Frog (72 page)

Summer camp. Her name's Valerie. She's going with someone for about six weeks, breaks up, smiles at him a couple of times while they're in a group and other kids are talking, so he thinks he has a chance. She's short, blond, pretty, a great all-around athlete, doesn't talk much, he's pretty shy himself. He and his bunkmates sneak out of their cabin after taps and go to her cabin. He sits at the end of her bed and looks away to his friends mostly, most sitting on other girls' beds, she mostly looking at her friends lying in their beds, then when his bunkmates think it's time to sneak back, he moves a little closer, bends over and kisses her. “Would you like to sit together at the movie tomorrow night?” he says. “If they let us.” Next night when the lights in the social hall go out for the movie, he sneaks over to her, she makes room on the bench and they hold hands and for a while he has his arm around her and she leans her head on his shoulder. They dance at the next social almost only with each other, at the lake when all the seniors have an evening cookout they toast marshmallows and roast franks and potatoes and snuggle under a blanket he brought down and kiss a few times under it, kiss at the farewell social when someone shuts all the lights off for about fifteen seconds and yells “All the couples on the dance floor, kiss,” and last day at camp he goes to her cabin, she's dressed for the city, has stockings and flat shoes on, the stockings are too big or she's not wearing them right, so her legs look funny, her dress is heavy and looks as if it's for the winter, they walk a little ways while holding hands, he looks around, no one's looking, and he kisses her and asks if he can have her phone number in the city, he'll call in the next few weeks and come out to Williamsburg where she lives. She says “I'd love for you to, but don't call on the sabbath; that's when we don't answer the phone.” He sees her at the bus station in New York a few hours later; she's with her parents, he's with his mother and brother, and he waves to her. “Who's that?” his mother says. “His girlfriend,” his brother says. “Last two weeks of camp they were always together. His first girlfriend and he's already getting married.” “That true?” his mother says. “You're too young. Wait a couple more years.” He worries about calling her. What will they do in Williamsburg? What will they talk about a whole afternoon with none of their friends around? Will he have enough money for a date? Suppose she wants to go to a movie in one of the fancier downtown Brooklyn theaters and maybe take a cab there or back and then sandwiches and sodas after in a place he can't afford? The cab he'll say no to because he likes going by subway or trolley or whatever they have out there, but he doubts he can say no to the rest. Was she as pretty as he remembers? She looked silly in her city clothes that last day and she might even be in dressier clothes and high heels when he sees her. And he doesn't have any good clothes. His brother's are too big unless he rolls up the sleeves of the shirt and doesn't button the top button and makes the tie with a fat knot, but the rest he doesn't have any of his own, not even shoes where the leather isn't cracked. He gets an after-school job, saves up enough in a month to buy a sport jacket and for a date, tries his brother's pants on and finds he can wear them if he pulls them up very high and belts it tight but also uses suspenders, calls her, she says she thought he'd call sooner, he says he wanted to but was very busy with school and work. “Oh, I suppose I could have called you, but I was told by everyone not to. If he wants to call, he will, and if he doesn't, he won't, they all said.” “Who told you that?” and she says “Friends, one who's been dating someone for a long time, and my mother.” “You spoke to your mother about me?” “Only that I met this nice Jewish boy at camp, one who wasn't religious or anything but was smart and polite and he may come see me.” He says that's what he called about, if it's still all right, and she says she'd love to and gets her father to give him subway directions. The father gets on and says “So where you live, kid? If it's all the way out in the Bronx, it's too far to come here, no matter how wonderful my wonderful daughter is.” When she gets back on he says “I don't think your father likes me,” and she says “Don't be silly, he has no opinion of you, see you Sunday.” He worries about it all week. She's too sweet. She'll say sweet things all the time and how happy she is he came to see her and like that and it'll be the dullest afternoon of his life. It might get very warm that day and the clothes he has to wear are flannel and heavy wool and he'll be burning up all the time. He'll be too shy to say anything, and she could be too shy also, and he doesn't want to meet her folks, have to sit with them