a really rough time.”
“Well, yeah. He’s normal. And it’s Nam. Of course
he’s having a rough time. Who wouldn’t? But he’s not,
like … injured or anything?”
“No. He’s not injured.”
“Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“Did you…” But then I got stuck in the middle of
the thought.
“Did I what?”
“Did you know him? Over there?”
“No, not over there. I knew ’im. But I never saw ’im in Nam. It’s a big country, and we’re all over it. I just
knew Roy from growing up in town. Had a drink with
him the night before he shipped out. Right before I found
out I was going, too. Never saw a guy that scared in my
whole life. I mean, until I got over there. But I haven’t
seen ’im since.”
“Right,” I said. “Got it.”
I guess I’d been hoping he had some kind of inside
information about Roy. Maybe he’d been hoping the
same about me. I let that expectation go again. It hurt a
little on its way out.
“Next time you write to ’im, tell ’im I said hi.”
“I will.”
And with that he turned and hopped his way back
down the hallway, sliding his hand along the wall for
support.
I turned around to see Libby standing right behind me.
“We should go,” I said. “We don’t want to miss our
bus.”
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* * *
Halfway to the end of the block she slipped her hand into
mine. I got that funny feeling in my knees again, and a
strange sensation in my low belly. Buzzy, like electricity.
But I liked it.
“You didn’t tell me your brother was having a rough
time,” she said, breaking a long silence.
I could’ve told her that I’d only learned about it from
his last letter. And, since I’d told her I hadn’t heard from him last time she asked, that would make it sound as though
I’d heard about his troubles more recently. It would have
been a half truth, if I had gone that route.
Or I could’ve quoted her brother.
“Well, yeah. He’s normal. And it’s Nam. Of course
he’s having a rough time. Who wouldn’t?”
I didn’t.
I decided that if somebody is your girlfriend, or might
be about to become your girlfriend, you probably owe
her a different level of the truth. I figured, for somebody
like that, you can just damn well do better.
“I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry about that. It was a
thing I was having trouble talking about.”
She gave my hand a squeeze.
We walked the rest of the way to the bus stop in silence.
* * *
“So what did you think of the movie?” I asked her as we
walked out into the dusky night.
I was so on edge waiting to know that I’d stuck my
hands in my pockets so she wouldn’t see them shaking.
Or reach for one and feel it shaking.
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“I liked it,” she said.
I breathed for what felt like the first time in months.
Why was I so tied up in knots inside when I was young?
I swear I have no idea.
“Didn’t you like it?” she asked when she realized I was not about to answer.
It was a complicated question. I’d been of two minds
about it all through the film, and trying to guess which
way her mind was going. I felt like … if I could only
know her opinion, I’d know which view was “right.”
It was possible to stand outside the movie and think it
was silly, or to stop judging and go with it and think it
was funny. But all I could do was shift back and forth,
wondering what my date was thinking.
“Sure,” I said. “It was funny.”
We walked right past the soda shop, and she said
nothing about stopping. I breathed a great sigh of relief,
as quietly as possible.
Libby had wanted popcorn, a soda, and a giant candy
bar during the film. So I guessed she was too full for an
ice cream soda now. But I’d been a little scared about that, because I now had just enough money for the bus home
for both of us, with only about fifteen cents change. I
would’ve had to tell her out loud that I couldn’t afford
it, which would have been humiliating.
I took my hands out of my pocket, because now they
were holding still. I reached one out in her direction, and
she reached back and took hold of it. And we walked
toward the bus stop that way.
A grown-up lady with a bag of groceries passed us
on the sidewalk, coming toward us, and she smiled ap-
provingly at our faces. And then at our linked hands. I
took it to mean that we looked like a nice young couple.
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It made me think maybe we were, which opened up my
thinking about the world quite a bit in that moment.
And then, of course, I got too honest.
“I’m glad you liked the movie,” I said, “because I was
really worried about that.”
She stopped dead on the sidewalk, and her hand tugged
at mine until I stopped, too.
“Why would you worry about a thing like that?”
she asked.
And I thought, Oh great. I’ve gone and done it now. I let her look at the inside of something about me, and now it turns out it’s completely weird in there.
“I just wanted you to have a good time,” I said.
“That’s nice. But it’s not like you made the movie
yourself or anything.”
