I woke up to my clock radio playing a song I hadn’t heard before…

… A four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she’s in a play
She is anyway

It was a strange song. It sounded like the Beatles, but more like a grownups song than an older kids rock type song with guitars and drums and worrying about girlfriends and freedom and that sort of stuff. And some of the words I didn’t understand, like “finger pies” and “roundabout”. And that last line, “though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, what was that about? Was it like drug stuff, like that “Along Comes Mary” song by the Association that older kids said was about drugs, “My empty cup is as sweet as the cup”, even though it didn’t talk about TAKING any drugs like that marijuana stuff.

Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then, the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain
Very strange

I’ll say!

I heard Midnight crying outside my bedroom window, as usual. Mom said cats had a strong sense of time, and that he probably jumped up on that little roof part over our front door under my bedroom window each morning right before he knew my alarm was about to go off.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
Penny Lane

I cranked open the window and I was hit by the very cold wind blowing in. Midnight crouched below me on the snowy roof, his long black puffy hair covered with white bits of snow. He looked up at me with flashing green eyes like some alien being, adjusted his body and did that wiggle with his rear end before he jumped up into my window sill. His whole body didn’t quite make it into the sill and I could hear his back feet scraping on the outside wall trying to get traction. I’d never seen him in such sudden distress. I grabbed the haunches of his front legs and pulled him up through the window sill onto my desk. Once he felt the solid desk with all four of his paws he shivered and shook his whole body and bits of snow were flung everywhere including all over the books and papers on my desk. I quickly cranked close the window.

“Dammit Coolers”, I said to him, looking at the scattered bits of now melting snow on my school books, notebooks and sheets of math homework problems. “Coolers” was my main nickname for him these days. David called him “Nonnee”, and mom still called him “Middie”. David and I had agreed that his full name was “Midnight Nonnee Coolers Zale”.

He looked at me and meowed, like he didn’t care about the destruction he had just rained down on the top of my desk. I quickly picked him up and threw him on the ground, and of course he went to the door to be let out of my room so he could hurry down to the basement. I was tempted to make him suffer there, waiting at the door, but I opened it and he galloped off down the upstairs hall, hungry for any food that was there for him down in the basement landing.

That new Supremes song they played a lot for the past few months was on…

Love is here (love is here)
And oh, my darling, now you’re gone (now you’re gone)
Love is here (love is here)
And oh, my darling, now, now you’re gone (now you’re gone)

You persuaded me to love you
And I did
But instead of tenderness
I found heartache instead
Into your arms I fell
So unaware of the loneliness
That was waiting there

I guess a lot of people thought falling in love was a big problem, I guess it had been for mom and dad. Seemed like it was safer, when it came to girls, to just be friends and not get into all that boyfriend girlfriend heartache stuff, like that next part where Diana Ross talked instead of sang…

(spoken) You close the door to your heart
And you turned the key
Locked your love away from me

Whenever I was with Stuart and Frankie and we heard the song, they would say those spoken words to each other like she did. But then the song got interrupted by the news…

It’s twenty past the hour… the truce is over! American bombers are back over North Vietnam this Valentine’s day as operation Rolling Thunder resumes. Saigon reports over two thousand enemy dead in the latest sweeps, while U.S. casualties remain light. And in local news, it’s a cold one in the Motor City, temperatures plummeting to fifteen degrees! I’m Byron MacGreggor, CKLW Twenty-Twenty news!

News was followed by the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer”. They were playing that song A LOT. For what mom would say was the “umpteenth time”…

I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else, but not for me

Love was out to get me
That’s the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams

Yeah it was Valentine’s day. Yesterday mom had asked David and I if we wanted her to go out and get those packs of the little cards that you’d give to all the kids in your class at school with the pictures with silly words on them like a bumble bee and “Will you ‘bee’ mine?”, or a spaceship taking off and “You’re a blast”. Pretty stupid really, but I used to do it, and David still wanted to. I said no. None for me. That seemed like little kid stuff. I didn’t want to have anything to do with little kid stuff. I was in a bigger kid school now so it was important that everyone thought I WAS a bigger kid.

