Not Exactly a Love Story

by Couloumbis, Audrey

  I opened the door as narrowly as possible, slipped inside, and shut it quickly behind me, hoping the light from the hallway hadn’t allowed her to identify me by my shoes or the way I moved. At least, by arriving last and leaving first, I had some control over how long she could see me at all.

  Patsy reached out and touched my arm. “I thought you’d get here sooner,” I said, deepening my voice.

  “I couldn’t get away from my friends. They were all excited about something that happened downstairs.” She didn’t take her hand away. I was glad. It was so dark in the room that it was like talking through a tunnel. It was like talking on the phone.

  “I like your socks.”

  “Not exactly glamorous.”

  “I admit it. I was way off base.” I knew she’d like hearing that.

  “You still sound like you’re talking through a handkerchief.”

  “It’s the mask.”

  “I saw it when you came in,” Patsy said. “It’s dark in here now.”

  “Pitch-black,” I agreed. I reached for her hand, still resting on my arm, and felt my way to the table I knew was in the center of the room. All of about three feet. I pulled off the mask and took a breath of fresh air, setting the mask down.

  Patsy’s voice had gone high and childlike. “Now that we’re here, I don’t know what to say.”

  I didn’t answer, but found her other hand in the darkness. I was not feeling suave. I let my fingers drift up her arms, then her neck. Her skin was incredible. My hands were shaking. She couldn’t have taken it for anything but fear. I touched the little ponytails. Silky blond hair between my fingers.

  The shaking had spread all through me. Even my breathing shook as I leaned toward her. Maybe some of it was Patsy. I hoped so. Her lips were soft against mine. Eventually the space between our bodies closed. It was a while before we came up for air. When we did, we leaned against each other and I took in the scent of her hair.

  “Are you going to tell me who you are?” she whispered.

  I shook my head, loving the way her hair felt against my face. “Not yet.”

  “Are you going to call tonight?”

  “Twelve o’clock on the dot.”

  She sighed.

  I let my face slip over hers, exploring the contours with my own cheek and with my lips. We kissed again—my mouth was open, and after a moment hers opened beneath mine. When our tongues touched, it startled us both and we drew back slightly, our lower lips barely touching. The heat that had built up between us was astounding.

  “Patsy.” It killed me to do it, but I pulled away. “I’m going to go back downstairs.”

  “No.”

  “We have to,” I said. “I’ll go first.”

  I grabbed my mask and pulled it on.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I turned back and, lifting the mask, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “You wait,” I whispered. “Give me a minute.”

  “Won’t you tell me who you are?”

  “Soon.” I slipped through the door, shutting it behind me, and dashed for the john. Stripping off my current disguise, I listened for her to shut the book room door. By that time I was Zorro again.

  I dropped the Fonz mask and the sweater out the window. I flipped the lights off in the hallway and ran, yanking the gate shut. I wanted to beat her back to the gym. I flashed through the locker room, stopping only to check that my eye mask looked undisturbed.

  I strolled out of the locker room and back into the gym, heading for the back wall. Patsy came through the double doors only a moment later, followed by three girls. They were all aflutter about something. I wondered whether Patsy had said anything to them about our meeting.

  Biff walked over to her with an ugly expression. I stepped into the soda line. Her girlfriends stood by her, flapping their hands at him, shooing him away. A teacher came over and sent him on his way.

  Patsy danced a couple of times with some other guys. She was more than lively. She was agitated.

  I didn’t ask her to dance. I was still shaking. And to tell you the truth, I could still feel the length of her against me. I couldn’t have danced with her again without communicating some of that to her.

  I was bothered by the answer I’d tossed over my shoulder, “soon.” Did I mean it? If I didn’t mean it, she was not going to take it well. I hadn’t really thought things through. I should never have arranged to meet her. Or at least I should never have shown up.

  I was an idiot.

  Apparently, I was not the only one. Whatever Biff’s problem was, and it must have been her thirty-minute disappearance, he wouldn’t let it go. He cut in on a dance and Patsy stayed on the floor, but they didn’t look like they were enjoying each other’s company.

  FORTY-NINE

  I’d planned to jog home.

  I wanted to pick up the sweater and the mask first. I was on my way through the parking lot to get them when I saw Patsy and Biff, a cloud of heated breath fogging the air between them. She threw her arms in the air in a dismissive gesture and started to walk away. He went after her and grabbed her arm. Another burly type stepped in to tell Biff to lay off. By then I was close enough to hear what was being said.

  “I don’t have to go home with you,” she said angrily. “I can walk.” What struck me, she was wearing sweatpants for warmth, very un-Patsy. The ponytails jiggled merrily with every move she made.

  “All I said was, you’re not acting right.”

  “Better, then, that you don’t have to put up with me.”

  “Patsy,” Daniel put in. “You can ride with me and Melanie. It’s too late to walk.”

  Then Patsy saw me. “I can walk with Vinnie. He lives right next door to me. Okay, Vinnie?”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  Melanie viewed the situation with obvious approval. I think I already knew she wasn’t exactly a member of Biff’s fan club. Patsy and I said good night. Biff stood there until we were maybe thirty feet away. Then he got into his car with a heavy slam of the door and drove off.

