Bree Caruthers. The perfect date.
How could I possibly be gay if I was dating the most popular girl at school?
I found Bree’s private listing in the phone book and got ready to dial. Sure, this was a long shot, but why not aim high? So what if she said no? So what if she laughed hysterically? So what if she told everyone at school that I was a nutcase for even considering she might go out on a date with me?
I punched her number quickly before I convinced myself that I didn’t stand a chance.
“Hello?”
With that single word Bree conveyed confidence, poise, and charm. I guess that’s how she became Miss Teen Hockey Stick.
“Hi, Bree. This is Steven, from school.”
Silence.
“Steven DeNarski.”
Silence.
“The guy who told you about the rubber bands in Europe.”
“Oh hi, Steven. Thanks for the tip. The student council raised over eight hundred dollars before Cheever spoiled everything.”
“Have you considered selling paper clips?” I suggested. “I bet they’d make great necklaces, or even earrings. By the way, how would you like to go out on a date?”
No sense beating around the bush. I wasn’t going to change my life by making a lot of small talk.
Silence.
I picked up the yearbook and resumed my search for an eligible soul mate.
“Sure, Steven. I’d love to go out with you.”
The yearbook slid between my knees and hit the floor.
“My life coach has been on my case for months. He said I need to relax and develop some relationships based strictly on fun. Going out on a date should make him happy.”
Then she lowered her voice. “Besides, I’ve always thought you were kind of cute.”
Really? Somebody besides my mother thought I was cute?
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“How about a movie, next Friday?”
My ready reply made me sound like a regular dating pro.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve got an orchestra concert.”
“Saturday?”
“I’m taking a leadership seminar all day. In the evening I’ve got a volleyball game.”
“Sunday?”
“Sunday is the day I volunteer at the nursing home.”
“The following week?”
“Rehearsals for the school musical begin. After that, my schedule gets pretty tight.”
Summer vacation? Three years after we graduate?
“Let me grab my planner, Steven, and I’ll see what’s available.”
While Bree punched dates into her electronic planner, I glanced at the DC Comics calendar tacked above my desk. With the exception of Monday evening square dancing, my schedule was wide open.
“Good news, Steven. My kickboxing instructor just had her appendix out. I’m free Monday evening from four to seven. Then I have to be home to give the twins next door their violin lessons.”
“Then Monday it is,” I said. Square dancing could be put on hold for something as important as this. “I’ll pick you up at four.”
We hung up, and I drew a bright red star around Monday. Today was Friday. That only gave me a few days to make the necessary preparations. My first date was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I was determined to make it perfect.
“Mom, I need my license.”
My mother was standing in front of an open suitcase, surrounded by piles of unfolded laundry. She was packing for a trip to Minneapolis to read from her book at a parenting seminar.
“Have you finished your two hundred hours of behind-the-wheel?”
“Practically,” I told her.
“And what does ‘practically’ mean?”
I double-checked my notebook.
“One hundred and eighty hours and sixteen minutes. I’m less than twenty hours short.”
“Then it shouldn’t take you long to finish.”
She dug through a tower of blouses on her nightstand till she found the one that she wanted, then expertly pulled it out without toppling the pile.
“But I need my license before then,” I said.
“And what could possibly be so important that you’d consider breaking an agreement with your own mother?”
I crossed my fingers and prayed that she wouldn’t be upset by my newly expanding social life. “I’m going out on a date.”
She dropped the fistful of socks and clutched her chest. I prepared myself for an onslaught of objections.
“A date? Steven! That’s wonderful!”
She ran across the room and wrapped me in a smothering hug. Then she dragged me by the wrist into the living room where my dad was hidden behind a newspaper.
“Edward! Guess what? Steven’s got a date!”
My dad lowered his paper, a clear indication of the magnitude of the news.
“When did this happen?” asked my mom. “What’s her name? Where are you going?”
“Is she pretty?” asked my dad.
“Of course she’s pretty,” I answered. “She happens to be Miss Teen Hockey Stick.”
My dad exchanged looks with my mother.
“That’s my boy,” he said.
As I filled my parents in on the specifics of my upcoming date with Bree, the two of them beamed as if I had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. All of my neatness and good grades had never made them so happy. I should have started dating years ago.
“I’m supposed to pick her up on Monday, after school. That’s why I need to get my license this weekend.”
A small gray cloud settled upon my mother’s sunny face. “I don’t know, Steven. We had a deal. Two hundred hours is two hundred hours. Couldn’t you invite her over here instead? The two of you could watch television and maybe play some Scrabble.”
Even my dad looked mortified at this suggestion.
“Nobody plays Scrabble on a date,” I told her.
“Cut the kid some slack,” added my dad.
My mother resisted. “I just don’t think that he’s ready for his license yet. The highway is a dangerous place for somebody his age.”
“For crying out loud,” said my father. “Sitting in the bathroom is a dangerous place. If the kid is ready to date, then he’s ready to drive.”
My mother wavered, then finally gave in.