At school, both Tappan and Burns Park, the rule was if you gave valentine cards in class, you had to give them to everybody. I guess that made sense. You wouldn’t want the cool kids to get a whole bunch and then the fat boys and ugly girls to get none. Mom had helped David do his cards for all his classmates. Mrs Woods was doing it in our Homeroom class, for those of us who wanted to, probably mostly girls I figured.

Valentines Day was a whole weird thing anyway. I mean I guess some grownups got into it, men giving women flowers or a box of chocolates, all that stuff that before Valentine’s Day they were advertising on TV. Mom and dad never did that though. They had always said that they agreed not to give each other stuff because they were living on such a “tight budget” that it seemed like a waste of good money. I mean we did valentines at school, like David’s class and my Homeroom were doing them this year, but to actually send a real special valentine to some girl you liked or from a girl that liked you, not usually. Molly and I gave each other valentine cards a couple times, but turns out she and I figured out later that our moms had really decided we should do it instead of us.

Mom had actually gotten a box of chocolates in the mail Saturday from this guy she had met at a party. She said, “It’s a nice romantic gesture, but unfortunately I haven’t an iota of interest in that guy.” She still ate the chocolates. Each one was different and you didn’t know what was inside until you bit into it. I remember I walked into her room and she was sitting on her bed eating them while she watched TV. She looked at me and said, “Well, at least it’s better than smoking or drinking booze.” She even let me pick out a couple and eat them.

Mom said she really only drank alcohol at parties, where it added to the fun and “loosened you up to be more social”. But she did keep three bottles in the hutch downstairs by the round table in the living room – Cutty Sark Scotch, Gordon’s London Dry Gin and Martini & Rossi Vermouth – in case other grownups came over so she could offer them a drink. She said if she was going to have a drink herself, she favored the Scotch, but the gin and vermouth was for making martinis, which a lot of other grownups liked. I knew about martinis from James Bond books and movies, because he always liked his “shaken, not stirred”. And of course for her parties she always used to buy a bottle of vodka and make Bloody Mary’s with tomato juice. She said, “It’s not a Jane Zale party unless there’s a crock of Bloody Mary’s.” But she hadn’t had a party in a long time, not since she and dad got divorced.

But on Valentine’s day, you were supposed to give your girlfriend a card, plus candy or flowers, or take her out to a romantic dinner, or she’d think you didn’t love her anymore, or you were some kind of a cheapskate. And I guess if you were married, your wife was still supposed to be like your girlfriend, so you were supposed to do the same for her, at least that was what they said in all those commercials and shows on TV. Maybe older boys did that too with their girlfriends, but I wasn’t sure.

As I walked by the open door of her room with my books and notebook for school headed downstairs she called out to me, “Hey Coolie!”

I peeked in and she was sitting on her bed in her pajamas, watching the Today Show, as always.

She looked at me and did a big smile and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetie.” Then she looked at me thinking and said, “You and your brother are the only guys in my life right now, but I could do a lot worse. Try to have a good day at school.” I guess she was figuring out that I didn’t HAVE a lot of those, but I just nodded.

I figured I should say happy Valentine’s Day back to her and I did. She pushed her lips together and looked kind of sad and nodded slowly. I think she wanted to talk but I didn’t want to, and I continued downstairs to get breakfast and head off with my saxophone case to school, because it was a T-Day today so I had Band.

***

I finally went out into the dark, cold, windy morning, bundled in my jacket, gloves and wool hat, carrying all my books under one arm and my saxophone in the other, the wind stinging my cheeks. I mean cold and windy was bad enough, but DARK, cold and windy was just too much!

I saw Abby across the street, headed to school by herself with her books gathered against her chest in one arm and her clarinet case in the other. Myrna usually came by in the mornings and she and Abby would walk to school together. If I saw them out front I’d wait inside until they’d walked past and down Wells toward school before I came out myself, so I didn’t have to talk to Myrna, who would probably ask me all these embarrassing questions about Rose, like Rose should be my girlfriend because I danced with her at the sock hop. Since they liked to walk together down Wells up to Ferdon, I would head out across the park instead to Baldwin and Granger, the hypotenuse of the triangle.

