Page 21 of Twice
“You like Bowie?” she said.
I glanced her way and saw, for this first time, a spark of interest in her eyes.
“Love him,” I said.
“Look.”
She held up her notebook with the album cover image.
“Nice,” I said, then I looked away, as if I’d given her enough of my attention. I slumped in the chair, feigning boredom, hoping she was staring at my sideburns.
“You played good in the game yesterday,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” I replied. “Were you there?”
Now this may all sound like stupid high school stuff, Boss. But can I tell you? It worked. Eventually, Jo Ann Donnigan agreed to go out with me. We took her Dodge Dart to the movies.The Great Gatsbywas playing. Midway through the film, after whispering, “I wish I could meet Robert Redford one day,” she hooked her pinky finger around mine. It made me shiver. I turned my head her way and she flippedtoward me, and next thing I knew she was planting a wet kiss on my mouth, and then another and another. It was clear she had done this many times before, while I was way out of control, like a car with no brakes on a slippery road. She put a hand on my cheek, and I figured I should do the same, except I had to cross her arm to do that, which tangled us up momentarily. I was getting dizzy from the whole encounter when she abruptly spun back to the screen—a close-up of Redford made her lose interest in my mouth—and I sucked in the deepest breath I’d ever taken and turned to blow it out.
“I like him better with a mustache,” she whispered.
I came home that night feeling older, cooler. I even studied my reflection to see if there was any trace of Robert Redford in my looks. (Sadly, not a bit.)
Yet, for all the work I put in with Jo Ann Donnigan, the romance didn’t last long. Two weeks later, I walked into school joking around with Wesley and I caught her glaring. Wesley took off as I slid alongside her.
“Why do you hang out with that guy?” she grumbled.
“Wes?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Her voice lowered. “He’sBlack.”
“So?”
“So? You know they’re not the same as us.”
“Come on. He’s my friend.”
She shook her head and made an “Uch” sound.
I watched her walk away, the euphoria over having made out with this beautiful girl evaporating like steam off a forgotten teacup. I felt hollow. Even a little evil. I thought about tapping out of that moment and going back a day to avoid the whole conversation. But what would that change? I knew how she felt deep down. And even if I never heard her say it out loud, it ruined everything.
I sat in class that morning realizing I had just relived almost a year of my life preparing to love a girl who now repelled me. Good Lord. What a waste.
?
Still, as useless as that experiment proved, the most puzzling discovery didn’t concern the once unreachable Jo Ann Donnigan but rather the all-too-available Lizzie Clark. On my second time around, I again helped with her chemistry test, but I avoided her the day she had run up and kissed me. I never said I liked her. And I never shared that soda when she confessed her crush.
Months later, after things fell apart with Jo Ann, I ran into Lizzie after school.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“OK, Alfie,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Still going out with Jo Ann?”
