When We First Met

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Awful Albert was looking her way. There was a line behind Rob. “I’m not supposed to talk to customers,” she said. “Do you want something?”

  “I want an explanation.”

  Awful loomed nearby. “Problem, Jenny?”

  “I’ll have a hamburger and lime soda,” Rob said.

  “Hamburger,” Jenny ordered into the mike. She drew the soda, and Albert passed on into the kitchen.

  “You okay?” Phyllis jostled past her.

  “Cover for me for a few minutes, Phyl.” Jenny moved to one side of the counter. Rob followed. They stared at each other.

  “Jenny—” He sounded bleak. “Have you really thought about this?”

  “Of course I have!”

  Rob’s hamburger was passed through the window in its little sealed bag. She set it in front of him. He pushed it away. “Will you change your mind?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I won’t ask you again.”

  “No,” she said, as if agreeing with him. She remembered how he’d persisted after they had first met: how he’d come to meet her after work, called her on the phone, not given up even when she had given him no encouragement. And she remembered, too, how glad she’d been that he was determined, that it was his determination which had finally overcome her scruples, her fear that no good could come of their friendship. Well, after all, she had been right.

  “Rob—” She leaned toward him. “I just can’t. It’s the way it has to be.”

  “The way it has to be,” he repeated ironically. “All right. Fine.” The wolfish grin reappeared. “That’s fine, then.”

  “I’ll have a fishburger,” a man in a knit cap said. “Double fries, vanilla thick shake, large.” Automatically she took out her pad. She called the order in, rang up the bill, made change, and folded down the tab on the soda carton. “Thank you. Have a nice day. Come see us again.”

  “Doesn’t this make you nostalgic?” Rhoda linked arms with Jenny. They had met at the corner of Jericho Hill and Hazard Street, their old meeting place. “Sometimes it seems like we had the best times when we were thirteen. I was maybe a little dumb when I was thirteen, but at least I didn’t feel confused all the time. It’s funny—Mom and Dad and I went out to supper the other night and they were fussing over me—the usual. ‘Rhoda, sit up. Rhoda, use your napkin. Rhoda, there’s ketchup on your cheek.’ They don’t exactly nag, but you know—”

  Jenny smiled briefly. “I know.”

  “Well, and then I remembered another time we were out to dinner, years ago. They were doing their number on me and I looked over at another family where nobody was saying anything. It was parents and a couple of kids, and they were all just sitting at the table, shoveling in the food and not talking. And I thought, Oh, those poor kids! I can just remember how smug I felt that my parents loved me so much. And now—” She sighed and squeezed Jenny’s arm. “Last night when they started the Rhoda-sit-up stuff, I wanted to smash something. I wanted to smash them.” Her arm tightened on Jenny’s, she walked faster. “You don’t know how guilty it makes me feel to even say it. I wouldn’t say it to anyone but you.”

  “Rhoda—I broke up with Rob.”

  “What?” Rhoda stopped walking.

  “I told him the other day.”

  “Why?”

  “It has to do with my family. Like you. Only different. I was hurting my family, being selfish. Thinking just about myself. You know how they feel about me and Rob.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments, then Rhoda said, “Don’t take this wrong, Jen, but at least something has happened to you.”

  “Rhoda, don’t—”

  “No, I mean it. You had a love affair and now it’s over, and you’re suffering. I don’t want to sound callous, but all the same it’s like something out of a novel. It’s like Romeo and Juliet, and did you ever notice, Jen, your first initials and theirs—”

  “Yes,” Jenny said tensely, “and it doesn’t mean a thing. I used to cry over books, but they’re just books. When it happens to you—Look, you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re talking about something you don’t know anything about.”

  “You don’t have to sound so damned superior.”

  “I don’t feel superior, Rhoda. You don’t know. You haven’t been in love. So what if something has happened to me? It hurts!”

  They walked the rest of the way to school in silence.

  The break was made and Jenny didn’t want to see Rob. What she had said to Rhoda was only too true. She was hurting. She told herself to avoid Rob by any means, but this wasn’t entirely in her control. That week she saw him several times in the corridors.