But today Abby was by herself. She saw me, and since one of her arms was full of books, she raised the other with her clarinet and waved IT instead of her hand. She walked across the street towards me as I walked down from our front stoop to the sidewalk.

“Myrna’s mom called my mom and said that she’s sick today”, she called out, “We might as well walk together. It’s not much fun walking alone when it’s dark and cold like this.” I nodded.

“And windy”, I said. She nodded and rolled her eyes.

We’d actually walked to school or home from school together a few times since that first time in October we walked home together from Math Club. We still didn’t want any of our friends to see us talking, so if we saw one of her friends or my friends near us, I’d slow down and she would walk ahead like we weren’t really talking, just close by each other. Since we would go her way down Wells to Ferdon, the tricky places were when we walked by Andy’s house and then up at Ferdon where we might run into Julie coming down the street from HER house. And when we got to Ferdon and Granger, where we might see Teddy, Gill or Billy, who usually walked together to school, or maybe Craig, who lived right there at that corner. I mean if it was just Craig that saw Abby and me talking, THAT wouldn’t be bad, because he wouldn’t tease me or tell our other friends.

As we walked down Wells, Abby asked, “So did you do valentines for your Homeroom?”

“Nah”, I said, “Did you?” She nodded.

“I always do valentines”, she said, “Didn’t you do them last year in Mrs Herman’s class?” I nodded.

“That was different”, I said, “I kind of knew everybody. Well at least most of the boys and kind of the girls too, most of them.”

“Homeroom’s different”, I continued, “We’re only there for like thirty minutes each day and I only talk to a few of the boys and I don’t even really like most of them.”

“You mean Lance, Danny and Ben, right?” she asked, “Myrna says you sit by them and are always talking to them.” I nodded.

“Myrna HATES them, especially Lance”, she said, “If you don’t like them very much why do you talk to them?” That was a good question. Why did I talk to them?

I guess I talked to them because I didn’t want them to tease me, like they did to a lot of the other kids in the class, like the boys who were kind of quiet or dorky, like Duncan, or basically all the girls, even the ones they thought were “foxes”. I guess as long as I talked to them, they thought I thought they were cool, so they wouldn’t tease me, at least only a little bit like they teased each other. Well it was mostly Lance kind of teasing Ben and Danny. The two of them only teased Lance every once in a while, just a little, but only the kind of teasing that he liked, like about him being “in love” with Ramona.

But how could I say that to Abby? It made me sound like a stupid, scared little kid. I didn’t want her to think I was like that.

“I don’t know”, I finally said, “I just talk to them cuz there’s no one else to talk to.” She seemed to think that made sense and nodded.

“But what about Rose?” she asked, “You still like HER. Myrna says Rose still likes you, but you two never talk in class.” I nodded, but didn’t know what to say. It was part of that whole teasing thing I didn’t want to talk about, I didn’t want them to tease me that Rose was my girlfriend, or ask me if I’d kissed her or tried to make out with her.

“What if Rose gives YOU a valentine and you DON’T give her one?” she asked, “Is she going to think that you don’t like her anymore?” I got quiet, and wondered why I hadn’t been thinking about that.

***

So in Homeroom that day, the main thing was exchanging valentine cards. The teacher, Mrs Woods, had this big box thing with “cubbies” in it. It had six across the top and five down, so thirty, and I think there were less than thirty in our class. She had printed each of our names on a piece of masking tape in one of the cubbies. She reminded all of us that if we wanted to give kids in class valentines we should give one to everybody.

She had set the box up on a table up at the front of the room by her desk. Kids in class all crowded around with their stacks of cards, putting them in the cubbies. As I had figured, it was mostly the girls, including Rose and even Ramona. There were some boys too, like Duncan, but not Lance, Danny or Ben, and of course not me. I watched Rose while she put hers in the slots and she turned to look at me while I was looking at her and she smiled. I did my best to smile back.

