Hell, I would have driven her to New Jersey to hear the Boss.
We drove the El Camino Real, singing “Blinded by the Light” and “Growin’ Up,” which was more appropriate than I realized at the time. I was never happier that I had put in speakers. Yeah, it was a Pinto, but this night it was a rolling Springsteen concert.
When we reached her cousin’s street, I pulled to the curb in front of the house and noticed the dark windows. Amy leaned over and grabbed my hand before I could turn off the engine. She wanted to listen to “For You.” I was happy to oblige, hoping she’d lean across the seat again, but within a minute I noticed a change in Amy’s attitude. She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“You okay?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yeah. Sorry. I used to listen to this song with my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” I said, uncertain what else to say.
She looked at me. “We broke up at the end of the school year, just before summer. He went to DC to work for a congressman, and I chose Fordham over Georgetown because they offered me a scholarship. My parents couldn’t exactly afford Georgetown tuition.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “that he didn’t understand.” Then I had another thought. Amy was not over this boyfriend. She clearly still cared for him, which made me what exactly?
“Yeah. I guess things happen for a reason.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a small compact, opened it, and removed a joint. She lit it like it was just a cigarette, inhaled, and handed me the joint. Up until this moment, I’d never smoked a joint or taken a hit on a bong. At Serra, a demarcation line existed, our own DMZ, between the jocks and the stoners. You made a choice between the two and you stuck to that choice. The jocks drank beer and looked down on the stoners. The stoners considered the jocks uptight morons.
I didn’t know what I wanted at that moment, except not to embarrass myself and come across as a naive kid. I took the joint, continuing the facade I had already perpetrated, took a small hit, held my breath, and passed it back without coughing up a lung. We smoked the joint while listening to Bruce’s sultry voice and his poetic lyrics, and my thoughts drifted to William in the jungles of Vietnam, about how he said he used to get high to fend off reality. Maybe I was doing the same thing, fending off reality.
When “Spirit in the Night” ended, Amy pushed open her car door. I got out to walk her up the brick path, now drunk and high for the first time. She took out a key and unlocked the front door, pushing it open. Then she reached back, took my hand, and pulled me inside. Apparently, the night was not yet over.
She led me to the back of the house and down a set of stairs into a family room with a pool table, television, and bar. I could see the pool out the sliding glass doors. Amy turned on the stereo, loud enough for me to realize we were the only ones home. A new reality hit me. Where exactly was this going? Sex? A part of me was thrilled with this prospect, but that other voice kept calling out to me, telling me I was a fraud. I wasn’t even in college. I didn’t smoke dope, and I’d never had sex. Despite the acting job, I felt young and inexperienced and nervous. I again felt like a kid, not the man I’d pretended to be.
Amy poured rum and Cokes and I sat on a barstool and watched her. She handed me a drink. “My aunt and uncle are in Tahoe until tomorrow. Scott and Jennifer are going to his apartment in the city,” she said, confirming what I had already deduced. Then she picked up a cassette and stuck it in the stereo. “This is one of the tapes I brought with me.” She hit play, leading me out sliding glass doors to the pool deck while Springsteen’s “Rosalita” played from the outdoor speakers.
The summer weather remained warm, but with a slight breeze. I looked from the patio up at the remodel, just a dark skeleton. Never in a million years did I think I would be looking at it from this perspective.
Amy danced and sang. She shed the rabbit-fur jacket and kicked off her black boots. Then she undid the buttons of her blouse, slowly, never taking those beautiful blue eyes from mine. The blouse came off, revealing a black lace bra. Inside I felt like I was swimming as hard as I could but still sinking. Amy unbuttoned her Levi’s and shimmied from her jeans. She stepped forward, as if cold, into my embrace, and kissed me.
“Let’s go for a swim,” she whispered.
I was drowning. A part of me was thinking of every excuse to get out of this situation, fearful that I would mess up and look and feel a lot worse than I would have if I’d lost my fake ID at a bar. But that other part . . . that other part wanted what I saw before me.