Remembering Eighteen

Look, man, everybody whines about turning thirty in private, you know that. I'm just honest about it with my friends is all. And it isn't just being thirty. Maybe it's the city and the tiny apartment and the bouncing from one job to another for ten years. I like it most of the time but it ain't where I thought I'd be when I was a kid. I never wanted to live in the suburbs like Missy probably is now, but it'd be nice to have the option, you know? And I don't. I can't afford that bedroom community lifestyle.

Missy? Yeah. Her. Missy Lundgren. The one I told you about, that I looked up online the other day. My job has too much free time, that's why I feel so unfulfilled these days. I guess Missy is a CPA now, somewhere back in New England. And she got married a couple of years ago.

I knew she was nothing left to me but a couple of fun memories here and there, but really. The thought of her spending the rest of her life with some guy I've never heard of - sleeping beside him, undressing together with him, making love to him, even maybe having children with him...

Yeah, okay, you don't want to hear about that. Me neither. Sorry. Anyhow, it was a lot to swallow when I was already missing the bad old days back in our hometown. And the fact that she's married reminded me of the big one. You know the one, the memory you always have of every woman but you don't talk about it with your friends, only here I am about to do that. Yep, that one. My big one with Missy was the wedding day.

No, of course not her wedding day. She was only eighteen then, and so was I.

She was always a really sensible girl. Lower middle class, but a hard worker. No extracurricular stuff or anything, and she always had her nose buried in a book. I loved that! Sensible clothes, sensible shoes, glasses, quiet and polite with the teachers and not really shy, but she didn't smile too much in school or anything. And she always wore her blue coat all day long in school. That's important to the story, actually. One year she got special permission to take eight classes a day with no lunch break. But she loved wine, too.

Nah, not hard stuff like this, just wine. At least in high school. And she had a great laugh if you got a chance to hear it.Pretty funny once you got to know her, if you got to know her.

But yeah, the wedding day. Not her wedding day, of course. Her cousin's wedding day. It was a beautiful Saturday in May, about a month before we graduated. I was barely eighteen, and she was a month or so older than I was. We were friends from the seventh grade on, and more than that on and off starting freshman year. Her house was in the same direction as mine from school, so we saw a lot of each other going home. And since we were sensible honor students and I was from a God-fearing Catholic household and she was the one who might get pregnant and we were both less mature and more afraid than we'd ever want to admit anyhow, nothing had ever happened. Not up to that day in May.

Oh, of course I'd thought about it. I'd thought about it a lot! It made me feel kind of guilty, since I respected her and loved her and she wasn't one of those girls (and I wasn't one of those guys), not the kind I thought about when I was hiding in my closet with my pants down around my knees, but naturally I'd thought about it. Not a lot. There were the ones I thought about a lot that way, and the ones I wanted to go out with. I was afraid to think too much about those.

Yeah, of course you know how it was for guys that age. Might make you hate yourself thinking of girls that way when you liked them, right? Well, Missy was tall, you know, the sixth-grade beanpole who was still towering over quite a few of the boys by the time we got to high school. And she was a little taller than me in the eighth grade, that I remember for sure. That year was the first time I became aware she was a girl.

Well, yeah, of course I already knew she was a girl before then, but I wasn't, you know, aware, really. We were already friends before that day in eighth grade, but I didn't really think much about who she was or what she was before then.

What happened that day? What happened that day was it was hot. Too hot to wear a big, bulky coat in school all day the way she almost always did back then. Right, I said that. So I was aware of her long hair and longer legs, but not much else. But that day it was too hot, and I was sitting two seats behind her and one row over in Honors English, and I became fully aware that Missy - my Missy, my buddy who happened to be a girl but I never thought about it back then - yeah, she was wearing a bra. Now, even a fourteen year old boy like me didn't need too much time to figure it out, you know, my fascination was exactly why she usually wore her coat all day long. She didn't want the boys gawking at her. You know, privacy. Sure. But I was hooked all the same. My friend was a real live girl!

