THEY.
They were in a rush to be where they were going.
They didn't so much turn the corner into his street as cut it.
Together, almost immediately, they were back down again off the curb and crossing Boardman Street diagonally.
They had gone to Enright's, further down Monroe, when they could have gone to Oxfords, across the street from where they had agreed to meet and had that conversation.
His first suggestion was Oxfords. But, then, immediately said...they might, instead, go to Enright's.
One time or another, she had been in both bars, of course, with friends and the thought occurred to her that the smaller Enright's might, in fact, be the better choice. She didn't say so. His expressed thought, too, was that, a Wednesday night, Enright's might not be as crowded.
And she agreed that that would be fine.
He had noticed how she was casually dressed in new jeans and a plain black jacket with sharply tapering lapels; how her dark hair came down to her shoulders, straight but not stringy or without some real body.
He thought how, in that outfit, she looked petite and unaffectedly attractive.
For her part, she had already noted his lack of visible tattoos; how his brown hair, waved over to the one side of his brow, wasn't unruly. She liked it that he was dressed to go out with her in much the same manner he dressed for campus; that he wasn't dressed as he might be just kicking with his guys or going out tot he bars with his roommate.
They had some beers and conversation and got to know one another. They were two kids from similar suburbs of cities not so far from Rochester who shared the same High School years. Though they had quite different majors and career goals, both were enjoying University life in much the same manner. They had similar friends, both at school and at home, and were quietly, dryly amused in much the same way about most of them.
They said little about it and only in stray remarks. But they were both, it seemed, similarly inexperienced.
In a context of stories about his senior year, he mentioned an old girl friend. But it was a story of graduation week frustrations with partying and pals getting in the way of any real intimacy. All his more recent socializing seemed to do with his roommate, Adam, or something....
She had a quiet way about her that wore well with the way she looked and the way she dressed. Her smile was shy and casual and she asked him few questions, offered the conversation little direction. For the most part, she was only responsive to his own suggestions and inquiries when it came to herself. But she seemed quick and suddenly witty in those moments and conversation with her was easy and painless.
They angled over Boardman at a moment with out traffic so that they came in the same straight diagonal line they had cut the corner with to the very door-step of his building only a little ways up the street.
Having met ont he corner, she couldn't have know where they were going, what building was his. But he noticed how she followed him like a dancer taking a partner's lead. The whole way across and up Monroe, of course, his longer stride had put him a step ahead. Still, she kept pace with a more hurried step. And he sensed, without looking back, in the effort she carried more tension in her shoulders than he was carrying.
It made her seem even more eager than he was to be going.
And that made the smile over his face go all the further up into his cheeks. His eyes must, he knew be bright with it.
His face had brimmed with an entire comedy of otherwise unexpressed laughter and joy the whole of the way from the bar. He was glad to be ahead of her; hoped his glee wouldn't show and perhaps offend her even now.
He told himself he should quit laughing; not to jinx the thing.
But he couldn't keep from grinning.
It had become such an amazing night fresh, cold and clear.
This was, he was certain, the most marvelous night of his life.
They had only been out together something less than an hour.
When they came out of Enright's he couldn't recall how the night had seemed when they had walked there. It couldn't have been any less silken black or the lights of the street any less bold and bright than they now seemed.
It was still before midnight. But the hour was one, he noticed coming back out into it, when the crowds between bars and the traffic on the avenue seemed most alive. The voices of the passing crowds had a well-temper ring and vehicles, too, rushed along and even gathered to wait at the light with an equivalent excitation.
Everything was so fresh, crisp and clear to him.
That was when he began to smile, really smile.
He had looked at her with that smile just the one time, standing in front of the bar, and she had smiled, too. He didn't look at her again all the way to his front door step, not wanting to risk it.
Inside the bar, just before leaving, a smile had grown on his face, too, briefly, off course, when he understood what she meant.
"You know, maybe we should go to your place," she suggested, "and see what happens."
She had said that intimately and without any preamble and had looked down when she had half said it and, then, looked up, again, whe she had finished saying it.
A moment later that made him smile when he understood.
And he agreed that that would be fine.
He had thought her perfectly innocent and bold looking as she waited to see what he would say to her suggestion. There had seemed no pressure in it when she suggested it that way in a voice that seemed shy of too much meaning and yet unreserved and allowing.
