The Great 1970 Kissing Debate

by Velma Lee Barber

The brown-haired boy waited for her under the towering oak that grew in front of the fifty-two-year-old, three story, brick school. She walked toward him, hugging her books to her breasts, shocked for a moment by the wind’s bite. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and gestured down the embankment to the street. “I gotta go. My mom’s pickin’ me up today.”

“Bye.” She waved as he walked away snapping the jacket that she knew he’d pulled out of his dad’s closet. He looked back over his shoulder. She liked him. He held her hand at the movies. He called and talked on the phone for more than ten minutes. He gave her a bracelet with his name on it. She liked him and he wanted to kiss her.

What a decision. She’d never kissed a boy before. Should she? Or shouldn’t she? She thought about it as she walked home, the wind whipping her dress around her legs and making her thighs beet red.

“You should wear pants on days like this,” her mother said when she got home.

“What’s for dinner?” She looked at the gray meat sizzling in the pan.

“Hamburgers and green beans.”

“Yum,” she sang with sarcasm. She went to her room and put her books on the floor beside the bed. There was barely enough space in her room for the twin bed and a chest of drawers. The walls were scuffed in places, signs of normal wear since the last paint job five years ago. She wanted a new, bolder color. The pale purple chosen by a romantic eight-year-old had fallen out of favor with the sassy sixteen-year-old she hoped to be in three years.

She surveyed the room with a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Last Friday she had spent the night at Jane’s house. Jane’s room had a wall of closet space with a built-in bureau and a desk area with a hidden compartment in one of the drawers. A girl could store a lot of secrets with an arrangement like that.

She hung her dress beside the four other dresses in her closet. At the beginning of the school year she’d gone to the mall with her best friend, Paula. Paula picked out a fresh wardrobe of coordinated outfits every fall. She, on the other hand, survived on a limited number of dresses, shirts, and jeans, affordable and worn until they were either too small or beyond repair.

“Hazel! Come down here and set the table,” her mother called from the kitchen.

She didn’t have a desk, secret compartment, cool clothes, or kissing expertise. She had good grades, a minor case of acne, mostly confined to her chin, and a name fit for a grandmother, Hazel. She wanted to be another name. Something common, like Karen, or Kathy, or Kim. Something beautiful, like Eliza, or Michelle, or Laurie. She wanted a different name, built-in storage in her room, clothes that made her feel special, and she wanted to know about kissing.

“Hazel!” her mother called again.

She pulled a blue T shirt over her head and a pair of cutoffs up her bare legs, then walked down the narrow staircase, breathing shallow to trap her feelings inside, carefully avoiding the clothes and books and shoes stacked next to the railing, debating about the kiss.

The next day the brown-haired boy waited after school and he walked her home. His father’s old leather jacket hung loose on his thirteen-year-old shoulders. His hand felt rough against the smooth skin of her palm. They weren’t talking and she knew what they weren’t talking about. The early March wind stung her cheeks. She worried about her nose running. She could see his breath in her side vision. She asked him about the basketball game on Friday night and he mumbled something that she couldn’t hear. She didn’t ask him to say it again.

They walked close to the edge of the road because there were no sidewalks on her street. Asphalt crumbled into gravel that mixed with stubby grass that eventually got thicker but never what you would call lush. The people in her neighborhood mowed regularly, but that was about the extent of their lawn care efforts. They walked past the old Chevy that her dad had purchased from a friend for $150. First he said he would get it fixed up, but he never did. Then he said he would get it hauled away, but he hadn’t yet.

When they got to her door they put their books on the porch swing. He took both of her hands and looked in her eyes. She started to say something but before she could open her mouth he leaned toward her and kissed her lips. Her eyes flew open wide. His were shut. He tasted like mint. She pulled her head back. “I’ve gotta get inside.”

She walked into the dry heat of the hallway feeling a little lost. She wanted to back up a few steps, do it over, make it different. What happened to the debate? What happened to her getting to decide? He just stepped right in and took over. She dropped her books on the chair closest to the door, and walked back in the kitchen.

“Hi honey. How was school?” Her mother stood at the counter peeling potatoes.

“Good.”
“Any plans for the evening?”

“I have a math test tomorrow. Have to study.”

“Your father and I are going out to dinner. It’s our anniversary. Remember?”

She looked at her mother. Under the apron was the new dress she’d helped pick out on Saturday. It was pale blue, with a lacy collar and buttons up the back. “Where’re you going?”

“To the new restaurant out by the highway. The one with the chef from California.” Her mother rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’m making mashed potatoes and roast for you. Do you mind staying here alone?”

“No, I don’t mind.” Alone would be good. Alone would give her time to think about what happened. Alone would be better than pretending that nothing had.

When her dad got home that night he went into the bathroom immediately. She could hear him singing in the shower, humming as he shaved. She passed the open door through which steam billowed into the hallway. He called to her, “Hey Hazel. What’s my girl up to?” She peaked in the bathroom door. He sat on the edge of the tub, a towel secured around his middle and draping his legs, using the sharp part of the clippers to dig black machine grease from under this fingernails.

“Nothing.”

“Any plans for the evening?”

“Studying for a math test.”

“Atta girl. Keep up those grades, go to college, and make something of yourself. You’re too smart to work in a factory.” He smiled at her ruefully.

“Have fun on your date,” she teased him.

“You bet!” He stood up and Hazel backed her head out of the door.