When everybody was done, Mrs Woods, called kids up one at a time to collect their valentines. Since she went in alphabet order, I was the last one, though there were a couple kids who weren’t there today, like Myrna, and their valentines were still in their cubbies. I took my stack out, a few in little envelopes with my name on them, but most just those cards from those packs you got at the Food and Drug or the A and P.

Lance, Danny and Ben were looking through the ones they got, and each other’s, and were laughing about who got what from who. I didn’t want to share mine with them, but Lance wanted me to join what they were doing.

“So what did you get from Rose?” he asked.

“I haven’t looked at any of them yet”, I said, really not wanting to show him, “I’ll probably look at them all later, maybe at lunch.” That seemed like a good reason.

“Ah, come on, Coop”, he said, like I was his best friend in the world, “I’ll show you what Ramona wrote on MINE.” Now Danny and Ben were looking at me too.

I really didn’t care what Ramona wrote on his, but I figured I might as well show him Rose’s. It was probably just one of those regular valentines with nothing special on it. I looked at the clock and there was only a few minutes before the end bell for Homeroom. I went through all my cards to find the one from Rose. It was one of those spaceship ones that said, “You’re sure out of this world!” She had written her name at the bottom and then had drawn a smiling face.

“Oh, well”, said Lance, like he was pretending that he had everything figured out, “She’s really got a crush on you, Coop. A total crush!”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. I figured Lance was just teasing me, like he did to Danny and Ben, but at least it was a part of the cool group teasing, not the really bad kind he did to others, that I DID NOT want him to do to me.

“Nah… I don’t think so”, I said to him, even though I wondered in my mind if she actually did. But there was no way I would talk to ANYBODY about something like that, especially HIM. I always remembered third grade, when I’d told Joey privately that I’d “pull down my pants for Mary”, and then he told everybody in class what I had said, and our teacher told me later I shouldn’t have said that. That was REALLY BAD. I could never let something like that happen again.

Lance, Ben and Danny liked seeing what valentines they got from the girls, and saying what it made them think about each girl. So like, if a girl they thought was ugly and didn’t have big tits gave them a valentine that said “be my valentine”, they’d say something like “you wish”. Or they’d compare the valentines they got from the pretty girls with tits and argue about which one of them got the best card that said that that girl wanted to make out with them.

***

After school I walked home with Teddy and Craig like I usually did. I wish I’d been able to walk with Abby again because I would have shown her the valentine from Rose where she made the smiling face, and asked her if she thought that meant Rose really liked me. But no way I was going to show it to other boys, or anybody really, except maybe Abby, because we had already talked about it walking to school.

Craig, Teddy and I didn’t talk about Valentine’s Day at all, but about this book we were all reading in our Unified Studies classes, “The Light in the Forest”. The story was about this white boy, John Cameron Butler, who was kidnapped by Indians when he was four, but was raised as a member of the Indian tribe and given the name “True Son”, and learned Indian ways and how badly the white people treated his tribe. Then there was a treaty between the Indians and the white people in 1764 and John, now True Son, had to go back to his white family, though he didn’t want to. He hated life with the white people, and in the last chapter we’d read, he had run away from his white family and gone back to his Indian tribe. We still hadn’t read the last chapters yet.

Teddy said that he felt bad for John’s white parents, because of course they’d want their kid back, that was what parents were supposed to do, take care of their children. I said that because John liked his Indian tribe better than his white family, and his white parents couldn’t accept that, that I didn’t feel bad for them the same way, because they wouldn’t let John do what he thought was best. I thought of mom always saying, “Bright kids will tell you what they need.” Craig just mostly listened to Teddy and me arguing about it, and seemed to be just thinking and not saying much.

But after Craig stopped at his house and then Teddy at his, I walked by myself down Baldwin towards my house. I didn’t go across the park because the big ice rink was still there and there were a bunch of people skating.

