Dating

by Dave Williamson

  “I’m not forgiving him,” Vera said, “not for a minute, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him spoil my graduation—I mean, this is my graduation, too, you know.”

  We headed for Lockport, north of the city. Skinner’s hotdog place was open till two or three in the morning and you could feed nickels into the jukebox and get in some more dancing. When we drove onto the gravel parking lot, a floodlight lit up those of us who were sitting in the back seat.

  “Hey, Jenk,” Gerry said. He was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. “What’s happened to The Bandit? Not a bit of candy on your face.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Janie said.

  Laughing, Gerry, Patsy, Bud and Vera stepped out of the car and Janie bent forward to follow them. In what was a rare impetuous move for me, I reached out and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back into the car.

  “Ohhh!” Janie cried, half-chuckling, as she fell back across my lap.

  I bent to kiss her, but it wasn’t the best of positions.

  “Hold that thought,” Janie said, sitting up to close the door, and she pivoted to face me, her torso against mine.

  My lips missed the mark at first, but she made an adjustment and I felt her mouth squarely on mine, and I applied the technique I’d learned from Louise, and Janie’s arms went around my neck and, a moment later, her fingers were in my hair and I wished I hadn’t put on so much Brylcreem. She moaned a little and I felt her mouth open a little and I thought maybe I was losing my mind the way Montgomery Clift lost his in A Place in the Sun. And just like that, I was Montgomery Clift, out on the balcony, kissing Elizabeth Taylor’s hot mouth at last after an evening of torment. And her tongue was darting in and out of my mouth and she was going, “Mmm, mmm!”

  “Wow,” she said, “you are a kissing bandit!”

  She went back at it, and now she ran her hand over my hot face and slipped two fingers inside my shirt—in, out, in, out—with the same rhythm she’d got going with her tongue, and I cursed myself for wearing an undershirt, even as I took my turn sending my tongue into her mouth.

  “Oh, God,” she said, taking a deep breath, “we’d better go inside before …”

  She turned, took another deep breath and opened the door.

  “Come on,” she said, taking my hand.

  Before … ? Before what? Did she mean we’d better go inside before someone came out and saw us, or did she mean we’d better go inside before she lost control of herself? I’d heard of girls becoming so passionate, so hot and bothered, that they wanted or needed to go all the way. Is that what had happened to Janie? Had she reached a stage, dangerously close to a point of no return, the point where she’d expect me or beg me to unzip her dress and unhook her strapless bra and pull off her girdle and her stockings and her panties or maybe rip everything off? Did she recognize the stage because she’d been there before with other boys or did hot-blooded girls just know instinctively? These questions crowded my head as I shuddered, relieved that I hadn’t been expected to fulfill her need but in a way disappointed that my first venture into the unknown had been denied. As I followed her across the gravel lot, her still-warm hand in mine, I thought, Wait. The night is young. Maybe my first venture into the unknown has only been postponed. The moment we reached the door, Janie turned to me and French kissed me so thoroughly, I felt as if I was on the brink of losing my own self-control.

  Gerry was the first one we saw when we entered the building and he took one look at my face and said, “Now, that’s a whole lot better.”

  We danced in the dimly lighted hall. I remember other kids being there, kids from other high-school graduations and kids who were just there to prolong late-night dancing to music from a jukebox that we all took turns feeding. Patsy danced with both her arms around Gerry’s neck, his hands almost but not quite on her bum. Vera and Bud were dancing more or less the same way. A handsome black couple found a song they wanted and we all watched them do the dirty boogie, which did nothing to cool Janie and me off. While whatever was left of our rational selves might’ve chided the couple for exhibitionism, our bodies couldn’t wait to press against one another during the next slow dance.