awhile before he and Valerie can go out. She lives too far away. Maybe that most of all. Suppose he gets to like her, what then? He'll have to go to Williamsburg every time. In the spring it won't be so bad, since they can go to Coney Island and Rockaway from there, but now he'll be missing seeing his friends in the city one day every weekend, and if he has to go back and forth twice in one day if he wants her to be with his friends there, half the time of the date will be spent on the train. He wants to call it off but doesn't know how to. Maybe he could just not show up, then send a letter as an excuse, that he got sick, too sick to call, with laryngitis and bronchitis plus some other throat and chest problems. But then she'll think why didn't he get someone like one of his parents to call for him if he couldn't talk himself? and if they both go back to the same camp next summer as CITs or camper-waiters, everyone there will think he was a liar and rat. Maybe his brother could call for him and say he's very sick. But his brother says that wouldn't be the right thing for either of them to do. “If you want to break the date, call her and say you're very sorry but you have to work at your job that Sunday and that you'll call her again soon for another date.” “Suppose she says why don't we make a date now for the next Sunday?” and his brother says ‘Tell her your job's the kind where it might make you work every weekend for the next month. If your boss doesn't ask you to do that, which you'll know in a few days, you'll call her, and after that you don't have to call her and she'll gradually get the message or just not think of you anymore.” Calls, says what his brother told him to, she says “I was really looking forward to it, I had so many interesting things to tell you, but I can understand. My father makes his workers work hard at their jobs too, and it's also a long trip out here for you.” “The trip's not it. And it's not just the job but a ton of schoolwork to do. Reports, a big quiz at the start of the week, and because I'm working weekends, I have to study and do the reports at night.” “You ought to be an Orthodox Jew. Then you wouldn't have to work and study for school for a whole day. I also have lots of schoolwork to do, but I was going to get it done tonight and tomorrow afternoon so I could have time with you. Well, call if you want to, and if you don't call or don't want to, or something, you won't, I suppose. I think I got that right. It's what some people told me to say if this ever happened.” “I know. You told me about it last time I called.” “Did I? Then you must think I'm very stupid. Anyway, if you don't call, I won't be calling you,” and she hangs up. He feels lousy. He made her sad, disappointed her, he could tell by her voice at the end; she might even have gone out and got special clothes for the date. And she was so nice about it. Didn't blame him, just accepted it. Maybe he should call her right back and say he just called his boss and told him he can't work this weekend, or can, but only Saturday. Even if he did call her right back he doesn't think she'd see him this Sunday or make a date with him anytime soon. Too sad and disappointed. He doesn't really know what she'd do if he called now, but it was probably the best thing not going out there, and she'll get over it soon. At least it was final. He thinks of her a few times after that the next few weeks, and a couple of times that he should call her. He doesn't know any other girls to go out with and she was so pretty and sweet and nice and, because she said she got such good grades in school, smart too, but doesn't. Next June he crosses the East River by subway on his way to his aunt and cousins in Coney Island and says to his brother “That's where Valerie, the girl I met last summer, lives; Williamsburg.” He thinks this is Williamsburg because he sees a lot of religious Jews in long beards and black clothes below the elevated station when they're pulling in and also when her father gave him directions he said “You ever come out to Brooklyn before? If you did and same way by train, Williamsburg station's the first one over the bridge.” She's not at camp that summer and next June when he's going to his aunt and cousins in Coney Island he looks for her in the street from the train windows, looks in the tenement windows the train passes in case by chance she's in one. If he does see her in the street he'll say to his brother “Go on without me; I'll meet up with you there later,” and get off the train before the doors close and run down to say hello to her. Or if she's in one of the windows, then off the train at the next stop and run or subway back to find her, or call her from a phone booth in Williamsburg. He remembers her last name and street; he could get her phone number. And the coincidence of seeing her from the train and surprise of just running up to her or