As I walked by myself now, I thought again about the whole valentine thing in Homeroom. Did Rose give me that card because she had to give one to everybody? Or did she draw the smiling face on it because she wanted me to know that she liked me? Maybe she drew a smiling face on everybody’s card, I hadn’t looked at Lance’s, Danny’s or Ben’s cards from Rose. And because I didn’t give HER a card, because I didn’t give ANYBODY one, would she think I didn’t like her any more, and maybe even get mad and not like ME anymore?

I felt stupid that I hadn’t done valentines, even if the cool boys didn’t and might have teased me about it. Tappan was just a stupid school where you could never do what you wanted to do and always had to worry about what everyone else thought.

When I got home from school, David was already home and sitting at the big round table in the living room. He had all the valentines he got at school spread out all over the table. Mom was looking at them too. When I saw them I got mad, I just wanted Valentine’s Day to go away. I wished it had never happened. Why couldn’t David just take them up to his room and look at them up there in private?

“Look at all the valentines I got”, he said, looking at me, “One from every kid in my class!” Like that was somehow special and showed how much everyone else liked him.

“You know”, I said, “If kids want to give valentines at school they HAVE to give one to everybody. You know that don’t you?” He looked at me kind of worried and thinking. Mom looked at me too, also thinking.

“I know”, he finally said, now looking a little bit sad as he looked back down at all of them on the table, “Still… it’s pretty neat.”

Then he looked up at me again and asked, “How about you? Did you get any or is your school too old for all of that stuff?”

“Kind of”, I said, putting down my saxophone case and my books so I could take off my jacket, “Most of the boys didn’t do valentines but most of the girls still did.”

“Can I see what you got?” he asked. I felt my nose wrinkle and my lips push together as I shook my head fast.

“Nah… they’re pretty stupid”, I said, “Just those ones like mom got at the store and then they write their name at the bottom.” I grabbed my books and ran up the stairs to my room and closed the door.

***

Later that afternoon after finishing my homework, I was up in the attic with the lights out watching two of our Aurora racecars going around the track. They were two with headlights, so it was really neat to watch them go around the track, the only lights in the big cold dark room. I had them on a medium speed so they’d go by themselves and wouldn’t spin out on any of the sharper curves. Then I sat at one corner of the beaverboard, which was set up on wood boxes like it used to be in the basement of the old house, and watched them circle the course and come down the long nearly eight foot straightaway towards me, their lights in my eyes. It was cold up there in the winter, but I put a sweatshirt on.

David and I had set the track up in the basement a few times on the floor. Or I used to set it up under my bed, but now I set up my Avalon Hill games under there. One time I had set the track up under the big wicker table in David’s room, hanging it from the bottom of the table with thumbtacks and string. I thought that was a pretty cool thing I’d figured out to do, but it got in the way of David sitting at the table and drawing or doing homework so I took it down.

So the attic was the best place for the track, because there was a lot of space and we rarely went up here for any other reason. Up here in the attic was where mom and dad stored stuff, including that big eight-foot-long beaverboard which had been set up on wood boxes in the basement of our old house on Prescott. When we moved to this house, mom and dad had somehow managed to get that big board up the stairs into the attic, but now that it was up here, none of us wanted to even try getting it back down those stairs and then down two more sets of stairs to the basement to set it up again there. So since we also still had the four wood whisky boxes that we’d set it up on in the old basement, David and I decided to set up where it already was, up here in the attic, and set up the track on it.

As I watched the headlights of the two cars zooming around the big track with its long straightaway I tried not to think of anything and just kind of zone out on those headlights. But even though I didn’t want to, I still kept thinking about school and that valentine I got from Rose, and NOT giving one to her.

I wondered what she was thinking right now about me, and about me not giving her a valentine. I mean, I decided not to do valentines, like most of the other boys in class, because it was a little kid thing and we were older now, not because I didn’t like her anymore. I was hoping she’d figure that out. But what if she DIDN’T figure that out and thought I didn’t like her any more? What if I went to school tomorrow and she didn’t smile when she looked at me, or even looked mad or sad? That would be BAD. I would want to try to talk to her to tell her I still liked her, but then everybody would be listening, and think I was like being romantic and wanted to be boyfriend girlfriend, and that would be EVEN WORSE.

