Surely love had to be something different, something more special, I thought. There were many mysteries in the world, many problems to be solved, but none seemed as impossible as the answer to the question What is love? My girlfriends hated it when I challenged their dramatic declarations of affection for one boy or another, and they were always accusing me of being too inquisitive and looking at things with microscopic eyes.
"Why do you have to ask so many questions?" they complained, especially my best friend Catherine Didion. Catherine and I were different in so many ways, it was hard to understand why we were so close, but perhaps it was those very differences that attracted us. In a way it was our curiosity about each other that kept us so interested in each other. Neither of us fully understood why the other was the way she was.
"It's not such a big party," Mommy said. "Besides, we're proud of you, and we want the whole world to know it."
"Can I see my portrait this morning, Mommy?" I asked. Mommy had painted a picture of me in my graduation gown. She was planning to unveil it tonight at our party, but I had yet to see the finished work.
"No. You have to wait. It's bad luck to show a portrait before it's completed. I have a little touching up to do today," she said, and I didn't protest. Mommy believed in good and bad gris-gris, and never wanted to tamper with fate. She still wore the good-luck dime that Nina Jackson had given her years ago. It was on a string around her right ankle.
"Now I'd better go speak to those brothers of yours to be sure they don't make a nuisance of themselves around this house today."
"Will you help me decide what to wear and do my hair later, Mommy?"
"Of course, dear," she said just as my phone rang. "Don't spend your morning gossiping with Catherine," Mommy warned before leaving to go to the twins.
"I won't," I promised, but when I said hello, it wasn't Catherine, I greeted, but Claude.
"Did I wake you?"
"No," I said.
"Well, it's here: our day," Claude announced. He too was a senior and he too was graduating, but I knew he wasn't referring only to that. Claude and I had been going steady for nearly a year. We had kissed and petted and once been almost naked beside each other at Ormand Lelock's house when his parents left him alone for two days. We had nearly gone all the way twice, but I had always resisted. I told Claude that for me it had to be something very special, and he had come up with the idea that it would be something we would do on graduation night. I hadn't agreed, but I hadn't disagreed, either, and I knew Claude thought that meant it would happen.
The first time it had almost happened, I stopped him by explaining why it was a prime time for me to get pregnant. He was frustrated and annoyed and fumed as I explained a woman's cycle.
"It starts when an egg is released," I began.
"I go out with you," he moaned, "and find I'm in science class getting a lecture on human reproduction. You think too much; you're always thinking!"
Was he right? I wondered. When his fingers touched me in secret places, I trembled, but I couldn't help analyzing and thinking of why my heart was pounding. I thought about adrenaline and why my skin had become warm. Textbook illustrations flashed before my eyes, and Claude complained that I was too distant and uninvolved.
The next time we were alone he was prepared and proudly showed me his protection. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I told him I wasn't ready.
"Ready!" he exclaimed. "How do you know when you're ready? And don't give me some complicated scientific answer."
What was my answer? We had been having a lot of fun together, and all of our friends assumed we were in love. The other students at school considered us a perfect couple. But I knew we weren't perfect. There had to be something else, something more that happens between a man and a woman, I thought.
I watched Mommy and Daddy when they were together at parties or at dinners, and I saw the way they were in tune with each other, reading each other's faces, knowing each other's feelings, even when a roomful of people separated them. There was an electricity in their eyes, a need and a love for each other that made me feel they were secure in their affection. Maybe I was asking for too much from life, but I wanted a love like theirs, and I knew I didn't have it with Claude.
I didn't know how to tell Claude that he wasn't the one, and I almost talked myself into doing it with him just to satisfy him and satisfy my scientific curiosity about sex. But I had resisted right up to this night, the night Claude planned for us to make love.
"It's all set," he said. "Lester Anderson's parents are leaving for Natchez right after graduation. We've got his house for our private party."
"I can't leave my own party, Claude."
"Not right away, no; but later, when we're all going out, I'm sure your parents will understand. They were young once, too," he said. He had a way of turning his eyes and looking at a girl from head to foot that made her self-conscious. Most of the girls giggled and felt flattered when Claude did this. During the last few weeks, I'd suspected that Claude was seeing someone else on the side, maybe Diane Ratner, whose gaze followed us so closely down the hallway that I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle.
"My mother never had a party like this when she was my age," I said softly.
"She'll still understand, I'm sure. You want to go, don't you?" he asked quickly. When I didn't reply immediately, he punched out another "Don't you?" his voice full of desperation.
"Yes," I said.
"Then it's set. I'll see you later. I've got a lot to do before the graduation ceremony, but I'll pick you up."
"Okay," I said.
"I love you," he added and hung up before I could respond. I sat there for a moment, my heart pounding. Would I finally surrender myself tonight? Should I? Maybe I was just finding excuses because I was simply afraid.
Mommy and I had had our intimate conversations, but she never really answered my questions. Instead, she told me no one could.
"Only you can answer those questions for yourself, Pearl. Only you will know when and with whom it's right for you. Make it something special and it will be. Women who treat sex casually usually get treated casually. Do you understand?"
I did and I didn't. I knew the fundamentals, the science, but I didn't know the magic, for that's what love had to be for me, I thought, something magical.
When I went downstairs I found the house at sixes and sevens. People were scurrying to and fro, following Mommy's directions to change this and rearrange that. Flowers were being placed in vases everywhere. The maids were hunting down the smallest specks of dust. Every window was being washed, all the furniture polished. The hum of vacuum cleaners filled the air. Mommy was having our ballroom decorated. A six-foot-long glittering Congratulations sign was being hung from the ceiling, as were multicolored balloons, rainbow streamers, and tinsel. The jazz band had arrived to check out the acoustics and set up their stands and instruments.
"Good morning, Pearl," Daddy called as soon as he came in from the patio. "How's my little intern?" He kissed my forehead and embraced me quickly. Nothing I had done or said had pleased Daddy more than my decision to become a doctor. It was something he had once hoped for himself.
"I went as far as pre-med," he had told me.
"Why didn't you continue, Daddy?" I had asked. For a few moments it looked as if he wouldn't answer. His lips tightened; his eyes grew small, his face dark.