Maria gazed at the ceiling, unimpressed. “Nothing,” she said.
She looked at her nails—they were hot pink—and then up at me. “Your name’s A.J. , huh?”
“Yea. A.J. ” I was surprised that she even remembered my name. Then again, I was dating her friend, so she’d probably heard it plenty of times before.
“What do the initials stand for?”
“My first and middle name, Anthony Joel.”
“But you prefer,” she trailed off in confusion, “…A.J. ?”
What kind of question was that? I thought. “Yea, so?” I answered, defensively.
“What’s your last name?”
“L’Enfant. A.J. L’Enfant. Like it?” My voice cracked as I said “like it.” I was so goddamn nervous.
“Cute.” She was being sarcastic.
I thought hard for a few moments. I had no idea what to ask her. “Uh, well, what’s your last name?”
“Della Verita,” she said. It sounded Italian.
“That’s a beautiful last name.” And it was. I was going to ask her what the hell it meant, translated, I mean. But a more important question struck me: “Why aren’t you dancing with all the other hoods?”
“Uh, what do you mean? You mean that everyone here that’s dancing is a hood, you mean that I’m a hood? Didn’t I see you dancing with Lynn earlier? You’re pretty judgmental.”
Shiiiiiiiiiiiit! Now I was in trouble. I had to think quickly. “No, no, no!” I replied, feigning a shameful look. “What I mean is, well, I’m just wondering why you ain’t dancing.”
Curtly: “First of all, you’re wondering why I’m not dancing, not why I ain’t dancing. Second, I’m not a hood. I hate hoods. Third, I just don’t like to dance, okay?”
Okay. So in the five total minutes I’d known Maria she’d already dissed me twice: first my appearance, and then my grammar. All this from a girl whose demeanor and accent could’ve easily cast her in any number of Martin Scorsese films.
I contemplated making fun of Maria in response. No: Her uncle, Joey the Wop, would surely hunt me down and slit my throat after hearing that his little Goddaughter was insulted by some loser named A.J. I thought about asking her to dance. No: Too pathetic and slavish. I imagined replying to her insult with a kiss. No: She’d slap me silly.
Every available reaction was faulty. I was outmaneuvered. Trapped. In short, I was in love.
Here was this beautiful girl that dressed pretty much like all the other loser girls at the dance—but she didn’t like hoods! And best of all, she hated dancing! Don’t even get me started on dancing, because I hate it. I despise it. And I never understood why all these jerks enjoyed jumping around like freaks to that God-awful music. Usually, if I was forced into dancing, I’d totally ignore the music being played, like the night of the Deck the Halls Ball. Sometimes, I’d just think of a song I really liked, usually a Beatles song, and dance to it instead. As the horrendous music pulverized my goddamn brain, I’d hum The Long and Winding Road or She Loves You, or something. That’s how much I hated dancing; that’s how much the music played at those dances sickened me.
And hoods—forget about it! The worst thing about hoods is that they thought they were normal. They didn’t realize—actually, worse: they didn’t care—that they were a bunch of followers. Not only was Maria a beautiful Italian Princess, but she hated the two things I hated most. In the endless sea of adolescent negativity, we discovered that we had two crucial dislikes in common. How ironic.
My ears stood at attention and I knew I’d struck gold. What a break! I thought. The hardest part of getting acquainted with any girl was discovering some mutual interests. Already, we had important things in common.
I could always tell a good joke to get a girl’s attention, but anything beyond that was excruciatingly difficult to conjure up. Stuff that came so naturally to the hoods and jocks—the small talk, the chit-chat, the shit that followed “sup”—was a pain in the ass. I was a good conversationalist, but the trouble was in getting one started with people, especially girls, most of whom couldn’t care less about current events outside the newest shade of lipstick. Without realizing it, Maria had opened up a door to my true personality. It wouldn’t be the last such time.
“You don’t like dancing?” I practically yelled out to her. “Jesus, I despise dancing.”
“Well,” she said, “I don’t despise it. I just don’t like it, okay?”
I was in heaven. This information hit me like a punch in the chest. I stood there silently for a few moments, in awe. You really don’t understand how hot dancing was, and how rare it was for someone to dislike it. When I look back on it now, I still think how amazing that one thing was.
She started to look bored, so I asked her what else she didn’t like. Maria thought it was a pretty dumb question, I could tell, so she didn’t really bother answering it. But even though she looked bored, she was sexy. Very sexy.
“Well, what I mean is, why don’t you like to dance?”
“It’s not that I hate to dance, it’s just that I hate it when I meet these stupid hoods and all they want to do is dance. I can’t meet a guy and start to like him that way. I have to talk with him first, and then I know if I want to dance with him.”
