My First Love and Other Disasters

by Francine Pascal

  Right at this second my feelings toward my very best friend in the whole world are very confused. I’m absolutely torn between hate and loathing. I can’t believe Steffi would try to steal my boyfriend even before he’s really my boyfriend. I’m probably jumping to conclusions and I really should be ashamed of myself. Steffi Klinger has been my dearest friend since we met in fifth grade. (It was really hysterical how we were both crazy about this jerky guy. . . .)

  Oh, damn! How could she! Well, I’m certainly not about to blow my cool over a little competition. I’ve always heard that competition is healthy—for potato-sack racing. Not boys. I smile sweetly at her and decide to play it tricky. “Listen,” I say to her, “if you’re too busy to come with me today I can do it alone or we can make it for another day.”

  “That’s okay,” she says brightly. “I can come today.”

  “Or better yet, I can meet you later.”

  “Anything you like.”

  “Or you could wait outside.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “You mean you don’t mind not coming?”

  “I swear it’s okay with me. Actually, then I can go home and change. I feel so jerky all dressed up like this, but my mother wanted to take some pictures for some special album she’s doing and then I didn’t have time to change. I’ll probably get it all grimed up, and I wanted to save it for Myrl’s party.”

  Suddenly I love her again.

  “Don’t change,” I say.

  “You don’t think it looks gross in the middle of the afternoon? And I’m wearing eye makeup, too.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “By the way, I owe you a new tea rose. I spilled the whole bottle on my foot. Gross, huh?”

  Did I mention Steffi’s the greatest friend in the world?

  “You’ll really knock them out in the shoe store,” I say.

  “I thought you wanted me to wait outside.”

  “Not a chance. I’d the if I had to go through it alone. You just have to be there.”

  “Great. I’ve been looking forward to this all day. I just know he’s going to have heart failure when he meets you.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know it. You look absolutely spectacular today.”

  “Quick. Let’s go before I start to fade.”

  So we start to walk toward Broadway. Howell’s is only about three blocks from my house. We’re not even walking fast, but I’m starting to sweat just from excitement. Luckily this blouse isn’t clingy so you can’t see that I’m dripping wet. Damn Secret.

  Oh, God, I just remembered I’m going to get my period practically any minute! Now even my face is sweaty. Well, maybe the store will be air conditioned and then I can sort of hang out near the front windows until I dry off. Unless of course I really do get my period, and then standing with my back to him would be a mistake.

  Mostly when people think of Broadway they think it’s all theaters and hookers, but around my way, up in the Fifties, it’s really okay. And when you go farther uptown it gets great. At least I love it. You find all kinds of stores—great little clothes shops and markets—and it’s always busy and noisy with a million things happening. And the people are outrageous. Not scary outrageous, just crazy and exciting. My father says there are more nuts per square inch on Broadway than on any other street in the world. Like the Lysol lady. She’s some kook who runs around with a mask over her nose and mouth spraying Lysol all around her. Nothing else nutty about her. I mean she wouldn’t bother anyone. She just likes things clean.

  Anyway, in no time at all we’re outside Howell’s, and Steffi pokes me to look in the window. There he is. My Jim. He is gorgeous.

  “Wait!” I grab Steffi just as she’s about to open the door. “Let’s say again what we’re going to do.”

  “Relax,” she purrs, “it’s easy. All we do is go in and sit down, and when Jimmy sees you he’ll come over, and from there on it’s practically a snap. I mean, one look at those jeans and he’ll be off the wall.”

  “You’re the best friend I ever had, but what if he doesn’t fall over dead for me?”

  “He has to. I just feel it. I mean, you look totally perfect.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Should I have a shoe number to give him?”

  “Ugh. They’re all so ugly. Maybe those espadrilles aren’t too disgusting.”

  “Okay, just remember 703.”

  “I got it.”

  “So come on. Let’s go.”

  “Wait a sec.”

  “What now?”

  “Maybe I should get the sneakers. At least they’re not completely gross.”

