Gwen. He’s sixteen and they first meet at a dance at her girls’ private school. Wearing the same perfume she wore every time he later saw her. It did what perfumes are supposed to, made him romantic, dizzy, want to kiss her neck, burrow his nose into her chest. She never let him. With another woman later on, Janine, it was carnation soap she bought by the twelve-box at Bloomingdales, which she and her bathroom and her apartment when the bathroom door was open, usually smelled of. Now he thinks Gwen was too young to wear perfume then. He once bought a box of that soap to remind him of Janine, after she broke their engagement. Once went to Bloomingdales to be sprayed with Gwen’s perfume by one of the first-floor perfume ladies. First time in Paris he bought the smallest bottle there was of it, for his mother, so she’d wear it around the house sometimes and he’d be reminded of Gwen. “Mom, you never seem to put on that perfume I got you,” and she would. On subways and buses or the street when he’d smell it he’d look around quickly, thinking it was she; same with the soap. Used to sneak into his parents’ medicine chest and dab a drop of the perfume on his wrist and later in bed smell it. Always right before he went to sleep so no one would know he had it on and it’d be gone by morning. Goes to the dance with his friends. It’s in the gym and one of the girls’ mothers asks them at the door to sign in. All his friends are in private school. He makes up a name, Poly Prep, and says it’s in Connecticut, and no, he left any kind of I.D. in his dorm but his friends will vouch for him. Sees her talking to some girls. He’s immediately attracted, but how’s he approach her? She’s dressed like a rich girl, flouncy skirt, lace blouse, pearls, stylish hair. One of the girls she’s with sees him staring, maybe is attracted to him — he never found out — and comes over and introduces herself, says this is what they’re supposed to do with all the new boys, so don’t think you’re anything special, and asks what school he’s at, then Gwen comes over and her friend introduces them. Two of his friends saw her when she walked over and made with the eyes and smiles to each other, but he caught their attention and pointed to himself and mouthed “Hands off, she’s mine.” “Poly Prep?” Gwen says. “Sounds like poly pulp. Can it be a real school or are you just a big fake — I won’t tell.” “Fake and a fraud, but don’t get me tossed out; at least not yet.” “Fake and a fraud” was what his father often said about various people he’d just met. The smell, was it coming from her? Bright face, inquiring eyes, good speech, dulcet — word he looked up from a book that week and used a lot — voice, long legs out of this stiff thing under her skirt—“What is that coming out, if I can ask?” pointing. “A crinoline. My parents manufacture them so whenever I step out socially like this I like to be a walking ad. Least I can do for all they’re shelling out for me for this Easter society pri-school.” “Easter what? I don’t get it.” “Try.” Shuts his eyes. Get it quick, she’ll admire it. “Something about Jewish and Gentile all in one?” “No, it’s about what part of town this school’s in. You’ll get it in the end.” Swan’s neck, he thought then, or like a ballet dancer’s. “Like to dance?” holding out his arms. Already giddy with her, saying and doing the wrong things, can’t think straight, Easter society pri-school means what other than private? His hand feels hot in the small of her back, her hand hot on the back of his neck, her other hand smooth in his sweaty one. And it’s from her, the smell. Sees himself nuzzling, kissing, their bodies in skimpy bathing suits on a blanket on a beach squeezed tight. Gets an erection and a big one and she must feel it because she backs up a bit. He wants to say excuse me, to show how sophisticated he is, and if she asks, to even say “For that,” looking or pointing down, “and I truly apologize,” but doesn’t. it’s a fox trot, thank God, only dance he really knows — he’s tried to learn all the popular ones but once he gets out there it always ends up where he has to ad-lib — and during it she says “I had a dream last night I’d fall in love with and marry a proletarian, what do you make of that?” and he says, because he can’t think of any way of making her believe he knows what it is and then later tonight looking it up, “What’s a proletarian?” She says “Come on, don’t kid me,” and he says “Really, what, an iconoclast?” and she says “I know what that is and it’s a good one but it’s not that. No, if you don’t know, that means you’re probably one, though you’re not the fellow in my dream, since this happens in college two years from now,” and he thinks “Did I blow it? Of all the words I know, why couldn’t that be one?” After the music stops and they separate he says “Like to do the next one?” and she says, glancing at his crotch — erection’s gone down without him even noticing it—“In the beginning we’re supposed to give each young man a chance — that’s how it was put to us; I’m not quoting from the Bible. Maybe later, when all the young men are used up,” and after she dances with a few other guys — he was lucky; next one was a lindy, which he’s a real clod at — she disappears. He walks past the girls’ bathroom on that floor several times, looks in