“How much do we need?”
“I don’t know,” her mother says before finally sipping her coffee, though April caught the look of concern. “I’m just glad you want to go. And, of course, that you want to wait on that other thing.”
April won’t admit it, but her mother had good reason to dread that first date. This was a girl who announced suddenly in the fifth-grade that she was going steady with two boys.
“They both asked me,” she said with a grin. “And I like them both.” To herself she said, I’ll decide who I like more after my birthday.
The first boy was Bart. He lived with his grandmother, a waitress at the diner near the laundromat. The second was Mike, who lived with his parents in one of those big houses near the bluffs that so many people, including her mother, were still very angry about.
Bart’s gift was a book, and not just any book: One of the Black Stallion series she collected. He picked out a title already on her shelf, but she just added the new one, carefully making room right next to the other copy.
Mike’s gift was a gold necklace with a tiny heart. April didn’t wear jewelry, but found it awful exciting. Especially when she found the $18 Mervyn’s price tag inside the box.
Her mother frowned. “You can’t keep it.”
“But he’s rich. He can afford it!”
“That’s not the point. It’s inappropriate. You’re too young,” said Evelyn, though after calling Mike’s mom, the necklace stayed. April never wore it, but she loved looking at it, always carefully returning the heart to the center before closing the lid again.
After a week of recesses with each boy, April chose Mike. But it wasn’t because he had more money, it was because he was more fun. All Bart wanted to do was sit and hold hands, and April couldn’t stand spending her recess silent and still. So she picked the boy who talked and played tetherball.
Soon after choosing Mike she was invited to his house. His neighborhood felt like another planet: No hills or trees, just shiny streets lined with bright white sidewalks in front of shiny houses with bright green lawns. And once inside she felt even more alien, trying not to get dirt on their impossibly white carpet and pretending to find his wooden gun collection interesting until finally asking if they could play outside.
Where she felt like herself again while riding bikes, especially when his broke and she knew how to fix it, smiling proudly after putting the slipped chain back onto the gear wheel. But then Mike looked strange, his cheeks turning bright red as they heard his father announce to his wife, “April fixed Mikey’s bike!”
April never wanted to show Mike where she lived, but his parents insisted on picking her up for the school carnival. She waited for them across the street, pretending to be getting the mail.
“What are you doing out here?” Mike’s dad said when their nice sedan pulled up. She wanted to just jump in, but he asked, “Which is yours?”
They were all smiling at the house behind her. April considered pretending it was hers, but didn’t have a lie ready if her neighbors came out. So she waved toward her own while looking at the asphalt, not wanting to see their faces struggle to keep smiling.
Her house didn’t seem to bother Mike, because he was a gallant as ever that day, buying her a hot dog before winning her a stuffed panda. But soon something did bother him.
That day he invited her to watch his baseball team, and after the game they sat under a tree, both too shy to say anything as April pulled at the grass. Finally, knowing her father was coming, Mike asked, “Can I kiss you? I mean, on the cheek?”
The red rushed up April’s neck as she dropped her head, feeling each second of silence like a pinprick until her father walked up.
It wasn’t that April didn’t want Mike to kiss her. In the car she regretted her silence, deeply curious about what it would have been like to have him lean over and kiss her.
And now she regrets even more that her first kiss wasn’t given to that sweet boy who took down his poster of Daisy Duke before she came into his room. No, it was taken by a boy who stranded her in a parking lot.
Next week at school, Mike stopped spending recesses with April. When she finally found him playing Dungeons and Dragons in the library, he refused to come outside with her instead. That weekend, he had a friend break up with her.
Thinking the call was a prank, April hung up on the other boy twice before he could blurt out that he was calling for Mike. Who still liked her, but now liked Shayna more.
April nodded at the phone. Not only was Shayna pretty and sweet, word on the playground was she would “do things” with boys. April wasn’t at all sure what those things were, but figured Shayna would definitely let a boy kiss her on the cheek.
At first it stung knowing Mike preferred a girl who was better at brushing her hair than fixing his bike. But soon all April felt was relief, glad to leave kisses, and all those other “things,” tucked safely in the box with her necklace.
And the next boy? She didn’t want to open it for him, either. But he came along after everything else was gone.
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