It suddenly hit me that I didn’t want to go to school tomorrow, particularly to Homeroom, because of all those things I was imagining could happen. If only those time machines in science-fiction books and TV shows were real, I’d go back to yesterday and have mom get me valentines like David did, even though it was more of a little kid thing.

As I continued to try not to keep thinking about all this stuff and just watch the headlights of the cars on the track, imagining they were real cars, I heard the attic door open and then mom’s voice. “Cooly, are you up there? It’s pitch black! Anyway… I’m boiling some water. Can I put in a Banquet bag for you?”

“I guess so”, I said, like I really didn’t care one way or the other.

“The kitchen is featuring Chicken a la King or Salisbury Steak”, she said, trying to be kind of happy and even silly.

“Whatever”, I said. She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Can I come up?” she asked. I thought about saying no, but then that would be a whole thing that would make her worried.

“Okay”, I said, now trying to pretend that everything was fine. The light flipped on and I could hear her bedroom slippers squish on each bare wood stair step as she walked up.

Near the top of the stairs she stopped, and though I was still watching the slot cars going down the track, I knew she was looking at me.

“Sweetie”, she asked, “Are you okay?”

Whenever she asked me that, I knew it was bad. She just had this really frustrating way of figuring out what I was feeling, sometimes before I even did. It wasn’t fair.

“Yeah”, I said quickly, still not looking at her, but it didn’t sound convincing, “I guess.”

“Did something happen at school today?” she asked.

I had to look at her. If I didn’t it would just make her think something happened and it was something really bad. I didn’t like telling her things that were bothering me. It felt almost as bad as throwing up. But when your stomach keeps telling you you gotta do it, eventually you just have to, and at least you know you’ll probably feel better once you’re done.

How many times had I sat in her rocking chair while she sat there on her bed and told me stuff that was bothering HER. That we didn’t have enough money. That she was lonely. That she still was mad at dad. That the bank wouldn’t give her her own checking account. She got to tell me all that crap and maybe feel a little better because she did, so why shouldn’t I tell HER something and maybe feel at least not so bad? So it was just like throwing up. I just had to do it.

“This girl in my homeroom”, I said, “That I danced with at the sockhop back in November, gave me a valentine card but I didn’t give her one.” There. It was out and it was yucky, like throw up, but I already DID feel a little bit better.

“I see”, mom said, thinking, “Do you wish you gave her one?” I nodded but didn’t say anything and turned my head to watch my slot cars again, going around the track.

“Well”, mom said, “It’s really not THAT late. We could drive over to Food and Drug, buy one and drop it off at her house.”

Then after thinking some more, she asked, “Do you know where she lives?” I shook my head slowly.

“Well, okay”, she said, thinking some more, then asking, “Do you know her last name?” I remembered Abby had told me.

“Bertrand”, I said.

“Well that’s not a common last name”, she said, “We might be able to find her in the phonebook. Did she go to Burns Park?” I shook my head again.

“C’mon down to the kitchen with me”, she said, “And we’ll look in the phonebook.” I nodded and stood up. It seemed like a good plan, if only it could work.

***

I was in the front seat of the car across from mom who was driving slowly through the snow in the dark to the Food and Drug. We had found just one last name “Bertrand” in the white pages of the phonebook, the address was on Pittsview Drive. Then we used the index on the back of our big Ann Arbor map to find the street, which went south from Packard in the southeast corner of town.

David was in the backseat. He didn’t want to come, but mom didn’t want to leave him home alone, so they made a deal that he would come if he could get a candy bar at the store. He still didn’t understand why we were doing this since it was already dark out.

“Why are you getting somebody a valentine now?” he asked. I didn’t know what to say, since I didn’t want to tell him the truth, that there was this girl in my Homeroom class at school that I kind of liked and I had danced with at the sock hop who gave ME a valentine in class today, but I didn’t give her one.

Since I didn’t say anything, mom said, “There’s a girl in Cooper’s class who got him a valentine and he decided he wanted to give her one back.”

“Is she your girlfriend?” David asked.

