“Please don’t be mad. I just came here because I knew you could help.”
She pauses in the darkness, near the door. “I’m not mad,” she says. “I know you’ve had a hard time. I know that. Don’t worry, I won’t be giving up on you.”
“We can, you know . . . go on being friends?”
“Of course we can. I only mean for you to understand how important it is that you not say a word about any of this to anyone. I’d be destroyed . . . I could lose my job! Listen . . . I haven’t minded offering some support . . . heavens know you need it. But that isn’t how it would be seen, and no one would be accepting of either one of us. You had your dream taken away . . . probably have been in need of mothering ALL your life. But that isn’t how it would be seen. Not a word to anyone, do you understand?”
As his cheeks have begun to glisten with inexplicable tears, so do hers. On raising a hand to his shoulder he senses her desire to hold him, to allow him to hold her. “I’ve always liked you, Dale . . . I guess that’s obvious,” she says. “If you like me, if you’d like to go on being friends, you have to understand how important it is that you do as I say.”
“I do understand. I won’t tell a soul.”
“I held you like a mother . . . allowed you to be like a child . . . but it wouldn’t be seen that way. I’d be forced to live in disgrace.”
“I won’t say anything . . . I love you so much,” Dale dares whisper in the darkness. “You don’t have to worry.”
“What if it came about . . . that you didn’t love me? Would you tell then?”
“Not ever. I’ll always love you. Why do you think I’m always a captain . . . because I don’t know about loyalty?”
WALKING DOWN HER driveway, having gotten her to smile, Dale can’t help smiling either . . . in awareness that she likes him as he likes her and, as she promised, that she won’t be giving up on him. To think (as he does in deep joy) that she let him taste her nipple . . . if only for a moment. What a sensation, lingering yet all the way to his toes and warming his stomach with desire. The hard texture, like an eraser on the end of a pencil . . . what a thrill it is to be in love with Miss Furbish.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 1
MONDAY ARRIVES AT LAST. TO BE CLOSE TO HIS BELOVED teacher again . . . thinking, as he has all weekend in terms equally giddy: No Other Love Have I. Stranger in Paradise. Because of You. To be in the same room with a person more precious than any he has ever known. Love Me Tender. Teach Me Tonight.
Entering homeroom is to enter an air containing magic. All the same—wanting to be cool and not a fool—he sees on the periphery of his vision that she is at her desk as usual, glasses hanging from their lanyard (riding her chest above the nipple that became his! remains his!) reading papers as on any other day. Coming to mind (as if it ever left) is that she let him nurse like a boyfriend, a lover . . . a sensation so profoundly sexual that merely thinking of it has him wanting to do it again as soon as possible.
Has there ever been a more necessary moment in which to be cool and not a fool? At his seat he proceeds with school work despite his hungry heart working overtime. In his notebook he inspects behind technicolor tabs, wondering if she has a social life . . . only to catch her glancing his way and on a flash from her eyes to see that she appears equally curious. Chanson d’Amour. All the Way. Emotions soaring, he continues gazing no matter her eyes being back on her papers. Looking down, he’s reminded: Yes, he was intimate with Miss Furbish! Had her rubbery nipple in his mouth! No, not for nourishment except in forms of affection, togetherness, deep qualities of true friendship!
# # #
EXPERIENCING HEIGHTENED EXCITEMENT as homeroom is ending, Dale remains in his seat—as she is alone for a moment—until, walking to her desk, he says under his breath, “I have a word power challenge . . . could I test it on you?”
Her smile holds. “I suppose so,” she says, her eyes on his until he knows he was right in guessing her to be likewise curious, to have also been waiting for Monday to arrive.
“Could I drop it off at your place?”
She takes a moment, is liking him, he’s certain, maybe loving him to a degree in the way that he is loving her. “Is this word challenge associated with a vow of secrecy?”
He laughs, says, “It is.”