  Each time he looked her full in the face. With love? scorn? anger? hatred? “It’s over,” she told herself repeatedly. “It’s over.”

  As if to prove it, she told her mother, “I’ve broken up with Rob.” Her mother was at the piano, Jenny passing through the living room. She tossed out the words hurriedly.

  “What?” Her mother looked up. “What did you say, Jenny?”

  She was forced to say it again. “I’ve broken up with Rob.”

  “You’ve done it?’ her mother said. “Oh, Jenny, that’s good.”

  And later her father came to her, put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Jenny, your mother told me. I’m glad you came to your senses.”

  Not exactly hosannahs, but what did she want? Waltzes and trumpets and applause? Did she want them to beat their heads in gratitude? To cry out their praise? The fact was they were pleased and relieved.

  Still, she had not at all “come to her senses.” She realized this the day she came of the chem lab and saw Rob walking down the hall with another girl. In a single, swift, furious glance Jenny saw that the other girl was dark-and-honey pretty with armfuls of silver bracelets and a dazzling white smile. Rob’s eyes met Jenny’s, and there was a moment, a fraction of a moment, when something gleamed between them, something private and only for her. Then he turned back to the girl and said something to make her smile. Jenny walked steadily toward the two of them, past them, and into her next class.

  And only then, for the first time, did she fully understand what she had done. She had sent Rob away. She had cut the line between them. With a handful of words she had ended something that was beyond words, beyond either words or silence, something that no one could see but which, nevertheless, was real. They had made their love together. She alone had destroyed it.

  Chapter 22

  Over the weekend Rhoda gave a party. “What’s the occasion?” Jenny asked.

  “Nothing special, I just want to give a party. It’s May, and I feel like having a party. And I want you there.”

  “I don’t know, Rho, I don’t feel very partyish.”

  “Come on,” Rhoda said, “you can’t gloom around forever. Just show up for a couple hours.”

  Once committed, Jenny went all the way and wore a long, multicolored skirt, a pale yellow blouse, and strings of beads. “Good,” Rhoda said, turning Jenny around to inspect her costume. “Come say hello to Ma.”

  Mrs. Rivers patted Jenny’s hand, exclaimed over her blouse, and said, “Jenny Pennoyer, how you’ve grown,” as if Jenny were still thirteen years old.

  Rhoda snorted. “Ma! Cut it out.”

  The party was downstairs in the game room. Rhoda’s loyal troop was there, of course, and a lot of other kids. Jenny knew most of them. Nick Christopher came over to her almost immediately and asked if she wanted to dance. “Yes.” She danced, was glad she’d come.

  “Have you picked out your college?” she asked Nick when the music stopped. A big, husky boy, he was known in school as a science genius.

  “MIT.”

  “Not Harvard?”

  “I didn’t even apply. I’ve always wanted to go to MIT.”

  It was close in the room. Someone dropped a glass, someone else screamed with laughter. “Having a good time?” Rhoda asked, passing by with bags of chips. She winked. “See?” she said.<
br />
  “What was that about?” Nick asked.

  “Oh, I almost didn’t come.”

  “I’m glad you did.” He had long plumes of dark, extravagantly wavy hair. Very good-looking guy. Something stirred pleasantly in her belly. “Hot in here, isn’t it?” he said. “Want to step outside?”

  In the Rivers’ backyard they leaned against the house. TV antennas, like elaborate crosses, filled the gray night. Nick lit a cigarette. “Do you smoke? No? I have a habit already. Pack a day. I should give it up before I really get hooked.” He smoked with his elbow cupped in the palm of one hand.

  Leaning against the house, Jenny allowed a slow, drifting ease to come over her. For the first time in weeks, she was not concentrated like a point of blazing light on Rob.

  “You’re a good friend of Rhoda’s, aren’t you?” Nick asked.

  Jenny smiled. Next would come a plea for her to put in a word with Rhoda on his behalf. “We’ve been friends for ages.”

  “How come you’re never around when we all get together?”

  “You mean the harem?”

  Nick laughed. He had a bit of a giggle. “Who calls us that?”

  “Sorry, that’s my private—Hope I didn’t offend you.”