calling her from a nearby booth would make up for any bad feelings she still might have for him after almost two years, or could. He thinks of her every time after that when he's going to Coney Island by subway that way, but for some reason never when he's coming back. Then when he's around thirty the woman he's living with says she heard of a good cheap dermatologist in Williamsburg who could take care of her skin problem for half the cost of her Manhattan doctor. Would he go out there with her, since she doesn't know what kind of neighborhood it is? He doesn't think of Valerie then but does when they get off the train and look around for the doctor's street. “I once knew a girl here when I was fourteen or fifteen. Valerie Bubky. I wonder if she's still living here.” “Hardly likely,” the woman says. “She's probably married with children and long moved out, and her folks also, for look at this dump. I think we should forget the doctor, get back on the subway before we're robbed, and call him when we get home that we're canceling the appointment and that he should probably move away from here also before he gets killed. Why do people always talk about Williamsburg as if it's someplace special? It's a bleak shithole.” They go back to the subway and during the ride home he wonders what would have happened if he'd gone on that date with her. He bets he would have seen her the next Sunday also, that they would have started to talk more, liked each other's company a lot and without needing other kids their age always around. And that Sunday with her would have been his first date. He forgets who his first date actually was. He might have seen her for a year, maybe years. Though her family was orthodox and she said she was too, he might have got her to let him pet her, in a few years to even make love with her. She could have been the first woman he had sex with, since he doubts he would have gone with his friends to prostitutes if he was dating her. He could have continued to see her in college, maybe even married her, had children with her. He could still be with her. She was so pretty and attentive and sweet, always with a smile when she saw him in camp, always glad to see him, and affectionate, a good kisser, and funny sometimes, he remembers—tickling him, once pushing him off a raft into the lake and trying to pull his trunks down in back as he fell, or maybe with both those she was just being flirtatious. Anyway, she could have been the first girl he really loved and who felt the same about him the same time.

Gwen. He's sixteen and they first meet at a dance at her girls' private school. Wearing the same perfume she wore every time he later saw her. It did what perfumes are supposed to, made him romantic, dizzy, want to kiss her neck, burrow his nose into her chest. She never let him. With another woman later on, Janine, it was carnation soap she bought by the twelve-box at Bloomingdales, which she and her bathroom and her apartment when the bathroom door was open, usually smelled of. Now he thinks Gwen was too young to wear perfume then. He once bought a box of that soap to remind him of Janine, after she broke their engagement. Once went to Bloomingdales to be sprayed with Gwen's perfume by one of the first-floor perfume ladies. First time in Paris he bought the smallest bottle there was of it, for his mother, so she'd wear it around the house sometimes and he'd be reminded of Gwen. “Mom, you never seem to put on that perfume I got you,” and she would. On subways and buses or the street when he'd smell it he'd look around quickly, thinking it was she; same with the soap. Used to sneak into his parents' medicine chest and dab a drop of the perfume on his wrist and later in bed smell it. Always right before he went to sleep so no one would know he had it on and it'd be gone by morning. Goes to the dance with his friends. It's in the gym and one of the girls' mothers asks them at the door to sign in. All his friends are in private school. He makes up a name, Poly Prep, and says it's in Connecticut, and no, he left any kind of I.D. in his dorm but his friends will vouch for him. Sees her talking to some girls. He's immediately attracted, but how's he approach her? She's dressed like a rich girl, flouncy skirt, lace blouse, pearls, stylish hair. One of the girls she's with sees him staring, maybe is attracted to him—he never found out—and comes over and introduces herself, says this is what they're supposed to do with all the new boys, so don't think you're anything special, and asks what school he's at, then Gwen comes over and her friend introduces them. Two of his friends saw her when she walked over and made with the eyes and smiles to each other, but he caught their attention and pointed to himself and mouthed “Hands off, she's mine.” “Poly Prep?” Gwen says. “Sounds like poly pulp. Can it be a real school or are you just a big fake—I