Chapter 3 / Girls, Girls, Girls

“What’s wrong with you anyway? You some sort of freak?”

All I’d said was I didn’t feel like looking at the magazine right now, I mean, come on, we’re in MY treehouse, and all the while I’m thinking, I am not comfortable looking at a nudie magazine with other guys around. Feels like maybe a more private activity to me. But now, I have no recourse, I’m 11, I’m on summer vacation, and my best buddy found a Playboy in his older brother’s closet, and now we’re all itching to scope it out, and I MUST not act like a freak, I MUST defend myself against this odious accusation, I MUST fit in by acting as normal as possible, so as to never let anyone know how much of a freak I once was. Or might still become, if I lose focus.

Being as average as possible isn’t always easy.

“I am NOT a freak,” I insist.

“Well then?”

I give in. “Open it up already then!!”

 

He, Eddie, my next-door neighbor and best friend since kindergarten, does precisely that, opening it straight to the good stuff in the center. Somehow, this magazine is everything I’d hoped for in tasteful-ish porn, and somehow it’s highly unfulfilling. My heart is racing, and yet the endorphins aren’t there.

“Cool stuff, huh?” I’m asked.

“It’s excellent,” I reply, grinning. “Totally radical.”

“No doubt.”

What IS wrong with me? Can’t I appreciate a nice rack? My buddies are loving it. One of them almost drools ON the magazine, which earns him a vehement punch on the shoulder and a stern rebuke from Eddie, the great provider of porn.

“You want my big brother to kill me? Keep the drool off the tits. Jeez.”

I feel like squirming, but I’m also getting pretty good at categorizing my discomfort while I play along, so I smile large.

 

Thankfully, ten minutes later, we’ve all had our tame jollies, and it’s back to our regular summer routine: choose some sport to play, fight over who actually won, eat a snack, play some Atari, go home for dinner, and the magazine never returns that year. I sometimes wonder if Eddie’s older brother ever found out about the heist, or maybe if good old Ed decided against further group sessions.

 

* * *

 

“Uh, you can, like, kiss me,” she says in that way she says most everything: equal parts of insecurity, playfulness and feigned apathy.

I want to say something suave, but instead I smile, stammer and lean in awkwardly. We might bump noses if I’m not careful - - -

 

“Are you sure that’s how it happened?”

Yes, Ricardo, I’m sure.

“I remember some other details.”

You were watching? That seems, well, somewhat beyond the scope of your job description, doesn’t it?

“Not much, technically, falls outside my job description.”

Why am I not surprised. I take it you want to elaborate.

“I had to watch her. Say she had a knife, and she was some sort of crazy-”

She WAS a little crazy, Ricardo. She was 13. Hell, I was 13. I was a little lost myself. Why do first kisses have to happen at awkward ages, when your self-confidence swings to extremes, a guerilla army of pimples ransacks your face and you’re not quite sure how much of you is boy and how much is man? I have a theory that we’d all be happier if we forewent (is that a word? It is now) kissing altogether until we have some major things sorted out emotionally and physically. Same goes for sex.

“That would be highly AB-normal. UN-ordinary. A first kiss in your twenties? Losing your virginity as you approach �" or cross �" your thirties? Get real.”

(My guardian angel is a realist. He also has plenty to say.)

“I’m taking over. Here are a few info-nuggets you might have forgotten or repressed” - - -

 

“Uh, you can, like, kiss me already,” she says, equal parts bossy, impatient and seeking approval. She says lots of stuff that way.

I want to say something, anything at all that’s not completely idiotic, but obviously I’ve set my sights far too high, because I stupidly spit out: “Are you sure? I can still NOT kiss you.”

She looks at me sideways. I don’t particularly appreciate that look. An “Oops” leaps from my lips. “I’ll, uh, yeah.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say anything,” she throws out there, mostly to herself, I believe. I’m relieved either way. Didn’t want her to think I was too much of a freakazoid.

So that’s when I lean in, and yes, our noses do kind of bonk each other, but at least this time we giggle a little, and our lips meet, and it’s a little slimy but not too bad, and I’m a little tingly, and we disengage after a few seconds. I grin. In my eminently normal life, another stage is complete. The first kiss is consummated, pretty typically. One more lifepost handled in an impressively ordinary way. I don’t think much of it at the time, but I think I get more pleasure from executing a milestone event in a socially acceptable way than I get from the milestone event itself.

 

God, is that really how it happened, Ricky?

“Pretty close. You even thought most of that last paragraph.”

I thought you weren’t able, or allowed, to mind-read.

“It’s one of those two.”

(Ricardo messes with me a lot. It’s part of his charm.)

 

* * *

 

You’ll hear later on about the disappointingly momentous night I moved from boyhood to manhood when I rehash it with my wife. (Much to her enjoyment, Ricardo wants you to know.) Suffice it to say, I was 17, so was she, and our epic cluelessness makes for an embarrassing story. Cute, but embarrassing. Especially since it’s a far more common story that I could possibly have known at the time. But like I said, more on that later.