LAST DATE

- EXCERPTED FROM MY  NOVEL:

3

Last Date

May, 1966

 

Gaby was already waiting out on the walkway when Earl pulled up in front of the dormitory building the next evening.  She waved excitedly and clattered down the path.  Earl winced as her flouncy rose-print dress billowed out like a parachute, and he pronounced himself an asshole for having kept his word and showed up for this date.  But that’s what he did, so maybe he wasn’t such a total shit after all.

“What movie will we see?” Gaby gaily asked as she popped into the car.

“You choose.”

   She chose “Love With The Proper Stranger”, a Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood flick about a guy who knocks up a broad, then tries to get her to abort the kid, then ends up falling in love with her.  It was a broad’s flick, and Earl fidgeted and squirmed all the way through it.  When the movie ended, he was quickly out of his seat and hurrying Gaby out of the theater.  He was anxious to get her back to the dorm and out of his life.

“Can we go someplace for ice cream or something?” she said as they came out onto the street.

He took her to a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away, a place where he was not likely to run into any of the guys from the base.  They seated themselves in a booth near the entrance.  When a thin, dreary waitress showed up, Earl ordered pie and coffee for both of them.

“Did you like the movie?” Gaby asked.

“Not really my kind of a movie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal.”

The dreary waitress returned and put apple pies and coffees in front of them and then sloped away.

Gaby gazed steadily at Earl, and he stared away from her.  He hoped that she didn’t expect that something more was going to happen tonight.  Did she think that he would drive her someplace and have at her again?  Well there was no chance that he  was going to do that.  He just wanted to be done with her.  He ate his pie quickly, drained his coffee cup and pushed it away.

“I guess we better get you back to the dorm, huh?”

Gaby looked at the tiny gold watch squished around her wrist.  “It’s not even eleven o’clock.  And I don’t have a curfew or anything.

 “The thing is, I got to get up real early.  I’m going to be on a work detail.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yeah, that’s how they happen,” he said.  He stood up and put some money on the table.  “Sometimes they come in bunches.”

 

When they pulled up in front of the dormitory, Earl shut the engine and waited for Gaby to get out of the car.  She did not move.  She sat very still, staring unhappily into the night.

“What’s the matter?” he said with forced patience.

“I wish we could have been in a hotel room.”

“What?”

“Last night.  I wish we could have been in a nice hotel room.  It would have seemed more like we were making love.  And we would not have had to rush and be so shabby.  You would have held me in the dark, and I would have slept in your arms.  And then in the morning the room would be all filled with sunshine through a big picture window.  And we’d call room service and have breakfast in bed.”

Earl burst out of the driver’s seat and pelted around the car to open Gaby’s door.

          “Life is not like a movie.” he fumed as they stepped onto the walkway.

“Will you come up to my floor with me?” she asked.

“Is that allowed?”

“You’re not supposed to.  But we don’t have guards or anything like that.”

“Maybe I better not.”

“Please.  Just up to the hall.  Just to say goodnight.”

Gaby caught his hand and guided him through the entranceway.  There was no elevator, so they had to walk up two flights of stairs.  The building was old and shabbily maintained.  The gray walls were peeling and chips of paint littered the bare steps.  The stairwells smelled musty and were poorly lighted.

On the top floor, Gaby led him into a foyer and she stopped in front of one of the stark gray doors.  The foyer was minimally illuminated by a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling, and there was no carpeting and no furniture.  Earl thought the place looked more like a prison cell block than a college dorm.

“This is it, huh?” he said.

Gaby smiled forlornly.  She hugged him and put her head on his chest.

“Are the other girls all in bed?” he asked awkwardly.  “Or are they out partying someplace?”

“They probably are.  They have lives.”

  “Do you have a room to yourself?”

  “There’s two girls to a room. Remember I told you my roomie went home for the weekend?”

  “Oh, yeah.  So you did?”  Earl stepped back, glancing down the stairwell.  “I better go,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “So I’ll see you later.”

  “You’re not saying when.  Is there a when?”

  “I can’t say yet.  There’s a lot of stuff going on at the base.  I’ll be giving you a buzz.”

  “And what will we do?”

  “We’ll find a motel and shack up, and make love, and have coffee in bed.”

  Gaby frowned.  Then  she nodded.

  “You have no problem with that?” he said.

  “Whatever you want, Charlie.”

  “I got to go now.”

  “Without kissing me goodnight?”

  Earl had already turned away and was hurrying down the stairs.

  Gaby shrieked.  “Charlie!  Wait!”

  Earl stopped at the bottom of the landing and looked up the stairwell.  Gaby was leaning over the banister.

  “Just say the truth, Charlie,” she demanded, her eyes flashing with anger and frustration.  “Just say goodbye right now.  Because you won’t ever come back.  Not even just for sex.  And that’s too bad for both of us.  I would have given you a wonderful love that you’ll never be able to find again.  Because you don’t even know how to see it when it’s there.  You threw away our moment, Charlie.”