because a first date gave you that right, to ignore people you knew, to pretend you couldnât see their faces, couldnât hear them speaking even though they surrounded you, same as always.
On the way home after the dance they didnât talk as much as Patrick had thought they would. Standing on her porch under a naked two-hundred-watt bulb that lit the entire yard and half the barn, with one of the black Labs thumping its tail eagerly against his legs, he leaned in to kiss her and when she kissed him back, he took his chance to cup her heavy breast in his hand. But she pulled the hand away and wrapped it around her back. He assumed she had a set of rules in mind. Although it was the biggest breast heâd touched, it wasnât the first. And a guy could be forgiven. The rules varied from girl to girl, more than youâd think.
The Wednesday night after the Casino dance he took her into Sarnia to a show, a war movie, which they watched low in their seats, holding hands as soon as the plot was well established, Patrickâs arm quickly closing in around her shoulders. On the way home after the show there was finally quite a bit of talk. Sandra started it by saying how sorry she was about his motherâs death and when he tensed up she quickly said she understood how awful it must be for his family. She told him she was sure it would make him feel better to talk about it, that she really believed talking helped. When he reached to turn up the radio, meaning to say that the song shouldnât be missed, she was obviously annoyed that he wasnât even going to try to put it into words for her but she went on bravely to more ordinary things: what he was studying, what he wanted out of university, where she herself thought she might want to go when she graduated. The goodnight kisses took place in the dark of the car, although they were still too few for Patrick and his hand was still very firmly guided. He knew what heâd be doing, wasnât very happy about what heâd be doing when he got home into his own warm bed.
The show had been a slacks-and-sweater-set date but on the Friday night, when their only plan was to do something and Sandra appeared at her door in a pale pink angora sweater and a wraparound skirt, he drove straight out to Lake Huron. He made two slow trips up and down the beach, nodding and waving at the other guys, mostly high school types who were driving the beach with their girlfriends, and then he turned off to follow the road that twisted back to the inland lakes. He parked the car beside one of the smallest lakes and they leaned forward together to look up through the windshield at the stars. After what he believed was long enough, he said heâd check to see if there was a blanket in the trunk and she helped him spread it out on the soft grassy sand.
Sandra was easy enough to get along with. She laughed a lot and sometimes threw her head back when she did as if sheâd never in her life had such a good time. He started to miss her through the week, got so he couldnât remember how he had filled his time before heâd asked her out.
He did miss Murray, who had stayed on alone in London, to work. Theyâd both decided that residence was not for them so before Patrick moved home they had hunted around one morning and found an apartment near the campus and Murray was living there until September, working at the Ancaster Inn on the other side of the city. When Patrick told Bill about their decision, explaining that residence was more than half full of assholes, it seemed to Bill that Patrick might be getting unnecessarily surly.
Their apartment had once been just the upstairs of a normal house. It had a narrow living room across the front with big windows overlooking Richmond Street, two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and off the kitchen a back porch with a staircase leading down to a derelict backyard. There was an old fridge, a stove that was on its last legs,
On the way home after the dance they didnât talk as much as Patrick had thought they would. Standing on her porch under a naked two-hundred-watt bulb that lit the entire yard and half the barn, with one of the black Labs thumping its tail eagerly against his legs, he leaned in to kiss her and when she kissed him back, he took his chance to cup her heavy breast in his hand. But she pulled the hand away and wrapped it around her back. He assumed she had a set of rules in mind. Although it was the biggest breast heâd touched, it wasnât the first. And a guy could be forgiven. The rules varied from girl to girl, more than youâd think.
The Wednesday night after the Casino dance he took her into Sarnia to a show, a war movie, which they watched low in their seats, holding hands as soon as the plot was well established, Patrickâs arm quickly closing in around her shoulders. On the way home after the show there was finally quite a bit of talk. Sandra started it by saying how sorry she was about his motherâs death and when he tensed up she quickly said she understood how awful it must be for his family. She told him she was sure it would make him feel better to talk about it, that she really believed talking helped. When he reached to turn up the radio, meaning to say that the song shouldnât be missed, she was obviously annoyed that he wasnât even going to try to put it into words for her but she went on bravely to more ordinary things: what he was studying, what he wanted out of university, where she herself thought she might want to go when she graduated. The goodnight kisses took place in the dark of the car, although they were still too few for Patrick and his hand was still very firmly guided. He knew what heâd be doing, wasnât very happy about what heâd be doing when he got home into his own warm bed.
The show had been a slacks-and-sweater-set date but on the Friday night, when their only plan was to do something and Sandra appeared at her door in a pale pink angora sweater and a wraparound skirt, he drove straight out to Lake Huron. He made two slow trips up and down the beach, nodding and waving at the other guys, mostly high school types who were driving the beach with their girlfriends, and then he turned off to follow the road that twisted back to the inland lakes. He parked the car beside one of the smallest lakes and they leaned forward together to look up through the windshield at the stars. After what he believed was long enough, he said heâd check to see if there was a blanket in the trunk and she helped him spread it out on the soft grassy sand.
Sandra was easy enough to get along with. She laughed a lot and sometimes threw her head back when she did as if sheâd never in her life had such a good time. He started to miss her through the week, got so he couldnât remember how he had filled his time before heâd asked her out.
He did miss Murray, who had stayed on alone in London, to work. Theyâd both decided that residence was not for them so before Patrick moved home they had hunted around one morning and found an apartment near the campus and Murray was living there until September, working at the Ancaster Inn on the other side of the city. When Patrick told Bill about their decision, explaining that residence was more than half full of assholes, it seemed to Bill that Patrick might be getting unnecessarily surly.
Their apartment had once been just the upstairs of a normal house. It had a narrow living room across the front with big windows overlooking Richmond Street, two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and off the kitchen a back porch with a staircase leading down to a derelict backyard. There was an old fridge, a stove that was on its last legs,
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