“I’m Mitch,” he said.
Nina nodded, smiling down into her Dr Pepper, hit by a sudden wave of shyness.
“I don’t know your name, though,” he said.
“Nina,” she said.
“Nina what?”
“Bloom.”
“Bloom? Nina Bloom?”
“Yes, Bloom,” she said, and for some reason she repeated it, this time in a loud, confident voice. “Bloom.”
“Nina Bloom Bloom, can I buy you another Dr Pepper?”
“I still haven’t finished this one.”
“Well, another for when you do finish?” And he ordered a Dr Pepper for her and an orange soda for himself. They took the drinks to a little table by the window and sat down. “What luck that you came in,” he said.
“Not exactly luck,” she blurted. “I saw you in here.”
“You followed me in?” He smiled delightedly.
“I don’t usually follow guys around,” she said in that same confident voice that was hers, yet took her by surprise.
“Even better,” he said. “Nina Bloom Bloom, what are you toting in that huge knapsack?”
“Books, mostly. Junk for classes …”
“I thought so. You’re a student, right? You go to Rhodes. I did, too, last year.”
“What was your major?” She assumed he’d graduated, and was not surprised that the only job he could find was house painting. Jobs were scarce.
“Pre-law. I dropped out in my junior year.”
“Why?”
“Complicated. Has to do with a lot of things—me, my family. I’ll tell you the whole story sometime. I’d rather hear about you right now, Nina.” He pronounced it, Neenah. Soft. At home they said Nee-nuh.
“I cut my hair,” Nina said, again blurting things in a way that made her blush. But she couldn’t stop.
“Your hair? You cut your hair?”
“After you said—Well, it seemed so shaggy. Always in my eyes.” She brushed at her bangs.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “On my say-so? No, you shouldn’t have,” he repeated.
“Well … it needed it anyway.”
He took off his white cap, put it on the table. He had masses of curly hair, gleaming, brown, healthy-looking curls. “Neenah,” he said. “What year are you in, Nina?”
“I’m a sophomore.”
“Do you like it?” He sat back, hands clasped behind his neck. He was a bit thin, even stringy, and she wondered if he ate enough.
“I do. I like it a lot,” she said. “But it’s much harder than Community College.” Then she had to tell him all about her first year at the Community College of the Mountains, and her hometown, and somehow she even told him how she’d decided to go to college only because her tenth grade guidance counselor was so sure she couldn’t make it.
“Mr. Pretorious—we called him Mr. Pretty behind his back—filled out my schedule, and without even asking me he gave me Typing, Shorthand, and Business Arithmetic.” Nina had had no other thought herself, but she’d been outraged that he had done that without consulting her. “I said, ‘Why did you give me those subjects?’ And he said, ‘You’ll be going to work after you graduate, won’t you? I hope you’re planning to graduate, Nina.’ That was a dig at my brother, who dropped out before graduation to join the Navy.
“I was mad. I said, ‘I’m going to college. I’m going to Rhodes! Put me in the college entrance classes!’ It was the first I’d heard about my college plans, but I sat there as if I’d thought it all out. ‘Well,’ Mr. P. said, ‘maybe Community College for a year or so.’ I can remember just how he opened a drawer, looked inside, and then closed it, his head shaking back and forth all the time. It was as if no matter what I said, he was telling me, No way, girl, you’ll never make it! You know, Mitch, in our school the teachers called the kids Buzzards and Bluebirds. You can guess who they thought was college material.”
Mitch leaned toward Nina. “Did you ever notice how many people deal in stereotypes? Clichéd thinking? My father’s a professor, so everyone has always assumed I’d go to college. Become a professor, too. I always loved working with my hands. There are other things in life besides college. Only nobody ever bothered to tell me that.”
“And nobody bothered to tell me that there was college. I guess because we were from the Buzzard side of town. You know, I have this impulsive streak, but I really surprised myself that morning. There I was, sitting in Mr. P.’s office, and I hear myself saying in this loud voice, ‘I’m going to college!’”
