Movie Date, School Ties....

                       

I am seated on the front steps of the only house I have ever known on Friday night in the heavy breath of autumn watching the fallen leaves scratch in the zip of seasonal wind across the cracked sidewalks of my youth waiting for her to come thinking about my race tomorrow that I mentally I have been spending way too much time monopolizing over, wondering if I will be able to break seventeen minutes in the Morton Invite. The car skids up, an early nineteen-eighties something firebird with what looks like a picture of an incendiary phoenix stretching its wings across the front  of the  hood. It is autumn and the world begins to blink into a dreary nocturnal haze before 6am. I stand up, wave back inside the illuminated frames of my house that my ride is here and proceed to the passengers side of the vehicle. Before reaching the door it props open and a lady with a late-eighties perm wearing a stylish leather jacket with leathery strands dripping from below her shoulders like tears.

            “You must be Dave,” She says, a welcoming smile falling off of her lips.

            I nod. Try to say something witty.

            “Miss Holiday, I presume.”

            “Oh, she’s in the car hun, I’m Jillian.” She says, slightly southern drawl spilling out of her lips complimenting smile.

            Jillian pushes forward the interior of the front seat, giving me room to slice into the back. David Best welcomes me with a hi bro accompanied by one of our complicated half-white boy wanna be ghetto handshakes salvaged from grade school. The woman harnessing the reins of the vehicle is a knockout, her hair brown, shoulder length tangles, teeming down her neck in a ravine of autumnal glens.

 

            Next to Dave is Renae. She is seated with her back straight. I smile and say hello. I tell Renae it is good to see her. She remains seminally coy, tilts her head slightly to the left, looking out the window. The fragrance of her body seems somehow to unzip some part of my anatomy. 

Dave quickly says something about being happy that Limestone doesn’t have a home football tonight so that the band doesn’t have to play that damn French horn which gives us all a chance to hang out for once.


It is the second time I have seen Renae.

 

            The woman in the front seat welcomes me with an affable smile that seems somehow to carol into the greater interior of the vehicle. She apologizes about the lack of proximity in the back seat but says that we all have “scootch” together. 

            “Misses Holiday,” I say, jutting my arm like a lance into the front seat, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

            “Please,” she says, “Call me Debbie.

            “Hi Debbie.” I retort trying not to overtly get lost in the exuding fragrance of her only progeny seated to my imminent left, next to my best friend from childhood.

 

            The Firebird takes off screeching down Sherman avenue, taking a left like swigging a beer at a frat party, whizzing past the stationary pay phone outside Alwuan pharmacy where I incessantly deposited quarters in an addled slot machine addicts finesse hoping to hear the giggly squeal of Anastacia Blake envelope in smile last summer. Renae looks at me very quickly before averting her eyes the opposite direction. While as hot as Renae is I can’t stop thinking that her mom isn’t bad looking as well.

 

            Both Jillian and Debbie turn around and inquire what movie we are seeing tonight. Best seems to be the delegated ambassador to the adults and informs them that we are seeing the movie School Ties. They comment back and say that they heard that is supposed to be good.

            I can’t help taking calculated mental whiff of the creature seated next to my left. It seems weird to me that Renae’s mother wishes me to address her sans the Miss.

            “So, Dave,” notes Debbie, “We hear are you are on the cross country team.”

            “Yes, I got second in my first meet. I really love running.”

            The ladies in the front seat offer me a few rounds of congratulations. I can’t see what all the big deal is about. David interrupts me to inform me something about pending madrigal tryouts and how he cannot wait for next year when he is a junior.

Renae still remains reticent, it is almost as if she is studying her reflection in the side window as if she is intellectually raking through a Rembrandt self-portrait in art History class.

David seems to be making small talk with don’t-call-me-Miss Debbie Holiday. Every time I smile at Renae it looks as if she is embarrassed to see me, like the time I sat down to her in Glen Oak park during the fireworks, her lips contorting in a certain manner, a coy perhaps even standoffishly shy expression sewn into sexy texture of her lips. I tell Renae in a voice so that her mother can hear that she looks very nice tonight. I then tell her that I didn’t realize that angels drove around in the back seat of Firebirds. The two ladies up front emit and audible “awwww” sound. Renae blushes and remains silent, as if. It seems like she is working on forging a career as a stiff-lipped mannequin.

           

We take a left at the corner of Avantis, motoring down the right hand side of university with an earnest throttle. Renae still seems to be scrutinizing herself in the window. I make it a point to thank call-me Debbie for the ride, before I can properly evince my gratitude Renae speaks.

            “Padiddle!!!” She squeals, tapping her fingers on the interior roof of the vehicle very quickly in a snap-like fashion.

           

“Padiddle,” I say, bemused, looking at Renae.

           

“Padiddle,” She says, the word again as if offering the car ceiling a rectifying amen.

I have been fantasizing over this creature for over a year, becoming infatuated with the optical splash of her smile beaming in the homecoming picture stationed above Miss’ Best filing cabinet. I have been dreaming of watching the sail-boat configuration of her lips slip off her face in drifts of laughter and smile. I have been talking with Renae all week, wondering how our first official tete-a-tete would indeed transpire.  