  He tapped ash into his palm. “The harem!” He laughed again. “Rhoda says you broke up with your boyfriend.” She nodded. “So, look—” He dropped his cigarette and put his hand lightly on her face. “How about us?”

  His hand was warm on her skin. “Us?” All at once she wanted—needed, really—to be held, to be close. She leaned toward him; he put his arms around her. How good it was to lean, to let go, to feel the knot she had been tied into loosening. She put her arms around him, tucked her face into his neck. As she had done with Rob. He drew her closer. Not the way Rob hugged, not the way Rob smelled, not Rob’s skin, or the sound of his voice. All she could think was, Oh, Rob, why isn’t this you?

  Nick bend toward her; they kissed, but her lips were unresponsive. She let him kiss her, didn’t kiss back, couldn’t kiss back. He knew. Of course he knew. He was no dope.

  “Jenny?”

  “I’m sorry, Nick.” She would love him if she could. It seemed unfair that she couldn’t love Nick. He was nice, so nice, and she was ready to love him; she would welcome loving him if it meant a way of forgetting Rob. “It’s not you. It’s just—It’s too soon.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Your boyfriend? You still have it bad? I know about it, Jenny. I broke up with a girl last year and it wasted me for weeks.” He linked hands with her. “When you’re ready, when you’re feeling better, let me know. Okay?”

  “You are nice,” she said.

  “I have a surprise for you,” her father said at supper on Sunday night. “Can you guess?”

  “Three guesses,” Ethel said.

  “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Jenny asked.

  “Something you want,” her mother put in.

  “Tell me what it is,” Ethel urged. “Whisper in my ear, I won’t tell.” Her mother whispered, and the child cried out, “The car! Daddy fixed the car!”

  “Finished it this afternoon.” Her father tossed Jenny the keys.

  “Wow. Well, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Why don’t you take it right out for a spin, see how it rides?”

  She backed carefully out of the driveway. Her parents came out on the porch to watch. She waved, sat straight behind the wheel, and glided smoothly down the street. It really was wonderful of her father to have put in all that work and time. The car had been half a junk heap when he’d spotted it in a used car lot. As she drove, her pleasure increased. This was her car, she had almost paid it all off, and a great sense of anticipation and freedom came over her. She drove through the city and out to Blue Lake Park.

  Turning on the dims, she drove slowly through the long road that wound through the park. A mistake. She began to feel sad. On the way home she kept passing places where she and Rob had been together. That’s the diner we went into that time with Carl. Didn’t we buy sodas in that drugstore one day? Oh! There’s the tree we leaned against … hugging … it was raining. The hug she remembered especially. How they had held and held each other, just held each other without speaking.

  A week. Another week. Still she came out of work looking for Rob, forgetting that she had no right and no reason to look for him. She went on dreaming about him. And absently writing his name in her notebook and then, seeing what she had done, inking it out.

  One day she saw him downtown, dawdling under a big yellow umbrella with that same girl. Jenny knew who the girl was now: Suzi Slayton. She was a sophomore, on the cross-country team, and vice-president of her class. She was pretty, had an adorable figure, and was considered a VIP.

  How quickly, how easily Rob had found someone else. All his talk about love, and forever, and how they were meant for each other, and how close they were, and what had any of it meant?

  The following Saturday she took her AP math exam, forgetting that he would be taking it, too. As soon as she walked into the big room she saw him. She sat as far from him as she could get. He turned his head slightly and seemed to glance past her shoulder. He was wearing a blue shirt the color of his eyes.

  Rhoda came in, sat next to Jenny. She had paper clips dangling from her earlobes. “Did I see you driving downtown yesterday?”

  “Possibly.” Casual voice, conscious of Rob ahead of her.

  “I yelled, but you didn’t hear.” She bent toward Jenny. “You see who else is here?”

  The exam came. From the corner of her eye she saw him bent over his paper. What if he spoke to her when the exam was over? She stared at a problem.

