Date Night by Bill Tope

Date Night by Bill Tope

Amy sat on the sofa in the living room, beneath the comforter, contemplating the wallpaper. The television, on mute, was wildly flashing colors and images off the hardwood floor. Amy paid it no mind. Where was Reese now, and what was he doing? she wondered. Her boyfriend of ten months and seven days ordinarily would call her several times a day.

“You’ve got him well-trained, Amy,” her sister Jennifer would remark in fun.

Amy Lin and her sister were fourth-generation Chinese-Americans, distant immigrants from Taiwan, also known as Formosa, much to the dismay of Amy’s mother, also named Amy. who even today detested the European invaders who had seized, battled over and then re-seized Taiwan. The elder Ms. Lin taught Asian Studies at the university. It was all Greek to her daughter, who didn’t speak a word of Mandarin.

& & &

“Where are you going tonight, Amy?’ inquired her mother the next morning, at breakfast. Amy rolled her eyes. Her mother was a sweet, loving and intelligent woman, a single mother of two, but she was so nosy. Especially on a Friday, which was date night.

“To a party,” replied the 16-year-old, glancing up from her cornflakes.

“What party?” pressed Mrs. Lin. “At whose house? I want the address, and a phone number,” she insisted.

“Mom,” whined her daughter. “It’s just some friends of Reese’s. Some of the boys from the team and their girlfriends.”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re too young to have a steady boyfriend,” said her mother. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” she pointed out for the umpteenth time.

Not again, thought Amy, licking milk off her spoon. She had gone steady with Reese since she turned sixteen and was finally allowed to date. Her mom was always second-guessing her decision to allow her daughter to date any boy.

“Who’s going to chaperone?” Mrs. Lin went on. “You can’t have a houseful of high school kids and not have a chaperone.” Amy said nothing. “I’ve got it,” Mrs. Lin chirped brightly, “I’ll just go along. There’ll be room for me in Reese’s car. I’ll act as chaperone, keep you kids out of trouble.” Amy’s eyes grew wide as saucers and she lifted her hand to protest, when Mrs. Lin’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “Just kidding.” Amy drew a deep breath of relief. “I trust you, baby,” said her mother, chuckling softly. “I know Reese is a good boy and won’t get you into any trouble. Besides, I know about the party, and there’s going to be a chaperone.”

This was news to Amy. She wondered if Reese knew about it and if it would cramp his style. Not missing a beat, she smiled her appreciation. “Thanks, Mom.”

& & &

Later, after catching the bus to school, Amy breezed through her day: classes, including a test in physics which, predictably, she aced; then cheerleader practice; an SAT tutorial; and all the rest. At noon, she sat in the lunchroom, waiting for Breese and her other friends. Gazing across the room, she spied him, a head higher than the other boys. He glanced up, waved to her. Moments later, sliding his tray atop the table, he joined Amy. Looking around furtively, he eased in and applied a kiss to Amy’s rosebud lips. PDAs were strongly discouraged at the school. It was one of the few issues the administration took a hard line on. They exchanged a clandestine smile.

“Careful,” warned Amy playfully. “You don’t want the warden to report back to your mother that you’re kissing girls now.”

“She’d get over it,” he assured her. Reese’s family was certain that their son would receive a full-ride athletic scholarship to a major university — Notre Dame, hopefully, what with their being ardent Roman Catholics. Just don’t let anything stand in your way, they’d told him. Like a young and pregnant wife, namely. In particular, a Chinese-American pregnant wife. Amy had had a tough time coaxing Mrs. Stevens into liking her.

“What time are you picking me up tonight?” she asked him.

“How about nine?” he suggested. “After the last time,” he went on, “I promised your mom I’d get you home early. The party won’t really start happening until after midnight, but I can’t have you out much later than that.” Amy nodded. She loved being with Reese, but she was no party animal. There were three types of students at Sumner High: the athletes, the brains, and the well-to-do. Reese was a super football player; Sumner had gone to state two years running. And Amy was very intelligent, a fact which only strengthened the stereotype of the Asian-American students, of which, out of a class of 320, there were precisely 6, including Amy and her sister Jennifer, who was a year behind her. The prejudice wasn’t unbearable, but it was manifest. Amy and Reese’s alone-time was cut short.

