Part 19 (1/2)

'Never apologize to the opposite s.e.x,' she said. 'Not if you want to get anywhere.'

'Get anywhere?' I said.

'Beyond the kissing,' Sabrina said.

'I can't get to to the kissing,' I explained to her. the kissing,' I explained to her.

That's easy,' Sabrina said. To get to the kissing, all you have to do is act like you know how to kiss: then someone will let you start.'

'But I don't don't know how,' I said. know how,' I said.

That's easy,' Sabrina said. 'Just practice.'

'n.o.body to practice with,' I said - but I thought, fleetingly, of Franny.

'Try it with Bitty Tuck,' Sabrina whispered, laughing.

'But I have to look like I know how,' I said. 'And I don't.'

'We're back to that,' Sabrina said. 'I'm too old to let you practice with me. It wouldn't be good for either of us.'

Ronda Ray, cruising the dance floor, spotted Frank behind the empty tables, but Frank fled before she could ask him to dance. Egg was gone, so Frank had probably been waiting for an excuse to go corner Egg alone. Lilly was dancing, stoically, with one of Father and Mother's friends, Mr. Matson, an unfortunately tall man - although, if he had been short, he couldn't have been short enough for Lilly. They looked like an awkward, perhaps unmentionable animal act.

Father danced with Mrs. Matson and Mother stood at the bar, talking with an old crony who was at the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re nearly every night - a drinking friend of Coach Bob's; his name was Merton, and he was the foreman at the lumberyard. Merton was a wide, heavy man with a limp and mighty, swollen hands; he listened half-heartedly to my mother, his face stricken with the absence of Iowa Bob; his eyes, feasting on Doris Wales, seemed to think that the band was inappropriate so soon after Bob's ultimate retirement.

'Variety,' said Sabrina Jones in my ear. That's the secret to kissing,' she said.

' ”I love you for a hundred thousand reasons!” ' crooned Doris Wales.

Egg was back; he was in his Big Chicken costume; then he was gone again. Bitty Tuck looked bored; she seemed unsure about cutting in on Junior and Franny. And she was so sophisticated, as Franny would say, that she did not know how to talk with Ronda Ray, who had fixed herself a drink at the bar. I saw Max Urick gawking out of the kitchen doorway.

'Little bites, and a little bit of tongue,' said Sabrina Jones, 'but the important thing is to move your mouth around.'

'Do you want a drink?' I asked her. 'I mean, you're old enough. Father put a case of beer in the snow, out at the delivery entrance, for us kids. He said he couldn't let us drink at the bar, but you can.' can.'

'Show me the delivery entrance,' said Sabrina Jones. 'I'll have a beer with you. Just don't get fresh.'

We left the dance floor, fortunately just in time to miss Doris Wales's slamming transition to 'I Don't Care If the Sun Don't s.h.i.+ne.' - the speed of which prompted Bitty Tuck to cut in on Franny for a dance with Junior. Ronda looked sullenly upon my leaving.

Sabrina and I startled Frank, who was p.i.s.sing on the trash barrels at the delivery entrance. In a gesture of Frank-like awkwardness, Frank pretended to be pointing out the beer to us. 'Got an opener, Frank?' I asked, but he had vanished into the mist of Elliot Park - the ever-dreary fog, which in the winter was our dominant weather.

Sabrina and I opened our beers at the reception desk in the lobby, where Frank had permanently hung a bottle opener from a nail on a length of twine; it was for opening his Pepsi-Colas when he was on phone duty at the desk. In a clumsy effort to sit beside Sabrina, on the trunk of Junior's winter clothes, I spilled some beer on Bitty Tuck's luggage.

'You could introduce yourself to her affections,' Sabrina was saying, 'by offering to take all those bags to her room.'

'Where are your your bags?' I asked Sabrina. bags?' I asked Sabrina.

'For one night,' Sabrina said, 'I don't pack a bag. And you don't have to offer to show me to my my room. I can find it.' room. I can find it.'

'I could show it to you, anyway,' I said.

'Well, do it,' she said. 'I got a book to read. This is one party I don't need,' she added. 'I might as well get ready for a long drive back to Philadelphia.'

I walked with her to her room on the second floor. I had no illusions of making a move on her, as she would say; I wouldn't have had the courage, anyway. 'Good night,' I mumbled at her door, and let her slip away. She was not gone long.

'Hey,' she said, opening her door before I had left the hall. 'You'll never get anywhere not trying. You didn't even try try to kiss me,' she added. to kiss me,' she added.

