Under attack
I’ve mentioned that I’d been flirting like crazy with Meg Petronius – The Most Perfect Girl in the World – from my first day at VA, but with dismal results. At one point I’d gotten so desperate I even flirted once with her older sister, Terry, who job-shared with Meg.
Disaster. Terry’s basic view of the world was that she, at age twenty-three, was a mature, grownup lady, while I, at age nineteen, was still a little boy. Infuriating, but there it is.
Given my many failures on the flirtation front, I’d begun spending as much time figuring out what I was doing wrong as I was spending flirting. Of course, I could simply have given up, but Meg was the only flirtable girl I knew in the entire Northeast Kingdom. If I gave up on her I might as well join a monastery.
Tonight, though, was going to be different. Rich Bolotin, who ran VA, was attending a banquet in Montpelier, which meant he wouldn’t be home until at least midnight. After I got the boys down for the night I’d have two hours alone with Meg in the front room, and I intended to take full advantage of it.
As I thought about my many failures with Meg I concluded that what was needed with a girl like her was a lot less “randy frat boy” and a lot more, say, “Cary Grant.”
That night, after checking to be sure the boys were asleep, I went back up to my room, wet my hair and combed it and put on a collared shirt that was reasonably clean. I stared at myself in the mirror and practiced until I had that perfect modest-but-winning grin on my face that came so naturally to guys like Cary Grant. I stuck my hand in my pocket and considered that I looked positively irresistible.
Thus girded for battle I headed downstairs and strode confidently into the front room. Meg was there, all right, fussing with the TV – but so was Terry. The shocked look I gave her caused Terry to shrug and say, “I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop in.”
What a load of crap. Terry hated being at VA. She was there for one reason and one reason only – to protect Meg from my clutches.
Since Meg and Terry had beers in their hands I said, “I’ll just, uh, go get a beer.”
“There’s one right beside you,” Terry said. Sure enough, a can of Schlitz was sweating away on the table just to my left. Terry said, “The opener’s, um …”
“Got it right here,” Meg said. She picked it up off the top of the TV set and sent it sailing toward me over her shoulder.
No way I was going to mess with that gizmo, which had a sharp point on one side. I turned slightly sideways as the opener cartwheeled past my face and slammed into the wall, putting a little divot in the wallpaper.
I picked up the opener and snapped a small air hole into the can. Immediately, a jet stream of beer shot out the top. Obviously, one of the girls had shaken up the can when they heard me coming.
I got my mouth over the stream and was chugging away like a trouper, but the jet was so powerful it was gagging me. Largish dribbles of beer foamed out of my mouth and dripped off my chin and down the front of my shirt. So much for Cary Grant.
My plans for the evening had been ruined by Terry’s surprise appearance, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a few brews and enjoy myself. I was in the process of finishing my first beer when Meg said, “There’s a good movie on TV, let’s relax on the couch and watch it.”
That was fine with me. I walked over to the far end of the couch and sat down, but immediately Terry said, “Hey, that’s where I was sitting!”
I gave her a look and scooted down to the other end of the couch, and Terry promptly sat down where I’d been. But no sooner had I reached the other end than Meg hollered, “Hey, that’s my place!”
“What the hell!” I said. “I didn’t realize we had assigned seats!” I scooted down to the middle cushion. “Is this okay?” I said. “Is everybody good with this?”
While I was watching Meg take “her” seat, Terry slid across the couch until she was pressed up against me on my right side. I gaped at her in astonishment. She smiled at me.
While this was going on, Meg slid down the couch until she was pressed up against me on the other side. I stared at her wide-eyed. She smiled at me.
I may have been only nineteen, but I wasn’t a complete idiot. In my entire life two girls had never come on to me at the same time, so what were the odds it would happen in Stilton, Vermont? No, this was some kind of game, a weird girl-game. I had no idea how it was supposed to end, but I was sure it would make me look very, very bad.
So I pretended to play along, lifting my arms over their heads like I was going to give them a nice hug. Instead, I got their treacherous necks in the crooks of my elbows and banged their heads together in front of me, possibly a little harder than absolutely necessary.
“Hey!” Terry cried, and the front window exploded.
Next up: VA, Part 11
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