back down safely too. It ruins the effect if you wind up crashing."

"Do you crash a lot?"

"With an airplane, nobody crashes a lot. But I didn't crash even once this whole week."

"I think I'll wait to go with you until after you feel a lot more confident."

"I wish I could wait until I get better too, but they require me to be right there in the plane when I'm flying."

"You are a little bit crazy, you know that?"

"What do we want on our pizza?"

"Why don't you try to guess that too?"

"Do I get a kiss if I get all of the toppings right?"

"Right here?"

"No, when I take you home."

"Okay, I'm thinking of three separate toppings."

Mushrooms, anchovies and bell peppers.

"I think I'd rather skip the kiss than order a pizza like that. Couldn't you have picked more normal toppings."

"No hints. Can you do it or not?" Our waiter came over to take our order.

"Can we order a large pizza with half of it with one set of toppings and the other half with another set?"

"You have to pay for all of the toppings, thirty cents a topping, is that okay?"

"Sure, that's fine. We'd like a large pizza with mushrooms, anchovies and bell peppers on one half, and black olives, sausage and pepperoni on the other half."

"Tell me how you do that? Are you a mind reader?"

"It's a trick, and "I'm not telling you how I do it."

"Tell me the name of the first boy who ever kissed me."

"What's my reward if I get that one?"

"What do you want?"

"It wouldn't matter what I wanted, I couldn't possibly know something like that."

"How were you able to guess all of that other stuff then?"

"Liking red is a very common color preference for a girl, guys mostly like blue. You are the right age to still like Bambi, and when I was standing behind you, I could just make out the tops of your panties when I looked straight down."

"What about what I wrote about not wearing panties?"

"That was a guess, based mostly on the smirk that I saw on your face while I was about to tell you they were white. Even when I guessed the first two correctly, you still weren't worried."

"How did you know about my birth date then?"

"If I tell you all of my secret methods, then you won't go out with me again."

"Well, knowing how you did those other things is a big relief to me."

"How's that pizza?"

"Good, can I have a piece of yours? How did you guess my favorite toppings?"

"You've got to let me keep some secrets."

We stayed there at the restaurant until nearly closing time, at almost eleven. We were just talking back and forth, getting to know each other. When I took her home, I did get a kiss, but it wasn't the kind of kiss that I had gotten used to with Donna. This was a very reserved kiss, barely a touch on my lips, from her lips. I guess it was that charisma thing though, because even that tiny peck left me hoping for more. I asked her for another date for the next night, but she told me that she would be busy then, going out with the guy that she'd broken her date with. She did agree to go horseback riding with me on Sunday though. I'd never been up on a horse, except when I was five years old, and that was only for long enough for me to have my picture taken.

On Sunday, we went over to Chino and rented two horses at this place that she knew. She was an avid rider, and took great glee in watching me bouncing up and down on my horse. It was two hours of pain and misery for me, but that didn't seem to bother her very much. I was starting to wonder whether she liked me at all. After the first hour and a half, I got off of my horse and led him with the reins. My balls were throbbing from all of that bouncing. At first Connie rode on ahead, but she came back within five minutes and just walked her horse at the same pace that I was walking. She took off about fifteen minutes later, after telling me that she was going for a gallop and would be back in a few minutes. I kept walking on the trail that she said would take me back to the barn where we had rented the horses. When she got back, her face was all flushed with the excitement of her gallop, and she stayed with me until we got back where we had started from.

"Thank you for taking me riding, Jimmy. I don't get out to do that too much anymore. I'm sorry if it made you sore."

"I don't know how those cowboys and farmers managed in the old days, before cars were invented. I really don't know how they could stand it, riding a horse everywhere."

"It's really a lot of fun, once you know how to ride."

"I think I'll just have to take your word for that. Right now, I'm feeling a little bit sore."

"You didn't have to bounce like that you know?"

"Now you tell me?"

"Well, it was pretty funny at first, and then, I just assumed that you'd figure it out for yourself."

"I'm sure that it will get better, in a month or two."

"I'll just have to make it up to you some way. Pull the car over and park it." I found a safe place at a turn out in a short time and did what she'd asked. She moved over closer to me. "You can kiss me Jimmy. I'm sorry for laughing at you before." I did kiss her, and this time, she let me kiss her good. I had my tongue in her mouth, and we were playing dueling tongues. She was squirming around in her seat when we finished that kiss. "Is that better? Are you still mad at me now?"

"I wasn't ever mad at you Connie, but yes, that is better, thank you."

"Oh, I enjoyed it too. You have your pine cones and gardenia's, but for me, riding a horse for a couple of hours really does get me hot." She blushed, but kept looking at me, trying to see how I'd react to her admission.

"Makes you wonder why there aren't more cowgirls than cowboys. I can see where bouncing around in that saddle all day could be entertaining for a girl. Maybe I ought to buy a motorcycle for when we go out on dates. I heard that some girls like that too."

"I'd ride on one, just to see what it's like, but I doubt that it could compare to riding a horse."

I kissed her again, and this time, I slid over in the seat, to get out from behind the steering wheel. She didn't give me the same response as she had with the first kiss. I guess our earlier conversation had made her a little self conscious. I had been about to try to get a little titty feel, but something told me that it would be a big mistake. I released her and slid back behind the wheel.

"Okay, now I feel a lot better. Where can we go to now? I'm hungry, but I don't know what I want to eat. Any suggestions?"

"I like Mexican food. I know a really good restaurant in Stanton. It isn't expensive either. Would you want to go all the way out there to eat?"

"Sure."

The tension, if there was any, had evaporated. As we drove over to Stanton we talked about safer things, like school and where she was planning on going to college in the Fall. She had applied to Stanford, but, while she was confident that she'd be accepted, she needed to win several scholarships in order to be able to afford to go there. She had applied to UCLA also, just in case she wasn't able to attend Stanford. I told her that I planned on specializing in real estate investing, and on getting filthy rich before I was forty years old. I told her that I hoped to never actually have a real job, or to have to work for someone else.

We got to the restaurant, and sat down to order. We finally decided on about six of their a la carte items, Connie telling me that I'd love all of them. We shared everything, six plates and two forks. They had three different kinds of sauces that you could spice up the flavor with. I didn't like the hottest one, but I used the two milder sauces. Connie sprinkled the hottest sauce all over every bite that she ate, and laughed at my refusal to do the same. It really was all very good, and we spent about two hours at the restaurant. It was dark when we started back to Fullerton.

"I really had a good time today, Jimmy. You were a good sport about the horseback riding too." We were driving through Anaheim now, heading towards Harbor Blvd. Connie moved over in the seat, moving closer to me. "Do you want to go somewhere for a little while to talk? We can go over by the Santa Ana river, I know a place." I wasn't sure about what she was offering me, or about what she was really expecting.