won't tell.” “Fake and a fraud, but don't get me tossed out; at least not yet.” “Fake and a fraud” was what his father often said about various people he'd just met. The smell, was it coming from her? Bright face, inquiring eyes, good speech, dulcet—word he looked up from a book that week and used a lot—voice, long legs out of this stiff thing under her skirt—“What is that coming out, if I can ask?” pointing. “A crinoline. My parents manufacture them so whenever I step out socially like this I like to be a walking ad. Least I can do for all they're shelling out for me for this Easter society pri-school.” “Easter what? I don't get it.” “Try.” Shuts his eyes. Get it quick, she'll admire it. “Something about Jewish and Gentile all in one?” “No, it's about what part of town this school's in. You'll get it in the end.” Swan's neck, he thought then, or like a ballet dancer's. “Like to dance?” holding out his arms. Already giddy with her, saying and doing the wrong things, can't think straight, Easter society pri-school means what other than private? His hand feels hot in the small of her back, her hand hot on the back of his neck, her other hand smooth in his sweaty one. And it's from her, the smell. Sees himself nuzzling, kissing, their bodies in skimpy bathing suits on a blanket on a beach squeezed tight. Gets an erection and a big one and she must feel it because she backs up a bit. He wants to say excuse me, to show how sophisticated he is, and if she asks, to even say “For that,” looking or pointing down, “and I truly apologize,” but doesn't. it's a fox trot, thank God, only dance he really knows—he's tried to learn all the popular ones but once he gets out there it always ends up where he has to ad-lib—and during it she says “I had a dream last night I'd fall in love with and marry a proletarian, what do you make of that?” and he says, because he can't think of any way of making her believe he knows what it is and then later tonight looking it up, “What's a proletarian?” She says “Come on, don't kid me,” and he says “Really, what, an iconoclast?” and she says “I know what that is and it's a good one but it's not that. No, if you don't know, that means you're probably one, though you're not the fellow in my dream, since this happens in college two years from now,” and he thinks “Did I blow it? Of all the words I know, why couldn't that be one?” After the music stops and they separate he says “Like to do the next one?” and she says, glancing at his crotch—erection's gone down without him even noticing it—“In the beginning we're supposed to give each young man a chance—that's how it was put to us; I'm not quoting from the Bible. Maybe later, when all the young men are used up,” and after she dances with a few other guys—he was lucky; next one was a lindy, which he's a real clod at—she disappears. He walks past the girls' bathroom on that floor several times, looks in some classrooms, goes downstairs to the school entrance, and outside. Oh well, he knows her name, thinks he can get her phone number from someone and if not he'll call up a few Wakesmans on the West Side where she said she lives or send her a letter care of this school, but he sees her in the gym as he's leaving and says “Sorry we couldn't dance again, but would it be OK to call you?” “Sure,” and he says “I'll need your number,” and she has a pen in her purse but nothing to write on but a dollar bill, he only has coins in his pockets but lies and says his paper money's in his coat downstairs, so she writes it on his palm and in front of the school he writes it in a friend's matchbook. He calls her that Monday, takes her to Radio City Music Hall by cab, they go to the restrooms downstairs when they get there and then sit in this big sitting room outside the restrooms while waiting for the next show to begin and he says “You know, I've had a dream over and over again about—” “A recurring one.” “Yes. When I was a boy, you see, I went here a couple of times and since then have dreamt about the men's room here but where it has a hundred urinals in a row on both sides of the room. I just saw there weren't even twenty altogether—I counted them, but that's not including the stalls. Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't have brought it up, for that's not very nice talk,” and she says “No, it's good; conversation I like. So more like that, more. Tell me your deepest dreams; your darkest worries and thoughts. I hate all small talk; it's boring,” but how does he produce more, for that urinal one might be all he has? He once had a dog he loved who jumped out of a car window and got permanently lost. Once got his tongue stuck to a popsicle and though a man told him not to he panicked and pulled it off. Once while fooling around he fell down a coal chute of an apartment building on his block and a fireman had to climb down and pull him up. Got lost in Central Park during a blizzard and for a while didn't think he'd make it out. Got hit by cars twice while playing ball on his sidestreet and both times ran home and into bed saying he thought he just came down with the grippe. His sister who's been so sick with cancer she almost died in the operating room a couple of times. His father who went to prison and now still can't get his dental license back. “Well, right now, nothing, but there's plenty of those in me, believe me,” and she says “Then what do you want to do, even though you're not in college yet, after you get out?” and he says “Something good for mankind. A doctor, but not for money but for missionary work, though not connected to any religion. Unfortunately, I'm not good in the sciences. But my dad says I don't have to be and that he'll get me into dental school if I want, because once there it's all practical stuff.” “But you don't want to be a dentist, putting your nose in people's mouths,” and he says “No, a doctor, but medical school he doesn't think he can get me into with just a C average, which is all I've ever been, and also because he has no connections there, so I don't know what to do. But when you think of it, people have bad teeth everywhere and it causes so much pain and the relief of it's just as great as taking out a cancer, and I have to admit my father's a dentist, but not practicing these days. But just to go to Africa—maybe I'll learn French better and go to med school in Switzerland or someplace like I heard people do who can't get in here—and to work with poor starving natives and in the deepest bush.” “That's nice. Money doesn't concern you. That's great, but you have such a long trek ahead. I'd like to be an artist of any sort—but a creator, not an interpreter—and right now I'm going about trying to determine which one. Maybe I'll be a triple or quadruple threat in several artistic fields, and with a number of hats on my head in each one.” He doesn't get the hat expression, but nods, says it sound exciting, he once thought of art for himself too. Painting, which he used to do slews of as a kid and some of his school art teachers thought he was pretty good at, and even acting, which he thinks you can be a creator in, though maybe she's right, but he doesn't have enough talent for either or not compared to lots of people he's seen his age. “My feeling,” she says, “and you know, I'm only starting out, but it's if you don't believe in yourself completely from the beginning in those fields, it's best to stay out of them. So you probably made the right decision, early as it was.” The movie's about young concert performers—the reason he took her to it; classical music, maybe an intelligent story in it—and in the cab home he asks and she says she's grateful he took her but the plot and music were for the most part for people who only feed on sweets. “You noticed no Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, any of the modernists. You know why? Most people would run out of the theater, or worse, not go in.” Stravinsky he thinks he heard of, but the others? but he says “There's something to what you say. But a little of it, I have to admit, like that Mendelssohn violin thing running through it, I kind of liked and think I'll get a recording of it. I got the name of the real player of it from the closing credits, which is why I made you sit through them. Francescatti.” Oh, she says, she knows his Prokofiev and Bach. She lets him kiss her at the door. “Can I call you again?” and she says “Sure, call,” and he says “Maybe we can make a date now—I've been invited to what should be a great party next Saturday,” and she says “I don't have my calendar on me or know what my obligations at home will be next week. Best to call.” He bends down to kiss her but she moves aside and says “One, for now, is enough.” Next two days he thinks he can still smell her perfume on his sport jacket in his closet, but his brother takes a whiff and says he's imagining it. “Just sweat; you ought to get it dry-cleaned if you want anybody to go out with you.” Calls that Tuesday; Monday would seem he was too much in a hurry. “Hi, I was wondering if you'd like to go to that party I mentioned,” and she says it turns out she's busy all weekend, and when he asks, the next one too. He says he'll call again if she doesn't mind and she says OK. “By the way, how are you, what have you been doing?” and she says “Nothing much, and fine, there's little that ever gets me down, but you know how I feel about small talk. So I'll be speaking to you, Howard.” Howard, his name, that she was saying it, he was going crazy for her. Draws her face and figure in that crinoline dozens of times, kisses his pillow several times pretending it's her. He loves everything about her. Looks, manners, mannerisms, intellect, clothes, tastes, gracefulness, cute younger sister who came out to see him that first date, that she and her sister