“Was Mickie scared?”
“She’s tougher than she lets on.”
I dust mopped and stocked the shelves while my dad got the deliveries ready. I contemplated telling him what Mickie had told me about her parents getting a divorce, then thought it would break a confidence and decided not to. I wondered if that was what Mickie and my mother talked about in their hushed whispers when I wasn’t around. I felt sad for Mickie and for her sister, Joanna, who was still just a kid. Mickie’s brothers were older, and from what I could tell, didn’t have a lot on the ball. I was naive, I know. My parents weren’t perfect. They argued on occasion, and there were times I’d get home and the chill in the house would be palpable. My mother also thought my father was “a little too wed” to his Manhattan each night and said that it set a “bad example” for me, and I’d heard him tell her she was a bit too zealous when it came to religion. Still, I never even contemplated my parents divorcing, and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to enter our home and not have them both living there.
When I went to empty the garbage, Donna handed me the box beneath the counter so I didn’t have to bend down and retrieve it. “Thanks,” I said.
“How long have you been friends?”
“Who? Me and Mickie? Since the sixth or seventh grade. She’s like my sister.”
Donna grinned. “Uh-huh.”
“No, she is. She’s always at my house; she likes talking to my mom.”
“I’m sure she does.”
This was all becoming too complicated. My head hurt. “I better get the deliveries done.” I walked to the back of the store, loaded up the box with the deliveries, and walked back to the front. “See you,” I said, passing the front register.
“I’m still grounded,” Donna said. She smiled. “Can I get a ride home?”
17
I played out the scenario of dropping Donna at her home a hundred times as I made my deliveries. In some I initiated the kiss. In others she led, but this time I eagerly responded. I breathed into my cupped hands to check my breath. If I had the chance, I’d get a pack of gum from my father’s store.
Just after closing, we all left the store together, but this time when she got into the Falcon, Donna said, “I’m cold. Can you put the top up?”
“Sure,” I said, though the temperature was warmer than the last time I’d driven her home.
As we drove the El Camino Real, Donna said, “I need to go to school; I left my math book in my locker, and I have a test on Monday. I don’t dare tell my father. He’ll just say I’m irresponsible. Would you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind, but will you be able to get in the building on a Saturday? They lock down Saint Joe’s like a prison on the weekends.”
Donna smiled across the car at me. “I don’t think it will be a problem.”
Burlingame High School looked like an East Coast college campus, with an expansive front lawn and a grove of evergreen and redwood trees. The three-story white building reminded me of the stately southern mansions I’d seen in Gone with the Wind, with wide staircases leading to a colonnade entrance and tall doors. I had played youth baseball at the field next to the school for years, which was accessed through a driveway on the edge of the campus. Donna directed me through the parking lot but had me turn toward the baseball grandstands.
“The school is the other way,” I said.
“Park behind the backstop,” she said.
Confused, I pulled behind the backstop, and before I had shifted the car into park or could ask any questions, Donna had slid across the seat and smothered my mouth with hers. I didn’t have to worry about turning off the engine. Donna did that for me, all the while continuing to kiss me, her tongue exploring, tiny moans coming from her throat. I felt horribly ill prepared, clumsy, and unsure what the hell I was supposed to do. Donna took my left hand and placed it firmly on her right breast. “Rub them,” she said. “Like this.”