Summer Girls, Love Boys

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Do you get it now, Stevie? Such a wave of misery came over me that I couldn’t even speak, and it was made all the worse as I happened to look up, just as you breathed your precious Katherine’s name, and see AVIE LOVES RIC FOREVER above us on the overpass. Of course, I’ve seen it before! Hundreds—no, thousands of times—up there in all its ugly purple Day-Glo splendor. We’ve both seen it and laughed over it, and even wondered how the unknown, lovelorn Avie did the job—hanging by her toes from the bridge? Dangling from a helicopter? On top of a giant ladder?

  We thought ourselves very funny, very smart, smirking together over anyone who could be so gauche and naive and silly—(antisocial, as well, we mumbled piously to each other—imagine painting slogans on public bridges! Tch! Tch!). We didn’t imagine that Avie was in pain and that she did something heroic and admirable in letting the world and Ric (whoever he is—some ignorant boy who sees nothing beyond his nose, I swear!)—in letting him know what she felt in her deepest heart.

  Yes, Avie, whoever you are, I salute you! I only wish I had your courage!

  Dear Stevie,

  Are you satisfied? Are you happy now that I’ve brought you news of Katherine? Nothing world-shaking, I admit, but now you know a bit more about her. She plays tennis, has two brothers, and is planning to go to Smith College. How upper upper! I slipped in that you and I were both going to State U. “I hear it’s very good,” she said with a sweet democratic smile.

  At that moment I would gladly have stepped on one of her dainty upper-class feet—or both of them, with the passionate hope that she’d hobble for the rest of her life. I didn’t tell you that, though, did I, Stevie? Nor did I tell you that your fair Katherine’s sweet, sweet smile sets my teeth on edge. (I declare it as an eternal truth that girls should never be sweet, and boys always ought to be! Then the world might shake itself into shape.)

  Furthermore, Stevie, I didn’t tell you that the fair Katherine dropped a charming remark about me and my “little friend.” That’s you, Stephan. At that point I could have, happily, not only mashed all ten of her toes, but kicked her shins, as well.

  And what else did I learn? Not too much, except that this Katherine is one of your worst-ever choices for a Crush, or a Romance, or whatever word you want to put to it. I, for one, refuse to dignify it with the word love! And if ever I hear that word pass your lips in regard to one of your darling Ks, Stevie, I warn you to watch out! I’m quite capable of doing something horrible.

  God, Stevie! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see how I feel? And why don’t you feel the same for me? Maybe I should say, What’s the matter with me? Am I too huge, too grotesque for you, Stevie? Could it really be my size that stands between us? My long legs, my tall torso, my Amazon self?

  Oh, what nonsense I’m talking. So far as I know you’ve never had any qualms about my size. Is loving you making me ridiculous? It’s true I feel off balance. I’m at a loss—I want to find a reason why you don’t love me as I love you, when all the time I know these things have nothing at all to do with reason. Either you love someone, or you don’t, and that’s the end of it.

  Oh, Stevie! I’ve cut myself to the heart with that statement. I see that you will never love me. How can you, when you’re forever falling for dainty little Katherines? Ugh, Stevie! When I think of it, I tell myself to give up on you forever. I should, I should.

  I only wish someone would tell me this—why do I have to feel this way? Why do I have to love you so much that I ache every morning waiting to see you come bounding out of your house, with your shirt bunched up and your hair wet from the shower? I tell you, it’s unfair that I feel this way. And what makes it so bad—it’s all one-sided.

  I ask you once again: What is it? Why don’t you see me? Here I am, right beneath your eyes. Well, in a manner of speaking, that is, as you’re actually the one beneath my eyes. So there I am, back to that—big, oversize Richie; the monster; the giant; Richie, the freak. Yes, a freak can love someone normal, but can someone normal love a freak?

  I’m going to sleep now, and I wish myself dreams that aren’t about you! I need some peace! If you can’t love me, then I wish you’d just get yourself out of my mind and my heart. Good night!

  Salud, Stevie!