“Dale, you know I don’t think it’s wise for you to be visiting my apartment.”
“Really?”
“Meet me at the bus stop, like you did before. We do need to talk. We can be good friends, as teacher and pupil. But no more inappropriate locations. I’m sorry for that. I won’t be giving up on you . . . don’t worry about that. But only in a proper way.”
She’s smiling, is being friendly . . . no matter her words putting him at a distance. “So we are still friends?” he wants to know.
“Of course . . . but no more Romeo stuff,” she says. “If you can remain mature, maybe beyond your years . . . we can certainly remain friends. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. We’ll meet this one time . . . but I think visiting my apartment is probably not a good idea. We’ll talk . . . because, frankly, I don’t want you feeling hurt or being angry with me. Okay?”
“I guess so,” Dale says.
“Let’s move on now. I’ll see you at the bus stop . . . so we can have a talk.”
Entering the hallway, Dale is confused. She’s thought about it, he thinks. Not the way he has been thinking about it, still it’s been on her mind. She wants to lecture him at the bus stop, doesn’t she? What of passion and the love that’s been on his mind? What of the love that’s alive in him . . . and in her, too, in the way he’s been imagining? She’s really afraid that he’ll tell, or maybe blackmail her or something—neither of which he would ever do—still she wants to make it clear in his mind how dangerous she believes it would be.
CHAPTER 2
THUS DALE’S UNCERTAIN DAY AT SCHOOL AND, AT LAST, showering after practice. On his way with his gym bag, in darkness, to the bus stop two blocks from school where, to his surprise, she’s already waiting, briefcase in hand. Careful not to touch in any way or to overdo, uncertain what to say and not wanting to put her at an even greater distance, he says “Hi,” as she says, “Hello, Dale.”
Goodbye to necking in the dark on her couch, he’s thinking. What a dream it was . . . and why can’t it continue? Why can’t she be in her teacher mode in school, and in her lover mood when they’re alone together and unseen by others? They haven’t been seen by anyone, have they?
“This meeting itself is probably ill-advised,” she’s saying. “I certainly like you . . . but I wanted to see you so we could establish some sensible boundaries to our friendship. Not to deny what happened . . . but not to let it get larger, either. Am I making sense?”
“I guess so,” he says, despite not quite understanding what she means to say.
“The last thing I want is for you to be angry. Nothing good can come of that.”
“I know . . . it’s just that I really do like you. Like love you.”
“As I like you, Dale. Not love, like. I’m pleased you’ve used the word ‘love’ however, because it has to be understood that love does not have anything to do with what happened or with what we’re talking about. Friendship . . . and liking, yes. Not love, Dale, so please erase that from your mind. You like me, I understand. Maybe you have a crush on your teacher. That’s not unusual. And we got very close the other night in my apartment. But love had nothing to do with it. So, please . . . like me, as I like you. But nothing more than that.”
“Okay, I like you a lot,” Dale says.
“I like you, too. As a friend. What you need to understand . . . is if you told anyone you were in my apartment. In the dark. It would literally be the end of my life, certainly as a teacher. No one would understand anything else. If love was mentioned, anything close to love, I really would have to end my life because no one would ever hear anything else. It’s why I wanted to speak with you. To have you understand how impor
tant it is that you never mention a word to anyone. Not ever. My life is sort of in your hands with this, and is why the last thing I want you to feel is angry . . . like it’s okay to say something in order to get back at me. I’m extremely worried. Living in disgrace is not something I could ever do. I decided I had to say this directly and ask you to please never think of saying a word.”
“You don’t have to worry.”
“Even as you grow older . . . and go on to high school? You won’t slip into talking with your friends, and feel like it’s okay to say something?”
“I won’t. You don’t have to worry because I won’t. I love you too much ever to do anything like that.”
“Dale . . . people fall out of love. Can you promise that even then you won’t say anything?”
“I promise. You don’t have to keep asking. I promise.”