  I don’t know what time it was when we left Skinner’s, but Gerry and Bud wanted to go and park on the bank of the Red River to watch the sun come up. Gerry parked on a grassy area well worn by past vehicles. Gerry and Patsy kind of stretched out in the front seat. I tried to ignore them, thinking that they might be going to do it, but they were pretty quiet. Squashed against me, Bud and Vera fell asleep. Somehow, Janie and I had enough room to continue kissing, though she refrained from making any of her little moans. This was now Hour Eight or Nine or Ten of our date and her mouth miraculously stayed fresh and moist and tireless. I hoped mine felt the same way to her.

  In an hour or two of necking in a confined space, adjusting your posture this way and that can put considerable stress and strain on your clothing, especially formal wear, and, as the eastern sky grew pink, one of Janie’s straps broke. She giggled quietly about it.

  Soon after that, we were starting back to the city. We were all invited to Dianne’s house for breakfast. Mercifully, Vera was still conked out.

  “Patsy, do you have a safety pin?” Janie asked.

  “Gosh, I don’t,” said Patsy, who was now sitting up. “Why, what …” She glanced over her shoulder.

  Janie held up the broken end of the spaghetti strap.

  “Jenk!” Gerry cried out. He was checking his rear-view mirror. “What have you been doing? Bud—look what’s been going on while you’ve been sawing logs.”

  Bud snapped out of his doze and sat up. Janie waved the strap at him.

  “Jenkins!” he said. “Shame, shame!”

  I was going to object but then I saw that Janie wanted them to think I’d been feeling her up. Still, I blushed.

  “Wha—what have I missed?” Vera said in a sleepy voice. She leaned forward and saw Janie’s strap. “Oh, Jenkins, you sly devil!”

  “You never know about these quiet guys,” said Patsy.

  They all laughed.

  “Still waters run deep,” said Janie, kissing my cheek, and they all roared.

  I smiled, trying to look smug. What I didn’t understand was whether Janie wished I had felt her up or whether she saw the broken strap as a chance to enhance my image. Perhaps both. All of them made such a big deal out of it that I began to feel as if I had felt her up, even got my hand inside the dress, and they laughed and kidded me for the whole hour or so it took to drive to Dianne’s, and it was inevitable that, before we got there, Gerry was calling me The Copping Bandit.

  There was a crowd of kids at Dianne’s—maybe twenty or so. Dianne was friendly to both me and Janie, even after the others razzed me about Janie’s strap. She offered to sew the strap, but Janie said a safety pin would do just fine. She and Dianne went to a bedroom to make the repair, and Janie came out wearing the matching jacket over the dress.

  Dianne’s mother helped with the breakfast. I wondered where Dianne’s date, Bron, was and heard someone mention that he was passed out in a bedroom.

  When Gerry and Patsy drove Janie and me home, Janie said she didn’t want me to walk her to the door. She wanted to slip inside as quietly as she could in case her parents were still sleeping.

  “I had a fabulous time,” she whispered, her warm breath tickling my ear. “Call me in a day or so.”

  Reluctantly, I watched her walk alone to her back door.

  All that day, I relived every moment of the night before. I lay on my bed until Claude called and asked me to come over to his house. He said he wanted to reminisce about high school—after all, our school days were over forever.

  I might’ve known that Claude’s first question, when we were ensconced in his room with both his parents out, would be, “Did you get much last night?” I knew he was anxious to tell me what he got, he whose grad date everybody called Hot Pants, or HP for short. I thought about laughing off his quest
ion, but I knew he’d sooner or later hear from Bud or Gerry, so I lied.

  “I copped some bare boob,” I said.

  Claude didn’t seem the least bit impressed or surprised. He said, “Shit, is that all?”

  >

  The Lower Class

  For a couple of days, I thought about what I might get on a second date with Janie.

  But there wasn’t to be a second date.

  Before I called Janie, she called me. As soon as I heard her voice, I knew there must be something wrong, because in those days girls rarely phoned boys. It just wasn’t done. On the pretense of visiting a sick friend, Janie had gone to a phone booth; she wanted to get hold of me before I tried calling her because her mother wouldn’t let her receive any more phone calls from boys. Janie sounded upset.

