Mr. Smooth: Part Two.

As I told you in the first half of this story, it took all my courage to actually call Karen and ask her to the movies. Once I was past that hurdle, I immediately started thinking about the next one. While my imagination thought of all sorts of ways the actual date could unfold, my anxiety about it threatened to sabotage the entire thing. I couldn't believe she actually agreed to go with me.

My biggest problem was that I was the oldest of 3 brothers, and as the oldest, I didn't have anyone to go to for dating advice. Every one of my friends was as clueless as I was. We didn't know about the yawn/stretch move, or how to let the arm around her shoulders eventually slip down to more interesting territory. All this was as yet undiscovered, at least for me. It was complete trial and error, which is never a good thing on a date.

I think that's what makes first dates awkward for everyone, regardless of age. Even when you're older, you unconsciously have your repertoire of moves, and you have no way of knowing whether any of them will seem good or bad to the person you are trying to impress on that first date. When you're 14, not having that baseline to work from can be debilitating.

After subsequent phone calls (sans hangups) to nail down the movie and show times, I asked my mother if she could drive us. Being driven around by your mom was embarrassing and I wasn't looking forward to suffering the indignity, but short of taking a taxi or forcing Karen to ride on the handlebars of my bike, that was the only way we'd be getting there since neither of us were old enough to drive. My mother said no problem, she could drive us there and pick us up after the movie.

I did have one stipulation, however. I told her she couldn't look in the rear view mirror. "Exactly what is it you think you're going to be doing back there?" she asked. I had no idea, but I wanted to be prepared. I had all sorts of possibilities rattling around in my head, and absolutely none of them was "sit with your hands in your lap, staring straight ahead, completely paralyzed in fear" although that was probably what my mother was envisioning. She eventually agreed. OK, no staring in the rear view mirror.

With that little detail taken care of, the next bit of business was more pressing, and quite a bit more awkward.

The day of the date, I broached the subject boldly. I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table where my mother was sitting, drinking her morning coffee.

"So tonight, when we bring Karen home, can you, um, not watch me walk her to the door?" I asked.

"What do you mean, not watch you?" she replied.

"I want to walk her to the door. You're going to be watching me. I'll be nervous if you're watching me. So I don't want you to watch."

She laughed. "OK, I won't watch."

'I don't believe you," I said. "I know you'll watch, even if you say you won't. Even if you're not watching, I'll still think you're watching and I'll still be nervous."

"So what do you want me to do?" she asked. "Drive away and come back for you?"

I, of course, did not see this for the sarcastic comment that it was, and latched onto the idea wholeheartedly.

"Yeah! Do that!" I said. "Just drive around the block or something and then come back and pick me up."

I didn't tell her that I would be going in for the kiss, but I think she just assumed.

"OK," she said, looking at me doubtfully. "If that’s what you want. I'll drop you off and then wait until you're almost to the front door, then I'll drive around the block and wait a few minutes. Then I'll come back. After she goes inside, just walk to the end of the driveway and I'll pick you up."

So that was the plan, and it was good.

That night, the movie matinee we had decided upon started at 6:30. Karen had gotten permission from her father to come home a little later that night, and he had spoken to my mother to make sure she was driving us, so everything was set. The movie was something called "The Goodbye Girl." I had no idea what it was about, but Karen picked it so it was ok by me.

We pulled up outside Karen's house at around 5:45, and I jumped out and ran to the front door. I reached out a trembling hand and rang the doorbell. Then I waited. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard footsteps coming from inside. An older woman answered the door, and said, "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm here to pick up Karen for the movie," I said.

She looked puzzled. "Who?" she asked.

"Karen. I'm Johnny. I'm here to pick her up for the movie."

She had an odd look on her face, and suddenly that small, tight ball of fear in the pit of my stomach started unraveling at high velocity.

"There isn't anyone here by that name," she said.

I stared at her, not fully comprehending.

"I think you must have the wrong house," she added helpfully.

I think you must have the wrong house.

Oh my god, I thought. No. No. No. How? How could this be?

I had managed to get her address wrong. We were at the wrong house. This was not good. My mother was sitting in the car, engine running, watching the exchange. The woman must have noticed the look of dread on my face because she spoke again.

"Who are you looking for? What's Karen's last name?" she asked.

I managed to spit out the last name. Her face lit up, and for a second I thought that against all odds, the woman recognized the name. Then she said, "Let me get my phone book." The big ball of fear slowed its sickening spin, then reversed direction. I thanked her and ran back to the car to tell my mother what was going on.

I stuck my head in the passenger side window of the car. "Wrong house!" I said. "We're looking her up in the phone book." I ran back to the front door. The woman had returned with a phone book, and had already looked up Karen's last name. I looked at the list and picked the one I remembered as hers.

