Link to Part 2
Link to Part 3
I’m almost there, and I think she knows it because she holds the counter with both hands and her body goes completely still. It won’t be long now.
I ask the two of them if they want something to drink since I’m going inside to get something for myself. Pat declines, while Tiffany asks me for a Diet Coke with ice, and two cherries if there are any left, then shouts “And a Snickers?” after I’ve turned to leave. In the kitchen Grace is at the counter, sifting through the candy bags.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she says playfully when she notices me. She walks over and gives me a hug, her arms tight around my back. She leans close to my ear and whispers, “My boyfriend is right in the next room”, then laughs like it’s the most original joke she could have come up with, and not something people used to say in the forties. I enjoy the hug, but it occurs to me that Bill Clinton could walk in at any moment and beat me to death with his borrowed saxophone.
She pulls away and confesses that she’s a little drunk, then asks if I’ve seen an Almond Joy anywhere. I reach into my pocket and pull out the Twix and the Butterfinger I’d stashed there earlier. (I ate the Three Musketeers during The Lost Boys).
“Afraid not,” I tell her with a look of forced disappointment in my eyes.
“Oh! But can I have the Twix?”
When I tell her she can, she snatches it from my hand, unwraps it, and shoves it in her mouth seemingly all in one fluid motion. With her mouth full of pulverized cookie and sticky caramel, she tells me I’m a useful man to know and leaves the room. I pull a Snickers bar out of the bag.
When I return to the patio carrying two Cokes – one Diet and one rum and – Tiffany is standing at the table by herself. Everyone else has gone downstairs to watch Pet Sematary.
I hand her the Snickers bar and her drink. She thanks me and takes a sip. I take a sip from my own, and then we stand there in silence. Finally she says “It’s getting cold,” and I glance down quickly at her thick legs peeking out from her knee-length black dress – I can’t help it! – then look back up. I make a point of holding eye contact as I ask her if she wants to go inside. “Can we?” she asks hopefully, and soon we’re sitting on folding chairs along the perimeter of the dance floor just on the other side of the sliding glass door. “Bump n’ Grind” is playing but we’re on the opposite side of the room from the speakers and I don’t anticipate tinnitus.
I hope she doesn’t ask me to dance. I saw her dancing earlier so I know she enjoys it, but I’m not good at it and I’m too self-conscious to just let loose. By the time I’m thirty I’ll have taken several years of social ballroom dancing and even gotten private lessons. At age thirty-two I’ll win third place in a foxtrot contest. By the time I’m thirty-four the trophy will be in a box in the garage, forgotten.
If Tiffany and I meet again in twenty-five years and she asks me to dance, I’ll give her more than she bargained for. But right now, two days before Halloween during my first year of college, if she asks me to join her on the dance floor I might give myself a bloody nose just to get out of the situation.
We talk for awhile, mostly about Brenda, Jamison, and what’s-his-name. The Oakland As guy. Tiffany says that she and Brenda were best friends when they were kids, but doesn’t volunteer any information about why they aren’t anymore. They didn’t seem like enemies just now.
She tells me about a guy who harassed her during junior year of high school, and how Jamison and Kevin – oh, Rollie Fingers’ real name is Kevin – “straightened him out”. When I inquire, she denies that they gave him a beatdown. Still, what else could it have been? Those guys tuned him up for sure.
“I like your costume,” I tell her. I’m not just saying it because I want to see it on my bedroom floor or something. It’s genuine. She thanks me, and says she planned to bring a broom with her to complete the look, but then it would have been one more thing she had to keep track of all night.
“I like your costume too!” Her eyes light up in a way that suggests she’s got a thing for bloodsuckers. “You look like Tom Cruise.” I’ve never had anyone make that comparison before. I’m not saying he’s a bad-looking guy; I just don’t think I resemble him at all. Sometimes people say I look like Jeff Goldblum, and once in awhile I get Steve Buscemi vibes when I look at myself in the mirror. But no one’s ever said I looked like Tom Cruise before.
“He’s got a new movie coming out where he plays a vampire.” Oh, that’s right! I guess I can see it a little bit, given what I’m wearing.
Tiffany tells me that Rollie Fingers has read all of the books. In my brain, the conversation branches off into several possible paths. I ignore the glaringly obvious one where I take her lead and ask if he’s planning to go see the movie when it opens next month. I also resist the urge to tell her I tried reading The Vampire Lestat in high school but quickly lost interest. I also refrain from saying that I watch a lot of horror movies in the hopes that she does too so that we can talk about something more interesting for the rest of the night. Instead I just blurt out, “So are you and Kevin dating?” She says no like it’s the most ridiculous conclusion I could have come to.
It’s not literally the next second that she’s sitting astride my lap, but it feels that way. In spiteof a round, very firm ass that my hands enjoy roaming over, she’s about as light as she looks. She’s got her hands on the back of my chair and her tongue is in my mouth. I can feel myself get hard and I try to think about baseball but it’s been almost three months since there’s been any and I almost can’t even picture what the game looks like. Anyway, there’s no way a woman suddenly writhing in my lap isn’t going to get me hard. It would probably be an insult if I didn’t get hard.
I guess she can feel it because she starts grinding against me, slowly and deliberately. I move my hands up to ride her hips while her legs tighten around mine. She smells good, like expensive perfume, but subtle. The strangest thought crosses my mind: I need to get her number as soon as possible because I’m going to want to go further with this girl than just making out and dry humping.
The kiss breaks. I see the First Couple among the crowd on the dance floor. I wonder if they’ve seen me.
Tiffany asks me if I want to go somewhere private.
“Where?” That was stupid. The only word that should have come out of my mouth is “yes”. As if my willingness to abscond with her is dependent on how she answers that question. Motel Six? Yes. Back seat of your car? Totally. Gas station bathroom? Absolutely not.
“There’s a spare bedroom upstairs. No one’s going to come up.” I say okay, but the way I’m throbbing underneath her communicates more clearly than anything I can say out loud.
Concluded in Part 5.