After her parents left she ate supper and washed her dishes. She stacked her books on the kitchen table and started with an assignment for english, followed by a brief reading for history. Then she opened her math book. His call interrupted her in the middle of a theorem.

“Hi. Whatcha doin’?”

“Math.”

“I was just watching TV.”

“Oh.” She didn’t say anything else and there was an awkward silence in which she realized that their telephone conversations were usually long because she kept up a constant stream of questions, observations, and witty remarks. Tonight she wasn’t in the mood.

“Well, I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Bye.” She hung up the phone with a big knot in her belly. She didn’t want to be alone anymore but she didn’t know who to call. Who could she talk to? Even the most virtuous of her friends had engaged in long kisses on the more isolated patches of the skating pond. Of course there were girls who had graduated way beyond kissing. One had even gotten pregnant last year. And she supposed there were girls whose lips were still pure, like hers. Well, hers had been until a few hours ago. But she didn’t think they would understand her situation either.

She wasn’t afraid of kissing. She wasn’t afraid of what it might lead to. She knew all about sex and had made a decision that she would wait until she was older. Much older. The problem with kissing had to do with where she fit in the world. She felt like she walked between two worlds, between pastel and hot pink, between affordable and stylish, between the world of jobs and the world of careers. It took all of her concentration to keep from falling completely one way or the other. Kissing could get her off balance. She knew it. Kissing was a big deal.

She pulled on her coat and walked out the front door and into the poorly lit street. She walked down the center line, avoiding shadowed places where a stranger might hide. When she got to the streets with more lights, she stayed on the sidewalk and walked with determination in her step. She’d read that the best way a woman could stay safe was to look like she knew where she was going. She practiced looking like that.

Through the windows of the public library she could see stacks of books rising almost to the ceiling. Young people clustered around tables, some with their heads on their hands and eyes on their books, others huddled in pairs, their mouths moving as they glanced at the man who sat on the stool by the checkout desk. The library was the only place in town where young people could gather at night. The man on the stool had been hired to make sure they acted with decorum. Talking too loud could get you kicked out. Hazel had been, one time. She nodded at the man as she passed the desk. He smiled at her. Theirs was a harmonious relationship. She understood his limits and he was forgiving of her past transgression.

She saw none of her closer friends and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to people she barely knew, so she walked into the stacks and browsed the fiction, transported to other places and times by titles and authors and over illustrations. She sat on the floor and began reading a murder mystery sprinkled with French words that she didn’t understand. Later, she told herself, she would look those words up, but right now she only wanted to be absorbed by the story, sucked into another world, drained of worry.

She read until her neck hurt and her mouth was dry. She put the book back on the shelf and walked down to the basement. A boy stood at the drinking fountain. He was in her grade, but not her class. He lived across town in a one-floor-plan, brick house in a neighborhood where the mothers arranged parties and served on school committees. She’d seen him in his driveway, shooting baskets, when she went to visit a friend who lived on his street. He had thick, black hair and a strong, stocky body. She stood three feet away from him, waiting for her turn. He cocked his head as he drank and looked in her eyes. He continued to hold her gaze as he started kissing the water, moving his lips against the smooth and steady stream, passing his tongue slowly across his top lip as the water washed over his mouth. The muscles in his face shifted and laughter in his eyes teased her. She stood quite still and watched him, never breaking eye contact, unwilling to back up and not even considering getting closer. He backed away from the fountain and walked to the stairs. She got a drink, left the library, and walked home.

The next day she saw him again in the school office. Sent on an errand by her teacher, she stood at the counter waiting for the secretary to give a packet of papers to her. He sat on a chair beside the door to the principal’s office. She could feel his eyes on her. She turned slowly and looked at him without smiling. He returned her gaze. There was no teasing in his eyes today. When the principal stepped out of his office, the boy hung his head, stood, and walked though the open door.

Later in the day, she saw him talking to a girl in the student lobby. The girl had long, curly blonde hair and a short maroon velour dress which hugged her breasts as she danced from side to side, talking to the boy. The girl’s face was bright and shining and full of promise. Hazel thought the girl was beautiful. But right before Hazel rounded the corner and lost sight of them, she glanced at the pair again and caught him looking at her. Something went ping in her chest or head or abdomen. She couldn’t really tell where the feeling was, but she liked it.

After school the next day, the brown-haired boy waited under the oak tree again. She said she didn’t want to pretend to go steady anymore. She pushed up the sleeve of his father’s jacket, and dropped something into his exposed hand. She closed his fingers over the engraved bracelet and said that they could still talk on the phone and go to the movies, if he wanted. He looked confused but gave his head a little shake and said, “Okay.”

She walked home alone, stepping around the edges of mud puddles, tapping the water with the tips of her shoes, smiling at the people who passed in cars. When she got home, her mother was pulling a load of clothes out of the dryer. “Hey, Hazel, how was school?”

“Good.”

“Want to help me fold clothes?”

“Sure.”

She stood in silence with her mother, making piles of neatly arranged underwear, washcloths, and socks. Then she started talking about her day, the new book they were reading in english, the cranky guy who taught music, the girl who spilled her lunch on the floor when somebody tripped her. She chattered, and her mother smiled, and Hazel felt happy. She’d made a decision. She liked kissing. She could handle the fresh gust of power it blew in her face, the momentary loss of control, the need to rebalance. And she didn’t know how or when it would happen, but she knew who she wanted to kiss.