So those walks home turned into study dates and sometimes watching TV together if we could get away with it. I got a lot of mileage out of watching Days of Our Lives on the VCR without grumbling about it. I'd heard girls loved boys who did girl stuff without complaining. It was true! And there was a very tortured invitation to the Eighth Grade Dance which was nonetheless accepted, and a trip to the beach with her mom the summer before freshman year. But Missy was a hard worker. By sophomore year, she was working downtown at a French bookstore and she and the owner - I didn't like him; he was a Reagan fan who thought John Lennon was a communist - he usually put up with me hanging around there as long as I spoke French with the customers. She didn't wear her coat all day in school or at the bookstore by then, so I got to admire those breasts to my heart's content. And we'd been on a few afternoon dates of our own here and there on the sly, to avoid clearing it with my parents because, you know, they still figured I was too young for girls. Maybe the ones at church, but that was it, you know? So Mom and Dad thought of Missy as just a friend, but they liked her well enough to be okay with me going to her cousin's wedding. We were eighteen by then anyway - a little old to be forbidding me from going on dates, even in an old-fashioned family like ours!

Missy's cousin was a lot older than us, maybe twenty-five or so - ancient when you're barely eighteen - but it was a nice ceremony from what I can remember. Not that I remember much. I was concentrating on Missy. She was a bridesmaid, so she had to wear a crazy pale green taffeta dress. It was probably terrible, but it looked fabulous to me back then, of course. So wonderfully frilly and feminine and forbidden, and her legs going on forever under that long, long skirt! We drank a very little, or I drank a very little and at first I thought she did too. My very first alcohol, and my girlfriend's mother gives it to me, can you believe that? A tiny little glass of champagne for each of us and she says just keep it out of sight if you can. So we drank a little and ate a lot and danced even more. Got a lot of innocent smiles from the older folks at the party when we danced, and right up until that afternoon we deserved them! Aw, geez. I think we were on the fourth dance or so when Missy leaned down and whispered, "Don, I have got to get out of here and out of this dress!"

So I asked, "Can I watch?" I was joking but that champagne I mentioned helped.

Hmm? Yeah, I know, not that kind of girl. But she was talking about taking her clothes off, for Pete's sake! I couldn't help it. I tried, but I couldn't.

Anyhow. "Aw, Don," she laughed - Missy was eighteen, practically a woman, and she didn't giggle; she laughed - "You..." She wasn't very good at smart-ass comebacks, but at least I could tell she wasn't mad like she sometimes got if I teased too much.

I said, "It was a great wedding." I tried to leave the mischief up in the air even though I was dying for more. "Did you have a good time?" I asked.

"Wonderful. But it's kind of hot in here."

I said, "Yeah, it is."

And she laughs. "No, Don, I mean in here." And she took one hand off me and flapped the front of her dress lightly against her breasts to show what she meant by "in here."

I couldn't help laughing. Of course. But I didn't say anything. Didn't want to offend Missy and stop this conversation! Who knew what direction she'd take it in next, right?

"And I'm not crazy about green, either," she said then. "It's all right blending in with everybody else up there, but enough. It's not my wedding. I'm ready to be comfortable."

"You don't want to stay and play dress up with the kids?" I asked. I was laughing, because I was feeling wound up too about being all dressed up and it was so hot out.

And Missy laughed too, but she shook her head and said, "God, I've had enough of those brats. Nothing else is gonna happen here anyway, except watching Darlene and Mike" - that's her cousin and her husband - "watching Darlene and Mike take off. Want to go over my house?"

I ask, "Will your mom mind?"

Yeah, that really is all I said. Didn't want to push my luck, like I said.

But Missy said, "She won't notice." And she nods her head toward over behind me. I turned around and there was her mother deep into a bottle of wine, laughing with a couple of other women I didn't know.

So I said, "Okay with me. I'd like to get out of these clothes too. So hot." You know how I still don't like wearing suits in summertime. Back then I didn't like them period, so the weather just made it more of a pain.

And here Missy starts laughing. "So you think it's hot in here when you're not in here?" she says.

I say, "Hey, at least you're in a skirt!" Couldn't help it, and it went over great! She laughed loudly enough to turn a few heads, but not her mother's. And we were off.

