I wagged my finger at Becky, too. “Shelley helped quite a bit,” I responded. I handed over our coats and my hat, and pocketed the ticket. “Anyway, the decorations look very nice, almost as nice as you two look, so we’ll be going inside.” Jeana and I thanked the girls and I pulled her away, before Shelley and Becky managed to get a three-way catfight going.
“What was all that about?” asked Jeana after we got inside the door to the gym. She almost had to yell in my ear, since the music was so loud. No way could the doorkeepers hear us.
“Shelley has some mixed feelings about the Science Fair. We won, but she wasn’t invited to participate in some research papers over at Towson State, and I was. She gets a little catty about it.”
Jeana stared at me for a moment. “Towson State? Like, Towson State College? You did a research paper for a college?”
I tried to shrug it off. “I was just one in the group. It was no big deal.”
“How old were you? This was two years ago? You were fourteen?! How many papers?” she pestered me.
I took a couple of minutes to explain things to Jeana, but if I was trying to minimize my involvement, it failed. She was stunned that I was doing things like that. Wait until she realized I would be starting classes over there in another few weeks.
We walked around the dance floor, where the standard mix of students was milling about. This early in the dance, not very many people were dancing yet. A punch bowl was set up in the corner, with the watchful eye of the Vice-Principal making sure nobody tried to spike the punch.
Suddenly Jeana looked at me with a grin. “Was Shelley part of your harem?”
I groaned at that. I had been hoping that Jeana would have forgotten the comment. “I don’t have a harem!”
“That’s not what Shelley says. Maybe the Carl Buckman Experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Maybe you need a good spanking!”
She pulled my head down to where she could speak directly into my ear. “Would that be on my bare bottom?” I jerked away from her in serious surprise, as she laughed. “I’ve never been part of a harem before. Maybe I should get one of those harem outfits like in I Dream of Jeanie.” She gave an impromptu belly dance for me, which made me laugh.
It was her turn to get the finger wag. “Just you behave, or you might get both!”
I decided to end this line of discussion. Fortunately, the band picked that moment to start a slow set. Yes, we had a band. In those days, DJ equipment was very expensive. It was actually a lot cheaper to hire a live band to play, and there were always high school and college age bands that would do covers of popular songs while they worked their way to stardom. That was the theory, anyway. Some were good and some were awful, but loud. This was about average. I pulled Jeana onto the dance floor and took her in my arms.
Back in the day, I actually had learned some ballroom dancing. Marilyn enjoyed dancing, and while I look like a spastic moron dancing to anything fast, the slower romantic stuff was easy. I also had a bad right knee, from time beyond memory, and I could always use that as an excuse. Nowadays my knees were still good, but I wondered if that was going to last.
The standard slow dance among teenagers is to simply hold each other and rock sideways and twist around. No style, but you get to make out with your girl legally. That was what Jeana and I did through the first song, but during the second, You’ve Got A Friend by James Taylor, I taught her the box step, a simple four beat dance step that made you look like you could actually dance. Jeana was a very quick learner. At the end of the song, a number of people were watching us, and a few clapped. “I didn’t know you knew how to dance!” exclaimed Jeana.
I shrugged. “I’m good at all sorts of things involving moving with a beautiful girl.”
“I’m serious!”
“So am I!” Jeana blushed at that. “You dance very nicely, too. Have you had any lessons?”
“I took some ballet when I was little, but nothing in years.”
“You moved nicely.” We were over to the edge of the dance area. The band had switched back to something faster, Three Dog Night’s Momma Told Me Not To Come, and I said, “Follow me on this.” We stayed on the sidelines, but I taught her a few more basics, including spinning her around a bit and finishing with a dip at the end.
Jeana was very flustered and excited when we finished. Several of our friends were watching us, and Jeana looked both embarrassed and proud to have been seen by them. “You’re a natural!” I told her.
“I can’t believe we did that!” She jumped up into my arms and wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me. After I set her back down, she said, “I love you!”
“I love you, too,” I replied.
“Let’s go, now, back to your place.”
I smiled at that. We hadn’t been at the dance an hour yet. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll leave at ten, and we’ll skip the party completely.”
“We were going to skip the party anyway!” She saw through that ploy.
“I’m just going to kill you with the suspense!” I replied. I led her over to the punch bowl, to cool her ardor slightly.
Jeana did not handle anticipation well. She tried to wheedle me into leaving at the nine o’clock set break, but I held firm. Afterwards I taught her how the waltz went, and we danced a few more slow songs. By nine-thirty she was on pins and needles, which is about where I wanted her. I agreed to go early, and by quarter of we had our coats on and were heading to the parking lot. I only lived about a half mile away, and we could have walked, but it was too damn chilly for that. We were in the apartment about five minutes later.
Jeana was excited, but nervous. I wasn’t sure if she had told any of her friends what was happening that night, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. I got several not so innocent remarks from some previous recipients of the Carl Buckman Experience, and at least one of them commented to me that Jeana was expecting fireworks. Nothing like a little pressure! Now that we were alone, however, she looked nervous.
I tossed my hat and coat on the armchair, and went behind her, and peeled her coat away from her, and tossed it atop mine. Then I turned her to face me. “If you’re scared, we can stop right now.”
She gave me a look of relief, but then smiled. “I know that. I’m not really scared, it’s just, well, what if I don’t do it right?” I must have stared dumbly at that, because she kept on, in a hurried tone, “I mean, you’ve had all those girls at school and I know what they’ve said and what if…”
I stopped her with a finger to her lips, and reared my head back and laughed. “Oh, good Lord! Will you stop worrying about what the girls at school will say! It isn’t all that difficult!”
She looked up at me. “Huh?”
“Listen, Jeana, billions and billions of people have been doing this since the dawn of time, so it can’t be all that difficult. Hell, I should be the one worrying, not you!”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, while I admit to nothing more than being friends with anyone, it sure seems to me like a lot of your friends have been building me up as some sort of real life Romeo. What if I can’t meet your expectations, hmmm?” I smiled as I said this.
Jeana blushed. “I never thought of that.” I took her hand and led her into my bedroom, leaving the light on. Jeana asked, “Shouldn’t we turn off the lights?”
“You’re so beautiful, I want to see you.” I could tell she was nervous about that, so I went back to the living room and brought in a couple of candles, and lit them, and then turned off the bedroom light. She seemed much more relaxed, and I guess the mood was more romantic. “You are still beautiful, much too beautiful for me,” I said as I kissed her.