I wanted to propose to Maria right then and there. She wanted to talk first! I couldn’t believe it! What a stroke of luck. It was time to go in for the kill.
“So,” I said, “we’re talking right now, aren’t we?” That’s why I grabbed you before—I really wanted to talk to you before I asked you to dance.”
“But…” she said with a perplexed look on her face, and didn’t bother to finish. She restarted: “Well, we can talk, but I can’t dance with you because you’ re going out with Lynn. And you also like Jeff’s sister.”
Now this I couldn’t believe. Somehow, I had gone from speaking to Jeff’s sister on the phone to liking her.
“But I don’t like her!” I demanded. I had to get that crazy thought out of her head.
“Well, whatever, but you’re going out with my friend. And if you don’t like Jeff’s sister, then you’re a jerk for leading her on.”
She had me there. I was dating Lynn, and I did lead Jeff’s sister on. What could I say? I certainly couldn’t tell her that I didn’t really like Lynn, and that I didn’t plan on dating her for long anyway, because that would’ve made me look like an asshole. So I did the next best thing.
“But Lynn and me had a fight tonight,” I said. “And I don’t think we’ll be dating much longer.”
She didn’t believe me at first, but I pressed on and convinced her that Lynn and I did have a fight, even though I just hadn’t seen her in a while. It was only a little temporary lie, because I was angry with Lynn, and the next time I saw her, I was going to tell her how pissed off I was for leaving me alone at the dance. Hence the fight.
“Listen,” she said, “we can talk, but that’s it.” I was happy. I knew that once we started talking, and once I was on a roll, I could probably dance with her, or even get her phone number.
So we started to talk right there in the stairwell. We’d been talking for a few minutes already, of course. But now we were conversing; now we were the only two teenagers at the dance actually talking and learning from one another. I told her about my love affair with jets, and that I was thinking about entering the Air Force Academy, which was only half-true. I couldn’t just join the Air Force. I wanted to become a pilot at the Academy in Colorado, and to do that you had to undergo a long, grueling application process.
”You remind me of the Curtiss P-40B monoplane fighter,” I said. I told her all about what it looked like, and how well it maneuvered. She was pretty impressed, not really because she looked like a plane, but because I actually knew what I was talking about. I wasn’t acting phony like all the other guys I knew. I figured if she likes my conversation, she’d like me. But I wasn’t about to make believe I was into something I wasn’t—like dancing, for example—just to impres
s her. This was a first in my otherwise boring teenage life: For a moment, I felt the best way to impress her was to tell her the truth. If only for a night, the door to my heart was open; only honesty could coax her into peeking inside.
We talked and talked and talked. The tension on Maria’s face melted off and gave way to a gentle, easy smile. We talked about the movies we liked and the sports we played and the music we listened to. It was the usual stuff, for the most part. But we were actually having a conversation, we weren’t just going through the motions of one. That conversation spawned a discussion, one between two mature, interested adults, not two high school kids.
She was flirtatious, and smart. “You look just like Al Pacino,” she said.
I wondered: Is that good?
I said: “You tawkin’ ta me? You must be talkin’ to me. I don’t see anyone else around.” Maria squinted her eyes and shook her head every so slightly. “Do you know who said that?”
“Yea,” I said, “Al Pacino in Raging Bull.”
Now she was squinting so hard she looked Chinese. And then: like a machine gun, she fired: “First of all, ya stunad, it’s Al Pacino I was tawkin’ about, and second, that’s not from Raging Bull. And third, that was Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.”
“Are you sure?”
“About which one?”
“All of them.”
“I watch the movie with my father like every weekend,” she insisted.
“Which one? Raging Bull?”
“No!”
“Then why’d you mention Raging Bull?”
“I didn’t, you did!”
“I don’t get it.”
“Oh my goodness!” Maria exclaimed.
I was sort of playing with her, but I admit she
knew more about movies than me.
“I know you’re not a moron,” she said, as if she knew what I was feeling at that moment. “I’m just messin’ with you.”
What made Maria even smarter is that she wasn’t just one, but two grades behind me. A freshman. I thought that was weird, because she hung out with sophomores like Jeff’s sister. I asked her if she was left back a grade or two, and she said she didn’t want to talk about it, so I let it drop. Things were going so well, and I was so surprised that she’d told me so much already, that I didn’t want to ruin the momentum.
“You know something,” I said, “you’re beautiful.” I nudged her chin with my finger, the way my father used to nudge me when he called me Butch. Maria giggled.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said.