  “My mother was livid when I got home,” she said. “She and I argued all morning. She told me she’d been worried sick all night—”

  “But …” I interjected, “she knew we were going to be out all night, didn’t she?”

  “Sure she did. I know I told her. She said I didn’t tell her. She said if I’d told her I was going to be out all night she would’ve demanded that she meet you and she would’ve talked to your mother. She said she was going to call your parents right then while she was talking to me and I begged her not to. We argued some more and, when I turned to walk away from her, she grabbed at me and the jacket came off and she saw the safety pin and she said you must’ve been groping me and she wanted to know where you’d touched me and by then she was screaming and accusing me of having no self-respect, going out with such terrible boys, and she accused me of sleeping with you and she went to the phone and I thought she was going to phone your parents so I tried to take the phone away from her, but she screamed that she was calling my dad, and she did, and he came home from work….” Janie sobbed.

  “Janie,” I said, hardly believing what our lovely night had turned into, “that’s really awful. Shouldn’t I speak with her? Wouldn’t it be better if she met me—”

  “No, no. My dad took me out in the car and told me this was a bad time for my mother—she’s going through the change of life and we’ve got to be patient with her. He told me something I didn’t know before, that most of our money is her money, the money her father left her, and if I wanted to go to university it was her money that was going to pay for it. And he told me I shouldn’t have slept with you and I told him I hadn’t and I pleaded with him to believe me and I told him what a nice guy you are and I think he started to believe me …”

  “Should I see your dad? Couldn’t I meet—”

  “Jenkins, he made me promise not to see you again.”

  “Janie, that’s nuts! Didn’t you tell him we were with other kids the whole time? Surely he knows it’s the thing to do—to stay out all night after high-school grad—”

  “I’m sorry, Jenkins. Don’t you think this is hard for me?”

  “Of course, of course, Janie, but there’s got to be a way—”

  “Jenkins, I have to go, okay? I’m sorry. I did have a lovely time, and I’ll always remember it.”

  “Janie—”

  The line went dead.

  For days after that, I wallowed in the depths of despair, depression, deprivation. Some nights, I told myself I should fight back—I was Romeo and Janie was Juliet and our love would find a way. I thought I should phone Janie’s mother or her father—but Janie didn’t want me to—and I thought of talking to Gerry about intervening on my behalf. Surely Janie’s parents knew of Gerry’s connection with the girls’ basketball team and would respect his word if he vouched for my innocence—but then I remembered that Gerry believed I’d been feeling up Janie for hours in the back seat of the car.

  Gerry told me in August that Janie was dating someone—a basketball player from Norwood—and the next thing I heard, she was moving with her parents to Alberta. All I could think about was the irony: being accused of untold atrocities when, in reality, I hadn’t done anything but kiss her. Was this my reward for being a gentleman?

  After a summer of working in my father’s surgical factory, I started university. Keeping up with my studies took nearly all my time. I thought of calling Dianne or Alice, but neither was going to university; they were in a different world from mine and besides, they both had boyfriends. I eyed the girls in my classes, but they all seemed too sophisticated for me—too beautiful, too rich, too busy.

  I went to a Christmas party given by one of the women who worked in my father’s factory. It was a Friday night and I’d studied at the university library until it was time to go. The house was in a working-class part of south Winnipeg. June, the woman hosting the party, joked that she lived “on the other side of the tracks” and the fact was she did, on one of those streets off Pembina Highway that crossed the railway line to the United States. I took the bus to her street and walked the rest of the way. I wasn’t looking forward to the party, but my dad, who had gracefully declined an invitation because he thought his presence might spoil some people’s fun, had said I should go as a goodwill gesture.

  I figured it would be like most house parties that working-class folks went to in the 1950s: everybody smoking unfiltered cigarettes and sitting around in a basement recreation room, the guys drinking rye and ginger ale, the girls drinking lemon gin and 7UP, the guys in sport shirts with the sleeves rolled up and grey or brown straight-legged trousers (as opposed to the “drapes” of their high-school days), the girls in tight skirts and tight sweaters that showed off the shape of their pointy bras.

