The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

comment on when she said, “Not so close, Gary.”
    That shattered my euphoria. I mumbled an apology and loosened the hold of my right hand on her back. Caught enjoying myself too much. We danced to the rest of the song in silence while Nat tried to figure out whether Mona was warm and real or just a cold work of art. I began to wonder the same thing about Ruth. Or maybe she just didn’t like me. Because I reminded her of Ralph?
    I was getting used to rejection. I had dated an Atherton girl during the summer. I took her to nice places, like Melody Fair, which featured Broadway musicals in a tent. On our third or fourth date, we went to a drive-in theater. Drive-ins were billed as hotbeds of iniquity. Not for me. Near the end of the first movie of a double feature, I casually slid across the bench seat of the car toward her and placed my arm behind her shoulders.
    During the break between movies, we ate hamburgers, drank sodas, and went to the restrooms. She beat me back to the car. When I returned, her purse, which was the size of an overnight bag, sat squarely on the seat between us. As dense as I was, I got the message. Looking back, what I couldn’t understand was why I dated her again after that episode. I guess I was desperate.
    One time, after I had achieved some measure of success with a girl, my mother pulled me into the basement where she washed the clothes and showed me the sweater I had worn on that occasion. It had lipstick all over the collar area, and she wasn’t happy about it. It’s not easy being a teenager.
    I thanked Ruth when the music stopped and was about to look for something to drink when I noticed Natalie sitting by herself. Opportunity was knocking. I raced over to her and asked her to dance.
    She looked up at me, startled, and said, “Joe just went to the restroom. He’ll be back soon.”
    “Then we’ll dance until he gets back.” By this time I had hold of her hand. I pulled her to her feet, and we started dancing to “Earth Angel,” sung by The Penguins.
    She felt good in my arms, but she appeared tentative and kept looking over my shoulder toward the entrance to the cafeteria. She said, “We aren’t supposed to know each other, are we?”
    “I met you at cheerleader practice, remember? And Joe is in my gym class. We played on the same touch football team. He even threw me a touchdown pass.”
    Natalie still looked nervous. She clearly wasn’t enjoying herself, which greatly tempered my enjoyment. Earth angels were supposed to act differently. I looked around the room, but I didn’t see Joe. I did see Ed dancing with Ruth, and they were dancing closer than I had been allowed to. How could he get away with that? After all, I was taller and better looking.
    Joe still hadn’t shown up when the song ended, but I let Natalie go and went in search of refreshments. After two bad dances, I needed them. And a Charleston was playing on the jukebox. No boys and only a few girls knew how to dance to the bouncy tune, including Sylvia and Natalie, and they obviously enjoyed doing it. They crossed their hands on their knees and kicked their legs in unusual directions, in time to the music. They looked like flappers from another age. Where did they learn this sort of thing?
    I found the refreshment table—one of the cafeteria tables that hadn’t been stored in the wall. While I picked up a cookie and a paper cup full of pink punch, I watched two boys arm wrestling at the end of the table. The smaller of the two put down the arm of the larger one quite easily.
    He said, slurring his words, “Who else wants to take me on? I can beat anybody here, right-handed or left-handed.”
    “You’re drunk, Willie,” a woman said. I guessed that she was a mother recruited to be in charge of refreshments.
    Willie denied he was drunk, and they bantered back and forth for a minute. He was clearly younger than I was, which placed him well below the legal drinking age of eighteen. He wore a T-shirt with the already short sleeves rolled even higher, revealing significant biceps and triceps for so small a body. The fold of one T-shirt sleeve outlined the shape of a pack of cigarettes sitting on his shoulder. His hair was combed behind his head in a DA, which was the nice way of saying a duck’s ass. He must use Brylcreme to hold it in place.
    Willie spotted me watching the action and said, “What about you? Do you want to arm wrestle?”
    “Not me.” There was no glory to be had if I won over a