“It was nice . . . what we did . . . I don’t mean to say it wasn’t. Only that it should not have happened, and will never happen again . . . as innocent as it was.”
Thinking to lighten things with something funny, Dale says, “So we can’t neck anymore in your living room with the lights out?”
“I wish it were funny. But it isn’t. What happened was my fault. You were about to collapse, you were so traumatized by what you had done, and by what had happened with your friend . . . and I did consent to holding you, allowing you to sit too close with the lights out. It was sweet in its way, I grant . . . but only because it was between the two friends. Heaven knows, you’ve had your fill of rejection and, like I say, I don’t want you angry with me for not admitting what happened. True, it was loving, I won’t deny it, not to you. Nor would I ever admit it to anyone else. My plea to you is to forget it happened. If you’d like to continue being friends . . . it’s what I demand. Please say you understand.”
“I do.”
“You’ll respect the terms of our friendship?”
“I will. You don’t have to keep using friendship like a bribe.”
“Okay, I deserve that. Let me put it this way. You’re not unhappy? I don’t want to cause a problem by denying what happened. I don’t want to do that. I only want to be certain you appreciate what is at stake, how important it is to me.”
“I’m happy to have you as my friend.”
“I’m not turning my back on you . . . only establishing the boundaries of our friendship.”
“Please don’t be afraid that I’ll tell, because I won’t.”
“I’ve thought about this a lot. I want you, especially, to go forward. To learn from what’s happened. I am your teacher, after all.”
As she smiles, “You’re afraid I’ll tell, no matter what I say.”
“More than afraid. I’m terrified. At the same time, I do like you, and I don’t have any wish to hurt your feelings . . . or to add any more rejection to your life.”
“I wish we could be like we were before.”
“Meaning?”
“You know . . . necking in the dark.”
“Okay, I deserve that, too. I’ll stop begging. I just wanted to make myself clear! Don’t tease me, because it’s just too serious to me to be funny.”
“Sorry.”
“No more meetings like this. We’ll be friends, like always. What we did was wrong . . . and is never going to happen again. Please, just say okay and go along while I return to my car.”
“Okay,” Dale says. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow in school.”
“Except I still do love you,” Dale dares to say.
“Dale, no more talk like that, if it’s true or not! Go now! Do as I say!”
CHAPTER 3
ONE THING THAT KEEPS COMING TO DALE IS THAT HE DOES have a friend! Maybe not a girlfriend exactly, but a female who is a friend. She may not be seeing him like she did; still, her friendship is true. She’s a friend who is female, a teacher who raises joy in him like he has never known before . . . a woman who may, if he gets lucky, let him be at her again on her couch in her unlighted living room.
Dale feels taller walking into Lower Downtown in the evening and walking out to catch buses to school in the morning. He experiences excited pleasure in thinking of Miss Furbish, recalling (against her instructions!) the sigh she emitted in the dark, and allowing her nipple to be in his mouth if only for a moment, and calling him Romeo . . . memories that make him feel more grown up every time they visit.
# # #
NOR DOES CHUB Coburn resume taunting him when the Little Ms are together. The big center baits him until—stabbed by an insult tying him to the wealth of kids from Walt Whitman—Dale says: “Chub, if you’re trying to pick a fight with me because you think I’m rich, I’ll fight you any time . . . ’cause all I’ve ever done is live with a sweet drunk who happens to be my old man, who rode the rails from Kansas and has worked second shift on the line at Chevy for twenty years . . . when he’s not off on benders.”
“Oh, Daleboy, don’t get your candy ass all bent outta shape,” is Chub’s reply.
“You and your old man and your gas station . . . you’re the ones are rich. Only you have yet to learn any manners,” Dale adds.
Chub guffaws. “Manners? Wheeler, what a dickhead you are!”