They were so early still in coming back to his place.
He was certain Aaron wouldn't be home yet. Not on a Wednesday night; on an Oxfords Wednesday night Aaron surely wouldn't be home as early as eleven-forty-five.
And, he noticed, crossing Boardman, how their second floor front wndow was dark.
The most marvelous night of his life, it couldn't be otherwise than it was turning out to be.
She was still the same single step behind him coming down the well-lighted hallway to the foot of his stairs.
"Y' know..." he heard her begin to say.
But he had already begun to speak himself.
Only as he turned smiling, as he heard his voice speak, did it occur to him they hadn't spoken a word since coming out into that bright black, sparkling and amazing night.
"I wasn't," he allowed himself to laugh, "...expecting to be back so early."
That she only smiled back up at him and that there was a gleam in her eye that couldn't have been only a trick of thelight in the hallway, reassured him and he took the next, the first step up the stairs.
It wasn't like any other step he'd ever taken. Something went up inside him, a feeling of elevation he had never felt before going up to his room on those stairs or at any other time he could recall in all his years.
He, of course, felt wonderful and different after.
He felt the same different he had felt going up the stairs with her only with another feeling of elation. He was certain that everything, now, was changed in his life and that his life had begun again and better.
They - Jared, Marlon, Chris - were all different, she thought.
They were different from one another and they differed, too, from this latest boy.
Now that it was after, she thought how it was the ways in which this latest boy was different form the others that was the more important thing.
When she was sixteen it was twisted fun to always call Jared "Mr. Sparks." Flirting with this guy who wasn't out of college, an apprentice-teacher sitting in the back of Mr. Millay's Math classes and taking notes. It had been mostly a dare she made herself to begin with. It set her apart from the other watching and giggling girls, to go boldly over and call him that and ask if he minded if she sat with him at Barb and Jon's, the diner that backed on to the school athletic field they all went to all the time.
They only sat together than one time. And she had only ever told one of her friends just how far things went after that.
But, then, after she had, Marce McDonough smirking, saying,
"Guess we'll see him on Predator 2015," sort of put her off the whole thing.
Though, by then, his assignment and the school year was just about over, anyway.
So, older guy, sort of....
And Marlon...black.
Not even community college black, at that. Just a friend of a Freshman year friend. And, it turned out, that friend's supplier of weed and pills. Just the second time they saw one another, he was hitting on her.
"Nevuh fa'git such a fine..." he said.
What happened there, she told herself, had been all about being high at the time and curious. Another challenge to herself, another betcha won't. It had only been a few times that time as well. There had been, too, a phone conversation with her mom wher she'd dropped hints while it was happening.
Yes, she was seeing some one...
She had been certain she heard a wonderful, delightful uneasy in Mom's voice after that.
Then, they were pulled over on Monroe Avenue and he tried to pass her something to hold for him, something she refused to touch. Whatever it had been, nothing came of it.
But no more dates. Her choice.
So, older guy...black guy...
Chris, another older man; one closer to her father's age. A summer employer with a fast food franchise, kids and a wife. Her big summer romance. Being sleazy in the old home town. And all very old school with a motel room and after noon delights at his family lake house....
Just a summer fling.
Older guy...black guy...family man....
The boy was different.
At first she had had a gay vibe from him. His approach had been so innocuous, so merely companionable. He had seemed so clean-cut and unexceptional. Bi, perhaps, or gay and just trying to see if he might be Bi. And it had been that thought of her being his closet hope,she had first taken interest from. She would add hag to her resume; Messing around added to her roles as Lolita, Kardashian and Joan Crawford....
Until an hour ago that had been the assumption she 'd been going with.
Even in the bar, with all his talk of his roommate, Adam, was it? He was big, he was gay guy who just didn't know it. But, then, the stories he was telling about himself, even though they weren't stories about his experience with other girls, began to reveal him as just a guy like any other she'd grown up going to school with. She knew him.
They were so much alike, he and she. One, at last, at least, who was presentable. One to bring a laughable release of beaming laughter to the concerned faces of Mom and Dad.
It made her smile to think of them letter out their long held breathe in relieved laughter.
That ws when, devilishly, she thought, well, why not? And went into what she called her act.
But, it was also when she thought, well, isn't it time, too.
He asked her, the first who ever had.
She laughed.
"You're something to text home about..."