share their own listed phone, her fancy East Side friends and school, fine old apartment building and apartment with a wide Hudson view, doormen, elevator men, flowers in the lobby, flowers in that little foyer right outside their front door, maid who wore a black and white uniform when there weren't even guests and called him Mr. Tetch, way the place was furnished and that Gwen brought him into the living room to meet her parents who were having coffee after dinner, father with a tie on and in what looked like a lounge jacket, mother also in elegant stay-at-home clothes and with this aristocratic voice and both getting up to shake his hand, paintings he was shown there, real drawings—with little frame lights above them—by Titian and Rembrandt, books she said she was reading, small poetry book she took to the movie in case, she said, she had a few extra minutes when let's say he went to look for a cab, thin soft lips and beautiful teeth, that she had a cat. Calls the Tuesday after the next and she says she's busy the following weekend, “Oh, that's too bad. Is there any weekend you won't be busy—in other words, maybe the first Friday or Saturday night where you won't?” and she says “I never make plans for more than the coming weekend—that last time was an aberration.” “An aberration. OK,” he says angrily, “an aberration,” and hangs up, hoping his anger and hanging up and no good-bye will somehow interest her in him more; that he draws the line, has feelings, takes no crap, is like what she originally liked in him it seems, a strong
proletariat. Right after that he gets depressed, doesn't know how he'll make it till next Tuesday or Wednesday when he'll call. Tuesday; Wednesday and she'll be busy for sure the next weekend or at least will have a good excuse: he called too late. And “aberration,” and he writes it down way he thinks it's spelled, looks it up, it isn't in his dictionary, asks his mother what it means since she's known most of the big words he's asked her about before. “Why?” she says. “Because I heard someone use it.” “In what capacity?” and he says “That knowing what you'll be doing two weekends in a row is an aberration.” “That's not how it's used,” and tells him what it means and spells it out for him and he finds it this time. He calls the next Tuesday and first thing she says is “Did you hang up on me last week?” and he says “No, I might have just said good-bye very softly, why?” and she says “Because if you did I'd think, hey, this fellow isn't worth answering the phone for if he's going to unload all his belligerence on me.” “Not me,” he says and asks her out and she says there would have been a definite possibility if she didn't have so many extracurricular activities this week like tap dance and singing lessons and an Italian class she's starting and she also models at the Art Students League one night a week, all of which means she'll be studying the whole weekend for her midterms.” “You model? Not in the nude.” “Yes, it's for artists.” “How do your parents let you? You're so young. Or even the art school?” and she says “I told the League I'm nineteen, since I feel I act it and could look it. As for my parents, they're both artists in their souls but business people to keep their souls alive and bodies fed, and they trust me. It's only the top part anyway, not that I wouldn't model the bottom part if they needed it. I was asked by an instructor there who sat on the stool next to mine at the health food lunch place near the League and thought I'd be perfect for the pose he had in mind.” “Oh yeah, and God knows what he's going to ask you to do next,” and she says “You really don't know what you're talking about.” “You're absolutely right and I'm sorry,” and asks her out for the weekend after next—“Anyone can repeat an aberration once, I'd think”—and she says “I'm afraid I won't be able to,” but in a nice voice and when she says good-bye she says “So I suppose I'll be hearing from you,” which gives him the confidence she'll say yes the next time. Calls the next Tuesday, she says she's sorry, she's busy that weekend, he says “Busy busy bizwax—with what, voice lessons, studying again, cooking school?” and she says “You sure sound cynical today,” and he says “I'm not, or didn't mean to be; go on, tell me what your plans are, though of course you don't have to and I don't know why I asked,” and she says “No, I'll be honest; I don't mind. I have appointments Friday and Saturday nights,” and he says “You mean with guys, or just one,” and she says “Yes, with two fellows I know,” and he says “Guys you've been going out with, right?” and she says yes and he says “Then I guess I'll give up then, right?” hoping she'll say don't or he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, and she says “If that's how you feel; excuse me, but good-bye,” and hangs up. She was mad. That could mean a couple of things, one good, one