AFTER THE LONG cold winter, we welcomed the first signs of spring. As the air warmed, the city had a special smell that filled me with joy. Now we spent as much time as possible outside, usually by my corner or the park wall, which overlooked the baseball field.
The park was beautiful in the springtime. It was one of the only places in our part of the city where the true miracle of spring could be observed. The poor trampled grass that was so brown and lifeless during the winter suddenly came alive again. Little buds burst from barren branches on bushes and trees, and dandelions came up overnight. Birds returned and resumed their singing. Best of all, the boys started playing baseball again.
That meant there was always something happening in the park. On weekend mornings when there was no bowling, I would fly through my chores and race to the park. I didn’t want to miss any action.
On this Sunday, I arrived before the game started. A crowd of boys huddled excitedly behind the batter’s cage. Sheldon, Lenny, Norman, and Nicky were there. I climbed over the park wall and dropped to the field below, anxious to see what was happening.
Lenny stood talking in the center of the crowd. “Tell us what happened next,” I heard Sheldon urge him.
Lenny threw back his head. His eyes flashed with life. Obviously, he was enjoying telling his story. I couldn’t understand why. It was this whole long thing about how his parents had gotten so mad at him that they both began hitting him at once. His response was to run away from home. He had taken a bus all the way to Philadelphia and back again. He had stayed out the whole night, too. He had climbed up the fire escape that led to Nicky’s room, climbed in the window, and he had spent the night sleeping under Nicky’s bed. His parents had been so worried about him that when he called home in the morning, they promised not only never to hit him again but to give him extra spending money.
“So I’m on my way home right now,” Lenny concluded. “See you guys later.” He made a dramatic exit, climbing over the park wall and disappearing down the street.
Everyone stared after him. For a moment we were all speechless.
“Boy,” I said finally. “I can’t believe that Lenny. He acts as if he’s proud of doing a stupid thing like that!”
“Don’t be so hard on Lenny,” Sheldon said to me. “He lives in a house with parents that don’t get along. His father’s not home half the time, and when he is, there’s always screaming and fighting. So Lenny acts like a big shot and pretends he doesn’t care. But underneath it all, he’s really hurting.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly ashamed of myself for not being more understanding. “I guess you’re right, Sheldon. I mean, I always thought it was tough to have parents that are old-fashioned. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to live with parents like Lenny’s!”
I made up my mind to be nicer to Lenny—if only he’d let me!
* * *
But by the very next weekend, Lenny was causing trouble again. We all went up to Ellen Rossi’s house on Saturday afternoon. Ellen was teasing the boys in her usual flirty way. Actually, she was really asking for what happened next.
Lenny gathered the boys together to talk. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could see he was stirring up trouble from the expression on his face.
When the boys came back, they all attacked Ellen. Nicky and Lenny held her arms, and Sheldon and Danny held her legs. “Now get her, Louie!” Lenny yelled. “Start tickling her!”
Ellen began screaming and squirming. She hated to be tickled. Louie was having a hard time getting to her.
Fran, Roz, and I ran to Ellen’s rescue. Roz and Fran tried to pull Sheldon and Danny off her legs, while I hammered my fists on Louie’s back.
“Get away from Ellen!” I yelled.
“Hey, that hurts!” Louie backed away from Ellen, rubbing his spine where I had hit him. “You didn’t have to hit so darn hard, Linda!” He looked really angry when he said that.
Things quieted down after that. But Louie seemed annoyed at me for the rest of the afternoon. This got me worried. Because earlier, Sheldon had invited us to come to his house that night for what was supposed to be a party for couples: himself and Roz, Danny and Fran, and Louie and me. I was really looking forward to this party. But if Louie was still angry, it could ruin the entire evening.
* * *
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that the party would have turned out the way it did. I knew something was wrong right from the beginning when Louie, who was always on time, still hadn’t shown up a half hour after the party started.
At first, everyone hung around the kitchen, waiting for Louie to arrive. Finally, Danny and Fran, who had gotten pretty serious about each other recently, went and sat on one of the two sofas in the living room.
They started kissing. Roz and Sheldon were obviously anxious to follow suit. I stood there by the snack table, nervously eating potato chips and pretzels one after another. Where was Louie?
Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer, the doorbell rang. Sheldon went to answer it and came back with Louie. My heart hammered fearfully.