“But I picked it out. I didn’t want you to think I had
terrible taste in movies.”
“But you hadn’t seen it. If you’d seen it nine times
and really wanted me to see it the tenth time with you,
and I hated it, I might think you had bad taste in mov-
ies. Which isn’t the most terrible thing in the world, by
the way. But you were just guessing. Anybody can guess
wrong.”
“Hmm,” I said.
We started to walk again.
“I guess I worry too much,” I said.
“Well, at least you worry about nice things, like
whether I’ll have a good time.”
Just for a minute I was filled with a great feeling. Like
she wasn’t judging me and it really was okay to be myself
around her. I think the only reason the feeling didn’t last
longer is because we saw the bus coming. And we had
to run.
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* * *
I walked her up onto her front porch, and to her door.
By then it was mostly dark out, but the porch light was
on. It was glaring, and I found myself blinking because
of it. Blinking too much.
“Well…,” I said.
And she said, “Well…,” in return.
She wasn’t going to let me off the hook on this. I was
the one who had to find the perfect words to wrap this up.
“I sure had a nice time with you tonight,” I said.
“Me too,” she said.
She was standing close, and she had her face tu
rned up
toward mine in a way I could only think of as … well, I
hated to think it was expectant, because then it would be
on me to know what she was expecting. I’m not trying
to suggest I had no idea at all. I wasn’t a total child, and I hadn’t just crawled out from under a rock. I knew what
tended to happen at the end of dates. I just wasn’t sure
enough that I was right about what she wanted.
It hit me that all through the date I’d let her make the
first moves. She was the one who’d reached out and taken
my hand. On the way out. On the bus. In the movie.
Even on the way home, when I reached a hand out to
her, I just reached it out. And waited.
There was just no getting around that for me. It was
the only way I knew how to be. I had to be sure of what
she wanted. I couldn’t be one of those boys who just took
what he wanted from a girl. That was utterly foreign to me.
“I’d like to call you,” I said.
“You better.”
“And see you again.”
“I should hope so.”
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“Well okay, then.”
“Well okay,” she said.
The moment was getting more awkward. It felt like she
was driving me toward a kiss by steering the conversation
down a dead-end street. But I still wasn’t sure enough.
To make matters worse, I had never kissed a girl be-
fore. And now that you know how much I worried about
whether she’d like the film, you can imagine my horror
over her possibly not liking the kiss.
“Well,” I said. “Good night.”
I turned to walk away.
Yes, I was really going to chicken out. It seemed the
only way to get out of the situation and off her porch in
one emotional piece.
“Hey!” she said.
I stopped. Turned back.
“Aren’t you even going to kiss me good night?”
So that took care of the first part of the equation. I
was now sure of what she wanted.
I stepped in close, and she turned her face up in that
expectant way. She had her eyes closed, so I closed mine.
And I leaned in. And I just did it. Right or wrong, I had
to try.
I pressed my lips lightly against hers and held them
there. Maybe for the count of two.
Then I went to pull away.
But I didn’t get away.
She put her hand on the back of my head, and she
kissed me. More deeply this time.
It wasn’t hard to know what to do, even though I
was a total novice, because all I had to do was respond.
Accept her lips with mine and do the same in return.
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I wondered how many boys she had kissed before. She
seemed to know what she was doing.
Then I started liking the kissing. Really liking it, and
not worrying about doing it wrong, because nothing that
wonderful could be wrong. And then it was me kissing
her again, but more firmly. Less hesitantly.
And then the porch light started flashing.
Off. On. Off. On.
We stepped apart.
“I think I’m wanted inside,” she said.
“Yeah. Seems that way.” I sounded like I was out of
breath. Because I was.
“Good night.”
“Good night,” I said.
I waited until I saw she was safely inside, then stepped
down off her porch and started the long walk home. Not
two seconds later I broke into a full-on sprint. I needed
a way to vent all that energy.
I had this wonderful feeling inside as I ran. Like I’d
gotten a sneak peek into love, and it was okay in there. It
wasn’t a terrible place where I’d be torn limb from limb.
I could go there like everybody else.
I was flying along the sidewalk, hardly noticing my
feet touching down, and I was thinking, I can go to this love place and I can be okay.
And, as the old saying goes … that’s what I get for
thinking.
