I honestly can’t remember the second half of my senior year. I spent it all on Judith. She worked in Manhattan, and every few days I picked her up from work. She lived in far Brooklyn, and almost every day I went there on the subway to hang out in her bedroom. On days we didn’t see each other, we always talked on the phone. Mom (again) thought I was on drugs, especially when I began ignoring her curfews altogether by coming home at midnight on weekdays, 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. on weekends. I guess I was in a bit of a daze; I lost a lot of weight and was tired all the time. But the stories stayed crystal clear.
• • •
I threw up on our first date. I had this great plan, see, to save money by eating at Burger King before we went out; then I would just order food for Judith. I figured that would be chivalrous, like a knight in shining armor getting a meal for his lady.
Well, Judith saw through me as we sat across from each other at King Wok’s Chinese Cuisine. The waiter came by for our order.
“You’re not hungry?” Judith asked.
“Uh, not really,” I told her.
“You’re not hungry on our first date?”
Okay, so not eating was bad. I ordered some lemon chicken. It was way too much for my stomach, which was already dealing with a Whopper and onion rings; a half hour later, I found myself huddled over the King Wok toilet. I got some mints, though, from the cashier, and Judith never knew.
• • •
Our first fight took place in Barnes & Noble. We were hanging out there, and I checked my watch (actually, it was Mom’s watch—she had lent it to me so I could get to a friend’s Super Bowl party on time). Judith got mad because we were sort of in a back corner, and there’d been kissing; she felt it was ungracious of me to check the time. She stormed out of Barnes & Noble and I followed, totally unclear on what to do. I’d never seen a girl really mad before—at first I thought she was joking. We took two hours to settle the situation. I missed the Super Bowl party.
• • •
Another time, one of Judith’s friends threw a birthday party at a blues club in Manhattan; Judith and I went. I bought her an Irish coffee (seven dollars!), but when it arrived, it was too strong for her—more Bailey’s than coffee—so she left it alone. Now, I wasn’t going to waste seven of my dollars; I escaped to the bathroom with the coffee and downed it. Then I started worrying—what if she smelled the liquor on my breath? So I got out of the blues club and ran to a deli across the street for a stick of gum. While there, I noticed some green apples; I bought one of those instead, figuring it would clear up my breath just as well and be good for me. When I came back, Judith was livid. She wanted to know where I’d been for ten minutes, but mostly, she wanted to know what the hell I was doing in a blues club eating an apple.
• • •
I wanted a girlfriend all through high school, and when I finally got one, it was confusing and weird and stressful. But it also lived up to the hype, and that’s rare. Pot didn’t live up to its hype. Cigarettes didn’t. Drinking didn’t. The girl did.