Stacy nodded. You didn’t argue with Linda Barrett. Their two-year age difference made a world of difference. Linda was taller and quite striking, with dark, perm-styled hair and an always skillful make-up job. Linda knew men, and she knew how to carry herself. She had what she called “a sexual overview.”
“I don’t care who he is,” Linda continued. “Two dates is enough. Are you sure he’s not a fag?”
Talk suspended while a Bob’s Big Boy waitress arrived, took the girls’ order for coffee and Big Boy combinations, and then stood by the table totaling other checks. Linda and Stacy glared at her until she left.
“I don’t think he’s a fag,” said Stacy. “He said he broke up with his girlfriend a few months ago.”
“Well then, what are you waiting for? You’re good-looking. You’ve just got to learn to get what you want. I know it sounds hard making the first move, but think of it like this. Three years from now you’ll be eighteen and it won’t matter either way.”
The words made sense to Stacy. Two nights later she called The Vet and asked him to meet her that night for a drive. It didn’t matter where they went, she said, she just had to get out of the house. The Vet agreed.
She met him out in front of her family’s condominium complex, in the shadows next to the mailbox, where she was out of sight from the neighbors.
“Thanks for picking me up,” she said, shivering despite her sweater. “I can’t wait until I move out.”
“No problem,” said The Vet. “Where do you feel like going?”
“I don’t know. Do you know where the Point is?”
“The Point?” The Vet looked at Stacy curiously, and for a moment she was sure she had given away her age. The Point was a notorious make-out spot for Ridgemont teenagers with parents at home. “The Point sounds good to me!”
They drove up Ridgemont Drive, past all the neon-lit fast-food restaurants, up the hill toward the campus of Ridgemont Senior High School. The parking lot was empty. The Vet found a space near the back corner. From there they walked across the baseball field to the cliff behind the Ridgemont High backstop. The Point.
The Point was the best spot to overlook the whole town. The Point was dark and secluded, with only one drawback. The Ridgemont High Point was always covered with milk cartons. Hundreds of milk cartons. Milk cartons with the straws still stuck inside. Milk cartons without. Squashed milk cartons. Milk cartons still half full. More milk cartons than you had ever seen in any one place at any one time, ever. There was the usual smattering of premixed Mai-Tai cans and shattered Bacardi bottles, sure, but the emphasis was always on milk cartons.
The Point was deserted. Only Stacy and The Vet stood there, arms touching, on their third summer date, looking out at the blinking lights of the condo developments below, listening to the distant sounds of the Pacific Ocean lapping up onto the shore of Redondo Beach.
“Let’s sit down,” said The Vet. But there were only rocks out on the Point. The Vet was the type, as Stacy would later tell Linda Barrett, who could probably have a lot more fun if he didn’t wear slacks all the time.
“We can sit over there,” said Stacy. “There’s probably a seat in the baseball dugout.”
They cleared their way through a summer’s worth of trash, more milk cartons, and found a nice, concrete seat inside the visiting team dugout. Stacy and The Vet sat side by side. Above them shone a single light bulb. There was no view of the city from the dugout.
“You look nice tonight,” said The Vet.
“You do, too.”
Silence. Stacy rearranged her hands in her lap.
“It’s pretty warm out tonight.”
“It is. It’s real warm. I wonder how long it will last.”
The Vet leaned over and kissed Stacy on the cheek. Was that the first move? She sat quietly for a moment, her hands folded in her lap. It had to be the first move. She waited another moment. When I’m eighteen it won’t matter either way.
She lunged for The Vet and kissed him squarely on the mouth. At first surprised, he held her there and kissed her even more deeply. She began to run her fingers through his blow-dry haircut.
It was The Vet who spoke first. “Are you really nineteen?”
“Yes,” said Stacy. “I am really nineteen.”
She kissed him again.
“I’d better take you home,” he said.
“What about those other guys you live with?”
“I mean back to your home.”
But they made no moves in any direction. A few minutes later, The Vet had apparently resolved his inner conflict. He began tugging lightly at Stacy’s red corduroy pants. She looked down at his hand on the snap.
This was it, Stacy thought. The Real Thing. A thousand schoolyard conversations and tips from Linda Barrett jumbled in her head. Would it hurt? Would it be messy? Would she get pregnant? Would they fall in love?
“Do you really want to do this?” Stacy heard herself ask. “I mean, it’s your final decision.”
“I think we both want to.”
Slowly, awkwardly, Stacy reached down to help him. She unsnapped her pants, and suddenly The Vet needed no more reassurance. He tilted her backward onto the concrete dugout bench. They continued kissing, feverishly, his hand slipping up into her blouse. He massaged her breasts. Then he pulled off her shoes. Then her pants. Then his own pants. Ron “The Vet” Johnson was different from the other boys she’d made out with. He had Technique.
“Is this your first time?” he whispered.
“Yesssssssss . . .”
As she held onto The Vet’s shoulders and felt a man enter her for the first time, Stacy looked up at the top of the Ridgemont dugout. She would always remember reading the graffiti above her:
Heroin in the neck
Lincoln was here—Sieg Heil
Led Zeppelin
Dan y Roberto (Disco Fags)
Stacy Hamilton, fifteen, slipped back into her room at three that morning. Already her room felt different to her. Those frilly pillowcases, those Scholastic Book Services paperbacks she’d ordered in junior high, that bubblegum chain on the dresser . . . they all seemed out of place to her now.
She was giddy, wide awake. She sat on the edge of her bed and examined herself in the mirror—no difference. Somehow it was just like Linda Barrett had explained it to her. Her first feeling would be one of relief, the second, that she would want to go out and sleep with all the cute guys in the world because it was so much fun. Stacy smiled and turned on her clock radio. Then she picked up the telephone extension and punched out a number.
Linda Barrett answered her phone in a sleep-laden murmur. “Did you get him?”
“Yes.”
Linda laughed and cleared her throat. “Congratulations.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Stacy clicked off and dialed yet another number. This one was the request line for the local FM rock station.
“Good morning. KXLY.” The disc jockey had her on a speaker box.
“Hi!” said Stacy. “Could you play ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ by Led Zeppelin?”
“Don’t you have that record by now?” It was nothing personal. Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was just the most requested rock track of the last ten years. Any disc jockey knew it came with the territory. You answered the request line, chances were one in three it was some kid asking you to play “Stairway to Heaven.”
“Yes. But the stereo is in the living room. And I like it better when you play it anyway.”