  I’m in a good mood tonight, and for no other reason than it’s a perfect, beautiful night. I’m sitting by my window writing, and I’m looking over at your house, and the moon is shining down on Mom’s poor old hedge, and everything, somehow, seems just right. Oh, Stevie, isn’t it wonderful to be alive? And today, especially, since it’s exactly two months since I realized just how it was with me about you. That is, since it came to me that my feelings for you go far beyond our friendship. Oh, what a moment that was. Nothing like that had ever happened in my life, and I don’t expect anything like it will ever happen again.

  It wasn’t exactly a light coming on in my head, nor was it like a bolt of lightning (isn’t that the way these things are supposed to happen?). Instead, it was on quite an ordinary afternoon. We’ve been friends for so long, for years and years, and yet that one afternoon changed the entire world for me.

  It was an afternoon in March when your sister asked you to take care of Anita. Remember? No, why should you? For you, it was just another time, like so many others, that you and I took the bus over to your sister’s tiny pink house on Greene Street and baby-sat Anita.

  You were casual that day. I, too. “Richie,” you hollered under my window. “Come on down.” I was downstairs already and came out the door. “Shut up, Stevie, you loudmouthed lout. What now?”

  “Want to baby-sit Anita with me this afternoon?”

  “Is Sharon leaving you a sinkful of dishes?” I asked.

  “How can you be so suspicious?” you said. “Come on, you don’t have anything better to do.”

  Two months ago. March 15. Ides of March. It was warm for March, you were wearing a green T-shirt that said “Turtles Love Me,” and hideous magenta running shorts, which didn’t at all take away from how strong and handsomely hairy your legs showed beneath them. “Is that what you’re wearing?” I said.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The colors!”

  But, of course, you wouldn’t change, and off we went to your sister’s. Oh, Stevie, isn’t it strange how complicated and mixed up things can get? How hardly anything is ever just straight out? You don’t want your sister’s money, for instance, because you know she and Randy have so little. And, yet, she won’t call you for baby-sitting if you don’t let her pay you. We talked about that again on the bus. I said, “Just tell Sharon you don’t want money, you don’t need it, and you won’t accept it.”

  “She says she has to pay someone,” you said, “and as it’s valuable work, it ought to be paid for.”

  There’s one thing we agree on, at least—we both admire Sharon and Randy. The way they share everything—both of them going to school, both working, both taking care of Anita, and with all that, refusing to take any money from your parents.

  We were talking that over just as we went into the bakery. That nice woman with the hoarse voice was there again. She always asks us questions. Are you kids new in the neighborhood? Where do you go to school? Are you brother and sister? (My least favorite question.) We’ve seen her before and she’s struck us as a bit snoopy, but so jolly about it you can’t really mind. We bought an ice cream roll and went on our way. Do you remember that ice cream roll, Stevie? I do, because it was while we were eating it—you, me, and Anita—that I knew.

  We were in the kitchen, and you cut a slice for Anita and put it in front of her and said, “Watch it, honey, it’s cold.” And, somehow, the way—I don’t know why, Stevie, it was such an ordinary remark—but the way you said it, sweet and loving, made me look up, look at you, and, well—yes, all of a sudden, it happened.

  My heart really started pounding—just like it says in books, Stevie, and my hands got damp, and I had this painful, but somehow wonderful, jolt in my belly. And I wanted
nothing more than to reach over and put my arms around you and … And, oh, how I wanted to touch you, Stevie, hug you, hold you, touch your hair, have you touch my hair.

  Of course, we’ve touched! We’ve knocked each other around playing in the past, but this was utterly different. It took every bit of my willpower for me to sit in front of the ice cream roll and not move. I was stunned, really couldn’t believe what I was feeling. You, Stevie, you—my best friend, my old friend, my friend-who-is-a-boy-but-not-a-boyfriend (how many times I’ve had to explain that to people!), and suddenly everything was upside down.

  “Richie isn’t eating her ice cream roll,” Anita said. Her chin was smeared with chocolate.

  “Oh, Richie’ll eat it,” you said, “and she’ll eat yours, too, if you’re not careful, ’Nita.” And you made huge gobbling noises to make her laugh. “Richie’s an eating machine.” Just the usual teasing about my gargantuan appetite, but it made me realize, with the most awful pain, that what I was feeling, I was feeling alone.