bad. Somehow in her voice when she seemed mad it also seemed she was saying I'm mad because you made me mad but I'm not that mad where you don't have to call again. And if she's seeing two guys, it means she's not serious with one. No, he's crazy, what's he talking about, goddamn stupid idiot, and picks up the receiver and slams it down on its cradle, bangs the night table it's on with his fist, receiver jumps off and falls to the floor and he wants to grab it and smash it against the table, rip it out of the phone and wrap the wire around his neck and pull it tight till it hurts and cuts and leaves marks; puts the receiver down and grits his teeth and tears come and a sinking empty sickening feeling in his chest and he says “Oh shit, why the hell not, what the hell's wrong, why'd I even start, who the hell you think you are, you skinny rotten bitch?” and covers his face with his hands and digs his nails into his skin, and then his mother knocks on the door and says through it “May I come in now, Howard?—after all,” since it's his parents' bedroom, and he says “Sure, sorry, I'm done here,” and passes her with his head down and she says “Anything the matter, dear?” and he says “Well, you know, but I'll be all right,” and to get to sleep that night after everyone's in bed he sneaks open the liquor cabinet in the living room and takes several swigs of Canadian rye and sits there till he starts to yawn. A friend tells him she's going out with two guys, a junior at Yale and a grad student at NYU. “The Yalie's very rich, not Jewish, an athlete and a scholar in English lit I think. The other guy's a poor Brooklyn or Bronx Yid and supposed to be real handsome and smart, always on total scholarship, and on his way to making a million in advertising or TV.” “Him—both of them,” Howard says, “have to be too old for her—I mean, she's barely sixteen,” and his friend says “She seems to have her parents' permission, according to this girl who knows, so what can I tell you?” He sends her a letter saying “If you're interested in going to a movie one of these days, let me know,” and gives his phone number and address. She doesn't contact him. He thinks of her every day, calls her three months after they last spoke, she says “Hello, how are you, it's been so long,” and he asks her out to a movie the next Saturday afternoon and she says she'd love to. She takes a tomato from the kitchen as they leave her apartment, offers him the first bite on the street, he says it'd be too sloppy and he doesn't much like tomatoes, “I adore them,” she says and bites into it without making a mess and eats it as they walk to the theater, holding it in front of his mouth when she's almost finished with it and says “Sure you don't want some? It's going fast,” and he wants to, just to put his mouth where her lips did and to show he's not obstinate and takes chances, but says no. She smiles and chews the last of it and he thinks he loves everything she does; it's awful. She leans her head on his shoulder about fifteen minutes into the movie, he thinks should I? and decides to and kisses her hair and then her cheek and then very quickly her lips. She didn't stop him or look up at him and her eyes were closed when she kissed him so he waits what he thinks is about five minutes and then kisses her hair, cheek and lips and then a long kiss and tries to open her mouth with his tongue, thinking if she lets him do this then he really might be starting something with her, but she pulls away and says “Too fast, too far, let's just be kids,” and kisses her finger and puts it on his lips and he says “Sure, whatever you like.” Outside the theater he asks how she liked the movie and she says she's in a hurry to get home, can they get a cab? or just she'll get one, and he says “But it's only three blocks, and it's not raining,” and she says “Don't worry, I'll pay.” “That's not it; I'm working and I'm certainly not cheap,” and hails a cab, tells her in it he had wanted to go for a bite after the movie but OK, maybe the next time, and she says, getting out of the cab, “It's a date.” He says “Hey, I'm not taking this to my house,” and pays, but she's already walking into her building, waving at him. He calls her when he gets home for a date next weekend and the housekeeper who answers says “She was only here but gone out.” Calls her the next day and she says “What is it?” and he says “I wanted to take you up on what you said yesterday and make another date, maybe even an evening one, but I guess it's hopeless—somehow, your voice.” “I think it is,” and he says “I don't get it. You were so nice at the movie, we had fun, even walking to it—” and she says “Don't.” “So it doesn't make a difference what I say or we did?” and she says “Not in the slightest, and please understand I'm not being malicious saying that. I like kissing and you're a nice fellow but I'm simply not interested in you the way you are