first date

and an unexpected first love

I was what you’d call a late bloomer. Shy and sheltered, my gangster daddy with his Tony Soprano glare scaring off any romantic prospect before the poor soul even made it to our front door.

I was happy to be the pristine apple of my father’s eye. I guess when you’re the firstborn in an immigrant family, there isn’t a choice. It just comes with the territory, like babysitting your younger sisters or translating government documents at the ripe age of nine.

Thing with daughters is, you can try and keep your little girl under lock and key, forbid her to partake in the dating game, lay down the law, set curfews and dress codes and monitor the calls on the old faded pink rotary phone in her room. Outlaw any talk of the birds and the bees. For her they won’t exist, not in your house. So long as she lives under your roof and all that. For a while she’ll listen. She’ll oblige. And then, if she’s anything like me, her curiosity, her lust will get the best of her.

Some forces of nature refuse to be stopped.

---

The summer I turned 15 was the summer I mastered the art of the winged eyeliner. It was the summer I noticed my god-given flat stomach was made for using the almighty crop top to my advantage. It was the summer I perfected the look of a swollen pout on my never been kissed lips. It was the summer I got real good at wearing jeans a little too tight and scandalously low.

It was that summer I started to get the urge to be the apple of someone else’s eye.

Andy was the first boy to notice.

Andy was on the high school football team, our pride and joy the Lehman Lions. A Disney Prince with broad shoulders, sandy hair, warm eyes and a warmer smile. Tall and just the right amount of dumb to ask out a girl like me. Andy and I were in the same biology class. I was a year ahead, he was a year behind. Andy never had a notebook of his own and relied on mine, each day begging for a sole sheet of paper. It didn’t take long before I was fed up with ruining my book for the notes he wasn’t taking. Around the eleventh time he asked, I said “no”.

Now Andy, maybe having not heard the word before and a little turned on by such defiance, aimed to make a deal. Dinner in exchange for my kindness. A date.

Persuaded by curiosity, his overall good-looks, the “hometown football hero”demeanor, and that sweet Nissan he drove- I said yes. Being 16 I didn’t really have a “type”, but a nice enough boy with a car and the promise of mozzarella sticks seemed like a solid Tuesday night to me.

I made him swear he’d buy me a new notebook on the way, and he’d have himself a date and I’d have my first.

---

The gravity of going on an official first date was not lost on me. Years of studying and emulating the average American teenager taught me enough to know my romantic future hinged on the success of this Applebee’s dinner. Had years of Boy Meets World re-runs prepared me for this? Would he open the car door? Does he think I’ll put out? Should I carry cash in case I’m expected to pay? Do I offer to pay? Should I be aloof and disinterested or laugh at all of his jokes? God, what if he isn’t funny? Do we just go to first base? What the hell was first base anyway, a handshake with locked eyes?

I buttoned my pink cardigan, straightened my pleated skirt, laced up my trusty black Converse and swindled my dad out of $20 for the student senate dinner that didn’t exist. With a spritz of the finest warm vanilla sugar body spray, I jumped into the passenger seat of Andy’s car and rode into a new chapter of girlhood.

Over shared appetizers we talked about our parents, which classes were easiest to cut, the last movie we saw, plans for college, the inspiration behind our AOL screen names… regular teenage stuff. But did I feel god in that Applebee’s that night? Not so much. For a minute I started to believe maybe I’d gotten those butterflies in my stomach I’d read about but quickly realized that feeling was most likely the Diet Coke and dozen mozzarella sticks just settling in.

After the tab was settled and we started the walk to his car, I could tell Andy was looking for a little less conversation and a little more action to end the night. I felt it in the way he reached for my hand. I heard it in the way he said my skin was the softest he’d ever touched. I saw it in the way his eyes hung on my chest when a single pearl button on my cardigan came undone.

Out of duty I wanted badly to reciprocate, to meet his romantic gestures halfway, to feel the stuff Danielle Steele novels were made of. Maybe it was my inexperience or overall disinterest, but something deep inside wouldn’t let me, not with him anyway. I guess even then I wasn’t any good at faking it. The kind of passion I was looking for couldn’t be exchanged with this boy.

---

“Alright kid, what do you want to listen to?”

“Drivers choice, surprise me.”

Picking up speed on the Cross Bronx Expressway, Andy hit play.

Entranced by the melody of a haunted piano, I lay my head back. The synth tones that came next were delivered in a hush. Sputtering static. No guitar, no drums; not necessary for this spell. A vulnerable voice full of dejection sung in an almost whisper.

I still recall the taste of your tears

Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears

My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore

Scraping through my head ‘til I don’t want to sleep anymore

“What is this?”, I managed to ask while wiping away a single tear.

“It’s Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine. Shit’s good, right?”

My 15 year old soul hadn’t yet found the words to do justice to the rollercoaster of emotions Reznor’s howls and soft whispers enmeshed with the synth beats that synched up to my breathing took me on.

Shit was good.

I used to think back on that night and lament that it was a waste. I wouldn’t write about it in my diary or have any juicy details to share during lunch the next day. I thought, well I didn’t fall in love. Only I had. Just not with Andy.

---

I have a feeling Andy drove me home that night real slow on purpose, to play that album from start to finish. He didn’t quite get me but he understood enough to see that Trent Reznor did.

As the final track closed out, I unfastened my seatbelt and leaned over to grab his face. This night seemed right for a first kiss after all.

Oh and the notebook, I let him keep it. Looked like he was in need of one more than me.