The Nature of Love

Chapter 6

      "I've changed my mind, Jen. If the brighter boys are going to U of M, then that's where I want to go too. I want to make sure I get a husband who's smart enough to make a lot of money."

        Here I was stuck with my albatross.

       As we walked to the ZBT house, I listened to my cousin’s chatter. "And if anyone asks us who invited us, just say Howard. There's bound to be at least one Howard."

       I halted and stared at my cousin. "You mean we weren't invited? We're crashing this party?"

      "Don't be a goose. No one's really invited. It's just like an open house." Marjorie jabbed me in the ribs to get me moving again. "And you'll see, if we look like we belong no one's going to question us."

      "You hope."

      The noise of a party hit us half a block away. By the time we faced the front steps, the volume of the hifi system blaring "Let the Little Girl Dance" by Billy Bland was ear-shattering.

      Perfect song for me.

      Marjorie grabbed two cans of beer out of a cooler on the front lawn, saying "hi there" to the boys and girls draped all over the grass. "Here, take one," Marjorie said.

      I shook my head, started to say I didn't drink, when Marjorie slammed the wet can into my hand. "Just open it and hold it. You don't have to drink from it. Think of it as a stage prop. Helps you look the part."

     Beer can in hand, I followed my cousin inside into a cleared space where couples clung to each other, swaying to the records on the hifi set.

      Before I could take it all in a boy was asking Marjorie to dance. Marjorie shoved the other beer can into my free hand and took off. Now I was stuck with two cans of beer I didn't drink.

      "That thirsty?" a voice near me said.

     "Steve Silberman!"

     "They say the third time's the charm."

     "I don't think eternity would be long enough."

      "Now come on. What did I ever do to you?"

     "Exist."

      "That bad, huh?"

      "What did you expect after that obnoxious comment at the football game?"

     He took the beer cans out of my hand and set them down. "I tell you what. Let me get you some of the good stuff and try to make it up to you."

     “I'm waiting for someone."

     Steve looked around the room. "Your cousin? I'd say she's a little tied up right now."

     I looked at Marjorie. She was entangled so close to her partner that it was hard to tell where one person ended and the other began.

     "She'll be busy for awhile," he added.

     Oh dear! What did I expect when I came? I knew Marjorie was boy crazy. And this was a party.

     "Come on.  I promise not to bite."

     I allowed Steve to guide me towards the back of the room where bottles of various liquids crowded the top of a table. "Do you like rum?" he asked. I shrugged. "I'll add Coke to it.  You'll love it."

      He handed me a tall glass and I gulped it to lubricate my dry throat. His hand closed over mine.

      "Not so fast. That may look like Coke but it's pretty strong stuff."

      "No kidding."

       Maybe I could walk back to the dorm now. Marjorie could return later, with or without her escort.

      I put the glass down on the table. "I have to be going."

     He handed me the glass again. "I didn't mean for you to stop drinking; just not to drink it so fast. Stay a little while.  Maybe we could even dance."

     I shook my head.

    "Then let's sit down and watch the dancing."

      Steve pulled me over to a couch. I sank into the springs, Steve's side pressed into me, and I took another swallow.

      The sun lit my face and a blazing stab of pain creased my forehead. "What the?"

      I tried to sit up. Instead of the walls of my dorm room I saw slumped bodies. Where was I?

      Steve Silberman's arrogant face stared into mine. "How do you feel?"

      "What?"

      "You hit the juice a little hard last night. Guess you can't hold your liquor."

     I rubbed my forehead. I must have slept on the floor. Had Steve slept here too? "Did we?"

     "You mean, did anything happen? No, I'm a gentleman. I don't take advantage of drunk girls."

      Now the sun in Honolulu was as bright as that morning. I pushed my sunglasses higher on my nose and followed Steve onto the car rental shuttle. We may not have slept together that night.  But it took only a few weeks for him to win me over and convince me to give up my virginity to him.

      Steve did the paperwork for the rented car while I picked up the tourist attraction brochures. There was so much I wanted to see.

     As Steve tested the gears on the rented car, I read aloud from the pamphlets. "Honolulu is Hawaii's capital, largest city, and major port. It is situated on the island of Oahu."

      "Jennifer, be quiet. I'm concentrating on figuring out this car." He moved his hand up and down the stick shift, coaxing it into the different gears.

      I had coaxed Steve into engaging my shift into high gear after my tutorage with Trent. Steve came up to Cambridge one summer weekend and I slipped into his boarding room when the landlady's back was turned. He returned from the bathroom to find me standing naked in the middle of the tiny room.

     "Jennifer, what are you doing?"

     "What does it look like?"

     He remained in front of the closed door, fully clothed. The proper Philadelphian. I moved up to him and reached down the front of his pants. "Don't you have a pal who wants to come out and play?"

     Steve yanked my hand out of his pants and pressed his back into the door. "What's gotten into you?"

      "Must be the food here at Harvard. Or something in the air."

     It took weeks longer to instruct him in the techniques passed on by Trent. Steve was not a fast learner.

      Although he fell asleep after the wedding before we had sex, he hadn’t slept on the trip here.  Would he stay up tonight long enough?

     Or was the first night of our honeymoon in Hawaii to be as disappointing as our wedding night?

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