You Are My Heart and Other Stories by Jay Neugeboren Page B

she asked if I was mooning over my girlfriend, I admitted that I was, so after a while, and without making out, she suggested we go back to her house.
    Her parents were still up when we got there, and we talked with them about the prom, and about which of Marcia’s friends had been there with which guys, and then Marcia said that we were both pretty tired, and her parents said how nice it was to see me again and told me they would see me at breakfast. Marcia showed me to the guest room in the basement, took some stuffed animals and extra pillows off the bed, told me she’d had a lovely time, thanked me for coming, especially given what I’d been going through, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and left.
    In the middle of the night, though—the clock-radio on the night table said it was 3:22—she woke me, lifted the covers, and got into the bed next to me.

    â€œThe bad news is that I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “But that’s the good news too, along with the fact that my parents are fast asleep. I hope you don’t mind.”
    All she was wearing was a thin nightgown, and she started caressing me, then giving me these little bites up and down my body that drove me crazy, all the while asking, “Do you like that…? Do you like that… ? Do you like that…?” and telling me that anytime I wanted her to stop all I had to do was say so.
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    On Tuesday of the next week, Karen waited for me after school and asked me to go for a walk with her. We stayed silent all along Flatbush Avenue until we got to the park, and then she told me she’d heard that I’d gone to a dance in Belle Harbor and asked if I wanted to tell her about it.
    I shrugged, and asked what was there to tell, given that she had said we were finished with each other.
    â€œSo that means I made you go to the dance with another girl, right?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “But it—the dance—didn’t mean anything. I mean, my mother was after me—the girl’s mother called my mother and—”
    â€œSo you were forced to go by events beyond your control, is that it?”
    I told her that I went to the dance because I wanted to—that she and I were both free to do what we wanted, weren’t we? Were we engaged? Were we even going steady anymore?
    â€œI trusted you,” she said. “I loved you and I trusted you and in one week, you just…”
    She stopped talking, and I could see she was working hard to keep from crying.
    â€œYou really stink, do you know that?” she said then. “But do you know the worst part? The worst part is that I still care for you more than is good for me, and I probably always will, so this is what I want to say: If you’re willing to try again—no matter our parents, or Olen, or our skin, or whatever—I’m willing.”

    â€œSo?” I asked.
    â€œSo?” she exclaimed. “ So?! So are you? Do you want to try again?”
    â€œLook,” I began. “I really do care for you, only—”
    â€œOnly you just answered my question,” she said. “Lord help you. You’re breaking my heart, but do you know what? At least I’ve got a heart to break.”
    And that was the last time we ever spoke.
    Olen didn’t go to college the following fall, and as far as I know he never went. But Karen did. In September, 1955, when I went off to college—Hamilton College, in upstate New York, where, even though I stuck to my word and didn’t play for Mr. Ordover during my senior year at Erasmus, I was able to make the Hamilton team and became its starting point guard my junior year—Karen took a job as a secretary for a toy manufacturer in downtown Brooklyn.
    Whenever I came home on school vacations, and after college too, I’d ask around about her, and what I learned was that after a year or two as a secretary, she’d started going to Brooklyn College at