  And now I’ve made myself sad, and isn’t it strange? Because it’s still the same wonderful night. The same moon is shining down on Mom’s little hedge. Your house is still there and you inside it, and I still feel it’s wonderful to be alive, but the sadness has got all mixed up with it.

  Good night, Stevie. Will I ever tell you any of this?

  Dear Stephan,

  I use that name tonight, not out of respect for your wishes, but from a sense of formality. I feel that our relationship is changing, our friendship must take a new form. Things simply can’t go on this way.

  I tried to tell you that today, but you either didn’t understand me, or didn’t want to, or, more likely, simply weren’t listening. Thinking about your newest beloved, no doubt! And that’s just my point—things cannot go on this way. What am I, just a six-foot ear to you?

  “I’m going in to play basketball,” I said as we approached the Y. I was abrupt—simply veered off without another word and ran into the building, as if someone were waiting for me. In fact, the gym was empty, and I raced around like a demon for an hour, dribbling and shooting baskets until I was sweating and not thinking constantly of Stephan and his disgusting love for another girl.

  This letter is to you, but it’s for me. I need to get things straight in my mind. I mean to speak to you, Stevie. The question is, How much should I say? And when? And under what circumstances?

  We’ve been friends for so long, I can’t just stop seeing you (which is what I want to do) without arousing a thousand questions from everyone—my mother, your parents, your brother, and even your sister, who, the next time you go to baby-sit Anita, will be sure to say, “And where’s Richie, Steve?” And then, of course, everyone in school who knows we’re ancient pals, from Szasz, your dear Latin teacher, down to all our other friends. No, what a mess it will be, ending our friendship!

  But I’m determined, anyway. I’m putting a stop to all this. It hurts too much to see you every day. I’m, if possible, forgetting you even exist!

  Yes, I’m mad, and I’m confused and sad, too. I never knew it was possible to feel so many feelings all at once. (Mrs. Roran would hate that sentence. Every time I write, “I feel” this way, or, “I feel” that way in an English paper, she circles it in her poison green pen.)

  Good night, Stevie, nothing settled.

  Dear Stevie,

  I’ve decided.

  I have two choices, and I’ve thought about each one long and hard. The first choice is—forget you. Well, and how do I do that? Is it enough to say I will? Should I stuff my ears? Blind my eyes? Cut out my tongue?

  My second choice—Drive you away. Tell you, once and for all, that I’m fed up listening to your puppy-dog slavering over other girls. “Yes,” I’ll say, “we’ve outgrown our friendship. Let’s put an end to this Richie-Stevie thing. You stay on your side of the hedge, I’ll stay on mine, and let’s learn to get along without each other. That shouldn’t be too hard for you,” I’ll say, making my voice as sarcastic as possible. “You have so many other interests!”

  I won’t give you a chance at rebuttal, Stevie. I’ll say it flat out, as brutally as possible. “I’m bored with us, Stevie, let’s move on to greener pastures, each of us.”

  I can see your face—disbelieving, at first. Is this one of Richie’s dumb jokes? Gradually, you’ll understand that I mean it. You’ll be stunned, and then hurt. I know you, Stevie—next, a look of utter bewilderment. A look that says, But what have I done, Richie?

  Now, as I write this, I see there’s still another choice. The simplest way of all: Come clean. Confess. Tell the truth. Look you in the eye and say it. “Stevie, I love you.” Won’t that end our friendship just as effectively as anything else? And why not the truth? Should I be ashamed of what I feel? Afraid you’ll laugh? Be embarrassed? Wonder what in the world you’re expected to do with this soppy declaration?

  Which way to go? First I think one way is the best, then the other. The fact is, I feel like the fellow in “The Lady or the Tiger.” Which door to choose? But does it even matter? Because the outcome, for me, is always being eaten by the tiger.

  But now a sneaky thought is worming its way into my mind … whispering in my ear. The best way, Richie, is to tell the truth, because maybe …

  Maybe what? Aha, I see. I see the trick my mind is playing on me. Wishful thinker, Richie! Idiot, Richie! Dreaming that if I tell you I love you, Stevie, it’ll jolt you awake. Jolt you into seeing me as I saw you that day in Sharon’s kitchen.