“Hey, man,” said Matt, Sumner’s first-time state champion wrestler and, to Amy’s way of thinking, a total asshole. He took a seat opposite Reese at the table. “You’re coming tonight, right?” he asked, referencing the party out in the country. Reese nodded. “But, I guess,” Matt continued, “that if you come or not depends on little Miss Kung Flu.” And he laughed a loud and ugly laugh. Reese smiled only slightly, shook his head. Everyone just put up with Matt’s ignorance; why, Amy wasn’t certain. “What are you bringing to the party, Reese?” asked the other boy, glancing lecherously at Reese’s girlfriend, undressing her with his eyes and winking.

“I’ll bring a couple of 6-packs,” Reese told him.

Matt bit his lip, then said to Amy, “Hey, Madam Chou, how ’bout you get your old lady to fry up some moo goo monkey for the party tonight?” He slammed the lunch table hard with his open hand and laughed — loud and ugly — again. Amy narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing.

Getting a rise from neither or them, after a few minutes, Matt found someone else to torment and wandered off. Reese turned to his girlfriend. “Matt doesn’t mean anything, Amy,” he told her.

“You’re right about that,” she replied. “He means exactly nothing.” They resumed their lunch in peace.

& & &

That evening, when the couple approached the house in Mildred Township, they found the door ajar and slipped inside. Music blared from massive stereo speakers and the room was redolent with the smell of marijuana. Amy had tried pot a couple of times, but didn’t really care for it. Reese seemed to enjoy it, however, and she’d have a few tokes to keep him company. There were people everywhere: students she knew from class, from the team, from the cheerleading squad and pep club and student newspaper. Nearly everyone Amy knew was there. She peered curiously at one older fellow, then with surprise recognized him as Mr. Waters, her physics teacher. Was he supposed to be the so-called chaperon? She laughed. In Waters’s hand was a reefer and in his other fist a bottle of beer, a libation shared by virtually everyone — and they were all underaged. She shook her head in wonder. She’d always heard that her teacher was a freak, but who knew? In short order, Reese brought Amy a bottle of beer, one for himself.

“I’m gonna talk to Butch,” Reese told her, and drifted off. Amy took a sip of beer.

“Hi, Amy,” gushed Vickie–a fellow cheerleader–way too loud. “Are you high yet?” she asked. When Amy shook her head no, Vickie proffered a joint. When Amy hesitated, the other girl put it up to Amy’s lips.

“Not right now, Vick,” said Amy, pulling her head back. “I just got here,” she explained.

“You gotta catch up with me,” insisted her blonde friend.

“Lemme just drink this beer,” said Amy, taking another sip. Vickie shrugged, took a hit off the doobie.

“I have to get wasted tonight,” said Vickie, taking another hit.

“Why?” asked Amy.

“Because,” explained her friend. “Butch will want to screw me tonight. And Butch,” she went on, “isn’t worth a shit in the sack!” Amy giggled. “It’s not funny, Amy. He’s terrible. He slobbers all over me and grabs my ass like it’s a football and he comes in about three minutes and I’m left out there…you know?”

Amy lifted her fingers to cover her smile. She didn’t know what to say to her friend. Amy had lost her innocence only weeks ago, to Reese, so she was no expert on sex. She assumed it had gone about like she expected it should have. She’d had no epiphany, but she loved her boyfriend and that had made it both meaningful and worthwhile. And he had certainly been no three-minute marvel. She wondered how many lovers Reese had had.

“Well,” said Amy at last. “Just do it, and then you can get back to the party.”

“He always wants to do it in the back of his mom’s car,” said Vickie. “Did you ever do it in the back seat of a Kia?” Amy arched her brows. “Don’t, honey, don’t.” Vickie took another hit of pot, and said, “I have to grab me a beer. See you later.” And she wandered off. Reese rejoined his girlfriend.