And all at once Nina heard herself now, her enthusiasm, the words tumbling out, the way her voice rose indignantly as she said Mr. Pretty’s name. Her face flushed, she pushed the Dr Pepper can around in a wet spot. “I’ve been gabbing; I don’t usually.”
“I liked it,” Mitch said. “I enjoyed it, I want to hear more. Listen, did that bum ever apologize to you, or say anything?”
“Mr. Pretty?” Nina laughed. “He wouldn’t. Maybe I should send him a card. ‘Hope you are well, and just to let you know I DID IT!’”
They sat there talking for a long time. People went in and out. Every time the door opened, it squeaked, and then a bell rang. Mitch told her he’d been watching her every day. “Watching you chug down the street.”
“Don’t tell me I chug,” she cried lightheartedly.
“You chug,” he said. “Your chin’s out, you’re walking fast, and anyone can tell you are one person who knows exactly where she’s going … in every sense of the word.”
“Oh, well …” She laughed. “No, I wouldn’t say that about me.”
“I would,” he said confidently.
It was nearly dark when they left the sandwich shop, and as she walked next to Mitch, Nina saw everything around her—the massed lines of cars and buses, the cyclists and joggers—with a sudden, intense pleasure. Light spilled from stores and buildings. Students hurried home. The air was fresh, crisp, and it occurred to Nina that October was probably one of her favorite months.
Then something extraordinary happened. Mitch began to talk about October as if everything in her head had only been part of a conversation they were having. “October always makes me feel strange. Probably because I did something not so good one year in October.”
“What was that?”
“Well—” He took her hand. “I was fifteen, and it was right around the time my parents got separated. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that was what was heating me up. But then, at that time, I thought I didn’t even care that much. My sister, Trissy, was a mess over it. I was Mr. Cool.” He laughed. “So cool, I stole my father’s car. Anyway, the police called it stealing. I sure didn’t think of it that way. For me, it was just—Ha! Something to do. You know how kids are. I skipped school one day, beautiful October day, couldn’t stand those walls around me, and I walked up to the university, where Dad worked. He never locked his car, always kept the key in the ashtray. So I got in and drove it away. Ten minutes afterward, he reported it stolen. The police picked me up about an hour later and took me to a detention home for kids.”
“Oh, how awful!”
“It was pretty bad,” he said. “I’ve noticed I get sort of depressed every year just around that time.”
“Now?” Nina asked.
“No, I’m not depressed now,” he said. “But at the beginning of the month, before I went on this job, I was in a slump.” They stood outside her building. “Let’s go out tonight, Nina. Let’s go for a walk or to a movie, whatever you want. I don’t live very far away, practically just around the corner.”
“I have a lot of work to do tonight,” she said. “A paper for my lit course, and I should read sixty pages in my psych book—”
“Oh. A paper to write. Just one?” Mitch groaned. “That was one of the things I couldn’t take about college. Continually being told what to do—and when—by other people.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Nina said. “I don’t look at it that way.”
“Well, what’s a good night for you?” he asked.
“I try not to go out too much during the week. If I let even a day go by without working, it seems I fall so far behind—”
“Friday night, then? You don’t study all the time.”
“Friday night would be good,” she said. Then all at once she changed her mind. She didn’t want to wait until Friday to see him and be with him again. And she thought that if she went straight up to the apartment, skipped supper and got to work, she could meet him around ten o’clock. But then she changed her mind again—she didn’t want to be too eager—and said, “What about Wednesday?”
“Great!” he said, and he went away with a brimming smile that stayed with her for the rest of the day.
Chapter Three
“You’re going to wear jeans?” Sonia said. “That’s it? Your first date with the guy, and you’re going to wear jeans, Nina? And no makeup?”
Sonia sounded so shocked that Nina had to smile. “I never wear makeup.”
“I’ve noticed,” Sonia said with a little sniff. “But how about it? Break out! A little mascara at least. Your eyes could use it.”