"Ah. You switched the last two numbers. Her house number is 423 not 432," she said. "Tell your mom she needs to go to almost the end of this street."

I jumped into the back seat, and we were off. We had wasted quite a bit of time, and the movie was starting in about 30 minutes. When we got to the right house, Karen was sitting on the front steps waiting. Before I could even get out of the car to go get her, she was in the back seat with me.

"Sorry we're late," I said, completely ready to just leave it at that.

Unfortunately, my mother was not completely ready to just leave it at that. She felt compelled to add, "Yes, Johnny had your address wrong and we ended up at the wrong house and then had to look your last name up in the phone book."

For those of you keeping score at home, Johnny just stepped up to the plate.

Mom making me look like even more of a dork: Strike one.

We made the trip to the cinema in record time, my mother yammering away the whole way asking Karen questions about school, her family, and everything in between. She didn't look in the rear view mirror, but she also didn't shut up. On one hand, I was miffed that I wasn't able to get a word in edgewise, but on the other hand I was glad my mother was talking, because then I didn't have to. Even at that young age I knew that I had a much higher chance of looking like an idiot if I opened my mouth than if I just kept it shut.

My mother dropped us off, and drove away. I walked up to the ticket window and paid for both tickets, and handed one to Karen. As we walked into the theatre, I remember thinking about how weird it was being in there with a girl and not a bunch of my friends.

I took her hand as we walked, and she didn't recoil in horror, so of course I instantly started feeling pretty good about the evening so far, even though everything up to this point had been incredibly screwed up. We stood in line for some popcorn and a couple of sodas and then stood in line again to hand over our tickets. The ticket taker said "Number 2 on the left" and we were off.
When we walked into the darkened theater, the previews were already playing. It was musty, and romantic, and all I could smell was a combination of popcorn, her shampoo and the scent of her leather jacket.

I leaned over and whispered "Where do you want to sit?" hoping to steer her toward a couple of seats in the back.

"Let's sit down in front," she said, and started walking towards the first row of seats.

Something here was not going according to plan. We were not supposed to sit in the front row where everyone in the place could see us, and be completely lit up by the reflected light of the silver screen. We were supposed to sit in the back where it was dark, and nobody was paying attention. My dream was hemorrhaging before my eyes, and I didn't know how to stop the bleeding. So I followed her to the front row and sat down.

Front row: Strike two.

I asked her if her popcorn was ok, and she said yes. Apparently her drink was fine too. Finally, after I asked her a dozen different questions in that vein, and she responded to every one with a single word answer, our movie started. I was glad because I was running out of stupid questions.

Then she started fumbling around in her purse. After a few seconds she pulled something out.

Her glasses.

She put on her glasses. I was only 14 and a complete idiot, but even I knew what that meant. She was here to watch the movie. That's it. There will be no making out, feeling up, feeling down, necking, or whatever you wanted to call it. With a little luck, there might be some hand holding. With a LOT of luck, maybe I could figure out a way to put my arm around her.

Glasses: Strike three.

We sat there for a while, and eventually her hand crept out and put itself in mine. I was frozen in terror. A few minutes after that, she took my hand, raised it over her head and draped my arm around her shoulder. It was a little awkward, since she was taller than me, and it put my arm at a very strange angle. I felt like I had her in a headlock, but still, it was something. I know that normally after strike three you're out, but this was at least a foul ball.

My heart was about to break out of my ribcage, but this was good. My left hand was inches from an actual boob. I could feel the boob calling to me in the recesses of my mind. Calling me, telling me to just nonchalantly drop my hand from where it was resting on her shoulder and let my fingers do the walking; On the outside at first, to get some shirt boob, then on the inside if she didn’t seem to mind.

I couldn't do it. I sat there through the whole movie and I don't think I actually saw any of it. Instead, I had a front row seat to the prize fight between my force of will and my chickenshit hand. My hand would start to inch its way toward Boobville, and then suddenly it would chicken out and snap back to her shoulder like I was a marionette with rubber bands instead of strings. This epic battle raged, non-stop, for two hours. By the end of the movie, my arm was numb, my back was sore and I had a stiff neck from sitting in that totally awkward position due to the height discrepancy.

Before I knew it, the movie was over. We stood up and walked outside. I had failed to even touch shirt boob. I had put my arm around her, true, but that wasn’t quite the same thing. Actually, I didn't even do that. She did. But still, as far as my friends were concerned, that wasn't the story I would tell.

"Pretty good movie," she said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Pretty good."

Then we sat in total silence for ten minutes, waiting for my mother to pick us up.

It was dark by the time my mother got there. “There she is,” I said, and the relief was palpable.

