"My First Date"

Pearl tells us that we are old enough to get jobs. “It’ll get your minds off dat mama man and all dat nonsense of dating you’ll have the rest of your life for,” she says. She says that we are like beautiful flowers just beginning to grow and it is work, not boy-loving, that’s going to help us bloom. I think about Anthony Cipriano and how wise Granny Pearl is.


Yesterday I had my first date, one day after Meeka’s. I’d called Anthony on Friday. I’d been lonelier than ever, knowing that Meeka and Seth were heading out the next evening, and there was Anthony’s phone number just burning a hole in my cargo pants. When I’d told my mother that Anthony and I wanted to hang out, she’d gone all teary-eyed on me and said “My baby, my Amelia Bedilia, you’re really growing up, aren’t you?”


She’d driven me to the Sayview Mall and cooed the entire way about how exciting it was that her baby was having her first date. I didn’t know if I was more nauseous from her behavior or the idea of spending a few hours with gorgeous, Anthony Cipriano, alone. It didn’t help that Jack kept copying my mother like a disturbed parrot on the car ride there. “A date, Amelia—you have a real date! This is so exciting! This is a milestone!”


After my mother and Jack had pattered their tiny feet down to Sears; after I could no longer see their dark heads turning around to give me another round of cheesy thumbs up, I’d inhaled deeply and made my way over to Ruby Tuesday’s. I was wearing one of my mother’s old maternity dresses, a red-knit dress with a bow right where the bump is meant to be. I’d tried to squeeze my way into her dresses and pants but everything made me look like I was a superhero, bursting out from every seam. When I’d discovered the red dress I was thrilled. The bust and waist were snug but in a sexy kind of way.


“Wait a second. Why does that dress look so familiar?” And then my mother remembered: it was a dress from her pregnancy with Jack.


“Now maybe you’ll consider shopping for something other than baggy shirts and those pants that look like you’re ready for the army,” she’d said.


I found Anthony at a back table of the restaurant. He was leafing through a book and humming along to something coming out of his earphones. Lord he was gorgeous! He was wearing a blue Tommy Hilfiger shirt and those dark curls were pulled back in a low ponytail. Everything about him was perfect—except maybe the gold cross hanging from his neck. It was small, like the size of a fingernail, but it didn’t matter. It was there. I could already hear my mother and Grandma Ruth talking about all the lives lost in the Holocaust, about the sacrifices our people made so that we could live. The date hadn’t even started and already there was a strike against Anthony Cipriano, winking at me from the restaurant’s dim light.


Anthony is a vegetarian. I’d never heard of someone not eating meat before. He said it’s better for everyone to not eat meat, that our bodies don’t need anything more than tofu and beans for protein. “Try it, you’ll love it!” he’d said and held up a forkful of bean curd.


“I’m okay.” I was content with my dead cow on a bun.


Anthony being a vegetarian cast a California, granola-crunching hue to him. I couldn’t trust someone who didn’t partake in the food chain. It was just creepy. It was strike two for Anthony Cipriano.


Unlike Meeka, my date involved a great deal of conversation. Anthony was all about talking and listening. He was almost a little too comfortable talking to me with no awkward pauses or side-way glances my way. It was painfully reminiscent of Seth’s behavior two days prior, and I wondered if I were becoming one of those homely girls—the perennial buddy a guy never dreams of kissing.


I asked him about Catgirl, and he laughed at the name. “Oh, Ali, she can be a bit of a handful sometimes.” He looked down at his plateful of bean sprouts and tofu. I thought of how happy he’d be, dietary-wise, living in Meeka’s house. “I think she has a bit of a crush on me.”


“Really—I never would have guessed!” If sarcasm could be weighed, my words would break a scale.


But Anthony couldn’t pick up on my tone. He was too busy playing with his salad, trying to find what his heart wanted to say in his greens. “Yeah, she totally thinks we’re getting married someday.” He gave a little chuckle. It was just shy of a cry. “My mom is like in love with her. Ali’s lived next door to us forever and she and my mom will make jokes all the time about us getting hitched and having babies together. But it’s not really a joke.” He looked past my shoulder and I saw the fear of the future in his blue-green eyes. To Anthony, I wasn’t even there. “It’s what everyone expects.”


When he leaned over and asked me if he could tell me something, I nodded. But it didn’t matter if I had or not. He was like a volcano, ready to burst with his untold secret, whether I wanted to bear witness to it or not.


“I’m gay,” Anthony said. The word came out like a giant sigh. Unfortunately, it was also strike three. I thought about the animated banter all week at lunch between Seth and Anthony. Of course: they were both gay!