I was back in town after a long spring semester at college. It was refreshing to be home, and away from the city and its mindless pressures. College was turning out to be much more than it appeared to be on TV dramas and movies, but being a top student in high school kept me prepared for whatever my professors threw at me.
That said, I had not really had much time to form any relationships with anyone. The only people I was on regular speaking terms with were my roommate at the dorm and my boss, a doctor in the Bio department where I worked ten hours a week. My conversations then were limited to toilet paper situations, alarm clock warnings, and dinner invites with the first, and instuctions and feedback concerning lab matters with the second. College had not made me a social animal.
It is important then to mention that I was not very social in high school. I was in all of the honors classes with the "in-crowd," and everyone knew who I was. But I wasn't an athlete, a club president, a cheerleader or spirit crew member. I didn't throw parties, and rarely attended. I never even had a girlfriend in high school. Or college. I was six months away from age 20, and I was still a virgin. Still had never been kissed.
So despite these small feelings of incompleteness and lack of progression in my life, it was refreshing to be home. My hometown was small, free of traffic, four hours away from the city where most of my high school class (including myself) chose to go to college. Football was important in the fall, gardening in the spring, and little league in the summer.
I had driven to the strip mall in town, one afternoon in the middle of that June, to check the bookstore for any textbooks that my professors had told us we would be needing in the fall. I thought about stopping and getting some lunch while I was down there, but I wasn't sure at that point how long I'd be.
I had been browsing in the bookstacks for a few minutes when my eyes happened to fall on a girl in the same asile as me, and it was a girl that I actually knew from high school. My breath became a little short to come by. It was Laura Gerdes, and for four years she had been my Helen of Troy.
Laura was beautiful. She was 5'2", with pale, ivory skin that contrasted sharply with the fire-red of her hair, which flowed in straight, smooth waves across her shoulders. She was well built, about a 28C-20-30. She had huge, wide eyes that were green; long, thin eyelashes; a small, cute nose; and full, pouty lips that always seemed to smile. She had been an honors student as well, and I used to have almost all of my classes with her for four years. I had never once thought of asking her out. It didn't seem worth it, since she would just say no.
"Wade?"
I snapped back to reality. Lura had come up to me, and spoken my name.
"Wade Wilson?"
"Umm... Laura!" I managed to get out. "Laura, how are you?"
She smiled - ah, that smile - and ran a hand through her hair. "Oh, you know. Back from the city for the summer. I saw you at school a few times, never had a chance to come by and say hey, though."
That's right, Laura had gone to college in the city. It wasn't a big surprise. I didn't was to end this experience, so I quickly said, "So, what have you been up to?"
"Just killing time. I like the coffee shop in this store, and it give me a chance to catch up with my reading." She waved a small stack of magazines slightly: Cosmo, Rolling Stone, and Newsweek. "What about you?"
"Oh, just getting some work out of the way before the fall. Checking up on the texts that they told us about ahead of time..."
"Wade!" Laura punched me lightly on the arm. "It's summer! You should be... summer-ing!"
"Summer-ing?" I said, smiling slightly.
"Yeah, summering." Laura smiled, more at me for using a made-up word than at herself for making it. "C'mon, come get some lunch, lounge around for a while, and don't worry about this stuff until August."
"I had been thinking about getting some lunch," I said, as I had.
"Well, I was going to Flack Bell's Diner after I came here. You should come along."
A half hour later, I was stting across from Laura at a table, sipping on a Coke, listening to her talk, and admiring her flawless form. She was dressed to kill. It looked like she had raided a Catholic school almost. She was wearing a short, plad skirt and a white dress shirt, with oversized cuffs and collar. The whole ensamble was very form-fitting, and very distracting. Fortunately, Laura was able to maintain an interesting conversation with very little input from me.
I hadn't realized that I had been having a great time until the meal ended, and we got our two checks.
"Well, I had fun hanging out, Wade," Laura said, as we walked away from the register after paying. "I'd like us to hang out again sometime this break."
"Yeah," I said, caught a bit off guard, despite the past hour's comfort. "Yeah, that'd be real great. When would be good for you?"
"Tonight?" Laura said. "We could grab dinner, and catch a movie at Highway 48."
"That's sounds perfect," I heard myself saying.
"Say, 7 o'clock? I live on 8th Street, the big house with my Porshe." She pointed as we walked up to her car in the parking lot.
"Sounds great," I said. "I'll pick you up then."
I drove home in a daze, but as soon as I got home, I fell into a flurry of activity. I showered, shaved, picked out nice-but-casual clothes, showered again, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and finsihed for 6:15. I paced around my old bedroom for a while, and then decided to leave. I'd drive around for a while if I had to, but I couldn't just wait. It may not be a proper date, but it was going to dinner and a movie with Laura Gerdes, at her request, and that was good enough for me.
I passed by her house twice, but didn't pull in and knock on her door until 7. She answered it, and invited me in.
