They went back inside for the last dance. The lights had been dimmed and she and Mason danced cheek to cheek, thanks to her mother’s heels, their arms wrapped around one another. In the meadow we can build a snowman…She was glad it wasn’t “Goodnight, Irene,” often the last song at a dance. She loved her grandmother but she didn’t want to think about her tonight.
“Can I walk you home?” Mason asked while they, and everyone else, scrambled for their coats.
Miri nodded. “I just have to tell my friends.”
Outside, Robo’s father was waiting for them. The girls had already piled into the car. “I’m walking home with Mason,” she told them.
“Who’s Mason?” Natalie asked.
“The boy I’ve been dancing with, the one from your party…remember?”
“Yeah, but who is he?” Natalie said while the other girls hung on every word.
“Mason McKittrick. He goes to Jefferson,” Miri said. “He knows Steve.”
All this time Mason was standing next to her, listening. “Hey…” he said, giving a small wave to her friends.
“Where does he live?” Natalie asked, ignoring Mason.
Miri didn’t know where he lived or why it mattered.
“I live on Salem,” Mason said. Then he whispered to Miri, but loud enough for the others to hear, “They don’t trust me.”
“They don’t know you,” Miri told him.
Robo said, “As soon as we get home I’ll have my father call your mother so she doesn’t worry.”
“No, don’t do that,” Miri said. “I’ll call her myself.”
She borrowed a nickel from Mason and used the pay phone inside the Y.
Rusty answered on the second ring. “I’m walking home from the Y, okay?”
“I thought Robo’s father was picking you up.”
“He is, but I’d rather walk home.” She knew Rusty was waiting for more. “With a very nice boy,” she added. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Okay,” Rusty said, just like that, surprising Miri. “But don’t dawdle. If you’re not home in half an hour I’m calling the police.”
“Mom…it’s a long walk.”
“I know exactly how long it is.”
“Okay.”
“And not in my shoes.”
“I’ve already changed out of them.”
“Okay then.”
Miri was grateful for Rusty’s good mood.
She took off one of her mittens and stuffed it in her pocket so she could hold Mason’s bare hand as they walked home. His skin was rough, probably chapped from not wearing gloves in this weather. He had a strong grip. Some guys held your hand like it was a fish they wished they could throw back.
Mason spoke first. “That was Dr. Osner’s daughter, right?”
“Yes, Natalie.”
“My brother’s girlfriend works for Dr. Osner.”
“You know Christina?”
“She got me an emergency appointment one day when I had a toothache.”
“He’s my dentist, too,” Miri said, then wondered why they were talking about teeth when the moon was shining and the sky was full of stars. Maybe he was wondering the same thing because after that they stopped to kiss at every tree, her back pressed up against it, Mason leaning into her. When they came to the site of the crash, they stood silently, his arm hugging her shoulder.
“Where were you when…” he said.
“I saw it happen,” she told him. “I was coming home from the movies with my mother.”
“Jeez…”
“What about you?”
“I was at work…at the bowling alley on East Grand. We didn’t hear anything but we felt it. I thought it was an earthquake.”
“We don’t have earthquakes in New Jersey, do we?” Right away she regretted asking such a stupid question.
He shrugged. “There’s a first for everything.”
There’s a first for everything, she repeated silently, and he was a first for her.
When they got to her house he asked if her number was listed.
“Yes. N. Ammerman. That’s my mother. Or I can give it to you now.”
“I don’t have a pen.”
“I do.” She dug a leaky pen out of her bag and handed it to him. He stuck the top in his mouth, holding it between his teeth, the way he had with the cigarette. As she recited her number he wrote it down on his arm, just above his wrist. Miri had never seen anyone do that, would never have thought of doing it herself.
He kissed her goodnight, touching her face. “Miri Ammerman,” he whispered.
For the first time her name sounded musical. It sounded like a love song. What did it mean that he said her name that way? What did it mean that he touched her face? Did it mean he was in love with her the way she was with him?
