First sight – she was wearing a lemon-yellow dress and her hair tied back from her face and her arms bare. It was her first day at work and she kept looking at her watch as if she couldn’t wait for it to be over. She was serving the table next to mine and they were new too and they kept asking her hard questions. I don’t think she noticed me, but that was alright. She was busy and she wasn’t getting anything right.
First words – I swore, out loud, and my words all spit and shout. It was ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘bastard’. And I leapt to my feet, knocking my chair backwards so it clattered to the floor. It wasn’t the impression I wanted to make. She’d spilled coffee down my back and she was sorry and her voice broken as if she was close to tears.
First touch – she made a clumsy fuss of mopping my neck. I told her it was nothing, and I said I shouldn’t have sworn, and I picked up the chair and used paper napkins to soak up the spilled coffee. I was close enough I could read the identity tag on her dress; her name was Alysoun and she smelled of vanilla.
First date – she said it wasn’t really a date. She poured me a cup of joe and she gave me a slice of pie on the house and a small blue jug of cream. I sat at the counter and I said she was pretty enough that spilling coffee on the customers would easily be forgiven. She laughed and she bit the end of her pen and I ate my pie.
First kiss – a week later I picked Alysoun up at the end of her shift. We were supposed to go see a movie, but the night was bright and warm and dry. We just walked, from one end of the town to the other. I think maybe I was showing her off. We held hands and I don’t know how that happened. And we talked of who we were and who we wanted to be. Then, it was suddenly dark, and the street lights snapped on and painted the town yellow, and shadows leapt into shop doorways, and we crept in there, too, and we kissed.
First love – she was the first girl I ever really, you know. And it wasn’t just the sex. It was something else. Fuck, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Marty, my boss at the garage, he said I’d better get my shit in gear or else he’d let me go. I’d messed up on several jobs and I was costing the garage money instead of making it.
I can remember all the firsts. It was in the back seat of my pa’s ford pickup that I first put my hand under her yellow dress and she was soft as kittens and her kisses tasted of bourbon and smokes. And it was in her front room, on the green carpet in front of her tv, and we fucked for the first time; there was an old episode of ER on and we didn’t even turn the sound down so I was watching Dr Ross flirting with the nurses at the same time as I was between Alysoun’s legs. And the first time she missed her period she told me in the street outside the bank and she was crying and a man with a beard and his teeth crooked stopped to ask if she was alright; it was a false alarm and she gave me the good news over the phone. And our first fight, though I forget what it was about, took place on the second day of May; we were on the twenty-three bus, upstairs, and she just got up and left, and I didn’t follow her off the bus. The bus driver took me to the furthest end of the road and almost to the next town. Then he said I could buy another ticket and he’d take me back again, or else I could walk.
I remember all the first times we ever had, collected them like girls collect buttons or boys collect bottle-tops, but the last times slip through my hands like water spilling through a child’s cupped hand.
Alysoun doesn’t work at the diner any more and I couldn’t tell you anything about the last day that she did. I look for her yellow dress on the street sometimes and I listen for her laughing in places where we had laughed before. And I call her number sometimes and, though the line is dead, I say her name and I tell her I miss her and I can’t remember the last time we spoke. And Marty says, like he said before, that I’d better get my shit together because I’m costing him money again, but this time I don’t really give a fuck.
Patricia Ann McNair 
First sight – she was wearing a lemon-yellow dress and her hair tied back from her face and her arms bare. It was her first day at work and she kept looking at her watch as if she couldn’t wait for it to be over. She was serving the table next to mine and they were new too and they kept asking her hard questions. I don’t think she noticed me, but that was alright. She was busy and she wasn’t getting anything right.
First words – I swore, out loud, and my words all spit and shout. It was ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘bastard’. And I leapt to my feet, knocking my chair backwards so it clattered to the floor. It wasn’t the impression I wanted to make. She’d spilled coffee down my back and she was sorry and her voice broken as if she was close to tears.
First touch – she made a clumsy fuss of mopping my neck. I told her it was nothing, and I said I shouldn’t have sworn, and I picked up the chair and used paper napkins to soak up the spilled coffee. I was close enough I could read the identity tag on her dress; her name was Alysoun and she smelled of vanilla.
First date – she said it wasn’t really a date. She poured me a cup of joe and she gave me a slice of pie on the house and a small blue jug of cream. I sat at the counter and I said she was pretty enough that spilling coffee on the customers would easily be forgiven. She laughed and she bit the end of her pen and I ate my pie.
First kiss – a week later I picked Alysoun up at the end of her shift. We were supposed to go see a movie, but the night was bright and warm and dry. We just walked, from one end of the town to the other. I think maybe I was showing her off. We held hands and I don’t know how that happened. And we talked of who we were and who we wanted to be. Then, it was suddenly dark, and the street lights snapped on and painted the town yellow, and shadows leapt into shop doorways, and we crept in there, too, and we kissed.
First love – she was the first girl I ever really, you know. And it wasn’t just the sex. It was something else. Fuck, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Marty, my boss at the garage, he said I’d better get my shit in gear or else he’d let me go. I’d messed up on several jobs and I was costing the garage money instead of making it.
I can remember all the firsts. It was in the back seat of my pa’s ford pickup that I first put my hand under her yellow dress and she was soft as kittens and her kisses tasted of bourbon and smokes. And it was in her front room, on the green carpet in front of her tv, and we fucked for the first time; there was an old episode of ER on and we didn’t even turn the sound down so I was watching Dr Ross flirting with the nurses at the same time as I was between Alysoun’s legs. And the first time she missed her period she told me in the street outside the bank and she was crying and a man with a beard and his teeth crooked stopped to ask if she was alright; it was a false alarm and she gave me the good news over the phone. And our first fight, though I forget what it was about, took place on the second day of May; we were on the twenty-three bus, upstairs, and she just got up and left, and I didn’t follow her off the bus. The bus driver took me to the furthest end of the road and almost to the next town. Then he said I could buy another ticket and he’d take me back again, or else I could walk.
I remember all the first times we ever had, collected them like girls collect buttons or boys collect bottle-tops, but the last times slip through my hands like water spilling through a child’s cupped hand.
Alysoun doesn’t work at the diner any more and I couldn’t tell you anything about the last day that she did. I look for her yellow dress on the street sometimes and I listen for her laughing in places where we had laughed before. And I call her number sometimes and, though the line is dead, I say her name and I tell her I miss her and I can’t remember the last time we spoke. And Marty says, like he said before, that I’d better get my shit together because I’m costing him money again, but this time I don’t really give a fuck.