True to her word, my mother still didn’t look in the rear view mirror. Not that it would have mattered at this point, because somewhere between the end of the movie and the drive home, Karen and I had erected some sort of wall between us that appeared to be manufactured completely out of solid awkwardness. For some reason, the girl I talked to every day at school had suddenly become unapproachable when she was sitting next to me in the dark. I sat there with my hands in my lap, staring straight ahead, completely paralyzed in fear. My mother looked straight ahead according to plan.

Before I realized it, we were pulling up in front of Karen’s house. There were cars in the driveway, so my mother couldn’t pull in, which worked out well for our plan. Karen got out of the car and apparently didn’t realize that I was planning on walking her to the house. I base this theory on the fact that as she left the car, she slammed the door. This didn’t work out so well for me since I was only half way out of the car at the time. The door closed on my shin, and the window frame hit me in the side of the head. After my mother successfully stifled her laughter, and I assured them both that I was not bleeding or concussed, I asked her if I could walk her to the house. She agreed.

About halfway to the door, my mother initiated the first step in the plan, and drove away to give us our privacy. Although I pretended to ignore the fact that my mother just drove away, Karen seemed to notice it right away. She kept looking over her shoulder as my mother’s car reached the end of her street, turned left, and then disappeared from sight.

We were standing on her front steps, awkwardly face to face. I had my hands on her hips, and my hands felt like two blocks of solid wood. She had her arms hanging straight down at her sides like she was standing at attention. I was looking at Karen’s sweet, full lips, and Karen was looking wildly down the street.

“Does your mother know you’re not in the car?” she asked me, clearly concerned. “Do you need to use the phone?”

“Yes, she knows,” I replied, my concentration broken. “And no, I don’t need a phone. She’ll be back soon. She’s going to drive around the block to give us some time,” I lamely explained.

Karen remained unconvinced. “Time for what? Why did she just… drive away?” she asked.

“Um, well…because… I sort of asked her to,” I said.

“Oh.” She said, obviously confused. She still wasn’t getting it. “OK, then. Thanks for the movie. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She turned toward the door, and one of my hands fell from her leather jacket.

I could see my chances for the good night kiss slipping away quickly, so I decided to go for it. As I moved forward, two things happened simultaneously. Startled by my sudden lunge, she backed away from my questing fish lips. At that same instant, the porch light went on, the front door opened, and her mom said, “Oh! I thought I heard someone out here! How was the movie?”

Then, using her keen powers of deduction, her mother realized that based on my current in-progress pucker status, she had interrupted the goodnight kiss. Seconds later, she also realized that my mother’s car was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you want me to give you two a minute of privacy?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.
“No,” Karen said.

Karen’s mother laughed. “OK, then. Karen, thank Johnny for the movie and come inside. It’s cold out. Johnny, where’s your mother?”

“She drove around the block.” I mumbled, as if that made perfect sense. “She’ll be right back.” Karen’s mother looked at me quizzically, but withheld comment.

“Thanks, Johnny,” Karen said. “I’ll see you Monday in school.”

“OK, Karen,” I said. “Thanks for going with me. I hope you had fun.”

She didn’t answer, but she did smile a little as she closed the door. Maybe it was a smirk. To this day, I’m not sure.

The door clicked shut, the porch light went out, and I turned and walked to the end of the driveway to wait for my mother.

I stood there for a few minutes waiting.

Nothing. The wind picked up.

I stood for a few minutes more, and I was starting to get pretty cold. Still nothing. Cars came, cars went. None of them were my mother.

“Come on, mom!” I thought to myself. “How long can it take you to drive around the block?”

Finally, the porch light came back on and the front door opened. Karen’s mom yelled out. “Johnny! You can’t stand out there in the cold. Come in here and wait.”

Completely embarrassed, I did the perp walk all the way back to the house as Karen and her mother looked on. “Thanks,” I mumbled, as I stepped inside. Just as I was about to close the door, my mother pulled up. I spun around and literally ran down the driveway to the waiting car. Before I had even closed the car door behind me, I was yelling at her.

“Where were you?” I practically screamed. “You said you were going to just drive around the block! You were gone for ten minutes! Jeez! I felt like an idiot!”

“This neighborhood looks different in the dark, and I ended up one street over,” she said laughing at my obvious distress. “How did it go?”

“Just drive,” I said.

“That good, huh?” she said, sounding sympathetic. She flipped on the radio as we pulled away, and Frankie Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You” was playing. The song ended, and I reached out and snapped the radio back off.

A few minutes later, she spoke up again.

“Trust me, chief,” she said. “It’ll get better.”

You know what? It did.

Not right away -- but eventually, it did.