By then, the November list of cars came out, and I got lucky. That month a lot of 1968 Ford Galaxie 500s came off lease and were available. If I didn’t get the first one I picked, there were a whole slew of them available. The Galaxie was Ford’s full size sedan, designed to compete with the Chevy Impala. These were all business class models, four door sedans with a decent size V8 and a back seat big enough to put a bed inside. This was the type of car we bought when the Dodge Dart died. It drove like a tank, guzzled gas like you owned an oil well, and had a soft and comfy ride. You’ve got to love that big Detroit iron! They just don’t make them like that anymore! I put in a bid of $2,250 and within a week had one reserved in my name. I wrote Dad a series of checks to cover the car, the insurance, and the title fees.
Towson High took a very interesting turn that first week in November, as well. I was standing at my locker that Monday morning, chatting with Ray Shorn and Randy Bronson, when a group of pretty young girls went past us in the hall. They were mostly juniors like us guys, but not all of them. I doffed my hat as they passed by, and said, “Morning, ladies!” with a big smile.
Jenny Smith was in the group and she smiled back. “Morning, Carl.” Several of the other girls giggled with her, generally the ones I had gotten very friendly with. Jenny and her group slowed as they passed, and I got a good look at the new girl who was with them. For some reason, she looked awfully familiar.
“Who’s your friend, Jenny?” asked Ray.
Tammy Braxton said, “This is Jeana Colosimo. She just transferred in from New York, and Mrs. Vickery…” (the new vice-principal) “… asked us to take her to class.”
Holy shit! That’s why I remembered her! Jeana Colosimo had been my first real love, way back when. We had dated my entire junior year. I remembered that she was actually only a sophomore, a tenth grader a year younger than me, but we didn’t care. We broke up at the end of the year when they started up a new school over off Cromwell Valley and transferred all the tenth graders in the area to it. I didn’t have a car then and couldn’t see her anymore.
No reason not to see if I couldn’t date her again. She was a gorgeous little package, and back then I had really outdone myself getting her to date me. It was like a 4 nabbing a 10. She wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’3" if she was thinking tall thoughts, but she had great legs, a tight and perky rear, a slender waist, and a set of really nice knockers! They had to be at least C cups, and might be more. She had a beautiful oval face, dark Mediterranean skin, and long and straight dark, dark brown hair.
“Well, I have to thank you ladies. You’ve brought her to me, so I’ll walk her to class from here,” I replied.
Jeana blushed and the other girls laughed at my cheek. “Not so fast,” said Mary Brewhauser. “We haven’t had a chance to warn her about the perils of being seen with some of the older guys yet.” Mary was another of the girls to be considered friends with benefits.
“Like you!” added Tammy.
“Tammy, that’s so hurtful!” I replied, waggling my eyebrows at her.
She giggled and Randy, who was now her steady boyfriend, put his arm around her shoulders. “Do I have to thump you, Buckman?”
“Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter!” That got quite a few laughs, though not from Jeana, who wasn’t in on the joke. “So, Jeana, what would you like to do on Friday night? Being new in town, you should have somebody older and wiser take you a few places, and help you familiarize yourself with Towson.”
“Yeah, somebody like me!” commented Ray. “Jeana, I’m Ray, and I think you are beautiful! You should be going out with me on Friday! Carl just got out of prison and is now under house arrest.”
“Amateur hour, Ray,” I commented. “Some girls, not Jeana here, but certainly the type you hang out with, would find that even more interesting.”
That got everybody laughing. Jeana was on the verge of speaking, but Jenny put her hand up. “Hold on, you two. Jeana’s new here, and we didn’t bring her by just so we could throw fresh meat to the resident wolves. Let’s hear what you two have in mind, so that we can give her some advice.”
This proved very popular, so I made a motion and signaled Ray to speak up. His eyes bugged a bit, but he said, “Uh, nothing like the classics — a movie and something to eat later.” The ladies seemed to mull this over for a moment, and then Tammy said, “Your turn, Carl.”
Ah, the benefits of experience. Let the rookie go first. I just shook my head. “Not very impressive. A 1.4 on the difficulty scale. 3.7, 3.6, 2.4 from the East German judge. No, definitely not a movie.” I tapped my cheek dramatically, and just as dramatically, walked around Jeana. “No, for the first date we want something active, not passive. Where we can talk, and Jeana can learn just what a great guy I am, and how fortunate she was to pick me, and not Ray. Hmmm…” Most of the girls were giggling by now, and Ray had punched me in the shoulder. “No, I think we should go up to Timonium Lanes and go bowling.”
Jeana’s face lit up at this. “I love bowling! How did you know?”
I gave a big smirk to Ray, and then held my fingers up to my forehead. Twirling them dramatically, I answered, “Is it my incredible knowledge of women? My Houdini-like powers of mind reading? Or…” I paused dramatically. “Could it be that you just moved here from New York and are wearing an Oyster Bay Rollers jacket?” Jeana was wearing a pink jacket with a silhouette of somebody bowling on the back. I crossed my arms and looked proudly at the others.
The rest of the group seemed to consider this either cheating or brilliant, but Jeana’s eyes were shining and she was smiling at me. Ray had been blown out of the water. I pulled out a piece of paper and grabbed a pen out of Randy’s pocket and used it to write down her phone number. The girls left, dragging Jeana off to her homeroom, with a warning that they were going to tell her all about me.
As they disappeared, Ray looked over and Randy. “Can I join you in thumping him?” I gave the pair of them a raspberry and we headed off to our classes.
The rest of that week I made sure that I talked to Jeana whenever I could. I told her on Wednesday not to believe all the awful things that she had heard about me. At that point she blushed furiously, leading me to suspect that the girls had told her quite a bit about me. I teased her and asked what they had told her, but she refused to tell me. Smiling, I leaned closer, putting my lips to her ear, and whispered, “Are you scared because you’re afraid it might be true? Or because you’re afraid it might not be?” She blushed some more, and swatted my arm with her books, so I kissed her on the cheek and stepped back. She looked a little confused, but then leaned forward and moved up on her toes and kissed me on the lips, lightly. She giggled and ran off, and I was left in happy contemplation.
At six that Friday night, armed with my brand new temporary license and the keys to the Dodge Dart, I left the house and drove over to Jeana’s. She and her parents lived in a development off of Joppa Road that backed onto Goucher College. Before I was to be allowed to take their daughter out, I was to meet the parents.
Goucher was one of the two colleges in Towson, but was very different from the other, Towson State. Whereas Towson State was a public college, a teaching college, and was in the center of town, with a wide open campus, Goucher was a very expensive, girls only, private liberal arts college. Imagine Radcliffe, but south of the Mason-Dixon Line. As such it had a mystical quality to it. Unlike Towson State, the campus was very private, screened by manicured hillocks and impenetrable forests and fences, behind which goddesses the likes of which had never before been seen by mortal man studied in luxury. Nobody ever actually saw these creatures, but everybody knew somebody who had a friend whose brother had a cousin who had snuck over there one day, and had seen them all sunbathing out on those manicured lawns in the nude! Or at least that was the story. I had been there once myself, at a 4th of July concert given by the Marine Corps band (you really have to hear The 1812 Overture done with a real cannon and fireworks!), and didn’t see any sign of naked women.