He shrugs one shoulder and inclines his head.
“Would you say your whole name slowly? I want to know how to pronounce it correctly. All of it.”
In my peripheral vision I can see Robert heading my way. Must have grown tired of waiting. I ignore him. So does Raj.
Raj smiles. Finally. He says his first name slowly, and I repeat it. “That’s good,” he says, and I’m thrilled. We move on to the last name, which I have to try twice, and then I put them both together by myself. Just in time, for Robert can be ignored no longer.
I turn to him. “Robert Hubble, meet Nagaraju Burugapalli.” I grin at Robert’s face, which probably looks a lot like mine the first time I heard that tongue twister. “I don’t think he’ll mind if you call him Raj.”
They shake hands a little awkwardly. Raj is looking hard at Robert, and suddenly it occurs to me that there’s no way I can say why Robert and I are here. I don’t want Raj to think Robert is “with” me, but I also don’t want him to know we were picking up girls. I need to take the lead now, and then get out of here.
To Robert: “Raj is our lead high jumper on the track team.” I turn to Raj. “Robert was helping me decide about a pair of running shoes, but I didn’t buy anything today.”
Before the puzzled look on Robert’s face is any more obvious, I say, “Well, I need to get home or my aunt will send out the Saint Bernards looking for me.”
“You have dogs?” Raj asks.
I smile at him, as sweetly as possible. “No. Just an expression.”
I’ve been careful not to say “We need to leave” or “We need to get home.” I hope that registers. I look at him for just a few more seconds. “See you.”
He raises his chin a little, his eyes still on mine, and I turn toward the door. Deliberately, I stop to let Robert go out first, and I turn back toward Raj. He’s still looking at me. I pause just long enough to let him know I’ve taken this in and then disappear.
I’m flying as high as Robert now. It was Raj’s sister with him, not a girlfriend! He looked for me on the track roster! He let me know he watched me win the relay!
If only there were something I could do with this feeling. Something other than dream.
Chapter 3
Moving Fast
The date is a total disaster. At least, from my point of view. For everyone else, I think it’s a huge success.
It’s easy for me to follow the plot of the movie, as I’d predicted. I know all the characters, what their roles are, and what’s going to happen. This turns into a problem for me; if I were distracted by the tension of not knowing the outcome already, maybe I wouldn’t be so affected by the Frodo character. As soon as I see him, I’m lost. He pulls at me, pulls at my head, my heart, my—well, all of me. I was fidgeting so much Meg probably thought I was trying to get my arm behind her, but that was not on my mind at the time. Elijah Wood, playing Frodo, had my full attention.
I recover a little over dinner, forced into conversation by the fact that Robert is so overwhelmed at the idea of being on a date with a cutie like Debbie that he can’t think of anything to say. I keep feeding him lines, asking him questions. He warms up after a while, once I start teasing him about his size, making sure what I say is actually flattering. And Debbie smiles at him a lot, which helps.
At one point, Meg whispers in my ear that she hasn’t seen the first two movies, and she hasn’t read any of the books either. This sends us into a private fit of the giggles.
But all this congeniality leads to my biggest problem. Robert, driving, takes it upon himself to stop in a rather deserted area near a ball field. I can see the side of Debbie’s face in the front seat, pretending astonishment and gentle outrage, really wanting Robert to reach for her. He does.
So Meg and I sit in the back, and I can’t tell what she wants. My mind is back on Frodo. I look at Meg, though it’s hard to see much in that light, and her dark hair and very light skin send my mind flashing to the scene in the movie where Samwise Gamgee is trying to free Frodo from the spider cocoon he’s in, and all you can see is that sweet, sweet, very pale face and the very dark eyebrows and eyelashes. I open my mouth and lean toward Meg’s face, and she leans toward me. I don’t want to do this. It feels strange, wrong. And it’s not fair to Meg. I mean, how would I feel if right this minute, she were imagining not me but—I don’t know—Orlando Bloom leaning toward her? Actually, maybe that would be okay. And the truth is, it isn’t Elijah Wood I want. It’s Raj. But—hell, Meg’s here. Raj isn’t. And I’m in the backseat of a car, on a date with a terrific girl, the air thick with expectations. I have no choice here.
At first it seems okay, kind of like kissing Rebecca. But then things change. Rebecca and I really are practicing. Who knows, maybe she’s a lesbian, and she’s using me for cover same as I’m using her. Whatever, I don’t remember ever feeling anything like passion from Rebecca. But Meg wants me. I can feel it.
Her fingers go into my hair, and I think: Oh yeah, that’s right, I’m supposed to reach for her too. So I do. I say to myself, Pretend you’re with Rebecca. And it kind of works, except that after a few minutes, things kind of stall out. For us, anyway. Robert and Debbie are not experiencing any shortage of ideas, based on the sounds coming from the front seat.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now? How do you fake passion when you don’t even know what you’re supposed to do if it’s real?
I start to panic. This makes my breathing quicken, which Meg—bless her heart—misinterprets. She takes my head in her hands and looks into my eyes. She smiles and says, “Are you okay?”
No. Yes. How do I answer that?
Think, Jason; pretend you’re writing this scene. Pretend it’s fiction. I say, “I don’t want to get carried away. I don’t want to take advantage of you.” This second statement is true enough.
She lifts a lock of hair off my forehead with a finger. “That’s sweet. Why don’t you sit back and close your eyes for a minute.”
This seems like a terrific idea to me, so I do. Meg cuddles up next to me and leans against my chest, stroking my face, my shoulder, my neck. After a minute, I’m calmer; this could be worse. I open my eyes and look down at her, and she looks up at me, and then we’re kissing again. But it’s not passionate. It’s not desperate. It’s just sweet.
We get a little more into it for a bit, but then we back off again. I’m feeling really, really grateful to Meg by now, but I’m also starting to wonder how much longer the front seat will be bouncing around.
My voice low, I ask Meg, “Do you want to walk for a bit?”
She glances toward the front. “They might like to be left alone, but I’m not sure they should be.”
She’s right. I decide it’s time to be a man, time to do something decisive. So I lean forward, rest my arms on the back of the seat in front of me, and take in the sight of Debbie’s sweater pushed up around her neck and one breast barely showing from under Robert’s large hand. Her bra is in there someplace, but it’s kind of tangled. I clear my throat.
There’s a frantic rush to get themselves together. I can hear Meg trying to smother giggles. Once Robert and Debbie are in some semblance of order again, Robert running a distracted hand through his hair, I ask, “How about a short walk around the ball field before we head home?”
It’s kind of hard to tell whether they think this is a good idea or a lousy one, but they sort of say, “Sure. Fine.” And we all tumble out of the car.
Nobody says much as we walk. I take Meg’s hand, and she smiles at me. And suddenly it hits me that this is the first date I’ve been on with a girl other than Rebecca. It’s like I’ve taken some kind of step, and I’m pretty sure it’s the wrong