With bad chemistry, though, you don’t even get a bubble. Me and Doug? Bad chemistry.
Doug was a year older, a senior when I was a junior. He was one of the jocks, a basketball player, friends with Tommy Brewster and Donna LaDonna and the rest of the Pod crowd. Doug wasn’t too bright, either. On the other hand, he wasn’t so good-looking that a lot of other girls wanted him, but he was good-looking enough. The only thing that was really bad about him was the zits. He didn’t have a lot of them, just one or two that always seemed to be in the middle of their life cycle. But I knew I wasn’t perfect either. If I wanted a boyfriend, I figured I would have to overlook a blemish or two.
Jen P introduced us. And sure enough, at the end of the week, he came shuffling around my locker and asked if I wanted to go to the dance.
That was all right. Doug picked me up in a small white car that belonged to his mother. I could picture his mother from the car: a nervous woman with pale skin and tight curls who was an embarrassment to her son. It made me kind of depressed, but I told myself I had to complete this experiment. At the dance, I hung around with the Jens and Donna LaDonna and some older girls, who all stood with one leg out to the side, and I stood the same way and pretended I wasn’t intimidated.
“There’s a great view at the top of Mott Street,” Doug said, after the dance.
“Isn’t that the place next to the haunted house?”
“You believe in ghosts?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“Naw,” he said.“I don’t even believe in God. That’s girl stuff.”
I vowed to be less like a girl.
It was a good view at the top of Mott Street. You could see clear across the apple orchards to the lights of Hartford. Doug kept the radio on; then he put his hand under my chin, turned my head, and kissed me.
It wasn’t horrible, but there was no passion behind it. When he said, “You’re a good kisser,” I was surprised. “I guess you do this a lot,” he said.
“No. I hardly do it at all.”
“Really?” he said.
“Really,” I said.
“Because I don’t want to go out with a girl who every other guy has been with.”
“I haven’t been with anyone.” I thought he must be crazy. Didn’t he know a thing about me?
More cars pulled in around us, and we kept making out. The evening began to depress me. This was it, huh? This was dating, Pod-style. Sitting in a car surrounded by a bunch of other cars where everyone was making out, seeing how far they could go, like it was some kind of requirement. I started wondering if anyone else was enjoying it as little as I was.
Still, I went to Doug’s basketball games and I went by his house after school, even though there were other things I wanted to do more, like read romance novels. His house was as dreary as I’d imagined—a tiny house on a tiny street (Maple Lane) that could have been in Any Town, U.S.A. I guess if I were in love with Doug it wouldn’t have mattered. But if I had been in love with Doug it would have been worse, because I would have looked around and realized that this would be my life, and that would have been the end of my dream.
But instead of saying, “Doug, I don’t want to see you anymore,” I rebelled.
It happened after another dance. I’d barely let Doug get to third base, so maybe he figured it was time to straighten me out. The plan was to go parking with another couple: Donna LaDonna and a guy named Roy, who was the captain of the basketball team. They were in the front seat. We were in the back. We were going someplace we’d never get caught, a place where no one would find us: a cemetery.
“Hope you don’t still believe in ghosts,” Doug said, squeezing my leg.“If you do, you know they’ll be watching.”
I didn’t answer. I was studying Donna LaDonna’s profile. Her hair was a swirl of white cotton candy. I thought she looked like Marilyn Monroe. I wished I looked like Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe, I figured, would know what to do.
When Doug unzipped his pants and tried to push my head down, I’d had enough. I got out of the car. “Charade” was the word I was thinking over and over again. It was all a charade. It summed up everything that was wrong between the sexes.
Then I was too angry to be frightened. I started walking along the little road that wound through the headstones. I might have believed in ghosts, but I wasn’t scared of them per se. It was people who were troubling. Why couldn’t I just be like every other girl and give Doug what he wanted? I pictured myself as a Play-Doh figure; then a hand came down, squeezing and squeezing until the Play-Doh oozed through the fingers into ragged clumps.
To distract myself, I started looking at the headstones. The graves were pretty old, some more than a hundred years. I started looking for one type in particular. It was macabre but that’s the kind of mood I was in. Sure enough, I found one: Jebediah Wilton. 4 mos. 1888. I started thinking about Jebediah’s mother and the pain she would have felt putting that little baby into the ground. I bet it felt worse than childbirth. I got down on my knees and screamed into my hands.
I guess Doug figured I would come right back, because he didn’t bother looking for me for a while. Then the car pulled up and a door opened. “Get in,” Doug said.
“No.”
“Bitch,” Roy said.
“Get in the car,” Donna LaDonna ordered. “Stop making a scene. Do you want the cops to come?”
I got into the car.
“See?” Donna LaDonna said to Doug. “I told you it was useless.”
“I’m not going to have sex with some guy just to impress you,” I said.
“Whoa,” Roy said. “She really is a bitch.”
“Not a bitch,” I said.“Just a woman who knows her own mind.”
“You’re a woman now?” Doug said, sneering. “That’s a laugh.”
I knew I should have been embarrassed, but I was so relieved it was over, I couldn’t be bothered. Surely, Doug wouldn’t dare ask me out again.
He did though. First thing Monday morning, I found him standing by my locker. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
“So talk.”
“Not now. Later.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re a prude,” he hissed. “You’re frigid.”When I didn’t reply, he added, “It’s okay,” in a creepy tone. “I know what’s wrong with you. I understand.”
“Good,” I said.
“I’m coming by your house after school.”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t need to tell me what to do,” he said, spinning an imaginary basketball on his finger. “You’re not my mother.” He shot the imaginary basketball into an imaginary hoop and walked away.
Doug did come by my house that afternoon. I looked up from my typewriter and saw the pathetic white car pull hesitantly into the driveway, like a mouse cautiously approaching a piece of cheese.
A discordant phrase of Stravinsky came from the piano followed by the soft taps of Missy running down the stairs.