  “Ugh, no. Sneakers are so unsexy. Stick with the espadrilles. At least they make you look taller, and he’s probably six feet. Come on. They’re beginning to look funny at us.”

  “No, wait . . .”

  “Whaa . . . t!”

  “I forgot the number.”

  “703. Now let’s go.” And she opens the door and shoves me in. Oh, God!

  We’re in the store and it’s a lot smaller than I thought. There’s no room to just stand there and dry off. There’s also no Jim. Now Steffi jabs me in the arm and nods with her head toward the back room. And there he is standing in the stockroom talking on the telephone. We’re just standing there staring at him when Mr. Howell, the owner of the store, comes waddling over.

  “Can I help you girls?” he says, leaning over and trying to catch what we’re staring at.

  “We—I mean, my friend . . . ,” Steffi begins, still concentrating on Jim in the back. “Victoria, tell him about the shoes.”

  “Yeah . . .” This is going very badly. I certainly don’t want Old Man Howell to take my order. But I’m trapped. I can’t just stand here like a jerk and not say anything.

  “Well, girls?” he says.

  “703,” I say.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” he calls to Jim. “Enough with the girlfriend already. Get off the phone. I need you.”

  Jim looks really embarrassed and he quickly hangs up. Steffi pokes me again and says in a stage whisper you could hear four blocks away, “He’s coming.”

  “About time,” says Mr. Howell, and before Jim can even get into the front of the store he tells him to go down to the basement and get 703. “What size, honey?” Mr. Howell asks me.

  “Six medium.” I’m really more like six and a half or even seven, but I hate big feet, and besides, I plan to sell them to Nina anyway.

  “In six medium.” You can practically hear Jim moan as he heads for the basement to get my shoes. I don’t even know him and he hates me already. I’m the jerk who made him drag all the way down to the crummy old cellar to get shoes. And I’m also responsible for making him hang up in the middle of a gorgeous conversation with his grungy girlfriend. Well, I’m not sorry about that.

  Steffi and I sit down to wait. I’m beginning to think this was a dumb thing to do. I mean, the whole setting is so unromantic with Mr. Howell and this tiny store with all the ugly shoes and Jim having to disappear downstairs. It’s all getting very messy. I wish we could get out of here, but we can’t with Mr. Howell standing there and just staring at us.

  We wait at least a hundred years. Still no Jim. Now Mr. Howell goes to the back steps and calls down. “So Jimmy, huh? Did you fall asleep down there?”

  “I can’t find any 703s, Mr. Howell,” he calls back.

  “Open your eyes and look near the boiler.” This is mortifying.

  Silence from the basement.

  “So?” says Mr. Howell.

  “I don’t see them. I’m sorry, Mr. Howell.”

  “They’re right in front of your nose on the side of the boiler.”

  More silence. I think I want to die. None of this was in my daydreams.

  “Aiii, kids. You have to supervise everything. They wouldn’t find their head if it wasn’t attached.” And with a lot of grumbling he goes to the top of the baseme
nt steps and shouts down, “Are you at the boiler?”

  “Right,” Jim shouts up. His voice is beginning to sound not so terrific.

  “Now look on the right. You see those stacks of boxes near the window?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So look.”

  “You want me to go through all the stacks?”

  “You got something better to do?”

  I hear what is definitely a moan from the basement, and give Steffi a shove with my elbow and whisper that this is the worst idea in the whole world. “I’ve ruined everything. How am I ever going to face him again? It’s over . . . finished. There’s no hope.” I’m moaning even worse than he is.

  “You’re right,” Steffi says. She’s the most honest friend I’ve ever had. That’s the one thing I hate about her. “Keep your eyes on Mr. Howell,” she says. “The minute he turns his head, we disappear.”

  I give her the gotcha sign and wiggle into my shoes. We get our bags in our laps and slide to the edge of our seats. But Mr. Howell’s not letting go. He keeps us nailed there with his eyes.

  There’s a lot of noisy shuffling around coming from the basement but still no size sixes.