Nina stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were sore. Did they look red and horrible? She had stayed up till three o’clock the night before, drinking coffee while she worked on her paper for Professor Lehman. She had written it twice, and gone over every word, every comma and question mark. She thought she hadn’t forgotten anything, and then, this afternoon, a moment after she had put the paper on his desk, she realized she’d made a serious mistake. She had written about the mother and her daughter Emily in the story, but had forgotten all about the symbolism. The symbolism! Professor Lehman was always talking about symbols. As if forgetting the symbols wasn’t bad enough, she was worried that she had put in too much personal stuff.
Whenever she did a paper she worried, but not just her ordinary, everyday, am-I-understanding-enough, am-I-doing-this-right sort of worrying. She worried more, and this was because of her secret idea that someday maybe she’d be a writer. She was majoring in Early Childhood Education; she liked kids a lot: would probably become a teacher. That was her “real-life” goal. But then, in the back of the back of her mind, there was this other idea. It had first appeared in tenth grade, when she wrote an English comp about her father’s heart surgery. Mrs. Abrahams had raved about the part where Nina told how her father picked up his pajama top to show everyone who came into the house his scar. Afterward Nina was ashamed that she had revealed such private family details, and she tore up the composition. Despite that she had never forgotten the things Mrs. Abrahams had said about it. “You should really try out for the newspaper, Nina. Real talent shown here!” For a variety of reasons Nina hadn’t taken Mrs. Abrahams’ advice, but a seed had been sown. Ever since, Nina had had this secret thought in the back of her mind, Someday … someday, I’ll write a book … or a story….
She had hung around after class, hoping to get up the nerve to ask Professor Lehman if she could take her paper back. But instead, when he looked inquiringly at her, she had gotten cold feet and told him she was looking for typing work. Which was true, but not the point. And then he had said he would “keep her in mind,” which translated, Nina thought, into Not interested, thanks.
As a result of all that, plus Sonia’s fussing, Nina’s frame of mind was not the best when she went out to meet Mitch. She had put on a pretty blouse and tied ribbons on the ends of her braids, but was sure she didn’t look “feminine” enough. Her mental image of herself was not flattering: too short, too sturdy; clumsy and snorting air through her mouth like an asthmatic dog.
Mitch was just coming up the street, and she was taken aback to see him looking entirely different in a dark shirt open at the neck to show a gold chain with a turquoise ornament. Where was “the painter”? He looked, instead, like a painting. Portrait of a Young Man with Turquoise Ornament. He looked, in fact, beautiful.
“Hello, Nina,” he said.
“Hello, Mitch.” Looking down she was anguished to see that she had forgotten to change her tattered sneakers.
“What would you like to do?” he said as they set off down the street.
“Anything you’d like to do,” she said quickly.
“Well, I’d like to do something you’d like to do. How about bowling? Do you like to bowl?”
“That would be fine, but I’m not very good at it.”
“Maybe a movie, then. Do you know what’s playing?”
“No, do you?”
“I have a feeling that the last time I looked, there wasn’t anything worth seeing.” She thought he sounded subdued. Was he disappointed in her? Was it their clothes? The formality of a “date”? The ease of their first meeting certainly seemed altogether gone.
“Want something to eat?” he asked.
“I just ate.”
“I thought we could get something to eat,” he said gloomily.
Everything she said was wrong. It was like taking a test and being unable to stop yourself from filling in every blank incorrectly. You know you’re getting everything wrong, but you can’t figure out how to do it right, and on you go, writing in wrong answer after wrong answer, knowing the only outcome is failure.
“I’m hungry,” he said. And he sounded, she thought, nearly ready to cry, like one of her little brothers bawling, “I’m hungry, I’m hungry, doesn’t anybody care?”
“Let’s go get something, then,” she said contritely.
“I don’t want to eat if you’re not going to.”
