[My Worst Date cover]

My Worst Date

An Excerpt from the Chapter "Hugo Nails Glenn Elliot"

The next day, Sunday, I called Macha and asked her if she wanted to go to the beach. "It's raining," she pointed out.

"You're right," I said, "but we could put on our raincoats and walk on the boardwalk."

"Right," she said and came over and picked me up in her car. Macha just learned to drive this year and her parents got her a Miata, which her father really considers his car, but she zips around in it all the time. They're happy is she's just on Miami Beach going to school and driving her friends to the beach, instead of raging down to Key West in the dead of night.

I like the sun, but I think I love the rain. Walking on the boardwalk in the rain is a Miami Beach most people don't know. No one is on the beach. The lifeguards are huddled up in their little pavilions on stilts. And real Miami Beach people come out to see the gray waves, the birds scuddling low over the water, the line of freighters offshore, waiting their turn to come into dock.

You never think about the people on the boats when it's sunny, but in the rain you can imagine all those little Chinese cooks sitting about tossing the I Ching or playing mah-jongg or smoking opium. Killing time until the sun comes out and it's our usual old Miami Beach again.

"Now here's the story," I told Macha. "This is like very big-time action I've got myself involved in and I'm not sure I've got the nerve to go through with it. Plus [don't you just hate people who say 'plus?] I have to think about my mother, too. This guy, Glenn Elliott, is way, way out of my league but fabulous. He is also going out with my mother, which I think is great. He picked me up after work last night and I'd say from what happened, and nothing happened, that something could easily happen. Know what I mean?

"I don't like deceiving my mother even about working down at the Bomber Club, but what if she's falling in love with Glenn Elliott herself? What kind of person is that, who takes his mother's boyfriend away from her?"

Macha had the hood of her yellow slicker up and she looked real cute. Rain was running down her face and making her eyelashes stick together and she was licking the raindrops off her lips.

"Go for it," she said. "Go for it, Hugo. This isn't like you just want to get laid. You won't say it but I can tell you're really interested in this guy. And you know, Hugo, it doesn't really matter who he is. Most likely he's some Miami Beach phantom and we're probably going to find out he sells drugs or he does drugs or he's in the Mafia or something. They usually are. But if you run away from this just because it's too much for you to handle, that's bad for you. We're just here for the experiences, you know. When we lay down to die, it's what happened to us that we're going to remember, not whether we're famous or rich. Look at all the people we see all the time at my parents' parties. They're rich. Lots of them are famous, at least around Miami Beach, and they look terrible. Nobody really loved them, they never really loved anybody."

Where does she get this stuff, my Macha. She says the things I vague think about but can't get off my lips.

"You're grown-up enough for this, Hugo. What if you never saw another guy in your whole life you could really be crazy about? Unlikely, but it could happen. And then all your life you'd be wondering about Glenn Elliott Paul and what happened to him and where he was and even if you found him he'd be old. You've got plenty of time, Hugo. He doesn't. How old do you think he is? Thirty-five, -six, -seven?"

"My mom is thirty-seven," I said. I felt like seven myself, personally.

Macha was on a roll. "And for your mom, Hugo, you've got to think of yourself. If you cool it with this Paul guy, that doesn't mean he's going to fall in love with your mom. And your mom is another person as well as being your mom. She's got to take her chances, like anybody else."

"But Macha," I said, "she doesn't have as much time as I do. And she's a woman. And he's a man. And I'm a boy."

"Pshht!" Macha was expressing disgust. That's her noise she makes that's somewhere between "shit" and spitting and throwing up. "You act like you can control other people. You can't. He's who he is. She's who she is. You're who you are. You just have to step aside and let the good times roll. I'm soaking wet. Let's go to my house and watch some television."

When I left Macha's it was dark. I'd asked Mom that morning where Glenn's apartment was exactly and she told me it was a little Spanish type in yellow in the middle of the block, west side, on Michigan between 21st and 22nd.

So, romantic fool that I am, I decided to walk down past there and see if I could catch a glimpse of him. Sort of Camille style or something. It was still raining slightly but I'd dried out and figured I'd walk past, hang a glimpse, and go home and study history for tomorrow.

Michigan is a good hike, but not too far, and I knew the building. More like a beaten-up Italian villa. I walked down the opposite side of the street and all the lights were on in all of the rooms. I stood under a palm tree in the shadows and looked. Upstairs the blinds were open and the overhead lights were all on. He came to a window and looked out. He was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans. He looked right across the street and right at me. He couldn't possibly have seen me. I was really in the dark. But he just stood there and stared at me and stared and stared. I came out of the shadows and walked across the street until I was standing right in the light from his windows. He continued to staring down at me. Then he said, "Hugo?" I didn't say anything. I couldn't. He said, "Don't go away. Stay right there. I'm coming down." He came out the side door and came toward me very slowly. When he was almost up to me I started crying. I just couldn't help it. He put his arms around me and held me very tightly and said, "Don't, Hugo. Don't." But I couldn't stop. I was all wet outside and all wet inside.

He walked me up the stairs and continued to hold me. He didn't really have any furniture. Just a TV and I could see a mattress on the floor in the next room, unmade, with some sheets and a blanket messed up on it. "It's all right, my baby. My little Hugo. It's all right. You're all wet. And you're cold. I think you should take a hot shower." He turned off the lights except for the bathroom and slowly took my clothes off. I just held my arms up and let him strip off my T-shirt. He was very gentle and loving as he unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them off after kneeling down and untying my sneakers and pulling them off one at a time. I balanced myself by putting my hands on his shoulders. I was like a zombie, I couldn't do anything but stand there and snivel and shake. I was a mess.

"Come on," he said. "You'll feel better when you get warmed up." He turned on the water. "Here, get in." He looked at me all forlorn and ashamed under the shower and said, "Hold still. I'll get in myself." And that was how it really began.

In about an hour, when we got up, there were clothes all over that apartment. I felt wonderful.

I pulled on my wet jeans and he gave me one of his T-shirts. I put my undershorts and my socks in my raincoat pocket and he took me home. Mom was in her room so I was able to scoot upstairs without her seeing how wet I was.

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