“No”, I said, sounding kind of mad that he asked that.

“You said valentines were just for little kids”, he said.

Mom broke in. “David”, she said, sounding like she sounded when she was arguing with another grownup at one of her parties, “This is your brother’s business, and we’re just being supportive and helping out.”

“Oh, okay”, David said, not saying anymore.

At the Food and Drug the section of greeting cards for Valentine’s Day didn’t have a lot of cards left. But there were still some animal ones with puppies, kittens and even Pepe le Pew skunks, but those all seemed to cutesie and little kid for me to get for Rose. There were still a few sports ones with racecars, baseball and football players, but those seemed more like ones girls might get for boys.

There were even a couple hippie ones with all the colors and crazy shaped letters, but Rose wasn’t like a hippy type like Alice. If I were getting a card for ALICE, those would be perfect. I didn’t really know what Rose liked, because I’d only really talked to her ONCE, at the sock hop after the band finished and we got sodas down in the cafeteria. But we didn’t talk very much even then.

As I kept looking and thinking, I saw that they had one of those spaceship cards left with a cartoon picture of a spaceship taking off into a dark sky full of planets and stars with the words, “Let’s blast off together, Valentine!”. Since she had gotten me one of those spaceship cards that said “You’re out of this world”, I figured that might be a good one to give her. Though I was kind of worried about the “together” part, and that she might think I wanted to be boyfriend girlfriend, where we’d actually have to talk to each other in Homeroom with everyone in class watching, or walk down the halls together with everybody in SCHOOL watching. But it was either that or a grownup valentine card, or one of those little kids ones with animals, so I took it.

Mom bought the card for me and the candybar for David, and back in the car she gave me a pen from her purse so I could write on it. I wondered if I should just put my name or also do a smiling face like Rose had done on the card she gave me. I wrote my short name at the bottom, “Coop”, and then realized that if I put a curved line under the two “o”s it made a smiling face. So I did that, and thought that was a pretty cool way to sign the card and maybe she’d like that. I put the card in its red envelope and wrote “Rose” on it.

Mom drove slowly down Packard, which she said had been plowed but was still slick from the fresh snow, past Buhr Park and past the Dog ‘n Suds that dad liked to take David and me to sometimes for hotdogs and rootbeers. She had the radio on that regular radio station that she liked, WJR, and they started playing that “Alfie” song…

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live

Even though she was driving, she closed her eyes for a second and shook her head slowly. Then she quickly reached for the radio knob and turned it off.

I knew those other words in the song…

I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love we just exist, Alfie
Until you find the love you’ve missed
You’re nothing, Alfie

“Sorry”, she said, “I can’t take that song right now, especially on Valentine’s Day, though it’s my second one without your father.” I looked at her and saw tears in the corner of her eye. Her hand reached up and wiped them away. I could tell she was trying hard not to cry.

Looking out ahead at the road she said, “Pittsview should be around here somewhere”, slowing the car down as we drove by a woods to the right of the road. A road went off to the right just beyond the trees. As we got closer we could see the word “Pittsview” on the street sign. After we turned, it was the second house beyond the little woods. Mom pulled the car up by the mailbox by the road with Rose’s address on it. Behind it was a long driveway up to a garage by the front of the house.

“So what do you want to do, Coop?” she asked, “Put the card in the mailbox or take it to the door?”

I thought about that. If I put it in the mailbox, that would be easy, but maybe they wouldn’t look in there until the mail came tomorrow when Rose had already gone to school. If I took it to the door and rang the doorbell, probably Rose’s mom or dad would answer and I’d have to tell them who I was and why I was there, and then they might want Rose to come and we’d all be standing there and they’d think I was like her boyfriend or something and Rose might be embarrassed and not like that I came. But I figured she had to get it tonight or else things could be really bad in Homeroom tomorrow in school.

“To the door”, I said, though I could feel my stomach tightening up. Mom turned the car and drove up the long driveway. I could see in the big window on the front of the house that a TV was on with people watching it. Mom stopped the car just in front of the garage near the window and the front door.