“On one condition. Steven can take his behind-the-wheel test first thing Monday morning if the two of you spend the weekend practicing. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said.
My mother sat down on the arm of my father’s chair. He was already back to reading the paper.
“I’m only sorry that I won’t be around to meet your young lady,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “You’ll have plenty of chances in the future. We’ll probably be dating for years.”
BAM! BAM! BAM!
My father pounded his fist against my bedroom door.
“I’m leaving in fifteen minutes, Steven, with or without you.”
I squinted at the clock on my nightstand.
4:30 A.M.
My father had been called into work on Saturday and was too tired to take me driving by the time he got home. “We’ll go tomorrow,” he had said. “In the morning.”
In my book, 4:30 was still the middle of the night.
“Can’t we wait a few hours?” I called back. Like four or five or ten?
My father opened my door. The salty smell of bacon from the skillet in his hand filled the room.
“Ice-fishing derby,” he said. “Up at Round Lake. Great chance for you to practice your driving.”
Ice fishing ranked right up there with leg amputation on ways I wanted to spend my weekend.
I pulled the comforter over my head and snuggled closer to my pillow.
“Five minutes!” called my dad from the kitchen.
A vision of my driver’s license shook me from my sleep. Why did I have to make that promise to my mom?
I climbe
d out of bed and pulled on layers of clothing until I couldn’t bend. Then I grabbed a cold piece of bacon from the kitchen and met my dad in the garage.
“Help me with this tarp,” he told me.
Together we pulled a green sheet of plastic off my dad’s pickup, a refugee from my grandfather’s farm.
“Can’t we take your car?” I asked.
“You don’t take a car ice fishing,” he said. “You take a truck.”
My father’s truck looked like it was ready to collapse. The windshield was cracked. The fenders were attached with coat hanger wire. The headlights were held in place with a roll and a half of duct tape.
“Toss those plastic pails in the back,” he said as he patted the Ford’s rusty sides. “And don’t scratch the paint.”
When the back was loaded with all of our gear, my dad hauled himself into the cab. “Let’s go!” he told me. “The fish are waiting!”
I took a deep breath and began a losing wrestling match with the stick shift. After killing the engine fifteen or twenty times, and after twice as many swear words from my father, I managed to get us out onto the highway.
When we had been rattling down the road for a few miles, I gave my father a quick glance to see if he was satisfied with the way I was handling his truck. His eyes were closed and his chin was bouncing up and down against his barrel chest. Hardly the close supervision that my mother had ordered.
My dad woke up several hours later when we reached the outskirts of Round Lake. After a brief stop at Randy’s Bait and Beer to get us registered for the contest, he directed me to a boat ramp that led out onto the frozen lake.
I drove to the edge of the ice and stopped. An impatient Hummer behind us nearly shattered our windows with its horn.
“What’s the problem?” my dad hollered over the roar of his sputtering truck.
“Is it safe?” I hollered back. In Driver’s Ed we had watched several films about teenagers driving onto ice that was too thin. Their terrified faces as they plunged to an icy death were still vividly etched into my brain.
My father swept his hand across the windshield, indicating the dozens of trucks, snowmobiles, and SUVs scattered across the lake. If they were willing to risk their lives, why not us?
I inched the truck forward and prepared to leap for safety the moment we started to sink.
We parked near a ring of ice houses. The sun was just creeping over the trees that edged the lake and the sky was a soft mixture of pink and purple and blue. Mornings would be beautiful if they didn’t happen so early in the day.
While I unloaded the truck, my dad fired up his gas-powered auger. The four-foot-long drill with a nasty revolving blade could have easily been the weapon of choice for a psychopath in a horror film. He drilled two grapefruit-sized holes, then placed an upturned pail beside each.
“Have a seat,” he told me.
I watched as he skewered a wiggling minnow onto his hook and dropped it into the water. He then slid the styrofoam bait bucket toward me. After spearing an innocent minnow myself, I dropped my line into the hole and our day of wintertime fun began.
For my dad’s sake I attempted to show an interest in this sport, but it was difficult. Soon my mind wandered. I looked around the lake and tried to predict which vehicle was most likely to break through the ice first (a forty-foot motor home towing a trailer with two snowmobiles). I picked out my favorite ice house (one painted with palm trees — at least it gave the illusion of warmth). I slid the lid off the bait bucket and began naming the fish (Flash, Zippy, Tom).
I also thought about my date tomorrow with Bree. I pictured us driving back from the movie, my new driver’s license lying prominently on the dashboard. Romantic music, like Mozart or the theme from Titanic, would be playing on the CD player. When we reached Bree’s house I would walk her to the door. We’d smile at each other and Bree would lean toward me. Our lips would meet and before I knew it … whammo! I’d discover that I was attracted to girls after all.
“Thirsty?” asked my dad. He popped open a beer, then tossed me a can of soda. It was ice cold, like everything around me.
My dad pulled in his line and began changing his bait for the fiftieth time.
“Dad, did you date very much before you got married?”