Mason
Phil was the one who told him if he wanted to see her again to go to the dance at the Jewish Y, that she’d probably be there. It didn’t cost anything to get in, he said. And you didn’t have to be Jewish. Nobody asked. Nobody cared. He said he and Steve wouldn’t be there. They’d been invited to a party given by Phil’s cousin Kathy Stein, in Perth Amboy. Kathy was a freshman at Syracuse, and aside from the two of them, everyone at the party would be older, would already be at college. It wasn’t necessary for Phil to make excuses about why Mason wasn’t invited. But Phil was a decent guy.
There was a holiday dance at the YMCA that night, too, and Mason planned on going until Phil told him about the girl from the Osners’ party. Miri. That was her name. And as long as Steve wouldn’t be there to get all hot under the collar about him dancing with his sister’s friend, why not go?
At the YMCA he’d have known all the girls, most of them, anyway. And they’d know him, dance with him, laugh with him, but none of them would feel the way Miri had in his arms. He couldn’t explain it. He half hoped she wouldn’t be there tonight. Because he sensed he was just looking for trouble. She was young. He had to be careful. Above the neck only. And only if she wanted him to kiss her. Only then.
And there she was, in that red dress, and her mother’s shoes making her three inches taller, and when it came to kissing, it turned out she was more than willing.
Miri
Mason wasn’t a secret love for long. During the ten days of vacation, she saw him whenever he wasn’t working. She was allowed to stay out until 10 p.m. as long as Rusty knew exactly where she was—a get-together at Robo’s house or Eleanor’s, or at the movies with Suzanne and Natalie and the other kids. Miri had to introduce him to Rusty—that was the deal—then to Uncle Henry and finally, to Irene, who’d had a conniption fit when she first heard his name, but not, thank goodness, in front of him.
“For god’s sake,” Rusty said to Irene later. “She’s not getting married. She’s in ninth grade.”
“Be careful,” Irene warned Miri. “All boys want the same thing.”
So do girls, Miri thought. But she was never going to make the mistake her mother did. She wouldn’t go all the way until she was twenty-three or married, whichever came first. And they’d use protection. A funny little rubber circle called a diaphragm that you somehow had to shove up there, like Corinne used—Natalie had shown it to her in its circular container. “I’m not sure how well it works,” Natalie said, “because I think Fern was a mistake. Or maybe my mother got it after Fern was born.”
Last year Robo had snitched one of her father’s rubbers from under his shirts in his dresser drawer. They’d stretched it over a cucumber. “Do they get that big?” Suzanne asked. “Because if they do, I’m never doing it.”
“Maybe we should have used a carrot,” Robo said, and they all laughed.
Now Irene told her, “Be a good girl. Promise me you’ll be a good girl.”
“I am a good girl,” Miri said. “So stop worrying.”
Rusty didn’t say anything.
Mason
If he wanted to see her he had to meet her mother. And not just her mother but her uncle, maybe to prove there was a man around the house, and her grandmother, who looked like she’d swallowed a lemon when Miri introduced him and she’d heard his name. “McKittrick?” she’d said, like she’d never heard it before.
He knew to shake hands with them. He knew to call the uncle sir. Jack had taught him all that. He had no idea who’d taught Jack. He knew to tell them exactly what their plans were and that he’d have her home by ten o’clock or else she’d call to explain.
The mother didn’t ask the questions he was expecting, starting with, What do your parents do? She didn’t say, Maybe I know them, like some of the girls’ parents from the YMCA so he didn’t have to give his standard answer, I don’t think so. No, you wouldn’t know my parents. No, we’re not new in town. I was born here at St. Elizabeth’s. He might not have told the truth if she’d asked those questions, so he was glad she hadn’t.
Miri
In the middle of vacation Miri had an appointment at Dr. O’s office for a checkup and to have her teeth cleaned. As Christina attached the bib around her neck, Miri said, “You know Mason McKittrick, right?”