Just Friends by Dyan Sheldon

“What are you planning to do next? Go down her chimney?”
    It’s an idea. If he weren’t afraid of finding Jena’s father waiting for him with a loaded gun he might actually consider it. Because the pathetic truth is that he doesn’t know what to do next. The half-hour or so that he spent with her was easy. They talked effortlessly; he made her laugh. The fact that she obviously enjoyed his company made him fearless – and, even if he’s the only witness to it, pretty entertaining and charming as well. But it was like something out of a fantasy. One in which the young, hapless hero climbs a tree and finds himself in a magical kingdom where things he’s only dreamed about exist. Now, however, he is in the real world again – and doesn’t know how to get back.
    But, if nothing else, Josh now knows a lot more about Jenevieve Capistrano than he did before. He knows that her father was an army officer and that she’s lived in half a dozen states and three other countries. “It’s not nearly as interesting as you think,” said Jena. “It just means I know a little bit about a lot of places, but no place really well.” This time it’s going to be different. Her father – the General, as she calls him, because people called him that so much when she was little that she thought it was his name – took early retirement and a desk job. “It’s just too bad it was my mom dying made him do that,” said Jena. “She would’ve liked Parsons Falls.”
    Josh’s father had a heart attack; Jena’s mother was hit by a truck. Which makes them both half-orphans. Jena said she hoped they had more in common than that. “You mean besides the possibility of both of us being related to Genghis Khan?” joked Josh. Jena said, “Genghis who?”
    But it turned out she was right: they did have more in common than the death of a parent in an automobile and a twelfth-century Mongolian warrior. Not a lot more, maybe, but more than the casual observer might suppose. She’s never heard of Robert Johnson, but she does like
Star Trek
and loves old movies. She discovered them both when she was in a new place and had nothing to do but watch TV. And her favourite soft drink is cream soda – which Josh is sure would be his if he drank soda.
    They got on well. Like friends – or people who could be friends. But where does he go from here? And how does he get there? He wishes someone would write a book,
DATING FOR ABSOLUTE DUMMIES
. Advice on what to say, what not to say and what to do if you don’t have the nerve to ask someone out but think you might like to. Probably someone has written it. Not that that helps him. He can’t buy it online for fear that his mother would find out. She uses his computer; she’d be bound to notice the barrage of ads for similar products that follows any purchase. She’d want to know what he’s up to – she may look like a regular mother, but she has the mind of a secret agent. The bookstore at the mall is also out. He only shops at the mall if the alternative is death by stampeding cattle, but even if he
were
desperate enough, it’s too risky. With his luck he’d be waiting to pay when Tilda Kopel walked in and saw him; it’d be all over the school before he finished counting his change. And he can’t very well go to the library and take it out under the gimlet gaze of Mrs Batista, either. She knew him when he was reading Dr Seuss. She also knows his mother; well enough to say something to her. Which would make his mother think that it’s time for another talk about sex, birth control and sexually transmitted diseases. He isn’t sure he could survive another one. No, Josh is on his own, a solitary explorer in a dark, uncharted land. A dark uncharted land that is heavily guarded and patrolled.
    He would happily have spent the whole afternoon in the Capistranos’ kitchen getting to know Jena, but her father had other ideas. There was still half a glass of apple juice in front of Josh when the