  “Thanks, Vinnie,” Patsy said. Nothing pathetic or even particularly humble. Like we were friends and friends do this sort of thing for each other.

  “Sure.”

  “You’re a terrific dancer.”

  I shrugged that off.

  “My dad taught ballroom at Arthur Murray while he was putting himself through school,” she said.

  I grinned. “That’s where I learned.”

  “You could’ve asked me to the dance.”

  I shook my head. “I really wasn’t sure I’d go.”

  “Are girls here so unsophisticated, compared to the ones you know in New York?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “We’re still in New York.”

  “This is the Island,” she said derisively, and as she went on, she was imitating Brown Bunny. “ ‘There’s all of Queens between here and New York.’ Queens with three e’s,” she told me with a grin.

  “She’s from Manhattan?” I leapt at the first opportunity to steer the conversation in another direction. Toward Brown Bunny, toward anyone else. “Your friend, I mean.”

  “Does that make her more interesting?”

  “Not as a date. You ask a lot of questions,” I said, trying for polite exasperation. It always works in the movies.

  “At first I thought you were shy. Now I get the feeling you’re trying to be the strong, silent type,” she said, undaunted. “Has somebody in your past made that seem desirable? Or are you shy?”

  “That’s two.”

  She laughed.

  I started to laugh, too, but I choked it back. Laughter is like a fingerprint. The sound that came out was something of a snort, like I was making fun of the reason for her laughter. There was nothing I could do about it.

  She sighed, then muttered, “I’m sorry.” She looked like she’d had a tough evening. “I didn’t mean to sound like my dad. And I didn’t mean to get you involved back there. You’ve had your share of run-ins with him.”

&n
bsp; I wanted to reach out to touch her arm, to comfort her. But that would be out of character. I could say something like … oh, I don’t even know, but something that would come off the way I danced with her.

  But since then, I’d held her in the darkness. The thought of reaching for her now made me start to shake again. I hoped it would pass for the shivers. We didn’t talk, walking fast because it really was cold.

  After a while I became aware of a tiny sound she seemed to be trying not to make, and it sounded suspiciously sniffly. At first I thought she just had a runny nose, it was cold out. Her face was turned slightly away, so I moved in close enough to lean around her as we walked.

  A wet trail down her cheek reflected the light from a streetlamp, and when she stopped, I wiped it away with my thumb. Yes, shaking. “I don’t usually have this effect on girls,” I said.

  She laughed in a sloppy kind of way, spraying tears on my hand. Standing in the glow of the streetlight, I put my arm around her shoulders and held on, feeling sort of stoic. It was easier that way. She wiped her eyes, letting her jacket sleeve fall over her wrist so that she could use it like a handkerchief.

  She was just too miserable to hold it in.

  I expected to feel miserable. I hadn’t wanted to come to this dance until I—well, until I did, and here I was, disappointing another girl. But the least expected and most overwhelming thing, I was grateful. Do you know what I mean? She trusted me.

  I wanted to tell her.

  Oh, I had about forty arguments against it. And not a single word to recommend it. Except that she needed me. All of me, Vincenzo Gold, in one piece. If she would have me.

  But Vinnie Gold didn’t say any of that. Didn’t ask questions. Vinnie Gold might care, but he didn’t offer advice on things he didn’t know anything about.

  “This isn’t because I’m in love with him or anything,” she said by way of apology. “I sent him a note telling him I didn’t want to go out again. But I let him talk me into dancing with him. Bully me, really.” She fought against crying harder. “I’m acting like a dope.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It makes it worse, huh?” She started to walk away. We were nearly home. I followed her, but she started to walk faster, getting ahead of me.

  I couldn’t leave it at that. I didn’t want to run after her, so I called, sounding irritated. “Patsy.” That seemed in line with being cool.

  She slowed down and we walked for a block without saying anything. She went through her pockets and came up with some tissue to blow her nose. Finally she asked, “Are you always so tough?”

  “Tough?” No, cool, I wanted to say.

  “You don’t know that you’re tough?” she asked, looking straight at me as we approached the streetlight on our corner. “Hard to get to?” Her manner had changed to one I was more familiar with. She was about to hang up on me.

  I’d pictured her with lips compressed into a thin line, eyes snapping, electric sparks in the air around her head. It was a picture that brought a smile to my heart. But she wasn’t like that at all. She looked like someone treading deep water. An expression of superficial calm, panic lurking in her eyes.

  “No,” I said, finally. I was really sorry I’d gone with sounding annoyed. I could’ve been cool enough just by walking along until she slowed down.

  She sighed and looked away, pulling the elastic bands to the ends of the ponytails. Her hair fell tousled to her shoulders. The sight of it knocked me out. It just knocked me out. I could have looked at her hair all night. “Patsy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t mean to seem tough.”

  She was talking to the Vinnie Gold of the dance floor. Someone who acted a lot like Vincenzo talked, someone who looked bolder and better than the Vinnie I really was.

  “Hey, there’s a new movie opening next week—”

  She didn’t meet my eyes. “I’m kind of busy next week, Vinnie.”