“But that’s silly,” she said in a coaxing voice. “You’re hungry; that’s no good. Anyway, I’ll have something, too,” she added, and her breath came easier, she ventured a smile, wanted to pat his hand reassuringly. Maybe everything was going wrong only because he was hungry?
They went into a diner and sat down. Mitch wolfed down his food, eating for a few minutes without speaking. “I guess you were hungry,” Nina said.
“I didn’t have anything in my place except eggs.”
“Don’t you like eggs?”
“They’re all right, but I’ve eaten eggs just about every night this week. I got sick of them.”
“Omelets are nice. My specialty is a cheese omelet.” She couldn’t believe they were talking about eggs. The other day in the sandwich shop it seemed they couldn’t crowd in everything they had to say to each other. And now eggs!
When they left, they walked the length of the block in silence, until at the corner he said, “Who’s Richie?”
“What?” she said, surprised.
“Richie,” he repeated. “Who’s Richie?”
“My brother. Is that what you mean? My brother? Why do you want to know about my brother?”
“Richie’s your brother? The one on your raincoat?”
She nodded. “It used to be his slicker. I took it when he went away.”
“Oh!” He laughed suddenly, put his arm through hers, and drew her close, saying, “I thought he was competition.”
“No,” she said, and she began to smile, also.
“I thought maybe he was your boyfriend.”
“No,” she said again. “How about you? I mean, do you have a girl friend?”
“I don’t have anyone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“You wouldn’t just say that?”
“No, Nina. I’m not that sort of person.”
“Well, I know, it’s just that I know this girl—” she didn’t want to say Lynell’s name “—and the guy she’s going with didn’t exactly lie to her, but he didn’t tell her the truth, either, about this other girl he was going with.”
“Was that you?”
“No,” she said, smothering a laugh. “Not me.”
“I wouldn’t do anything like that to a girl,” he said.
“I know it. I really know that.”
“Do you? How do you know that?”
“You’re a nice guy.”<
br />
“I am?”
“Aren’t you?”
“You said it, so I must be.”
They were both enjoying this. The strain of the first hour had disappeared. They swung hands. He was at least two inches taller than she, and she liked the way he glanced down at her, brown eyes full of a radiant softness.
“What else do you know about me?” he asked.
“Not very much.”
“Oh, come on, you were doing so well.”
She shook her head, smiling, but said, “You’re easy to be with.”
“That’s good. And you—you’re wonderful to be with.” Then in a serious voice, “Nina, I’m nearly in love with you already.”
She didn’t know what to say. Startled, dazed, she stared at the turquoise ornament on his chest, wondering if he was chilly without a jacket. No one had ever made such a declaration to her, and she took it in thirstily, as if she’d been waiting all her life for it. Mitch linked his hand to hers. Was he waiting for her to speak? Her lips had gone dry and rough; she hoped he wouldn’t mind when they kissed.
“I’m not a virgin,” she said. Her face became hot with misery. Why had she said that?
“Well, neither am I.”
Then she was even more miserable. How many girls had he slept with? Each one must have been beautiful and far more clever than she could ever hope to be.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Is something wrong?”
“I hardly know you,” she said in a muffled voice. She yanked off the ribbons on her braids. Why had she braided her hair? Childish!
“The feeling is what counts,” he said softly. “Not time. I had a feeling about you from the first time I saw you coming down the street. Do you have any feeling for me?” Each time he said feeling he squeezed her hand. He began to talk about himself, saying that he was lonely, he had never had a serious relationship with a girl, and that although they were both young, he sensed she, too, had thought about life.
“I didn’t leave school on a lark,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I’m irresponsible. I put in two years. Those two years were for my parents. I promised them that, and I did it, but I felt cut off from the real world. No one else on planet Earth lives the way we Americans do. People everywhere else are so much poorer! The rules of the games are rougher, everything is closer to the bone, and it’s often a question of Are we gonna survive, not Can we get a new TV or another Pac-Man game!”
Someone to Love Page 2