Andrew, as captain of the football team, was always the center of attention and tonight was no exception. He sat like a regent on a sofa, before a coffee table, upon which were arrayed dozens of shot glasses, all filled with some nebulous, vaguely inimical, amber liquid.

“C’mon, Reese,” enjoined Andrew, reaching for a shot glass. “Drink up. You were late getting your ass here, so you got to catch up.”

Why, wondered Amy, did everyone feel as though we all had to be at the same level of intoxication? Dutifully, and so as not to call attention to herself, she sipped her beer again. Reese stretched out a muscular arm and accepted the libation from his captain and downed it in a single draught.

“Amy?” asked Andrew, holding up a glass for her.

She shook her head, held up her beer. “Don’t want to mix it,” she said shortly, a reason not to drink whiskey that she’d heard others use before. Reese accepted and downed another shot of whatever it was. Amy pulled him away from the crowd, and murmured, “Hey, you got to drive tonight, remember?” He nodded, but said nothing.

“Got some ‘shrooms,” bellowed another member of the team, Bryce. Bryce was only the team manager, a non-athlete who got invited to all the parties because of his drug connections. “Get ’em while they’re hot,” he crowed, turning out a plastic bag containing dozens of long, slender white mushroom stalks. Psilocybin, Amy knew, were called magic mushrooms because they made you hallucinate, see things that weren’t there, and got you really screwed up. She’d never tried them before, but if Reese did…she wondered crazily for a moment if her teacher, Mr. Waters, was doing mushrooms tonight, too” She giggled hysterically.

Regaining her aplomb, Amy touched slender fingers to Reese’s muscular biceps, and peered down into his hands, where he clutched two long, slender fungi. “Let’s get high, baby,” he said invitingly. He looked lovingly into her dark eyes. She nodded and smiled.

“Anything you want,” she replied. They repaired to a room upstairs. This was an enormous old house, a country estate owned by the grandparents of one of the team members, and there must have been a dozen bedrooms. They selected one. Sitting on a bed, Reese turned to his girlfriend and offered her a mushroom. She bit into it, then immediately spat out what she’d bitten off.

“Ugh,” she said. “That’s horrible.” He took a bite and responded in like fashion.

“I’ll be right back,” he told her, and Reese clumped back down the stairs, where the action was. When he opened the door at the foot of the stairs, Amy could hear the roar of the voices and the music coming from the party. Things were picking up, she surmised. In moments, he returned with a small plastic jar of honey. “Dip the mushroom in the honey,” he told Amy, “and then eat it.” So she did. She found it palatable. For fifteen minutes they waited expectantly for something to happen, and when it didn’t, they were a little disappointed. Then, suddenly, things began to change. Amy felt her eyes grow wide, sensed a tremor in her normally steady hands, and she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed, though what at, she wasn’t at all certain. Reese responded in kind.

They were inundated with mirth, with levity, with an insouciance that defied explanation. At length, they grew quieter, more serious. “Amy,” said Reese, placing his arms tenderly around her shoulders and gentling rubbing the back of her neck, “I love you, girl.” Amy melted.

“I love you too, baby,” she said, barely holding back tears in the face of her passion.

“I want to make love to you,” murmured Reesee, and he kissed her cheek, her lips, her neck.

Caught up in the moment, in the emotions, in the drugs, Amy fell into Reese’s ardent embrace and languorously, they disrobed, as if in slow motion, and made slow and passionate love. This was different for Amy; gone was the shock of losing her virginity, the uncertainty of whether her behavior was correct; she was certain that this was what she had been created for.

Between thirty minutes and ten hours later, the couple pulled back, still rapt in the phenomenon of true love. Reese glanced at his watch. “It’s time I took you home,” he said, and wordlessly they redressed. Amy touched Reese’s face gently, looked adoringly into his eyes. They were glassy. She frowned thoughtfully.

“Are you sure you’re good to drive, baby?” she asked him.

“Positive,” he replied, edging off the bed and nearly falling to the floor. Amy, who was feeling no pain herself, only nodded.