Yeah, I really do remember that conversation that well. It's etched upon my mind, it's just that simple. Barely eighteen, remember? And of course I was a virgin. Here I had my first ever alcohol buzz and I was with a beautiful girl who was saying she couldn't wait to "get out of this dress."

See, I knew you'd understand, man. I don't know if you understand all this stuff, but I knew you'd understand that. But I don't remember anything about what we talked about on the walk back to her house. It was about four blocks. I do remember holding her hand, and admiring her dress, and knowing she didn't want to be noticed in it, and wondering if I should be nervous about my clothes too - I hated dressing up back then, like I said - and wanting to loosen my tie but not doing it. I wanted to look good next to Missy!

She and her mom lived on the second floor of a two-family.

Yeah, a two-family house. You know, a duplex. Sorry, back home they call them 'two-families'. The stairway up from the front door was dark, but it wasn't too dark for me to enjoy the sight of that long, full skirt swishing all around her legs and her rear end as she shuffled up the stairs just ahead of me. I remember wishing that could last all afternoon! But we got to the top, and she stopped shuffling but didn't stop swishing. And she whispers, loudly. "Oh, I have to go to the bathroom," just like that, while she was fishing her key out of her purse.

For about the third time in an hour and a half, I remember thinking. "So your mom let you have more champagne after all?" I had to ask.

And Missy grins. Her bladder's bursting and she's almost in pain, it looks like, but she's smiling. And she says, "Well, she didn't let me." So we're both laughing hard now, hanging on to each other, really sweet there on the stairs. I wonder if she holds on to her husband like that when she laughs now? But anyhow, she's happy but she still really has to pee. She says, "I should've known the walk home would do this to me." So when she finally found the key, it was straight inside without another word. Like a shot.

I was behind her, of course, and we went straight through the living room to the hallway.

Yeah, I'm getting to the good part, don't worry. I'll be there before you finish that drink, really. Now, Missy's room was on the left, the bathroom on the right. And this is where I always begin replaying it in my head for, geez, over a decade now. She got to the two doors and she began to turn right, and then changed her mind and went into her room. A loud sigh of relief, even though she hadn't been to the bathroom yet, and then she kicked her shoes off. She was tall enough to get away with flats, but she'd been grumbling about them all day anyhow. She spun around slowly barefoot once, then stopped and looked at me. Or maybe I made that part up, I can't remember for sure. I do know she looked me up and down once, and then she smiled. Coyly. Missy didn't have a coy smile usually, she either smiled or she didn't, but this time it was a coy smile.

Then she turned around. Holding her hair out of the way, she asked, "Will you undo this for me?" Casual and deadpan and flat as ever, just like Missy.

Well, I was out of breath suddenly. I tried to say something. "Um..." That's all I could get out. "Um."

So Missy jumped up and down a bit. "Don, hurry up! I really have to pee! Just undo the clasp and unzip it. It's easy."

It was easy. Except that she was wiggling a bit to remind me of why she wanted me to hurry, and my hands were shaking. So when I figured out that it wasn't a dream, I did as I was told and was greeted with inches of bare flesh all down her back, until the zipper got down to her bra. It was a strapless bra, of course, which I'd never heard of until that moment. Silly boy, you know? Up to that moment I had figured she wasn't wearing a bra, I mean, the dress showed too much skin for that! Who understands gravity at eighteen, at least if you haven't got breasts?

But Missy, the sensible honors student, she's all business at that moment. "Thanks," is all she said, as if she'd undressed in front of me dozens of times. She shrugged the dress off her shoulders and stepped out of it, and I noticed she didn't look me in the eye but also didn't seem to mind that I was seeing her in her underwear for the first time. She tossed the dress onto a chair, and then she finally looked at me and - only then, when it was already done - only then, she laughed a little. It was a nervous laugh, that made me feel better about how wound up I was feeling right then. And she walked out the door toward the bathroom.

What do you mean, is that all? Wasn't it a big deal to you the first time something like that happened?

Okay. Sure. But no, I'm not done.

I was still disbelieving what had just happened, really, but I sat down on her bed and took my suit-coat off. I also loosened my tie and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. Yeah, I looked a lot like this, just without the drink, but then I was still feeling the champagne! That one little glass. Even I wasn't a drunk once upon a time, man. Then the shoes. I was just getting the second one off when Missy came back in the doorway. Still nearly naked.