in me.” “How are you interested in me then?” and she says “Whatever way it is, it's not amorous, is that now clear?” and he says “OK, I got it finally,” and slams the receiver down and feels miserable for a week. Calls her a month later and she says “Oh, hello?” and he asks what she's been up to lately and she talks a little about what she's been doing and then there's silence so he starts in about what he's been doing recently and then she says “That's nice, great, well, I'll have to say good-bye now,” and he says “Any chance we can meet?” and she says “Howard, I'm still not interested. If you only wanted to be friends, that'd be a different thing.” “OK, as friends, would you like to go to an art museum today?” and she says “Not this week, I'm busy.” “Next week then?” and she says “I don't want to make plans so far ahead,” and he says “Then you don't want to be friends; you don't want to be anything. All right. So screw you, friend,” and hangs up. Oh God, that's it, that has to be it, for me, her, definitely for me and I'm sure she'll never talk to me again, and bangs his parents' bed with his fists and screams “Goddamn it, shit, shit,” and starts tearing at his hair. His parents think he's going crazy and have his brother speak to him. It snows that night and the next day he walks in the park and kicks drifts in just a T-shirt and pants and shoes without socks so he can get a cold and pneumonia and die. Sees her on the street several months later and she waves to him and he waves to her as she goes down her block. She smiled when she waved. Maybe she's changed her opinion about him somewhat, wouldn't mind him calling her. Calls, says it was nice seeing her on the street and how is she? and she says “Listen, I'm busy this week, if that's what you were eventually going to ask, but thanks for calling.” “Maybe next week?” and she says she's going away for the weekend, and for the month after that to Southern France for the Easter break. He's waiting tables in the neighborhood Schrafft's a year later when she comes in with two other girls and sits at another station. He pretends not to see her. Sees her in a mirror looking at him. All three have ice cream sodas and one of them has a sandwich. In the kitchen he tells their waiter “I know one of the girls at your four-table. Used to go out with her—the beautiful slim dark-haired one.” “Her, beautiful? Eh, so-so. But put the word in for them to give me a big tip.” “No, it's all over and I have no influence with her, but she's got lots of family dough, so I'm sure you'll do OK.” “Then get tight with her again. She's a good-looker, they all got juicy nookies, true? and if she's that rich and you can go into her dad's business, forget college; you've got it made.” He's passing her table with a tray of dirty dishes, still pretending not to know she's there, and she says “Howard,” he looks at her, “Oh hi, Gwen, hello,” she introduces him to her friends and says “Since when do you work here?” and he says “It's a good place, lots of actors and writers working as waiters, so an interesting group, and it's in walking distance from home,” and she says “I know that, but I meant for how long?” and he says “Few weeks. Look-it, the manager's a crab when I talk to personal friends who aren't my customers, so nice to see you,” all in a voice and with an expression that he couldn't care less that he saw her, and smiles and says “Nice to meet you” to her friends. Watches her through mirrors or the kitchen door window from then on and after she leaves he asks her waiter how he did and he says “You didn't do your part well—almost a whiff,” and he says “I'm really surprised. The tip must have been left up to one of the other girls, for she was always pretty free with her cash.” Leaving the restaurant he thinks maybe she'll call him. For the next few weeks he looks at the restaurant door every time someone comes in, hoping it'll be she, alone or with her sister, parents or friends. If she does come in, he'll turn away, do his chores, ignore her even through mirrors, and then pass her table with dirty dishes, or with food for customers this time, and be surprised to see her when she speaks to him, or speak to her first this time and later, if she's alone or with her sister, maybe ask if she'd like to meet him when he gets off. About a half year later he sees her passing the standees' line he's on outside the Metropolitan Opera House. “Gwen!” “Howard,” she says, “hi, I'm way in back, only came up to see how long the line is.” “It's long; I don't know if you'll ever get in. You an opera buff? I didn't know that.” “No, I like it; never saw Faust though and always wanted to.” “Well come on, slip in here.” She starts to, guy behind him says “Wait a minute, that isn't fair,” and he says “I was expecting her; she didn't think I'd get here so early to get this far in front,” and pulls her in. She thinks what he did—by her