some classrooms, goes downstairs to the school entrance, and outside. Oh well, he knows her name, thinks he can get her phone number from someone and if not he’ll call up a few Wakesmans on the West Side where she said she lives or send her a letter care of this school, but he sees her in the gym as he’s leaving and says “Sorry we couldn’t dance again, but would it be OK to call you?” “Sure,” and he says “I’ll need your number,” and she has a pen in her purse but nothing to write on but a dollar bill, he only has coins in his pockets but lies and says his paper money’s in his coat downstairs, so she writes it on his palm and in front of the school he writes it in a friend’s matchbook. He calls her that Monday, takes her to Radio City Music Hall by cab, they go to the restrooms downstairs when they get there and then sit in this big sitting room outside the restrooms while waiting for the next show to begin and he says “You know, I’ve had a dream over and over again about—” “A recurring one.” “Yes. When I was a boy, you see, I went here a couple of times and since then have dreamt about the men’s room here but where it has a hundred urinals in a row on both sides of the room. I just saw there weren’t even twenty altogether — I counted them, but that’s not including the stalls. Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up, for that’s not very nice talk,” and she says “No, it’s good; conversation I like. So more like that, more. Tell me your deepest dreams; your darkest worries and thoughts. I hate all small talk; it’s boring,” but how does he produce more, for that urinal one might be all he has? He once had a dog he loved who jumped out of a car window and got permanently lost. Once got his tongue stuck to a popsicle and though a man told him not to he panicked and pulled it off. Once while fooling around he fell down a coal chute of an apartment building on his block and a fireman had to climb down and pull him up. Got lost in Central Park during a blizzard and for a while didn’t think he’d make it out. Got hit by cars twice while playing ball on his sidestreet and both times ran home and into bed saying he thought he just came down with the grippe. His sister who’s been so sick with cancer she almost died in the operating room a couple of times. His father who went to prison and now still can’t get his dental license back. “Well, right now, nothing, but there’s plenty of those in me, believe me,” and she says “Then what do you want to do, even though you’re not in college yet, after you get out?” and he says “Something good for mankind. A doctor, but not for money but for missionary work, though not connected to any religion. Unfortunately, I’m not good in the sciences. But my dad says I don’t have to be and that he’ll get me into dental school if I want, because once there it’s all practical stuff.” “But you don’t want to be a dentist, putting your nose in people’s mouths,” and he says “No, a doctor, but medical school he doesn’t think he can get me into with just a C average, which is all I’ve ever been, and also because he has no connections there, so I don’t know what to do. But when you think of it, people have bad teeth everywhere and it causes so much pain and the relief of it’s just as great as taking out a cancer, and I have to admit my father’s a dentist, but not practicing these days. But just to go to Africa — maybe I’ll learn French better and go to med school in Switzerland or someplace like I heard people do who can’t get in here — and to work with poor starving natives and in the deepest bush.” “That’s nice. Money doesn’t concern you. That’s great, but you have such a long trek ahead. I’d like to be an artist of any sort — but a creator, not an interpreter — and right now I’m going about trying to determine which one. Maybe I’ll be a triple or quadruple threat in several artistic fields, and with a number of hats on my head in each one.” He doesn’t get the hat expression, but nods, says it sound exciting, he once thought of art for himself too. Painting, which he used to do slews of as a kid and some of his school art teachers thought he was pretty good at, and even acting, which he thinks you can be a creator in, though maybe she’s right, but he doesn’t have enough talent for either or not compared to lots of people he’s seen his age. “My feeling,” she says, “and you know, I’m only starting out, but it’s if you don’t believe in yourself completely from the beginning in those fields, it’s best to stay out of them. So you probably made the right decision, early as it was.” The movie’s about young concert performers — the reason he took her to it; classical music, maybe an intelligent story in it — and in the cab home he asks and she says she’s grateful he took her but the plot and music were for the most part for people who only feed on sweets. “You noticed no Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, any of the modernists. You know why? Most people would run out of the theater, or worse, not go in.” Stravinsky he thinks he heard of, but the others? but he says “There’s something to what you say. But a little of it, I have to admit, like that Mendelssohn violin thing running through it, I kind of liked and think I’ll get a recording of it. I got the name of the real player