  Hello, Jenny. (Soft)

  Hello, Rob. (Calm)

  I’ve missed you. (Intensely)

  I’ve missed you, too. (Quietly)

  Won’t you reconsider, Jenny? (Pleading)

  I’ve thought of it, but— (Calm)

  But what? (Hoarsely)

  Nothing’s changed for me. And you have a new friend. (Dignified)

  They finished the exam at almost the same time. She walked out of school a step behind him. Suzi was waiting for him. Pink lips, blue overalls. Same blue as Rob’s shirt—on purpose? It was raining again. The yellow umbrella went up. Jenny walked toward the east side, near the railroad tracks. The sky was clouded, dark. The whole month had been nothing but rain. Cars passed, headlights on. Her feet were wet. She lost track of time, kept trying to outwalk the turmoil in head and belly. Why did she feel everything in her stomach? Everyone always talked about the heart, but her feelings seemed to rise directly from her stomach.

  A toe on her left foot throbbed. What was she doing? Getting soaked. Stupid. Meaningless. That was the way everything seemed to her just then: senseless and without meaning.

  Chapter 23

  “I want to leave my sneakers here,” Jenny said, stopping in front of The Sole Survivor.

  “Fine,” her mother said, “I’ll run over to Nicholes, see if I can find that can opener.”

  A young man, dark-eyed, sat at a sewing machine. “Yes? Hello?”

  “I’d like these sneakers resoled, please.” Jenny put her packages down on the counter.

  “Customer,” the young man called, and Nell Montana came out from behind a curtain. She was wearing a shirt that looked vaguely Indian and had big silver hoops in her ears and silver and turquoise jewelry around her neck.

  “May I help you?” she said, then recognized Jenny. “Jenny?”

  “How are you, Mrs. Montana?”

  “Oh, just—I’m …” The sentence trailed off. Although dressed gaily, Nell Montana didn’t look good: a lack of color, her eyes unhealthily dark. She took the sneakers and handed Jenny a ticket. “Rob told me about you two,” she said. “You made him very unhappy. He didn’t want to tell me, he didn’t want to upset me, but I knew something was wrong. I got it out of him.”

  Jenny twisted the ticket in her hand. Behind her, she heard her mot
her. “Ready, Jenny?”

  “Yes, I’m coming!” She grabbed her packages, but then her mother was there, and Nell Montana was saying, “Your mother?” And to Amelia, “You’re Jenny’s mother?”

  “Yes,” Amelia said pleasantly.

  “You’re Mrs. Pennoyer? I’ve wanted to meet you.” She reached for Amelia’s hand. “Oh, how I’ve wanted to meet you. I’m Nell Montana.”

  Jenny’s mother drew in a sharp breath. “You’re—”

  “Yes.”

  “Please. Let go of me.”

  “Hear me out—”

  “I don’t want—”

  “Hear me out. I need to talk to you. I have needed to talk to you for a long time.”

  Jenny stood frozen. Behind them the sewing machine whirred. The man looked up and smiled uncomprehendingly as if the two women, their heads so close, their hands joined, were having a social chat.

  “Do you know that I can’t sleep?” Nell Montana leaned farther over the counter, her words tumbling out. “I used to go to bed at night and before I fell asleep I’d make up stories about things that were going to happen. Great things—for my son, my daughter, even me. I had silly dreams I’d be discovered, become famous, maybe a model, a country singer. I’d dream like that and fall asleep smiling, that was the sort of person I was. Then I went out one night …” Her voice faltered.

  “Jenny, we have to go,” her mother said, but Nell Montana didn’t relinquish her grip.

  “… and there was a party and it was raining and—and everything changed. I—oh, what happened was, it was—I couldn’t stop crying! No. And my whole life … nothing since then … nothing … it’s all changed, changed. Do you understand?” The dark, sunken eyes glowed feverishly.

  Amelia’s lips were pressed together, splotches of color flushed her cheeks and forehead.

  “I tell you, you must forgive me. I need that. I need your forgiveness. I am living in hell.” She said this quietly, as if exhausted.

  “Not a day goes by,” she went on, “not a day, I swear to you, not a single day … I know. I know how you feel. You think I’m heartless. I read your letter. You think I don’t know. But I have a daughter, too. I know. I know how you feel.”