  “Okay. Some other time, maybe.”

  She stopped on the sidewalk in front of her house, but I kept walking, shivering a little, turning and strolling backward in a cool, casual way.

  She said, “I really can’t go next week. You’ll ask again, right?”

  “Sure, sure.” Sure. “See you then.” And I turned toward my house.

  The old Vinnie would have stood there awkwardly, making helpless conversation while his heart bled. Vincenzo—I would’ve thought he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Me, the one walking away as if it didn’t matter whether she said yes or no—who was he?

  Will the real Vinnie Gold please stand up?

  FIFTY

  I paced my room for the next twenty-five minutes, seeing the whole evening in instant replay. It was hard to figure out where we’d go from here. Would I keep calling her every night at midnight? Maybe we’d meet again in the darkness.

  Unless she guessed my name tonight.

  Would I be truthful? Or would I do the only thing I could to preserve our relationship?

  Lie.

  11:58. I sat down by the phone, my foot trying to jiggle away the tension I felt. Put Vinnie Gold out of your mind, I thought. You’re the midnight caller, a man of unleashed passions. I grinned. All right, it was comic relief, but the bottom line? Patsy was there for me. Right where I asked her to be. Me. The melting, bleeding, rapidly beating heart of Vincenzo Gold.

  11:59. If you want to know the truth, I was suddenly wild with jealousy. She was practically salivating over Vinnie Gold on the dance floor, but still meeting me in secret, hoping I’d turn out to be—who? And then she didn’t want to go to the movies, or was she playing hard to get?

  I had to stop thinking. Trying to figure her out. Trying to plan. The whole thing was making me crazy. I had to see what her reaction to the evening was, and then I’d know where I stood. Maybe.

  Midnight. I dialed.

  Ringing.

  Picked up. Nothing. Not even the sound of her breathing.

  “Are you there?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say hello?”

  “I felt funny.” Her voice still held the extra layer it had in the book room, a nervous edge. Excitement. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m a wreck,” I admitted, and felt better immediately.

  “Sometimes you say exactly what I’m feeling, you know that?”

  “I hear you had a falling-out with Biff.” Fast on my feet.

  “He has a jealous streak.”

  “Among other more serious tendencies.”

  She said, “You were right about him.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “There’s been a kind of meanness in the way he’s been treating me lately. Trying to play along, but like he’s impatient to get to the end of something.” I should’ve been loving this, but it made my skin creep. “And he’s so possessive,” she went on. “I thought he was going to hit me when I got back to the dance. I didn’t let him bring me home.”

  I didn’t want to get into that. “Game’s over?”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t play such dangerous games,” I said, wanting to be witty, urbane. But it suddenly felt too true to be that slick. “What about tonight? What do you want, anyway?”

  “Want?”

  “You met a stranger in a dark room tonight, Patsy.”

  “I met you.”

  “An obscene caller.”

  “Zorro.”

  My breath caught. Did this mean she knew? On the walk home? Or just since we were talking? Or was she trying to hedge her bet, choosing both Vinnie and Vincenzo?

  “I guess it’s not Italian,” Patsy said, into what she might have perceived to be an offended or maybe bored silence. “But I want it to be tonight’s name. Until you give me yours.”

  “I was at the dance, remember? I saw you with him.”

  Silence. And then she said, “Look, he’s nice enough, and I loved dancing with him. But he’s not the kind of guy I’m ever going to get to kn
ow. He’s smooth and all, but he’s not like you. He’ll never say anything important.”

  “What do you want him to say?” My voice came out hoarse.

  “I don’t want him to say anything. He’s a Ken doll with a ring in his back. Pull the ring and get a cute remark.”

  “He’s safe, though. Didn’t you want to say something to one of your friends? ‘If I’m not back in twenty minutes, look for me in the book room?’ ” I knew I’d pushed for it, but now I wished I’d played things differently. “Why would you do such a crazy thing?”

  “It’s not crazy,” she said. “You’ll trust me now, right?”

  “I’m saying you shouldn’t have trusted me. How could you be sure I wasn’t going to act like Biff?”

  “How can you say that? After all the things we’ve talked about.” She sounded truly shaken. But she came back fast. Mad. “You want to go on this way, don’t you?”

  I said, “Don’t get angry.”

  “You get angry.”

  “I have a weak character.”

  “Don’t make jokes.” She made an irate sniffling noise. “It’s enough for you? Whispering sweet nothings in my ear?” She was going for sarcasm, but not making it. “Don’t you ever just want to hold hands?”

  “I want both.”

  “We could have both.”

  I wished she was right. I hoped she was. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it. To believe her.

  “If it’s going to be that you can’t take it if I’m not always thinking of ways to keep you interested,” she said, “or if I’m not going to be able to face my friends with you, let’s just find it out.”

  “So you can make up your mind about the other guy?”

  “Don’t be like that.” She sounded outraged. Caught at playing both sides until she’d made up her mind.

  “When it’s over with the dancer,” I said as steadily as I could manage, “it will be over.” My voice was shaking like crazy. “But I’ll still be here all along, talking to you. We’ll be—”