  “You sure you take a size six? Let me measure your foot.” And quick as anything he grabs one of those foot measures and advances on us. We both jump up, clutching our bags, and like we were attached start squiggling away from him toward the door. He sort of slides around us and grabs a chair and shoves it into us from behind, pushing us down together on the same seat. Now he whips my shoe off and jams my foot down on the cold metal ruler thing. I guess maybe when you have such ugly shoes in your store you’ve got to work hard to make a sale. Of course it registers almost seven, but I don’t care anymore. As far as I’m concerned my life is over anyway.

  “I found them, Mr. Howell! I got them. The size sixes.” And Jim comes charging out of the cellar.

  Rats! Now he finds them! But it’s too late because now Mr. Howell is going to say they’re the wrong size and make him go back down and look for the sevens and naturally he’s going to think I’m insane and hate me forever.

  But it doesn’t happen that way. All Mr. Howell says is, “You see what happens when you look with your eyes open?” And he grabs the shoes from the box and pronounces them “perfect, beautiful shoes—are you a lucky girl!”

  “I’ll put them on,” I say, reaching for the shoes.

  “No, no, dear, let the boy.” And Mr. Howell nods to Jim, who sits down on one of those little seats with the slanted fronts for trying on shoes.

  Remember that part in Cinderella where the mean stepsisters try to squeeze their feet into the glass slipper? That’s nothing compared to what goes on with these loathsome espadrilles. Naturally Steffi is absolutely killing herself. She’s so hysterical she keeps sliding off the chair and making all kinds of dumb snorting, giggling sounds.

  I don’t let him give up. I make some excuse about my socks being all bunched up and twist them around, adjust them, pull them up tight, and point my toes with all my might. The espadrilles slide beautifully past the toes and hit a brick wall somewhere around the middle of my foot about a mile from the heel. By now my dearest friend, Steffi, is totally convulsed on the floor. The rest of us pretend she’s not even in the store.

  “I think they’re too narrow maybe, huh?” Jim is trying to sound ordinary, like you do with regular normal human beings when they try on shoes that don’t fit them.

  At this point all I have to say is “Yeah, you’re right, too narrow, thanks,” or something like that, and pick up my imbecile best friend and walk out. And that’s just what I’m about to do but I’m not fast enough.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Mr. Howell says with a sickly-sweet smile, “we’ll get you the next size.”

  We’re this little knot of people in one corner of an almost empty store and there’s no way to get away. I see Jim roll his eyes and hear him make a soft groan when Mr. Howell says how he should go back down to the basement and find me the right size.

  I absolutely cannot let him go back down to that cellar again for shoes I’m never going to put on once I take them out of the store. Besides, he’ll despise me forever if I do. So with one horrendous shove, I jam my foot into the shoe which goes flying six inches into Jim’s stomach, pushing him backward right off his seat.

  “Perfect,” I say through clenched teeth. “I love them snug.”

  You’ve got to picture Steffi still doubled over on the floor, Jim sprawled down next to her, and me on Jim’s seat somehow with my leg sticking straight out in the air. It’s too funny. Now Mr. Howell grabs the foot with the new shoe, gives it a this-way that-way squeeze, and pronounces it a perfect fit.

  “I’ll take them!” I say and start to pull it off. You guessed. It doesn’t budge.

  “Write up the bill, Jimmy,” says Mr. Howell, who’s not taking any chances, “while I help the little girl off with her new shoes.” And he starts to pull at the shoe.

  Jim goes to the cash register to write up the sale. Naturally he’s really confused because he doesn’t know why someone would buy shoes that obviously are miles too small, and any fool can see they are the ugliest, grossest things ever made. How would he possibly know that I’m doing all this out of love for him? All he thinks is that I’m probably on a weekend pass from the nuthouse. Certainly Steffi looks like she is.

  “Perhaps you would prefer waiting outside,” I say to Steffi in a surprisingly controlled voice while I pinch her arm and nudge her toward the door. She can’t exactly answer me, but she obeys and lurches into the street, in screaming hysterics. Very immature.

  I, on the other hand, play it absolutely cool. In a flash I see that I can’t get the shoe off without a lot of unattractive tugging and puffing, so I say, like it’s practically an afterthought, “I think I’ll wear it home.”