"Feel better?" I asked. I did my best not to stare but I'm sure I did stare.

"Much, thanks," she said, and she walked over to her dresser and looked at herself in the mirror. And she says, "Feel free to take anything off too if you want. I think I'll leave my panties on, though."

And I said, "But not your-" Well, before I could even finish the question, I looked up and saw the answer. She had her bra undone and she was pulling it off as I looked. And she still didn't seem to mind that I was looking. She had red spots under her arms and around front from the band, and she was rubbing them. She said, "Oh, it feels good to get that off," and she's got her arms crossed under her breasts, rubbing her sides. "I'm never wearing that bra again." Of course I'm looking at her breasts, and she laughs and cups her hands under them. She didn't say anything else.

Well, fair's fair, and I was a red-blooded boy. I stood up and I wish I could say I got "down to my boxers," but I hadn't discovered boxers back then. I was so embarrassed but I was too hard to care, naturally. Anyhow, I followed suit. I left my tightie-whities on.

Missy looked at my reflection in the mirror, and she laughed again. It wasn't a mean laugh, just a laugh. A happy one. And I could see by then she was a little embarrassed too.

The silence must be broken, I thought.

"Do you do this a lot?" I asked.

"Take my clothes off with boys around? Never before." And she said it almost matter of factly. She even shook her head the way she did when someone asked her about a book she hadn't read! Then she said something like, "But, you know, it's hot and it was a wedding, and you're...you're Don." She turned around to face me. "Are you uncomfortable?" she asks.

"No," I say.

And she smiles, a big smile. "Me too," she said. That made me feel so much better!

Yeah, I said better. I can't really explain it if you don't understand, it just did. And there we were just looking at each other. Then I reached out to hug her but didn't try to kiss her. "Feels good," was all she said. Skin on skin, you know? Can you remember a time when you didn't know what that felt like?

Well, maybe that's why I remember all those stupid little details, as you say, because it's all so worth it for that. I think.

Well, we stood there wrapped in each other's arms for a few minutes. I knew it wasn't going to go any farther, but we didn't talk about it.

No, of course I wasn't gonna try for more. Catholic guilt, remember?

Well, it mattered to me back then anyhow.

Missy was the one who finally broke the silence. "Want to watch TV?"

"Like this?" I asked.

"Yeah, like this!" she said. "My mom won't be home for hours and, you know, it feels good, doesn't it?" She grazed her fingernails lightly down my chest and sort of seemed to beckon me to touch her breasts, but I didn't do it right then.

Nah, of course you're not surprised.

Anyhow, TV. I said, "Yeah," quietly. "It does feel good. Yeah, let's watch TV." I took her hand and we went out to the living room. I don't remember how long we stayed there and I don't think I ever knew what was on.

Nah, we never took our undies off, sensible honor students, remember? But there was a lot of touching and rubbing and snuggling, you know.

Yeah, that's all. Hey, we can't all be experts when we're eighteen, man. We finally got totally nude for a shower just before I had to go home. But you don't need to hear about that.

Yeah, we did end up losing our virginity together, I think it was a month or two later, but I don't remember a whole lot about that. Sometimes the getting there is better than the going!

Well, I think so anyhow.

So that's Missy. She has a house somewhere in the suburbs up there now, and she wears tailored suits to work every day, and she and her husband cast each other casual flirty glances as they get dressed together in the morning, and they have passionate nights three weeks out of the month on their king sized bed when they're not driving off in the country in their BMW or enjoying a relaxing evening in their private library with a glass of brandy and an old leather volume.

Well, I don't know any of that, of course. That's just what I thought when I heard she was a married accountant. I don't know anything about her husband or where they live, but it seems like the way that sensible girl in her glasses and heavy coats was headed oh, gosh, seventeen years ago when I met her. Back then I think I also had it figured out that that was never going to be a life for me. I think somehow even then I knew I'd be living in a shoebox in the big city and having lots of fun on the side but not having much to show for it. Or maybe I'm just imagining that too, I don't know.