  I see that the one I ought to write a letter to is myself, and as follows: Dear Richmond Parry, you fool, wake up and smell the coffee. Open your eyes. Stop dreaming. Put an end to your impossible thoughts. Face facts. Stephan doesn’t love you. He takes you for granted. He leans on you. He uses you, and—

  When I put it that way, Stevie, I see that I’m quite capable of hating you. And that’s all to the good. Why should I say anything to you? Why give you the satisfaction of knowing I’m sick in love with you? Why allow you to laugh at me? No, this feeling of anger is so much better. Right now, as I write this, I feel strong. Yes, and I know what I’m going to do. No bleating, no mooing, no crying, just take the necessary steps. Yes, I’ve decided, and the verdict is—Cut you out of my life. But no speeches. Just do it. Let the facts speak for themselves. Good-bye, Stephan!

  All right, Steve, you win. Once again I’m here writing to you one of my never-to-be-delivered letters. I’ll begin it properly.

  Dear Stevie,

  This morning you came over to our house with jelly doughnuts, sat down at the kitchen table, drank three glasses of milk, and said, “Are you sick, Richie? Where were you yesterday? And the day before? What’s going on? Have I done something?”

  There it was—my golden opportunity to tell you our friendship was over. And I flubbed it. I said, “Uh, uh, no, no, things on my mind, mumble … mumble …”

  You see, with all my fine words I turn out to be a coward. Unlike the Tin Man, I have a heart, but it’s faint and timid. I’m six-feet-tall-Richmond-Parry, thought by one and all to be oh-so-tough. Old Stone Heart, you’ve called me at times when movies made you cry and I sat through them dry-eyed.

  You probably wouldn’t believe the truth of the matter, anyway.

  “You, Richie, you in love?” Old Stone Heart in love? You’d be so astonished it would pass you by, entirely, that it’s YOU I’m in love with.

  Oh, hell, Stevie, I give up. I’m over my craziness. I tried to convince myself I was mad at you forever, when the truth is I can never stay mad at you. No, not even when we’ve had a real fight, and that’s because the next day you’re always sure to show up with smiles, and your Richie-you’re-not-possibly-still-mad-at-me looks. And, in general, succeeding so well in being sweet and humble I feel like super louse to go on being my grumbly, mean self.

  This time the “fight” has happened in my head, but the effect is the same. You win. We’ll stay friends. And I guess I win, too, because all of a sudden
I feel happy again, and I think I know exactly what’s meant by that saying, “Half a loaf is better than none.”

  Dear Stevie,

  My last letter ever to you. I’m writing this one, as I’ve written so many of the others, for myself, to relieve myself of nearly unbearable feelings. I’ve been sitting here for hours, thinking over the weekend, and I can’t yet make sense of it all. So I thought—if I put it down … not every detail, just the highlights … maybe it’ll help.

  We started out Saturday morning, early, on our bikes, packs on our backs, everything as fine as it could be. A 3-hour bike ride and we were at Lombard Forest. You sneezed a bit, and once a driver cut too close to me, but otherwise the trip was uneventful. Not even one of our bikes breaking down, which we’ve come to expect. (I had my tool kit with me.)

  Then, at the forest, the usual—finding our regular camping spot (a bit disappointed to find that others had been there and left beer cans and trash). We cleaned up the site, had our lunch, and took a hike up the West Trail. Just what we’ve done every year. And, just as every year in the past, there was still snow under the trees and even snow on the path as we hiked higher. How good it seemed to me to be doing this with you, once again!

  We talked a bit, remembered how scared we’d been, years ago, that we’d run into bears. That first year we were just kids and leaped with fright every time a chipmunk rustled in the woods. (Of course, when we got home we boasted like mad. How cold it was! How dark the night! How many animals crept up on us! How brave we were!)

  By the time we got back from our hike, we were ready for supper. Again the usual, gathering wood, building a fire, cooking our meal, and sitting on logs to eat out of our tin camping plates. “Food never tastes as good as it does here,” you said. You always say that. And I always say, “I’m three times as hungry here as I am at home!”

  Then, just as we do every year, we sat in front of our fire while the darkness came down, and sang songs. That first year we sang out of sheer terror of the dark. Since then, it’s become one of our traditions. I did notice that your voice was hoarse and not as strong as usual.