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CHAPTER NINE
The Belonging
When I got out to the cabin the following morning, the
front door was yawning wide open. Mrs. Dinsmore was
standing in the doorway, a toolbox at her feet, tinkering
with the lock her daughter and I had so poorly installed.
“You’re alive,” I said, the dogs whipping the backs of
my thighs with their strong tails.
I thought it was a subject I could half kid her about.
It felt like it had become something of a dark private joke
between us. But the minute it was out of my mouth, I
doubted my words, and my nerve in saying them.
If she was offended, she never let on.
“Seems that way,” she said. Then her hands stopped
moving, and she looked right into my face. “I was going
to ask you how your date went. But now that I’ve looked
at your goofy grinning face, there’s really no need.”
“She liked the movie,” I said.
She didn’t answer, so I just sat down on the edge
of the porch and watched her work for minute or two.
Rembrandt plunked his big butt down on my left foot, and
Vermeer kept licking the air about an inch from my face.
“Why do I worry so much what people think of me?”
I asked the lady.
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It surprised me. A lot. I’d had no idea I’d been about
to ask that.
“Because you’re human?” She asked it like a question.
Like maybe she wasn’t sure either.
“So you’re saying everybody’s like that?”
“Some more than others, I suppose. Being young
doesn’t help. Younger you are, the more you’re not sure
what’s the right way to be in the world. The more you
think you might be getting it wrong, the more sensitive
you’ll be about it. As you get older, like me, you stop
caring so much what people think.” She tinkered in
silence for a second or two, working with a screw that
didn’t seem to want to go in straight. Then she added,
“Not sure anybody ever stops caring completely, though.”
“Can I ask your advice about another thing?”
I could hear her sigh from a good four paces away.
“Have I got a choice?”
It stung me a little. I won’t lie.
“Never mind,” I said. “It’s okay.”
She sighed again, and set down her screwdriver. Came
and sat with me on the edge of the porch.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was just being snarky. Sometimes
I think it’s expected of me. Go ahead and ask.”
“Thanks.” I think I was more relieved than I cared
to let on. “I want to take her out for another date. The
sooner the better. But now I’m totally broke. I’ve got
fifteen cents to my name. And after I get my next allow-
ance again, well … I want to take her out to eat. Maybe
lunch, maybe dinner. I guess lunch is cheaper, but dinner
is fancier. But even if I’ve just gotten my allowance, I
don’t think I can afford that. Unless I just take her to the Burger Barn. But
even at the Burger Barn … I can’t tell
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her what to order. What if she gets the most expensive
thing on the menu? And then I have to just get water.
But she’d see right through that and know I was out of
money. Besides, who takes a date to the Burger Barn?
It’s a date. It’s supposed to be someplace nice. Why is it
so expensive to take a girl out on a date?”
I stopped. Breathed.
The air around the four of us seemed to throb with
all those words.
“Whew,” she said. “It really is a tough place inside that brain of yours, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what to say. I
wanted to ask if it was too weird in there. If she thought
there was something abnormal about me. But if I’d asked,
she might’ve answered.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what you do. You get your-
self a nice big basket.”
That was definitely not the direction I’d expected the
conversation to go.
“Basket? What kind of basket?”
“Just some nice big basket with a handle, like maybe
a gardening basket. I’ve probably got something if you
don’t.”
“My mom has a basket she used to use when we’d
go out and get produce from the farm stands. Back when
we used to take Sunday drives. You know. The whole
family.”
Back when my brother wasn’t off fighting a war and
my parents could stand to be in the same car together,
but I didn’t say that. I still had no idea what a basket had to do with taking a girl out for a meal.
“That’s perfect. So you take the basket. Make sure
it’s nice and clean. Wash it under the hose and then dry
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it out in the sun if you have to. Then you go into the
fridge and make some sandwiches. You know how to
make sandwiches, right?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Now, I don’t know what kind of food and stuff your
mom tends to keep around the house. Maybe you’ll find
everything you need right in the fridge, and it’ll be free.
Or maybe you’ll have to get a few things at the store.
Either way, it’ll be cheaper than the Burger Barn. You’ll
need a couple of sandwiches for each of you. Don’t want
to run out of food in case she’s hungry. Maybe some fresh
fruit. Bananas or apples. Or both. And a couple sodas. If
your mom has cloth napkins, bring two of those. They’re
nicer. If not, paper napkins’ll have to do. Maybe something
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