of it from the closing credits, which is why I made you sit through them. Francescatti.” Oh, she says, she knows his Prokofiev and Bach. She lets him kiss her at the door. “Can I call you again?” and she says “Sure, call,” and he says “Maybe we can make a date now — I’ve been invited to what should be a great party next Saturday,” and she says “I don’t have my calendar on me or know what my obligations at home will be next week. Best to call.” He bends down to kiss her but she moves aside and says “One, for now, is enough.” Next two days he thinks he can still smell her perfume on his sport jacket in his closet, but his brother takes a whiff and says he’s imagining it. “Just sweat; you ought to get it dry-cleaned if you want anybody to go out with you.” Calls that Tuesday; Monday would seem he was too much in a hurry. “Hi, I was wondering if you’d like to go to that party I mentioned,” and she says it turns out she’s busy all weekend, and when he asks, the next one too. He says he’ll call again if she doesn’t mind and she says OK. “By the way, how are you, what have you been doing?” and she says “Nothing much, and fine, there’s little that ever gets me down, but you know how I feel about small talk. So I’ll be speaking to you, Howard.” Howard, his name, that she was saying it, he was going crazy for her. Draws her face and figure in that crinoline dozens of times, kisses his pillow several times pretending it’s her. He loves everything about her. Looks, manners, mannerisms, intellect, clothes, tastes, gracefulness, cute younger sister who came out to see him that first date, that she and her sister share their own listed phone, her fancy East Side friends and school, fine old apartment building and apartment with a wide Hudson view, doormen, elevator men, flowers in the lobby, flowers in that little foyer right outside their front door, maid who wore a black and white uniform when there weren’t even guests and called him Mr. Tetch, way the place was furnished and that Gwen brought him into the living room to meet her parents who were having coffee after dinner, father with a tie on and in what looked like a lounge jacket, mother also in elegant stay-at-home clothes and with this aristocratic voice and both getting up to shake his hand, paintings he was shown there, real drawings — with little frame lights above them — by Titian and Rembrandt, books she said she was reading, small poetry book she took to the movie in case, she said, she had a few extra minutes when let’s say he went to look for a cab, thin soft lips and beautiful teeth, that she had a cat. Calls the Tuesday after the next and she says she’s busy the following weekend, “Oh, that’s too bad. Is there any weekend you won’t be busy — in other words, maybe the first Friday or Saturday night where you won’t?” and she says “I never make plans for more than the coming weekend — that last time was an aberration.” “An aberration. OK,” he says angrily, “an aberration,” and hangs up, hoping his anger and hanging up and no good-bye will somehow interest her in him more; that he draws the line, has feelings, takes no crap, is like what she originally liked in him it seems, a strong proletariat. Right after that he gets depressed, doesn’t know how he’ll make it till next Tuesday or Wednesday when he’ll call. Tuesday; Wednesday and she’ll be busy for sure the next weekend or at least will have a good excuse: he called too late. And “aberration,” and he writes it down way he thinks it’s spelled, looks it up, it isn’t in his dictionary, asks his mother what it means since she’s known most of the big words he’s asked her about before. “Why?” she says. “Because I heard someone use it.” “In what capacity?” and he says “That knowing what you’ll be doing two weekends in a row is an aberration.” “That’s not how it’s used,” and tells him what it means and spells it out for him and he finds it this time. He calls the next Tuesday and first thing she says is “Did you hang up on me last week?” and he says “No, I might have just said good-bye very softly, why?” and she says “Because if you did I’d think, hey, this fellow isn’t worth answering the phone for if he’s going to unload all his belligerence on me.” “Not me,” he says and asks her out and she says there would have been a definite possibility if she didn’t have so many extracurricular activities this week like tap dance and singing lessons and an Italian class she’s starting and she also models at the Art Students League one night a week, all of which means she’ll be studying the whole weekend for her midterms.” “You model? Not in the nude.” “Yes, it’s for artists.” “How do your parents let you? You’re so young. Or even the art school?” and she says “I told the League I’m nineteen, since I feel I act it and could look it. As for my parents, they’re both artists in their souls but business people to keep their souls alive and bodies fed, and they trust me. It’s only the top part anyway, not that I wouldn’t model the bottom part if they needed it. I was asked by an instructor there who sat on the stool next to mine at the health food lunch place near the League and thought I’d be perfect for the pose he had in mind.” “Oh yeah, and God knows what he’s going to ask you to do next,” and she says “You really don’t know what y