But, we did. And then again. And then again.
She dragged me to the dance club. I dragged her to football games to retaliate each time. We tried miniature golf and bowling, which I don’t think either of us liked much since we only did each once.
And, oh God, the movies. I liked starships, sword and sorcery, or action films with a quota of bullets and explosions. I swear Wendy liked anything but those. I had more class than to heckle when it was her turn to pick like she did with mine. I just dozed.
And the food choices were ridiculous. About the only thing we could agree on was McDonalds so I could get a couple of Big Macs and she could get a salad. Other than that, I was a chicken fried steak kind of guy with a little spicy Tex-Mex when I was in the mood for something exotic. Wendy wanted to eat Chinese, or Thai, or Indian, or some other crap from some other continent with weird names and even stranger appearance. I drew the line in the sand at that creepy joint where the so-called food was still wriggling on the plate.
But, somehow, some way, we kept ending up spending time together two or three or more times a week until one day I looked up and realized she’d passed from that weird slightly annoying acquaintance you can’t quite seem to shake to a bona-fide girlfriend.
Maybe it was when we met each other’s parents. I’m not sure. I don’t really remember exactly what point we first held hands or kissed. I’m sure they would have been big deals to me, whether or not they were to her, but I just don’t remember. Mostly because of what overshadowed them later.
I said at the beginning I’d never done more than some kissing and some petting. Nothing below the waist.
Wendy had. Only with one guy, granted. But, she had.
Maybe the smartest thing for me to have done would have been to back away from the relationship quietly and easily when she told me. Maybe then I would have remained the four cornered guy I was and gone on to lead a much quieter, if dull and boring, life.
I might have graduated with a different degree which would have led down a different career path. Maybe I would have stuck with engineering or maybe I still would have changed but to something else.
Maybe that’s too heavy a load to place on Wendy’s slender shoulders and our, rather questionable, relationship. But, I calls ’em like I sees ’em. I’m too damn old to do different at this late date.
At any rate, Wendy admitted to me that she’d had sex with her former manager at that record shop. It was really a rather sad story. In a way if it had been to keep her job, some sort of quasi-rape where he used their positions to force her like we hear about in the news, or drugged her or got her drunk, it might not have been quite so sad as what actually happened.
Seems he was the first guy to really pay attention to Wendy. They worked together and eventually got to spending even more time together outside of work. For the first time in her life, Wendy had something like a boyfriend and she liked it. They did the kissing and petting like what I’d done, but she stopped him from going further because back then everybody knew that good girls didn’t do that.