FIRST DANCE

                                                                              

    FIRST DANCE







Because my three brothers were younger than I, I always felt protective of them.  We fought like cats and dogs, but no one would be allowed to hurt my little brothers.  Ever. This was an impossible task, but I didn't know that then. The time came when my oldest brother, Rick, went to his first junior high dance.  Rick and his friend looked so handsome in their new clothes, so young, so innocent.  When the boys were to leave with my dad to pick up the girls, I insisted on going and sat in the front seat.  (I'm sure Rick was thrilled.) We drove to a nearby neighborhood and picked up two very sweet looking girls all decked out in party dresses.  All four sat jammed together in the back seat.  There was no laughter or flirtation; this was serious business.  At that time Rick was painfully shy, but he was so good looking that girls overlooked his shyness.  Conversation was tentative as no one quite knew what to say.  We arrived at the school and the four first daters filed out of our ancient car.  Slow dance music was floating out from the gym and lots of excited kids were milling about.  Rick turned and waved just before entering the dance, a big smile on his face. He looked so impossibly young.

I was to remember that night several years later when I was a junior in college.  I brought a friend home with me for Spring Break, a pretty red-haired freshman of 18 with a spectacular figure.  Karen* was far more sophisticated than I (her mother let her watch foreign films) and actually knew all about sex.  She and her boyfriend had been doing the dark deed for almost two years.  I was extraordinarily impressed by this because up until that time I had not realized that nice girls could have sex.  In fact, my worldly friend was able to clear up some rather startling misconceptions I had about that most fascinating of subjects.

One day at the beach Karen said casually, "Your brother Rick is very good looking."  A pregnant pause.  "I wonder if I could seduce him."   "WHAT?" I said, choking on my cherry Coke.  "I'd like to be his first," she said with a little smile.  I was shocked beyond measure.  "But he's just a little kid!" I protested.  (Rick was 6' 3" and muscular.)  "Well, he's not so little anymore," Karen said dryly.  "He's sixteen, isn't he?"

I suddenly remembered Rick's face at his first dance.  Innocence personified.  This girl would seduce him, make him fall in love with her and then go back to college and promptly forget him.  His heart would be broken!  "No, absolutely not," I said firmly.  "I forbid you to do it."  Karen looked at me, then at the waves crashing on the beach and then back at me.  "All right," she said in a low voice.  "I won't."

Years later I told Rick about this experience.  As it happens, he remembered Karen well.  "She was a very......healthy looking girl," he said, chuckling. "Looked good in a bathing suit."

Older and wiser now I said, "You think I should have minded my own business, don't you?"

Rick smiled.  "Oh, I think I could have handled it myself."


*Not her real name