Feels Like the First Time (18 page)

I drove to Mossyrock the next afternoon. It was almost too delicious to think I would be able to just walk across the yard and knock on her door. I rolled into the driveway a little after 3 PM. I put in a quick appearance with the folks and made a beeline for Dawn’s.

Colleen and Walt didn’t welcome me with open arms. But I wasn’t met with the level barrel of a .357 either. Just a week prior that would have been a real possibility. Walt and Colleen said they had reconsidered their permanent ban, and they were going to give us one more chance. They never said why, and I didn’t want to stir up the hornet’s nest by asking.

Eventually, Dawn told me my step-dad had come across the yard. There was a time when he and Walt were friends, but that visit was a rare occurrence since the trouble had started. He told Walt and Colleen that although Dawn was their daughter and they were entitled to do whatever they wanted, he was afraid keeping us apart would provoke us to do something foolish. He had no idea how right he was. I had no way of knowing if he actually got wind of our plans or if he was just making an educated guess. Either way he was right. For whatever reason, Walt and Colleen had relented, and we could see each other again.

Mixed in with that wonderful news was the idea there were going to be a lot more rules imposed this time. Dawn and I were not to be alone together. Instead, we were to be supervised at all times. Also, they wanted us to see a lot less of each other, which meant no more hanging around each other all day. Finally, they wanted me to know if there was a single rule violation that would be it. I would never be allowed to see Dawn again. It was just enough rope to hang myself.

It was such a relief to be able to walk down the street with Dawn without the constant threat of losing her again. Dawn’s niece, Lori, was still living with her, which helped us avoid being alone. She was our built-in chaperone much of the time. Plus, if the three of us went somewhere, Lori was cool enough to give us a couple of minutes to ourselves to talk and catch up.

A few days before Christmas, Colleen casually mentioned she thought Dawn and I might be seeing too much of each other. I may be slow, but I am not completely incapable of learning. I used my head and hung out with Chip and Harold. Chip was a senior now and Harold was also home from college for the holidays.

Dawn and I did everything we could to make sure we didn’t get banned from each other again. If we were going somewhere and Colleen told us to be home at 3 pm, I made damn sure we rolled into the driveway at 2:45. There was no way I was going to screw up this golden opportunity. It felt too good to have all that weight off both our shoulders.

Late on the morning of Christmas Eve, Dawn, Lori and I headed to the only entertainment option available in Mossyrock, the bowling alley. At the time, they seemed to have everything there—pinball machines, air hockey, pool, and even bowling.

As we were getting ready to leave, Dawn and I were sitting alone in the Reliant waiting for Lori to come out of the house. It was the ideal time to give Dawn her Christmas gift. As with everything we did over the winter, my budget was limited. My entire gift-giving budget for that holiday season was about $20. On my way south from Seattle the week before, I had stopped at Sea-Tac Mall and prowled the length of the mall looking for the perfect $10 gift. I found it at a small kiosk–a necklace that would look great on Dawn, and it was only $12.

When I had been standing in line to buy the necklace, I never could have imagined the scene in which I would later present it. Dawn and I sat inside the chilly car, the windows completely frosted over. It gave the whole setting a slightly surreal feel, as though we were all alone in the world.

“I got something for you,” I said, and pulled out the white box. The necklace hung on a silver chain. It had silver on both sides surrounding a deep black stone. I didn’t know what the stone was but I loved it. It was beautiful and somehow mysterious to my teenage eyes.

I couldn’t read Dawn’s expression as she opened the box. I thought maybe I had misjudged the necklace and she didn’t like it.

“Do you like it?” I was momentarily crestfallen.

When she looked at me, though, I could tell she was moved. She nodded and smiled, and leaned over to kiss me.

That night, Dawn, Lori and I walked into town for a church cantata. It was snowing when we came out of church, just as it was the night of the Commodores concert, only this time there was no accompanying sense of dread. Lori stayed a few yards ahead of us as we walked home, and it felt like we were all alone in the snowfall.

Overtaken by the wonder of the moment, I stopped Dawn right in the middle of Damron Road and looked deep into her perfect brown eyes. There was snow accumulating in her hair. Her cheeks were frozen and she looked serenely happy. I brushed a few stray snowflakes from her hair and gently kissed her, unintentionally mimicking the kiss on the night of our
Star Wars
date almost exactly one year before.

We made some tentative plans to spend New Year’s Eve together, but Dawn got a request to babysit that night. Money was tight, so Dawn never turned down a babysitting job. That put an end to our plans for New Year’s Eve, but it had been such an unexpectedly wonderful week together we really didn’t mind.

Instead of trying to set something up at the last minute with my friends, I elected to stay home with the folks and watch Dick Clark drop the ball. I spent the day re-categorizing my old comic book collection.
Early that evening I was sitting in the living room, watching a rerun of
Alice,
when the phone rang.

“Shawn, it’s for you,” Mom said. “It’s Dawn.”

I picked up the phone and made every effort to be suave and debonair. “Yelloooow?”

Dawn wasn’t buying the act. “Are you still a virgin?”

“Last time I checked,” I said, floored by the question.

“Not after tonight,” she said, “and that’s a promise.”

My head was spinning. Every teenage boy wants to hear their girlfriend tell them they want them in that way. On the other hand, we had just been allowed to see each other again, and I didn’t want to screw up this opportunity.

