It Happened on Maple Street

“That,” he nodded toward the ring. “You can have it if you want.”

Not quite the way I’d have envisioned being asked to go steady for the first time in my life. Who was I kidding? Like I hadn’t fantasized the moment, with Tim, a hundred times in the past three weeks?

“Do you want me to have it?” I asked him, meeting that brown gaze head on.

“Yes.”

He didn’t look away. And my heart was his.

Completely.

Forever.

It wasn’t an avowal of love, but, right there in his bedroom on Maple Street, he’d made a commitment to be tied to me.

Pocketing the ring, I took his hand and walked out to his car.

The morning after the Halloween party, Tim woke up and thought something was wrong with him. His lips were swollen to twice their normal size. Once he was fully conscious, and ran his tongue over his lips, he realized why they were swollen. He’d given them quite a workout.

He also noticed, when he went in to shave, that he had a bruise on his neck. And he remembered Tara’s lips there, too, sucking on him. He wore his love scars proudly, the bruise under a turtleneck shirt. Tara had taken his class ring home with her last night. Who’d have believed that a hot college babe would commit to him?

He wanted to see her. To see his ring on her finger, but she had to work on Sunday—a job at Wendy’s that she’d had since she was sixteen—and he had to work right after class on Monday, so it wasn’t until Tuesday that he’d see Tara again. Until he could know that feeling of contentment that came from seeing your ring on a girl’s finger, a girl who’s telling the world, “Sorry, I’m taken.”

She usually checked mail when she first got to school. Too impatient to wait to see her in class, he met her at the mailboxes. She had her back to him when he first saw her, and it dawned on him that she might not be wearing the ring.

“How’s the ring fit?” he asked anyway, coming up behind her to nuzzle her neck.

She squirmed, which pushed her backside against his groin. Then she turned and held out her left hand, proudly displaying the large gold engraved setting with the purple stone in the center on a ring finger that was a quarter of the ring’s size. The band, which he knew was gold, was covered in the pink yarn she’d wound around it. And around it. And around it.

“It fits great,” she said, waving the finger that held the ring with that wad of yarn so big it inched down to her hand. “I love it.”

He loved it, too, seeing his ring there on her finger. He also loved her, but it was too soon to admit that to her. They were just college kids exploring outside of high school, and he didn’t want to seem too pushy and scare her away.

“I have something for you, too,” she said then. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a much smaller gold ring—this one with a green stone in it. “Will you wear it?” she asked, handing him her class ring.

Hell yes, he’d wear it.

“Yeah,” he said, taking the ring and putting it on his pinky before grabbing her hand and walking with her into the student union. If he had his way they’d stay there all day, sitting around and drinking Pepsi.

He wanted everyone to see them together, to see that they were going steady. Hands off, guys, Tara was his.

They were together every second they could be, which wasn’t nearly enough. Tim’s job status changed at the end of October, requiring him to work at the deli of his hometown grocery store from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm, five nights a week, which meant that he had to rush home every day after class. He worked on Saturdays, too, from 6:00 am until 2:00 pm. The only part of the job he liked was the tapioca pudding he occasionally helped himself to while filling the containers at night. But that pudding wasn’t nearly as hard to resist as Tara was. She was working, too, a few evenings a week and usually at least one weekend day for at least eight hours.

Geology class was the highlight of the week because he got to sit next to Tara for an hour, hold her hand.

He called her the first Friday night in November. He’d just come in from work and so had she.

“I can’t talk long,” he told her. He wasn’t supposed to be talking to her at all, but he’d had to hear her voice. “Mom got the phone bill today. There was six dollars in long-distance charges to Huber Heights.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Was she mad?”

Hell, yeah, she’d been mad. Six dollars was a week’s worth of groceries. “Not too bad.”

“Do you have to pay her back?”