The first damn word she says is padiddle.

           

I say the word once again. Very slowly, as if I am in a spelling bee and have just been given the word at hand.  From up front I hear both don’t call me Miss Holiday and her hot friend ask me in an almost hick-like fashion, what, you never hear of a padiddle before.

           


Of course I have but in an endeavor to hear the stolen honey monotone of her voice I look straight at her and feign juvenile naiveté.  As if distilled in some kind of pre-recorded slow motion I can see Renae’s lips begin to move before Dave interrupts almost from the outset of her sweet sentences, saying: “A  padiddle is when one car drives past with one of its headlights out and the first person to say the word padiddle wins, Duh.”

Dave then asks me where I was in the mass morning parochial car pool exodus of the early '80s.

            I turn to Renae and ask Renae what she wins.   She seems to blush again and smile.

 

We arrive at the theatre. Debbie says it was a pleasure meeting me.  The two ladies in front wish me good luck with the remainder of the cross country season.

“Just one more thing,” Renae’s mom with the nice ass says, “You kids have fun tonight.”

We exit the sleek interior of the firebird in front of landmark, leaves skirting underfoot as three kids with their whole lives aching in head of them walk somehow as one teeming unity into the direction of the theatre.      We enter the movie establishment I notice that Dave has his hair sliced over the top of his scalp in the same manner of his homecoming picture snapped a year ago. He almost looks like he could pass for the blonde hardy boy. Renae is walking as if on stilts, somehow smiling. I have enough money via my paper route in my wallet to pay for each of my companions plus buy them concessions. Before I offer both Renae and David reach into their side pocket and pull out a crisp twenty, handing it over into the booth as if handing a conductor a ticket.  Renae is wearing very tight jeans and wearing boots with a black top. I can’t stop feeling her scent. It smells like rolling down a hill when I was four in Bradley park and being engulfed in field of pine and clover.         

 

                                  

                        My glasses are still off. Periodically I debate weather putting them on to see the movie or leaving them off so that Renae won’t feel like she is being flanked by a nerd. I choose the later. We enter the theatre itself.  Renae enters the aisle first. I follow after her. Renae could sit in the middle if she wanted to but she’s not.  David Best doesn’t seemed bothered in the slightest that he is not sitting next to his ex-girlfriend. 

 Not at all.

With my glasses off her in the dusk of the theatre, her body mingles with the wafting scent of popcorn in autumn, her features gradually seem to press through the sounds and silhouettes. Everything I say makes her either look down into her lap and blush or makes her cover her lips in a pending need to sneeze-like fashion concealing her smile. Only once during the film do I avail my glasses out of my side pocket as if I am grading papers, glancing at my watch,  before placing my glasses back in the pocket. Renae looks back at me and smiles. When the lead meets the female protagonist at the dance I ask Renae if she knows who that actress is. She says she does. “It’s the girl from Melrose Place,” She says in almost a whisper, still smiling. During the shower scene Renae comments that she thinks Brendan Frasier has a nice butt. From the opposite side David bows his head into his chest in almost reverential fashion and shakes his head back and forth. When Renae says the word “butt” I can swear through the dappled pointillism of my vision that she subtly shakes that of her own. I want to tell her that she has a nice butt. I want to tell her that her mom has a nice butt.  Only I don’t.  I don’t tell her that at all. Instead I look at the smooth almost dove shaped porcelain of her hand, silently reclining on near the vat of popcorn we have been passing between the three of us in a coddling new born like fashion wondering what would happen if, just for a moment, I would somehow let my hand slip off the side of the seat and give her hand a little squeeze.

 

I decide in my nearsightedness, to refrain.

                                                            ***

And then it happens.

Dave is seated on the opposite side of her.  For some reason the tub of popcorn is seated in Renae’s lap.  Dave seems to have had his fair share and is seated with his finger and thumb pressed against the angular features of his face as if he is reviewing the movie for a glossy periodical of cinematic renown. I reach into Renae’s lap, my fingers drilling through the buttery wads of kernels. Somehow simultaneously Renae’s hand is in the vessel of popcorn at the same time as mine.

Our hands are greasy and they are overlapped and I am holding her hand.

We hold hands for five minutes. 

When Dave Best obliviously drills his fist into the tub we are coerced into letting go.

                          

Renae turns back to me and smiles.

      
                                                          ***

After School Ties we walk out together. We talk about what we like about the movie.  Renae can’t stop talking about Brandon Frasier’s bare ass. Dave Best seems to be whistling something no one has ever heard before and when I inquire where it is from he says the Mikado and keeps on whistling with his hands in his pocket, walking ahead.

“So,” I say not realizing that the pre-cum harvest moon is hitting the area code of her forehead, casting an aureole around it.

I am wondering if it would be too premature to ask her out. I am wondering if this is what she wants. I am wondering if Dave, for some reason, wanted to set us up.


Renae looks back at me and smiles. She talks about Brendan Frasier’s cute ass again.