“Join the party, Louie,” said Sheldon. He plopped down on a sofa and gave Roz a meaningful look. Roz glanced at me to make sure I was okay. I looked at Louie.
But Louie was acting as if I wasn’t even there. He walked right by me and went straight to the snack table. “Oh, good, potato chips!” he commented. “I’m starved!” He picked up the entire bowl and sat down on a chair. Then he turned on the radio and started singing along with it.
Roz watched all this. Then she walked over to Louie and said, “Why don’t you act normal, Louie?”
“I’ll act any way I want to,” he replied rudely. The way he wanted to was to sit on the chair looking at the ceiling. He kept on singing with the radio.
“I give up!” Roz sighed. She went over and sat on the sofa next to Sheldon. After a while, they started kissing, too.
So the party I had longed for turned into a nightmare. Louie sat there on the chair while I sat on the floor in a corner of the room.
Tears burned my eyes. At first I struggled to hold them back, but then they started rolling down my cheeks faster than I could control. Once I began crying, I found I couldn’t stop. It was awful!
Louie didn’t have to say anything to me. I knew that he was showing me that whatever we once had going between us was now over. But I didn’t understand why he had to pick this horrible way of doing it. Didn’t he know how embarrassed I would be to be rejected like this in front of my friends? Didn’t he care? How could he be so cruel?
Louie kept it up the entire evening. I felt like a real fool sitting there on the floor, but I didn’t have the guts to get up and leave by myself.
I sat there listening to the sound of Louie’s voice singing softly with the radio. Thoughts of how wonderful it had once been to have him hold me in his arms kept floating through my head. When I thought of how great I had hoped tonight would be, it was more than I could take. I sobbed so hard I thought my body would burst.
I used up a whole box of Sheldon’s tissues that night. Louie had to have known how terrible I was feeling. But he never even looked my way.
When the party finally broke up, Sheldon and Roz walked me home. “I don’t know why Louie did this.” Sheldon tried to cheer me up. “I always thought he liked you best of all the girls.”
I tried to smile. “Thanks, Sheldon. It really doesn’t matter anymore. If it’s over, it’s over. I’ll be all right.” I walked sadly to my building.
Once they had left me alone, I didn’t feel so brave. I just couldn’t bring myself to go up to my apartment. What if my parents were still up? I didn’t want them to see me with my nose all swollen and my eyes all red from crying.
I sat down on the stoop in front of my building. I needed to be alone. It was really over. It hurt so bad! My stomach ached and my chest felt like exploding. I started crying all over again. It seemed to release some of the terrible pressure I felt inside.
Lenny and Nicky walked by. I tried to stifle my crying, but I guess they heard me.
“What’s the matter with you, Linda?” Lenny asked, a shocked expression on his face.
“It’s L-L-Louie!” I sobbed, shaking my head. I could hardly speak. “W-What he did to me tonight!”
“What did he do to you? I’ll break his head if he touched you!” Nicky threatened, putting up his fists.
“No, it wasn’t anything like that!” Despite everything, I had to laugh at how funny Nicky looked. I swallowed hard and told them the story of the evening.
“That dirty rat!” Lenny said, putting his arm around me. “Let’s go into your building and talk.”
We went in and sat on the staircase. Lenny was really nice to me. He told me about how bad he had felt when Ellen broke up with him. “For a while I didn’t want to be anywhere that she was,” he said. “I got over it, and you will, too.”
“Do you really think so?” I sniffled. Somehow, talking to Lenny was making me feel a lot better. I hadn’t known he was capable of being so caring, so understanding.
Nicky had been waiting outside while we were talking. Now he came running into the hall. “Louie’s here!” he announced. “I just saw him coming around the corner.”
“Oh, no,” I moaned. “I don’t think I can stand facing him now!”
“I’ll take care of Louie,” Lenny assured me. He got up as Louie entered the hall. “Hey Louie,” he said, pulling some coins out of his pocket. “Here’s some money. Go treat yourself to a soda. You deserve it for being such a great guy!”
Louie took the money and grinned this sheepish grin. “Boy you’re generous tonight, Lipoff. Feeling all right?”
“We’ll all feel a lot better when you get lost!”
Louie laughed. He left the building and walked toward the candy store.
“That Louie is as cold and heartless as they come,” Lenny commented. “You don’t know it yet, Linda, but you’re really going to be better off without him!”