The mall had only closed fifteen minutes earlier, but the lot was already mostly empty. Sam Goody assured me it would be a safe space for my first driving lesson.
“Here it is,” he said, sweeping his hand over the hood of his car.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s … oh.”
It was an aggressively ugly car. A fecal-brown Chevy hatchback, with rusted-out patches around the wheels, a crooked back bumper, dented front fender, and too many side-door dings to count. I didn’t know if I should be relieved by the sorry state of this automobile—I couldn’t mess it up that much more than it already was—or worried that I was being taught to drive by anyone who could do so much vehicular damage.
“I got it like this,” he said, sensing my apprehension. “I have a spotless driving record. Not even a speeding ticket.”
He chivalrously opened the driver’s side door for me. Or, at least he tried to.
“Sorry—” He yanked on the handle. “It sticks sometimes.”
He had not bothered locking the door because no one would steal this car. After a few more tugs, it finally swung open with a creaky whine.
“After you,” he said, gesturing at the driver’s seat.
Upholstered in a phlegm-colored vinyl, the Chevy was equally ugly on the inside as it was on the outside. It was, however, scrupulously clean. The immaculate interior was especially remarkable considering the impromptu nature of the lesson. I mean, it’s not like Sam Goody had any time to quickly clean his car in the effort to impress me. This was its natural state.
And I was impressed.
Until I got a better look.
Sam had put the rear seats down and loaded the hatchback with ropes, metal clamps, a kinky sex-harness type thing…?
Oh my God, a serial killer travel kit.
I knew next to nothing about Sam Goody! What had I been thinking when I followed him to this dark, deserted parking lot? Murders were at a record high in Manhattan, but it was just my sucky luck to fall for a hometown killer.
Sam Goody saw me eyeing the serial killer travel kit and laughed.
“Rock-climbing equipment,” he explained.
“Rock-climbing equipment?” I replied incredulously. “You’re a rock climber?”
I really knew next to nothing about Sam Goody.
“Since I was thirteen,” he said. “A hippie cousin took me out for the first time when we were visiting family in Oregon one summer. I loved the challenge of it—like figuring out where to grab and grip and get myself up there. I was always a cautious kid, not much of a risk-taker, but rock climbing was my way of, I don’t know, being a bit of a daredevil.” He popped open the hatchback and removed a J-shaped metal device. “I guess you could say I was…” He held the clamp up in the space between us. “Hooked right away.”
“That pun,” I groaned, “was way worse than the possibility you were a serial killer.”
“Believe or not, I wasn’t exactly the sporty type in high school.” He swept his hand through his hair and reconsidered. “Actually, that’s not true. I was athletic, but I wasn’t sporty.” A wistful smile crossed his face. “I was the king of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in elementary school. Remember those?”
I grimaced at the memory of this annual assessment of our athleticism—or lack thereof.
“I could do more pull-ups and climb the rope ladder faster than the jocks—you know, the real jocks—the football, basketball, baseball meatheads,” he said. “And they hated me for it. Especially when I refused to join any of their teams because I wanted nothing to do with all that macho gorilla rah-rah locker-room chauvinism.”
He grunted and pantomimed like a primate—or a typical Pineville High linebacker.
“No high school rock-climbing teams,” I said.
“No championship tournaments,” he added. “No varsity letters.”
“Not much rock climbing in the City of Brotherly Love either, I imagine,” I said, referring to the home of the UPenn campus.
He gave a regretful nod.
“I didn’t think about that when I applied or when I was accepted,” he said. “But I thought about it all the time after I got there.”
This made me wonder what I wouldn’t know I’d miss until after I got to Barnard.
“Let’s get this lesson started, shall we?”
I lowered myself into the driver’s side bucket seat. He walked around the front of the car, opened the passenger door—no sticking this time—and got in next to me. Separated by the center console, it was still the closest we’d ever been.
“What’s that smell?” I asked.
He reeled back, alarmed.