I fucking swear the moon is plaiting her already golden hair into alchemical braids of light.
I want to tell her about all those crazy afternoons last year when David Best used his three-way calling  while relaying a message to Dave to click down on the phone and vis-à-vis relay the message to Renae just to somehow sprout a smile on the lips of someone I have never met.

“I’m glad we finally got a chance to hang out. I’ve been meaning to kick it with you for a while.”

I can feel Renae’s smile brush across the angular blemished shoreline of my face. I swear there is still a halo on her forehead. In this moment there is no one else. There is no Anastasia from Music Man or Andrea with a hint of chlorine from Mme. Bretons’ French class. There is no hanging out with extremely erudite State Speech champions on the side of the stage. There is frustration at watching the Olympics and psychologically salivating over the gymnast that is heavily touted that somehow founders.  There is no racist blond haired trollop down the street who offers to avail her cleavage or silhouettes of college girls next door or beautiful girls with side pony tails who float past between classes like paper boats.

At this moment it is just Renae.

Dave is still whistling some tune he’s sure is a reebok-pump shoe-in for his madrigal audition.

“Renae, Listen I was just wondering if..”

I stop. I can’t stop looking at her. She is smiling. When she moves her lips I think she is going to say something about Brendan Frasier’s tight ass. She is quiet. She is waiting for me to speak.

I offer an audible gulp like I am taking communion for the first time four months ago.

There are two high-pitched bleeps in tandem.  Dave still has his hands in his pocket. He whistles back in an echo, before announcing that this is why God gave him perfect pitch.

“Mom is here” He says, pointing. Mrs. Best, my grade school bell choir instructor swerves up. Dave gets into the front seat. I open the back for Renae.

We are on our way home.

                                                                          ***

Inside the '87 Buick Mrs. Best just can’t stop smiling. I wonder if she knows that Dave and Renae broke up over the summer.  Mrs. Best has a perm and wears glasses that look like sunglasses even though it is dark outside.

Mrs. Best just can’t stop smiling.

“How was the movie?”


                                           

Dave makes a comment about how Renae back there really enjoyed looking at Brendan Fraiser’s bare bottom. He says the word bottom.  Renae blushes again. I feel compelled to have a conversation. I have a race in less than twelve hours. I should have been loading up on carbs.

“How’s bell choir this year?” I inquire to Mrs. Best. I ask her how Christ Lutheran is doing this year. It seems almost unfathomable that less than a year ago I was drooling over my Best friend’s hot girlfriend home coming picture and now she is next to me, in the back seat of my his mother’s car.”

“I have a race tomorrow. It’s been a crazy season so far.”

Renae is looking at me. She is quiet. Unlike her progenitors who are still in their 30’s she addresses Mrs. Best as Mrs. Best and not by her first name. We are going in rewind down University.  We drill past Accuttuci’s, We drive past I-74 and take a right at Avanti’s, cruising backwards as if tubing down Main until it morphs into Western.

“Yeah, High school is going really well. Manual is going great.”

Somehow I remember the card that Mrs Brest sent me after I did Music Man and David sent me a message all in French.

“It’s going tres bien. It’s really going excellent. I really somehow could not be happier.”

Mrs. Best is all smiles. She says that is nice. David Best and I have been going to movies or Bradley basketball games for years and it’s almost always my father who drops us off and then picks us up. Even though there is no tub of popcorn buffeted between us like a toddler I feel like I should grab Reane Holiday’s hand.

I refrain.

 Before I realize what is happening I am saying goodnight to Mrs. Best. Before I realize it Dave is saying goodnight before whistling what sounds like the Marseille and announcing, unbidden, what key-signature he is in. Before I realize it I am looking at myself in Renae Holiday’s forehead, somehow she is all forehead and somehow she is sexy and somehow I can see my reflection thank Mrs. Best again and Moonwalk out of the car, thinking perhaps too much about my incumbent race tomorrow, involuntarily grabbing Renae’s hand and giving it a little squeeze while inwardly I am drooling about making out with the forehead of every subatomic quark of her being.

“It was nice to meet you,” I say to Renae grabbing her right hand with both hands and giving it a little squeeze. Dave is still talking French and then whistling in perfect pitch and then saying he is about ready to hum something from the Mikkado. Mrs. Best says it is nice seeing me again and to give my best my parents and take care of fellow Youth bell choir ringer Patrick down at Manual before telling me that she will see me Sunday morning down at  Christ Lutheran Church. I am holding grasping Reane’s palm. It is smoother than Dawn’s. The only other females hand I have held for so long is Tina’s in the pool when she was in her underwear. Reane is smiling She is saying something to me. She is saying something only I can’t hear it because my best friend aptly named David Best is humming the goddamn Mikado a la perfect pitch shed is saying something to me and the next thing I know our hands are being  squeezed and severed and then let go followed by the punctuating clonk of the car door followed by fumes of Mrs Best 87’ Buick where Renae is by herself in the backset floating down Sherman Avenue, floating down the street where in six hours I will deliver the news about the latest polls in the presidential campaign with Clinton just a smudge above Bush since Ross Perot dropped out last summer, finding myself all alone, in the only house I have ever known.



                                   

Finding myself all alone.