See Jane Date by Melissa Senate Page B

shopping expedition to find Dana a dress for her own first dance at Russell Sage Junior High. (She was something of the Natasha Nutley of the seventh grade.) But a week before the dance, Robby still hadn’t asked me. And suddenly, we were down to three days. In English class, I was gearing up to ask him, ever so casually, if he’d like to go with me. But then I’d heard the sound that accompanied Natasha Nutley everywhere she went: the jangle of bangle bracelets.
    She was giggling and leaning over Robby’s desk, her butt in the air. “So you’ll pick me up at seven-thirty,right, Robby?” He’d nodded, a speechless expression of bliss on his face. “Don’t forget the corsage, white with a pink ribbon to match my dress.”
    My dress was going to be pink.
    Robby watched her sashay her little hips back to her own desk, then pumped his fist in the air with a silently mouthed Yes! He’d passed me a note: “Where do you buy a corsage, do you know?” I’d written back that he should stop at Forest Hills Flowers on Queens Blvd, a few long blocks from the school. He’d smiled at me, and then hadn’t taken his eyes off the back of Natasha Nutley’s ringletted head for the fifty minutes of AP English.
    I’d cried for three days. The day after the dance, I’d dared to ask Robby if he’d had a good time. He’d barely lifted his head from his desk. Said she’d canceled at the last minute, that she and Jimmy Alfonzo had gotten back together. He’d spent a whole hour at Forest Hills Flowers, he’d told me, only to end up throwing the corsage away.
    The corsage that should have been mine. Robby Evers had been ruined by reality. Natasha Nutley had taken all his sixteen-year-old idealism and introduced the hard facts of real life. And Robby never touched my hand again.
    Okay, okay, whip out the violins for me now, right?
    As if on cue, the sweeping crescendo of an operatic overture burst through the wall. Opera Man must have gotten into a fight with his girlfriend. I didn’t recognize the composer, but I knew drama when I heard it.
    I lit a cigarette, took a long drag and leaned back against the futon as I exhaled slowly.
    How was I supposed to carefully read and thoughtfully comment on Natasha’s chapter while some Italian woman boomed next door? I pounded my fist on the wall. Opera Man pounded back, but he lowered the volume.
    Five cigarettes later, I’d finished reading Chapter One.Ten cigarettes later, I’d finished editing it. I’d penciled notes in the margins. Expand here. Flesh this out. Show, don’t tell. I’d corrected her atrocious spelling. Natasha Nutley had apparently slept her way into high school AP English, too.
    I reached for a cigarette—the pack was empty. Twelve butts littered the ashtray on the Parsons table. I hadn’t even realized I’d smoked so many cigarettes. I stood up and stretched my legs, then crumpled the empty pack into the ashtray and carried the bamboo tray into the kitchen.
    As the butts and ashes fell into the little garbage can under the sink, I could hear Serge shouting in his Russian accent. “I do not understand, El-weeze! In my country, when people love each other, they spend time together!”
    â€œI need my space, Serge!” Eloise declared.
    I thought only men said that.
    A few minutes later, a door slammed, and heavy footsteps bounded downstairs. Then came the sound of Eloise unlocking her door and running up the steps. She knocked to the tune of the “Wedding March.” “Open up, I have the best outfit for you for Trendoid Night!”
    If I hadn’t overheard that little tidbit of a fight, I never would have known that Serge had moments ago stormed out of Eloise’s apartment. Eloise’s expression gave nothing away.
    â€œEl? Are you okay?”
    She opened my closet door and hung up the outfit, which involved lots of low-cut black