I was in heaven. I reached out and grabbed her hand. Both, actually. And we swung our arms, back and forth, in and out, joyfully like children.
I could tell at that moment that despite her tough exterior, Maria was a little girl inside, wishing for a best friend, and a boyfriend, or both. I loved it about her. She was like the male version of me! She was a sexy, cool, nice person with a heart.
“You’re a sexy, cool, nice person with a heart,” I said. I’ve never said that to anyone else, but I’m saying it to you. And you’re the most beautiful girl at this dance. I swear to God that’s true. You’re so fucking beautiful.” I don’t know why I cursed. I guess I was just so excited to be holding her, even if it was just her hands. But she didn’t mind. The tears rolling down my cheeks diverted her attention. They were tears of pure joy.
I looked into her doey eyes. “I want you to know something. I want you to know that, well, that you are a special person. You are a beautiful person. And I’m not just talking about your face. I’m talking about you. Maria. The person. “I want to be your friend so much. I want a person like you as my friend. It would be an honor.”
A tear rolled down Maria’s cheek. She seemed as happy as I was. “If you had the choice between staying home and curling up with your girlfriend—uh, me—to watch a good movie—she smiled coyly—would you do that, or would you go to a club or bar or whatever?”
“Go the bar—” I said. “…?...”
Maria looked at me intently.
Go to the bar—if it’s with you,” I said. “Or stay at home—if it’s with you.”
“Right answer!” She beamed.
Suddenly, our hands stopped swinging, and they met in the middle. Our bodies pressed together so that the only thing separating us was our clenched fists. It’s the only moment of my life when I felt I was choking on happiness. But it was a good feeling, one I wish I could have turned into an action. I felt that feeling because, deep down inside, I knew that I would never be that happy again.
Suddenly, blasting from within the gym, was the last song of the night. We knew it was the last song because the last song was always the slow one. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the usual In Your Eyes, but a different, more familiar song. Love, love, love…love, love, love—those words echoed softly out the gym door, down the hallway, and engulfed me and Maria. Was it…? Could it be…? All You Need Is Love! Yes! I couldn’t believe it. Suddenly, my contempt for dancing melted away. I asked Maria to dance with me. She said yes.
Moments later we were dancing close in the gym amidst a sea of couples. But none so genuine and pure as Maria and I. I didn’t want to let go of her. I never wanted to let go. Her taut breasts were pressed firmly against the center of my chest. I remember feeling her nipples—they were tight and perky and piercing my ribs. Best of all, we didn’t even have to dance. We just hugged…and swayed.
Caressing her cute little ass that night, I didn’t think of it sexually. I only recall appreciating it’s full, circular form. It was soft as a feather pillow, tight as a trampoline. And her perfume, oh, her perfume! I’d never noticed a girl’s perfume until that night. But Maria’s added to her beauty. I sensed the hint of a rose and the scent of an orange—it was sweet but raw, natural and pure. I inhaled it.
My forehead was damp, as was the rest of my body. I was nervous about it until I noticed that hers was, too. Sweat trickled off my brow. As it rolled off my face, it melded with Maria’s perspiration. My mouth was dry and closed, and I could smell the salty steam emanating from our bodies. It was always unbearably hot and humid on the dance floor, but I didn’t care that night. In fact, I loved it. The heat seemed to melt our bodies into one.
Had I died that night, right after the dance, my life would’ve been fulfilled and complete. I didn’t need anything else in the world. Christ, I wish I had died that night.
After the song ended, Maria and I walked upstairs to get our coats. I remember checking my hair in the blur of the chrome fire extinguisher as I walked by. Thinking of Rachel, I sort of chuckled to myself as I passed that fire extinguisher. Maria heard me and asked what was so funny. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.” And then I felt as if that chapter of my life, or whatever the fuck it was—a crisis of adolescent stupidity and confusion, I suppose—was completely over with. I placed Maria’s coat on her shoulders and she smiled as if no boy had ever done that before. We remained silent. Occasionally, we’d gaze at one another, singing love songs with our eyes.
We strolled outside into the chilly air. Our bodies quickly cooled. Stream rose from our foreheads, and our mouths shot gusts of frozen air into the night. I grabbed Maria’s arm and pulled her toward me to help generate some warmth. My perception of the world was suddenly so clear. For the first time in my life, I blocked out the noise of the crowd and the traffic with ease. I didn’t see any hoods or freaks around me. Only Maria.
Only Maria.
We walked toward the curb where her father was waiting in his van. Kiss her, I thought. Kiss her!
I wanted to kiss her oh-so-badly, but I held back. There will be time, I thought, confidently. There will be time.
Little Boy Page 5