My curiosity and hormones immediately silenced the little angel sitting on my shoulder. I thought to myself ‘How will anyone ever know?’ Overriding everything was how I felt about Dawn. When I closed my eyes and thought about being with her that way, my knees got weak. If Dawn wanted to be with me, it was going to happen whether we were ready or not. Damn the consequences. All these thoughts ran through my head in about a second and a half.

“Okay,” I said. “Where?”

She gave me the address and told me to be there at 10 PM. It wasn’t quite 6 PM yet and four hours seemed like an eternity. I strolled as casually as I could back into the living room, but Mom’s radar was working just fine.

“What was that all about?” she asked suspiciously.

I shrugged my shoulders sullenly.

“It was nothing, Mom.” I told her I had changed my mind and decided to go hang out with friends. Just like that, I lied to my Mom. My head was so full of wonder and questions that a quick fib seemed like the least of my worries.

I retreated to my bedroom to avoid Mom’s probing glances and picked up the book I was reading. But alien invasions no longer held my interest, and I lay on my bed in silence. I stared at the ceiling and tried to make sense of what Dawn and I were about to do. After several hours of the deepest thought I was capable of, I was no closer to any answers.

Dawn and I had more or less settled the sex question a long time before, and had decided to wait. However, since we had been separated from each other, and with another separation hanging over our head like the Sword of Damocles, the question seemed less settled than before. I didn’t know what was happening with Dawn or what she was thinking. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. If she wanted me, I was going to be there.

After killing as much time as I could, I took a bath in the same little bathtub I’d been bathing in since I was a little boy. I lay in that tub full of hot water sprinkled with Jovan Musk cologne thinking “Is this really it?” It felt like my whole world was about to change.

I parked on the street in front of the little house just a few minutes before 10 PM. Rain was pouring down and I sat quietly for a few minutes watching the flickering light of the TV through the window. That whole night, nothing felt right. Every intimacy we ever shared, from dancing to
Stairway to Heaven
to our first kiss after
Star Wars
to our Prom night brought us progressively closer. What we did on this night did not.

I knocked quietly on the door, not wanting to wake up the kids Dawn was watching if they were already asleep. Dawn answered immediately, as if she had been standing by the door waiting for me. Her earlier bravado on the phone was missing. She looked like what she was–a young girl who was feeling unsure of herself.

“Hi, baby. Are the kids asleep?”

“Mmm-hmm. Come on in.”

The television was tuned to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. That and the raindrops beating down would be the soundtrack to our first time. We sat on the couch and tried to talk, but we knew this night wasn’t about talking. Eventually I worked my courage up and pulled her close to me. I strongly sensed that we were making a mistake, but that didn’t slow me down.

At one point, I looked over Dawn’s shoulder and saw that Chuck Mangione was on the TV, playing
Feels So Good.
The irony was lost on me at the time.

I walked out of the house before 11:00 PM. I had thought I would feel exhilarated, but all I felt was sadness. I strongly felt that I had a made a mistake. As the older one in the relationship, I should have been stronger.

While I had been inside, the weather had turned worse, with wind gusts added to the sleeting rain. I wasn’t ready to go home. I definitely didn’t want to face questions from Mom about why I was home before midnight on New Year’s Eve. I started the car, turned the defroster on and eventually realized I was driving to St. Ives church outside of town.

I parked the car and went around the church to the graveyard in back. St. Ives sat in a bucolic spot, right next to a lake, but on this night it was filled with odd shadows and sounds. I ignored the driving rain and got out of the car and knelt in the wet, muddy grass beside my Dad’s grave. I ignored the driving wind and rain and put my hand on the headstone and talked to my dad.

“Dad, I think I blew it. I love her, and I never thought being with her could be wrong, but it was. I can’t stand that I let this happen. What can I do to make it right?”

The wind rose and I shouted over it, ignoring the spattering rain and freezing cold.

“I can’t undo what I did tonight, but if I can, I’ll make it right, I swear.” I was hoping to hear back from him, but after what felt like a very long silence, I went back to the sanctuary of the car. I turned my headlights on. The headstones looked eerie in the pouring rain, illuminated by my lights and casting crazy shadows everywhere.

I felt spent in every way. I drove home slowly to Damron Road. I don’t know how long I was at the graveyard, but when I walked into the darkened house, dripping wet, the clock on top of the television said it was 1:30 in the morning.

1979 had arrived.
 

The New Year dawned without time to ponder what had happened the night before. I had to get on the road early to pick up my friend at Sea-Tac airport and return his car to him. I didn’t see Dawn at all that day. If I had, I didn’t have the communication skills to express the complex thoughts and feelings running through me. I was more in love with Dawn than ever, and in the clear light of morning, my time kneeling and crying at Dad’s grave seemed melodramatic.

As I put more miles between me and Mossyrock, my fears decreased. I reminded myself that only Dawn and I knew we had been together, and neither of us was talking. We had made it through the Christmas holiday unscathed, and we would be able to keep seeing each other.

I didn’t see Dawn at all in January. I funneled all my money into buying parts so I could get the Vega back on the road. Also, Dawn and I wanted to show Colleen we weren’t going to abuse the privilege of seeing each other. I thought the best way to accomplish that was to make myself scarce around Mossyrock.