He plucked another doomed minnow from the bait bucket. “Some.”
“Was it fun?”
“More fun than working on your grandfather’s farm.”
Not the enthusiastic response I had wanted.
He dropped his line back into the water and I took a big swallow of my freezing pop. “Did you always want to date girls?”
My dad looked up from the hole.
“As opposed to dating what, Steven? Gorillas? Of course I always wanted to date girls.”
I jiggled my pole a couple of times.
“I mean, when did you really start liking girls? When did you go out on your first date?”
My dad put down his beer. He looked past the ice houses; the wrinkles above his brow, which I always thought were permanent, disappeared. “Carolyn Kubitschek,” he said. “She was the first. Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
He looked at me and the wrinkles reappeared. “Don’t you dare tell your mother I said that, okay?”
He grinned and shook his head.
“My best friend bet me ten bucks that I didn’t have the guts to ask her out. You better believe she scared the crap out of me when she said yes.”
I tried to imagine my dad being scared about anything.
“I took her to a concert in St. Paul. Can’t even remember the band, but I’ll never forget the ride back home.”
His grin grew even wider.
“How old were you?” I asked.
“A senior in high school.”
A senior? Ha! I was only a sophomore! I had been worried for nothing. The DeNarski men were simply late bloomers!
“So that was the first time you ever thought about girls romantically? Carolyn Kubitschek, when you were seventeen or eighteen?”
My excitement was causing me to shake, or else it was the windchill of twenty below.
“Hell no. There wasn’t a girl in high school who didn’t drive me wild. I just never had the nerve to do anything about it.”
Oh.
I had only been in high school a year and a half. Maybe if I started going wild now, I could make up for lost time.
“And then there were the Peterson sisters in junior high,” continued my dad. “If I wasn’t drooling over them during the day, I was dreaming about them at night.”
Thank goodness my dad didn’t know about my junior high dreams.
“But my first big crush came in sixth grade. Miss Fox. God help me, that was her name. I swear she wore skintight sweaters just to keep us rowdy boys in line. As long as we were watching her, we were too busy to get into trouble.”
Sixth grade? My father was already interested in girls by the time he was twelve? I let the end of my pole sink into the ice hole.
My dad gave my tennis shoe a kick with his boot. “Stop worrying, Steven. Everyone gets nervous about his first date. You’re a DeNarski. The DeNarski men have always been a hit with the ladies.”
My pole jerked suddenly and almost disappeared down the hole.
“Watch it!” he said. “You’ve got a bite!”
I pulled on the line until a walleye the length of my bedroom pillow slid through the opening. It flipped around on the ice as my dad tried to catch it with his hands.
“Impossible,” he said, after taking the hook from its mouth. “You’ve been using the same dead minnow all day.”
I guess some fish like their dinner well-aged.
My father helped me register my catch at the weigh-in tent. Six pounds, two ounces. We then stood around drinking hot chocolate from a concession stand until it was time for the winners to be posted.
I was on my fourth cup of cocoa when a tall, skinny man in a fluorescent hunting cap began announcing the weights of the top f
ish. He started with twentieth place and worked his way up. When he got to the top five, my fish was still a pound heavier than anything else.
Fifth place, fourth place, third place were announced. Second place went to a six-pounder.
“You did it!” said my dad, slapping me on the back. “You won!”
When my name and winning fish were called, my father pushed me forward so I could claim my prize. The crowd applauded and whistled as the announcer helped me up onto a tiny makeshift stage. A photographer from the local paper almost blinded me with all the pictures he took.
“What did I win?” I asked. The second-place fish had earned a year of free video rentals. First place had to be even better.
The announcer pointed with his mittened fingers. All eyes turned to a glistening, midnight black, monster pickup truck that had been backed into the tent.
My jaw dropped open like a dying walleye.
A pickup! A brand-new pickup! I momentarily forgot that I was a mature sixteen-year-old on the brink of adulthood and leaped into the air and screamed. What perfect timing! Bree would go crazy when I pulled up to her house in this. I’d be an instant celebrity at school. Maybe even Mr. Bowman would ask for a ride.
“You have won a brand-new collapsible fish house!”
The announcer pointed to the back of the truck. A big box labeled FISH IGLOO III rested on the pickup’s bed. The graphics on the box showed a gleeful fisherman stepping out of a tentlike structure in the middle of a frozen lake.
The crowd of onlookers oohed and aahed like the audience on a game show when a self-cleaning oven was unveiled.
“What have you got to say to that, young man?”
He pushed a microphone close to my mouth. The throng of envious anglers wrapped in their scarves and parkas waited for my response.
I looked at the ice house, then back at the crowd. My dad was standing proud in the front row.
“I’ve never been happier in my life,” I said.
By the time we got my prize loaded onto our truck, it was dark. My dad fell asleep the moment we hit the highway.
Okay. So maybe I didn’t win a pickup. Tomorrow I was going to get something even better.
I slapped my cheeks to keep from falling asleep.
Absolutely Positively Not Page 6