“You smell something bad?” he asked. “I try to keep this car clean…”
“Oh no! It’s a good smell! It’s like…” I sniffed. “Lavender?”
“It’s my Yardley Brilliantine hair pomade.” He seemed slightly embarrassed to admit this. “It’s British.”
Sam Goody’s hair was longer than it was when we first met. The pompadour still crested off his scalp, but in a shaggier, less sculptural way. I liked this looser look on him. He wore it well.
“Well, it’s a good smell.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
Mercifully, he did not comment on the funk emanating from my borrowed denim.
From me.
Just to be safe, I took off Sonny’s jacket before pulling my seat belt across my chest.
“So,” Sam Goody said.
“So,” I said.
He dug into the front pocket of his jeans.
I wanted my hand to join his.
I wanted to dig deeper.
I wanted …
He extracted a set of keys on a simple silver ring and dangled them in front of me. I liked that he wasn’t someone who expressed his individuality through quirky keychains. When he dropped them into my outreached palm, I felt a palpable disappointment that our fingertips hadn’t touched. Maybe I had misread Sam Goody yet again. He wasn’t interested in me in the way I was starting to think I was interested in him.
“You’ve really never driven before?” he asked.
“Nope. I passed the written test but never got behind the wheel. So, how do we get started?”
“Key in the ignition,” he instructed.
I did as I was told. The dashboard controls lit up.
“Step one.” He held up a cassette. “The right soundtrack.”
He popped Nevermind into the tape deck. Watery guitars washed over us.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s step two?”
Sam slowly and deliberately looked me up and down. I didn’t experience the overwhelming urge to cover up as I had when Slade or Sonny ogled me. Just the opposite. I wanted Sam to keep looking. I wanted Sam to see more. I wanted to reveal, not conceal.
“Your feet aren’t touching the pedals,” Sam said. “You need to move the seat up.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound as deflated as I felt. “Okay.”
He wasn’t objectifying me after all. He was just crossing off all the boxes on the pre-drive safety checklist. I felt underneath for the seat adjuster. I pulled the lever and I thrust my pelvis to make the seat move forward. It stayed put. After a few jerky attempts, Sam offered to help.
“Do you mind?”
I shook my head. No, I don’t mind. I don’t mind this one bit.
He leaned across my lap, reached down between my legs and pulled.
“Ohhhh!”
I bucked as if we’d gone from zero-to-sixty in under a second.
“Sorry!” He lurched backward. “Was that too much?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said with a slight catch in my voice.
“Oh,” Sam Goody said with a slight catch in his voice.
And in the next instant, our chests crashed and our mouths mashed over the center console.
We kissed to tortured and distorted, melodic and melancholic music unlike anything I’d ever heard before. As Sam Goody kissed me—eagerly, hungrily—I had an acute awareness of what I can only describe of anticipatory nostalgia. For the rest of my life, I knew I’d always remember kissing Sam Goody whenever I heard this song, these words.
“Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be.”
“Can I have another lesson tomorrow?” I murmured dreamily.
“I wish I could,” Sam said, kissing me again. Only this time sweetly, softly, tenderly. “But I’m taking a road trip. I’ll be gone for a week.”
He explained that he was taking time off to spend with his younger brother before driving him to college for freshman orientation.
“I didn’t know you had a brother my age,” I said.
“He graduated from Eastland this year,” he replied. “Do you have any siblings?”
“Nope.”
Yep, we’d totally made out before exchanging even the most basic biographical details.
“Where’s he going to school?”
I was curious, of course, but also more than slightly concerned that the Chevette might not make it to whatever campus and back.
“Harvard.”
We both winced as he said it.
“So much for ‘life beyond the Ivy League’ in your family, huh?”
“Well.” Sam smiled ruefully, adorably. “At least it takes the pressure off me to be the successful son.”
And before I knew it, we were going at it all over again. I didn’t learn the first thing about driving that night. But I finally, finally, oh my God finally understood what the fuss over kissing was all about.