Back downstairs, the party was in full swing. Andrew was still tossing back shots and coercing anyone around him into doing the same. “Hey, stud,” Andrew beckoned Reese. “Do a shooter, dude!” and he offered up a cut-glass vessel of whiskey which must have contained three shots.

“Don’t Reese,” coaxed Amy, pulling at his arm.

“Thanks, no,” muttered Reese, drifting towards the door.

“Pussy!” taunted Andrew. “Whipped!” he added. Amy’s heart stopped when Reese walked defiantly up to the table upon which all the booze was located and grabbed the shooter and upended it. Oohs and ahhs pervaded the living room. “Well done, stud,” crowed Andrew approvingly, and the others rewarded Reese’s exploit with a round of cheers.

“You want me to drive?” offered Amy helpfully, once they were out in the chill midnight air.

Reese frowned. “I ain’t drunk,” he said reprovingly, though Amy could hear him slur his words. She wasn’t sure of herself, though. She’d had three beers, which was more than she usually imbibed, plus a couple of tokes off a joint and then the magic mushrooms. How much had Reese consumed? She could only wonder. But, he was a lot bigger than Amy’s 106 pounds, so it would take a lot more to get him loaded. She drew a deep breath. Her head hurt.

“Get in the car, Amy,” ordered Reese proprietarily. “I told your mom I’d get you home early.” Without a word, she climbed in. He started the car and the radio was blaringly loud. Amy turned it down. “S’matter, don’t you like Springsteen?” chided Reese. He laughed drunkenly. Suddenly it began to rain very hard. When Reese made no move to do so, Amy turned on the wipers. Amy didn’t know it then, but she would never hear her boyfriend’s sweet voice again. The car catapulted down the highway, bound for town, and nearly slid off the pavement and into stop signs, traffic lights, other cars. Once or twice, the vehicle crossed the center line. Other cars’ horns blared angrily. Reese was driving awfully fast. Amy was terrified. Reese was mute, but whether to punish her for questioning his ability to drive or because he was so wasted that he couldn’t speak, she never learned.

Suddenly, their car emerged from the darkness of an overpass and into the brilliant, blinding glare of a million lights. They were at an intersection in town, and there were cars arrayed at all points at the 4-way. Everyone seemed to be moving at once. “Oh, God!” Amy gasped. The first car to hit them was a Suburu, like the one in which they rode. Amy heard glass shatter and the squeal of tires. Next a nondescript vehicle plowed into the driver’s side door, striking poor Reese. Amy screamed. But it wasn’t until the opposing traffic got them — the truck — that Amy felt her limbs go numb. The vista was horrific: the lights, the rain-slicked streets, the breaking glass, the twisting metal and the shrieking tires. At length, everything was quiet. Nothing made a sound, but for the distant shriek of the police sirens.

& & &

Amy inhaled abruptly and came to with a jerk. The truth, when it resurfaced, always came hard. Reese’s parents, once so loving and supportive, hated her now. They refused to talk to her, to receive her phone calls; they hadn’t even visited her in the hospital after the accident. They had forbidden her to come to Reese’s funeral, which hurt. She couldn’t have come anyway, but they wouldn’t allow even a Zoom viewing. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens blamed Amy for the wreck which had killed their son. They said it was Amy’s undue influence and familiarity with drugs which had corrupted Reese and caused the tragedy. Amy felt herself tear up; she had thought that she was all cried out, after nearly seven months.

Amy gazed bleakly at the empty space where her left leg once was, before the car wreck. Strangely, the wound, now almost completely healed, didn’t ache, though she sometimes “felt” the missing limb, and it itched. She reached to scratch, then self-consciously withdrew her hand. She felt a sudden movement, from the area of her stomach. It was the baby kicking again. She ran her fingers lightly along the curve of her swollen belly, marveled at the magic of being pregnant at seventeen. She was having Reese’s baby — a boy — and she would name it Reese as well. Her family attorney had warned Amy and Mrs. Lin that Roberta — Reese’s mother — would likely sue to gain custody of the child after it was born. Amy could not let that happen. It’s not what Reese would have wanted. He’d have wanted to have Amy raise their child. But, opening up before her was a whole new reality.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Bill Tope 2024