  “Jenkins!” June said when she opened the door. “We started to think you weren’t comin’.” She took me to the basement stairs and shouted, “Hey, gang, look who’s here!”

  There were about seventeen people in the rec room, mostly young women from the factory and their boyfriends or husbands. The men applauded my arrival. Someone fetched a drink for me. They weren’t dancing or playing games; they sat in groups talking, some on the floor, some on the furniture. Before long, I was on the floor, listening to one of the boyfriends talk about hunting in the Netley marshes:

  “ … you know what I seen last time? This cotton-pickin’ duck, eh? This duck, for cripe’s sake, had three legs! I’m not BSin’ here …”

  I suddenly noticed Mary. I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen her earlier—maybe the smoke in the room or my own self-consciousness. Quiet, unobtrusive Mary, at seventeen or eighteen the youngest in the factory. She’d been working there for about a year; she hadn’t finished high school because her parents needed her to bring money home. She had a cute face, except when she smiled and showed the two or three teeth that had gone bad. She was about five-foot-two with dark brown shoulder-length hair and a nice full bosom. She wore a purple velvet dress that de-emphasized her bust, setting her apart from the other girls in their sweaters and skirts. She seemed to be the only one without an escort. While the hunter talked, I moved into a space on the floor beside Mary, who was sitting primly on a hassock.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She smiled without parting her lips. Dimples appeared in her cheeks.

  “How are things at work?” I asked. “You still on the clicker?”

  “No, no,” Mary said. “I’m learnin’ da cuttin’.”

  “Good for you.”

  “You know da cuttin’ table?”

  “Yes?” It was the broad, long table where bolts of material were laid out for the women who’d cut them into various shapes and sizes for surgical corsets.

  “I’m a bit too short, so your fodder built a step for me.”

  “Hey, I knew that! At least, I knew he built a platform in his basement workshop. He loves making things like that.”

  “Yes. He’s a nice man, your fodder.”

  I told her about his taking apart, piece by piece, the power frame, a machine that could knit four elastic stockings at a time. He’d done that in the spring of 1950, when there was a distinct possibility of the flood inundating the factory. Th
e frame would’ve been ruined by a flood.

  I got up to fetch new drinks for the two of us. June winked at me—she apparently was glad to see me taking an interest in Mary.

  Later, after more drinks and some salami and rye bread and cheese and pickles, and after we’d all opened crackers and put on the paper hats and read the corny jokes, somebody held mistletoe over Mary and me and I kissed her and everybody cheered. Mary blushed but I’d had too many drinks to care what anyone thought.

  The party broke up and Allie’s husband Ed offered to drive Mary and me home. Ed did the driving with Allie beside him, cautioning him to be careful after all the booze. In the back seat, Mary snuggled against me as if it were expected of her. Made bold by the drinks and Mary’s compliance, I took off one glove and slipped my hand inside Mary’s coat. She didn’t budge.

  As Ed headed north up Pembina Highway, I inched my hand further until it covered one velvet breast. I was amazed at how easily my first-ever move of this kind was happening, and Mary accepted it without a twitch.

  “I didn’t believe that crap about the three-legged duck,” Ed was saying.

  “Sounds pretty far-fetched, all right,” said Allie. “I mean, if there was such a thing, wouldn’t it get in the papers?”

  “Or the Guinness Book of World Records,” I said, as I played with the buttons on Mary’s dress.

  I discovered they weren’t decorative; they did undo. As best I could with the hand that was inside her coat, I undid a button and ventured inside the bodice.

  “If you shoot a duck with three legs, you take a goddam picture of it, don’t you?” Ed said.

  Through fingers that seemed to me to be unbelievably more sensitive than normal, I determined that Mary wasn’t wearing one of those bras shaped into twin nosecones by padding and stitching, the kind Trudy Mooney wore. Rather, it was, as far as I could tell, a simple cotton bra and what was inside it was all Mary.