  “Here’s the other one,” Jim says, taking the second shoe out of the box.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, snapping the shoe out of his hand. “I can manage.” He doesn’t argue.

  With what I hope looks like the greatest of ease, I begin to slip the second shoe on. I’m still toiling at it when Jim begins to wrap up my old shoes. He gives me some long, hard looks. Not those magical electric current things I dreamed about, the kind that pull you together and make everything zing. More like . . . yuck!

  Well, nothing is perfect. I’m still working on the shoe when he finished the wrapping. Now I figure I’ll never get the back on, so I just stop trying and crunch down on it. At least I don’t have to worry about it sliding off the front—not without a four-man pull team anyway. The worst may be over, so I’m feeling pretty cool. As Jim fills out the sales check, I busy myself studying the net weight on a can of tan Kiwi show polish.

  “Uh . . . can you give me your name?” Jim says.

  Dread moment, but I knew it was coming.

  “Regina Goldin Vockwarger.” You didn’t think I was going to give my real name in a disaster like this, did you?

  “Regina what?”

  “Goldin Vartbarker.”

  “Vartwarker?”

  “No, Vartrocker.” It’s the first actual conversation we’ve ever had, and I want it to last forever.

  “Could you spell that, please?”

  “Sure, W-A-R . . .”

  “W?”

  “Yes, V is pronounced W in Hungarian.”

  “You’re Hungarian?” I can tell he’s beginning to see me as a person now. Of course, it’s the wrong person, but still . . . it’s a start. He’s probably saying to himself right now, “Gee, she’s not so bad.” From out of nowhere Mr. Howell jumps into our private conversation. “Who’s Hungarian?” he wants to know.

  “She is.” Jim motions to me.

  “What was that name, darling?” he asks, but I get very busy counting out the money, and as soon as he takes it I scoop up my shoe box and head for the door.

  “Vartsugar,” I mumble, trying to give a kind of Hungarian warble to my voice. And I open th
e door fast and zoom out.

  The last thing I hear Jim say is, “She’s nuts.”

  I don’t know exactly where I screwed up, but I know in my heart it wasn’t a total success. Probably more like a horrendous failure that I may never recover from. If only I could go back to where he doesn’t know I’m alive.

  Steffi comes back to my house and she tries to cheer me up, but I really feel heartbroken because when I looked at him today I knew this was something more than just a kid crush. I think I’m really in love with this beautiful guy, and it probably was dumb and silly and childish to go about it this way. I mean, this is too important for games.

  I hope he doesn’t remember who I was. But of course he will. He’s not blind.

  Steffi’s all for trying it again, this time with a different approach, and she comes up with a couple of other ideas. In one I’m supposed to be taking a survey—you know, one of those house-to-house things, to measure the attitudes of teenage boys toward orphans or something, and the other is a whole big romantic thing where I pretend to faint in his elevator. They’re pretty good ideas, especially the fainting one, but I don’t know, I’m beginning to think that sort of stuff may be kind of babyish. I don’t say that to Steffi because I don’t want to insult her, but I don’t think I want to spoil what I feel for Jim with some contrived kind of set up. I tell her that if this thing can’t start naturally and beautifully I’d rather just keep it inside myself. Of course she understands perfectly. Any best friend would.

  Can it be that I’ll have to suffer through one of those unrequited loves? That can happen—ugh. Sometimes you just love somebody and nothing can possibly happen. Like with old maids. I guess they probably loved somebody sometime in the past but they weren’t loved back, or maybe the guy never even knew they existed and so they just spent the whole rest of their lives loving someone from far away.

  That’s not for me—I mean silently worshipping some idol and just kind of drying up and shrivelling away to nothing without him ever knowing.

  No way! Okay, so I don’t make up some silly little scene. Still, I’ve made up my mind. I’m not the long-suffering type. I’m not going to tell anyone, not even Steffi. Then it doesn’t look so much like a set up, but I intend to make Mr. Jim Freeman very much aware of me very shortly. Watch out, Gloria!