“Would you like me to come with you?” mom asked. I shook my head. There was no way. That would be TOTALLY embarrassing.

I quickly got out of the car with the card in its red envelope with Rose’s name on it. When I stepped up on the steps up to the front door, a light came on over me and a grownup woman opened the door. She looked down at me and smiled.

“Can I help you young man?” she asked. I startled, and my stomach tightened even more and my throat got dry.

“Uh”, I said, starting to feel like a stupid little kid, “This is for Rose”, and I handed her the card.

“She’s in her room”, she said, “Shall I get her?” I knew that would be way too much, and at least now I knew she’d get the card before tomorrow. I shook my head, but knew I needed to say something or else her mom would really THINK I was a stupid little kid.

“Nah… that’s okay”, I said, “I gotta go.” And I turned around and part of me wanted to run back to the car, but another part said I had to walk, because that’s what older kids would do.

When I got to the car mom had opened her car window and was waving to Rose’s mom who was still at the door, and waving back. At least mom didn’t try to say something to her.

While mom backed our car out of the driveway she asked me, “So, was that Rose’s mom?” All I could do was nod. I was expecting mom to ask me if Rose was home, and why I didn’t want to talk to her. But I was so relieved that she didn’t.

***

The next day in Homeroom Lance, Ben and Danny were still talking about the valentines they had gotten from the girls, and they wanted me to talk about it too. I really didn’t want to, but I pretended that I did. Myrna was back in class after being sick yesterday. Mrs Woods gave her her valentines from yesterday.

Lance said he was “obsessed” with the valentine he had gotten from Susan, who he thought was a “fox” because she was both pretty and had nice tits. He said that since she drew a face with “googoo eyes” on the valentine she gave him, that meant that she wanted to make out with him. Because she wasn’t a slut like Ramona, she couldn’t just come out and tell him that. Ben and I looked over at Ramona across the room, to make sure she couldn’t hear us.

Danny asked him, “But isn’t Ramona your girlfriend?”, like why would you call your girlfriend a slut.

“Well… SHE thinks she’s my girlfriend”, Lance said smiling, “I don’t really know anymore.”

This whole thing with Lance and Ramona had been going on since the beginning of school last September, when Lance first told us that he and Ramona had made out over the summer. It was like all those girlfriend problem songs by the Beatles. He had teased her for WANTING to make out with him, like that day when he got us to do that slut cheer about her. Some days they talked quietly with each other, over by Ramona’s desk in the other back corner of the room. But other days Ramona seemed really mad at him and didn’t want to talk to him at all. At the beginning of the sock hop last November they’d had some sort of a fight, the kind of talking not punching fight that mom used to have with dad, and Ramona had run out of the gym. But then later when the dancing started they were dancing together. Since then it had just been more of that same kind of stuff.

While Lance went on about Susan and Ramona, I kept glancing over at Rose to see if she’d look at me and maybe smile, but the couple times our eyes met she just looked shy and looked away. I couldn’t tell what she might be thinking about the valentine I’d given her, or at least her mom, last night. I didn’t try to watch her too much because I didn’t want Lance, Danny and Ben to notice and tease me about it.

But at one point near the end of class, when I wasn’t talking to Lance, Danny and Ben, and just staring out the window at the big snowy yard between our classroom and Stadium Boulevard, Myrna came up to me.

“I just think you should know”, she said, sounding that kind of sick and tired way, “That Rose REALLY liked your valentine.” She looked back at Rose and then Lance noticed her and shook his head and made kind of a quiet grunting noise like he wasn’t happy.

“I guess she’s too shy to tell you”, Myrna said, now looking at Lance and her nose wrinkling and her eyes kind of half closing, “Maybe because of these idiots you sit next to.”

She looked back at me, did a kind of silly smile, and said, “I just thought you should know that”, and she turned and walked back up to her corner of the room.

“Bitch”, whispered Lance. Danny and Ben chuckled.

It was actually really nice that Myrna had said that, though I wouldn’t say that to the three of them. For the moment, for one of those rare times at school, I was happy, or at least relieved.