American Boy - Larry Watson [33]
Once we were ensconced in the Valiant, she scooted across the backseat and, in contrast to the way Louisa Lindahl had brusquely removed my hand from her body, Debbie pulled my arm around her and fitted herself snugly to my side. “Doesn’t this feel ... right?” Her breath smelled like vegetable soup mixed with rubbing alcohol. “What if we never broke up? What would we be doing tonight?”
I didn’t know what to say. First of all, we hadn’t broken up. Debbie McCarren had dropped me. Second, we likely would have been doing exactly what we had been doing—playing poker and drinking beer in my case, riding around with a pack of girls and handing a bottle of vodka back and forth in hers. And if we had passed on those activities for each other’s company, we almost surely would have been doing exactly what we were doing now—seeking each other’s heat in a parked car.
Debbie proceeded as if I had already answered. “And would we be going to the Frost Festival Dance tomorrow night?”
I knew then what this reconciliation was all about. I pulled her closer, and she rose to meet my kiss with all the old familiar ardor and intensity.
After a few minutes of running our tongues around each other’s mouths, I decided to test the depth and sincerity of her renewed fond feelings for me.
Trying to negotiate around and under coat, muffler, sweater, blouse, and brassiere seemed too complicated. It also presented too many opportunities for Debbie to stop me along the way. So I opted for a different route. I slid my hand up her skirt, high up her thigh. I was surprised she didn’t immediately grab my hand or clamp her legs together to halt my progress. She squirmed under my touch, and while she might have been trying to wriggle away from my exploring fingers, it was also possible that she was writhing with passion. I chose to accept the latter interpretation.
Thanks to the hours Johnny and I had spent poring over Dr. Dunbar’s anatomy books, I was pretty familiar with the parts and purposes of female genitalia. Unfortunately, however, I had no such familiarity with their undergarments. While I might have known what to do if my hand had been inside Debbie’s girdle, I was baffled now, and I couldn’t do anything but probe and poke dumbly around its tightly banded borders.
My quest soon came to an end in any case. Debbie’s first “no” was spoken in the middle of a kiss, and because she said the word right into my mouth, it was almost completely unintelligible. Then she deftly rolled her hips in a way that made it imperative for me to remove my hand from between her legs.
“God,” she said, breaking away from our embrace and sliding back across the seat. “I might have known. Here I am thinking about all the wonderful, romantic times we had together, and all you care about is what you can get. You haven’t changed a bit.”
Not changed? How could she say that? I’d seen Louisa Lindahl’s bare breasts. I’d gotten drunk with her. She’d lifted her dress to show me her scar. She’d even advised me on what I should do in the backseat with a girl like Debbie. How could I not be changed?
Debbie tried to make a dramatic exit, but the door handle wouldn’t cooperate. And as she yanked ineffectually on it, she became increasingly angry. “And to think I told Art Graber that I couldn’t go to Frost Festival with him. Art Graber, for Chrissake!”
I reached across to help her with the door, and this prompted Debbie to fling her arm out violently in my direction. I pulled back, and she almost slid to the floor of the Valiant. But somehow something in that contortion caused the door to pop open, and Debbie scrambled out, trying to recompose herself in the process.
She must have felt that she hadn’t adequately expressed her disgust, for she leaned back into the car’s interior. “Another thing, Matthew, Matthew Garth . . .” She spoke my last name as if giving voice to it was a sufficient curse. But then her vocabulary failed her and she had to settle for something less subtle. “Oh, fuck you. Just fuck you!”
I watched Debbie