Chub laughing has Dale grinning—if unclear over what is so funny—and suddenly they are better friends than, to date, they’ve ever been. Dale titters as he tightens his laces. Word on what to say to the oversized bully came, of course, from Miss Furbish . . . she who has moved in his mind from being best teacher, best big sister, best girlfriend (if but once in the dark!) to best mother any love-struck fourteen-year-old ever dreamed of having.
“Charge him with something valid, like not having manners,” was her advice. “Stand up to him. Tell him, right to his face, that he’s a bully and has to grow up. Be accurate in what you say. Then withstand the consequences, because chances are he’ll respect you and things won’t be so bad.”
“He’s huge . . . he’ll probably kill me.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t know what he’s like.”
“I suspect I do. I’ve been around more than my share of adolescent boys.”
Alas, Miss Furbish knows what she knows, and her smarts impress Dale with their wisdom and accuracy. Miss Furbish. What a woman his sort-of girlfriend happens to be!
# # #
FOR THEIR PART, the Little Ms go on winning district games and Dale, given his skills, keeps playing larger chunks of time, establishing himself as a starter if not being identified as such. Ball handler, playmaker, ball stealer, breakaway scorer—no one has his speed, his knack for interceptions, his anticipation—and his role increases as his bullet baseball passes to Lucky, Chub, Grady are making their scores larger, too. Lucky likes to say “Flying Wheel came to deal!” and “The Wheel’s the deal!” as it becomes obvious to all that when Dale is managing the floor, the Little Ms dominate and can run up leads at will.
# # #
THE LITTLE Ms post-game critiques are also prizes to Dale, different from anything ever heard at Walt Whitman. In the locker room, in the gang shower where they prance about with bobbing genitals and newly sprouted pubic hair, the talk goes as much to sex, love, and making out as to the playoff season toward which they’re tending. Dale, thinking he knows something of love (thinking yet of Miss Furbish, infatuated beyond rational sense) keeps smiling while not being tempted to share any hard-won knowledge. (Necking in the dark on her couch on a Saturday night! Getting her nightshirt pulled aside! Kissing her throat, the tendons on her neck . . . getting her hard little nipple into his mouth! The sensation transmits to his groin, arousing him! What he wouldn’t give to go all the way with Miss Furbish!)
On trooping to Chub’s father’s gas station for candy bars and more references to sex and love and making out, Dale smiles while remaining guarded. Taking eighth- and ninth-grade girls to dances and movies, on dates in cars driven by brothers or sisters, wondering what to do, how to dress, how nice to be and how mu
ch money has to be spent before a girl will allow a feel . . . such are his teammates’ concerns that have him feeling, with his secret knowledge, like a man in boy’s clothing.
Fate has Lucky Bartell taking the floor to expound on sex on one of their visits to Coburn’s Parts and Service. Dale knows Lucky is smart, but suspects he can’t be as smart in an area where Dale believes himself to be advanced . . . only, within moments of hearing him ramble on, to feel nailed by insights and truths that have Dale wondering if his reddening face (even in the shadows of the service station) is revealing his secrets and ignorance. How can Lucky know what Dale believes he alone has had the privilege of learning?
Lucky’s remarks were triggered by Emmett Hughes—a guard with whom Dale has been increasingly paired—who remarks to Dale, “Wheeler . . . ain’t it weird living with rich people when your own people come here from Kansas?”
Emmett, like Dale, doesn’t smoke in the locker room, and is, as Dale can see, extending an offer of friendship. No less friendly, Dale says, “I don’t live with rich people, Emmett. Not everybody who goes to Walt Whitman is rich.”
“They ain’t?”
A good ball handler with quick feet, Emmett has reminded Dale of some character from Mayberry RFD. In fact—were toughness added in—many people in Little Missouri, like the Andy Griffith character played by Dale’s own father (alcohol added), bring to mind RFD southerners moved north to work in factories.
“Emmett, told you Dale was screwed by rich people, not that he is one his-own-self!”
Winning the City Redux Page 14