'I'm sorry,' I said.

'Never apologize!' Sabrina said. She stood close to me in the hallway and let me kiss her. 'First things first,' she said. 'Your breath smells nice - that's a start. But stop shaking, and you shouldn't make tooth contact at the beginning; and don't try to ram ram me with your tongue.' We tried again. 'Keep your hands in your pockets,' she told me. 'Watch the tooth contact. Better,' she said. 'Hands in the pockets at all times; two feet on the floor.' I stumbled toward her. We made tooth contact quite violently; she snapped her head back, away from me, and when I looked at her, incredibly, I saw that she held a row of her front upper teeth in her hand. 's.h.i.+t!' she cried. 'Watch the tooth contact!' For a horrible moment I thought I had knocked her teeth out, but she turned her back to me and said, 'Don't look at me. False teeth. Turn out the light.' I did, and it was dark in her room. me with your tongue.' We tried again. 'Keep your hands in your pockets,' she told me. 'Watch the tooth contact. Better,' she said. 'Hands in the pockets at all times; two feet on the floor.' I stumbled toward her. We made tooth contact quite violently; she snapped her head back, away from me, and when I looked at her, incredibly, I saw that she held a row of her front upper teeth in her hand. 's.h.i.+t!' she cried. 'Watch the tooth contact!' For a horrible moment I thought I had knocked her teeth out, but she turned her back to me and said, 'Don't look at me. False teeth. Turn out the light.' I did, and it was dark in her room.

'I'm sorry,' I said, hopelessly.

'Never apologize,' she murmured. 'I was raped.'

'Yes,' I said, knowing all along that this would surface. 'So was Franny.'

'So I heard,' said Sabrina Jones. 'But they didn't knock her teeth out with a pipe. Am I right?'

'Yes,' I said.

'It's the kissing that gets me, every f.u.c.king time,' Sabrina said. 'Just when it gets good, my uppers loosen up - or some clod makes too much tooth contact.'

I didn't apologize; I reached to touch her but she said, 'Keep your hands in your pockets.' Then she came up close to me and said, I'm going to help you if you help me. I'll teach you all about kissing,' she said, 'but you've got to tell me something I always wanted to know. I was never with anyone I dared to ask. I try to keep it a secret.'

'Yes,' I agreed, terrified - not knowing to what I was agreeing.

'I want to know if it's better better with my d.a.m.n teeth with my d.a.m.n teeth out out,' she said, 'or if it's gross. I always thought it would be gross, so I never tried it.' She went into the bathroom and I waited for her, in the dark, watching the line of light framing the bathroom door - until the light went out and Sabrina was back beside me.

Warm and mobile, her mouth was a cave in the world's heart. Her tongue was long and round and her gums were hard but never painful in the nips she took. 'A little less lip,' she mumbled, 'a little more tongue. No, not that that much. That's disgusting! Yes, a little biting is fine. That's nice. Hands back in the pockets - much. That's disgusting! Yes, a little biting is fine. That's nice. Hands back in the pockets - I mean it I mean it. Do you like this?'

'Oh yes,' I said.

'Really?' she asked. 'Is it really better?'

'It's deeper deeper!' I said.

She laughed. 'But better better, too?' she asked.

'Wonderful,' I confessed.

'Hands back in the pockets,' Sabrina said. 'Don't get out of control. Don't be sloppy. Ouch!'

'Sorry.'

'Don't apologize. Just don't bite so hard. Hands in the pockets. I mean it. Don't get fresh. In the pockets In the pockets!'

And so forth, until I was p.r.o.nounced initiated, and ready for Bitty Tuck, and the world, and sent on my way from Sabrina Jones's room; hands still in my pockets, I collided with the door to 2B. Thank you!' I called to Sabrina. In the hall light, without her teeth, she dared to smile at me - a rose-brown, rose-blue smile, so much nicer than the odd, pearly cast of her false teeth.

She had sucked on my lips to make them swell, she had told me, and I walked pouting into the restaurant of the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, aware of the powers of my mouth, ready to make kissing history with Bitty Tuck. But Hurricane Doris was groaning its way through 'I Forgot to Remember to Forget'; Ronda Ray slumped at the bar in a stupor, Mother's new dress slipped up to the knot of muscle at Ronda's hip, on which a bruise, in the shape of a thumbprint, stared at me. Merton, the lumberyard foreman, was swapping stories with my father - I knew the stories would be about Iowa Bob.