The Kissing Game, no. 1
per Sarah Brown
I wrote about this on whygodwhy, many many years ago, but I don’t know what happened to that story.
My first kiss was at an 8th grade dance. Keri Novotasky. I’m not sure that’s how she spelled her name. Dyed blonde hair. Acne, with lots of makeup to cover it up. She was very sweet, but very out of my league. We rode the bus home together sometimes. At the dance, which I had attended only because she had asked if I would be there, we danced to “Is This Love” by Whitesnake, then she took my hand and let me into a dark corner and said “Will you go out with me?” I said Yes and then our tongues were in each other’s mouths, teeth clacking, suction sounds. No idea what I was doing.
Then she pulled away and said she’d be right back. She went to the bathroom with her friends. I learned later that girls at the junior high dances would sneak in alcohol in their bottles of hair spray (this was the 80s) and drink it in the bathroom while they were “doing their hair.” So I guess that’s what she was doing. I didn’t have any friends there to talk about what had just happened, but I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and I was smiling. I don’t remember the rest of that night, except my mom picking me up and me telling her that I had a girlfriend in the car ride home.
Keri and I “went out” for about a week, which turned out to mean talking on the phone after school and nothing else. Then one day her best friend Jen mentioned in passing in the hall that Keri had broken up with me because I was a prude. I didn’t feel any strong emotions about it, mostly just relief. Jen became the next person I “went out” with.
Keri moved to a different town shortly after. I heard it was something to do with her not getting along with her step-father. But she moved back a year or so later, in high school. She started dating a friend of mine. I was dating her next-door neighbor, oddly enough, and they hated each other. I ended up becoming very friendly with Keri’s older brother Todd, and would spend a lot of time at their house. Keri and I didn’t talk at all, that I remember. One day some friends and I went over to see Todd, but he wasn’t home, only his step-dad. We sat on the couch and watched a movie about the St Valentine’s Day massacre. He told us about the time he’d been shot.
Then they all moved away again, to a different state. About a year later, the step-dad murdered Keri, Todd, and their mom with his shotgun. I went to their funeral. Their younger sister Stacy had been staying with friends at the time. She was there, but I didn’t know what to say to her. I hope she’s still alive, somewhere.
