Nifty Fifties was surprisingly empty tonight.
We were seated in this extremely clean booth – yeah, business has clearly been sucking lately – and opened the menus.
"What do you usually get here?" he asked.
"A chocolate/marshmallow combo soda, a burger, and fries." I said.
He immediately asked, "Chocolate/Marshmallow soda? Is it good?"
I flipped his menu to the page that read, "Soda Fountain: Feel Free to Mix and Match!"
The whole page was just soda flavorings. "Holy shit!"
"Yeah, I know."
He read over the menu. "Yeah, I might just get pineapple and coconut."
"You can get the regular Pina Colada flavor for less money."
"Oh. Right."
We just sat around and talked about the show, how we could possibly maintain a relationship like this, et cetera, until the waitress came up. She looked uninterested in her job, as if she had somewhere better to go.
She talked like this: "Walcome to Nifta Fiftays, how may I halp you?"
I ordered my usual, and Duncan ordered his Pina Colada soda and a cheese steak. I honestly never tried one.
After the waitress left, I asked, "Are cheese steaks good?"
"I never came here before." I said.
"No, I mean cheese steaks in general."
He stared. "You never tried one before?"
"No."
"You are the only person in the tri-state area who never tried a cheese steak before…no offense."
"None taken. I dunno, I've just never gotten around to trying one."
"You can have some of mine. They're usually massive."
"Oh, okay. Cool."
The waitress came with the drinks. I took a sip of my drink. It tasted like a s'more. Duncan took a sip of his and looked at the drink.
"God," he said, "I never knew this was possible."
"Well, it is. And it's fucking delicious."
He grinned and we started talking about where to go next Saturday. "Um…how about Saturday?"
"Oh, I don't know," I shrugged.
Duncan bit his lip, and suddenly his eyes widened. "Have I ever told you about the shore house?"
"No, you haven't." I replied. I was honestly excited at where this may be going.
"Well, it's in Wildwood Crest. Maybe we could go down there."
"My mom would go ape shit."
"Tell her you're going to dinner and a movie. That's like, four hours."
"I guess that'd work."
We talked more about it until the food came out. Duncan immediately ripped a piece of the hoagie thing off. It was oily. Very, very oily.
I took a bite. It was mostly ground meat, and there was also lots of cheese. I nodded in acceptance. "It's good."
"I know, right?"
After the dinner, we left. The sun was set. Duncan parked the car in front of my house when I said, "Thanks for tonight. It was nice."
"Yeah," he nodded. I turned towards him and simply kissed him. He pulled me in for another, then another, and another, and another.
I shut off the light in the cars, locked the doors, and dragged him towards the backseat.
Soon enough, we wanted sex. He even had a thin blanket under the driver's seat. (I didn't want to know why. But, fuck it, it was convienent.)
I asked, "Do you have a condom on you?"
"Uhh…check the glove compartment." He said.
I grabbed the blanket, covered myself with it (in case some perv would happen to look in). I opened the compartment, moved some CD's out of the way, and found a strand of them. I ripped one off, and gave it to him.
Soon enough, we had car sex. Fucking car sex. It was more comfortable than the washers, yet less comfortable than the classic bed.
Oh, no. I hope it didn't appear as it did in the movies – it always seemed kinky, and the car usually jerked around ridiculously.
Oh, God. If that happened, my mom would definitely see it. And she would flip her shit. You see, my mom is a huge advocator for abstinence. If she knew one of her kids was fucking before marriage, she'd lose all composure. She'd probably ban me from going outside ever again if she found out.
Afterwards, I redid my hair, kissed him again, and left the car. I went inside my house when my mom asked, "Why did you spend so much time parked in the car?"
I bit my lip and made up quite a ridiculous excuse. "I lost my earring. We were looking all over the car."
"Oh," she nodded, and went back to her television show.
After a moment, she said, "Gwen, what about your hair? The streaks are going to wear out soon."
Right. My streaks only last for two weeks until I have to redo them. I did this religiously every two weeks throughout the show. But I didn't want teal streaks anymore. It was a pain in the ass to match my hair with clothes – I mean, teal was such an irregular color.
"Do you want to keep the streaks, or…?"
"I'm going to try plain old black." I told her.
"Really? Why not try…purple?"
"I already had purple. I just want to see how black looks."
She nodded. "Okay…"
Then I asked, "Hey, where can I get a good straightener?"
That took my mother by surprise. "You never straighten your hair. Why the sudden change?"
"I straightened my hair this summer. Didn't you see it?"
She thought for a moment, until replying, "Oh! Yeah, yeah! It looked pretty."
"Exactly."
"Sure. There's a posh little store that sells good ones. I'll get you one there next time I go there."
"When would that be?"
"Next week. It's your aunt's birthday; I'm getting her perfume there."
"Oh." I nodded. "That'll work out."
I then went downstairs to go online and check email. I got one hundred in my inbox. Yikes. They were mostly messages from friends and all saying, "Good luck" and stuff.
At that point, my phone rang. I opened it and asked, "Hello?"
"Gwennifer!" Marilyn exclaimed. "I haven't seen you in forever. Why don't we all hang out tomorrow?"
"The four of us?" I asked.
"Uh, hell yes, just the four of us!"
"Okay, that sounds fun!"
"…Ooh! Invite Duncan over!"
"But we just went out today, and we're going out again on Saturday."
"Pfft. Okay then. How about we watch a movie in the basement?"
In the olden days (oh, dear. I sound so elderly…like my grandmother), we always used to watch a movie in Marilyn's basement. It was dark – you couldn't see a foot in front of your nose – so whenever you watched a horror movie, you didn't know if Michael Meyers was behind the couch or what.
It was awesome. But once we all stopped doing absolutely everything together, found other friends (yet we always stayed faithful to the clique), and we started scrapping our usual traditions, movie nights were retired.
"Cool!" I smiled. "What movie?"
"Your favorite, of course!"
"Sweeney Todd?!"
"What else? Wait…I'll even make some fake blood!"
"You mean Shirley Temples?"
"Whatever."
"Well, anyway, that sounds great! What time?"
"Ten o'clock, my place."
"Okay, see you there."
"Buh-bye."
I hung up, and anticipated tomorrow evening.
