Our dad said we could have the garage and it could be just ours. A private place, he said. And we moved in old sofas and a record deck and a table. With the door closed it was dark as nighttime in there and so we used candles that we put in glass jars. It was like a club, and we could be anything and anyone when we were there.
We were fourteen years old or near enough and we had parties. And they were carefully arranged so there was a girl for every boy, and not just any girl. We chose the pretty ones from school and we said they were to dress nice. Then there was dancing, and Joey, who was eight, was working the music so he took the nod from me and played slow records when the time was right. Dancing so close I could feel the pressing heat of Emily Prant’s body through her dress and through my clothes, or Kirsty Willis or Karen Chopin.
Then kissing one day and just kissing and no dancing. One boy to one girl and it was like a competition and Joey was the judge and he snickered into the cup of one hand and we pretended he wasn’t there. And Lucy Robertson was the best kisser because she let you do tongues and she tasted of parma violets and she purred like a kitten.
I asked Lucy back for a private party. Just me and her, I said, and we weren’t to tell. We turned the music down low so no one would know, and we lit only one candle. I said I loved her and she said she loved me back. And I said how Lucy was more grown up than the other girls and she let me touch her under her sweater.
I never did tell and neither did Lucy, so that it became a regular thing. Thursday after school and her parents thought she was at band practice and we met in the garage. And we took to drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and talking like adults in the movies. And kissing and touching and finding out. A whole year of discovering Lucy and we wrote things down in a book and it was like a diary and we’d take turns reading what we’d written.
Then Lucy was coming up fifteen and she said that was almost old enough to be married and she said I should give her a ring to wear. I stole some money from my dad’s wallet and I bought her something from the second hand shop. She could only wear it when we were in the garage. Or on a chain around her neck and tucked under her clothes when we weren’t.
On her actual birthday we moved the cushions from the sofas onto the floor and made it like a bed with sheets and pillows, and I had some wine with fizz in it which we drank from the bottle till we were dizzy and silly. And we took off all our clothes and it was the first we had been naked with each other. Lucy and naked and candlelight – and I thought I could die at that moment and it would be enough.
My dad found us like that, curled up into one ball and our smooth and naked bodies all touching and hot. The wine had made us sleepy and so we hadn’t really done what we’d planned. My mom helped Lucy get dressed and she kept calling her a child and she promised not to tell Lucy’s mom, not this time, and Lucy was crying, and wiping the snot from her nose on the back of her hand and saying she was sorry.
Our dad took the garage back from that day on and all I have of Lucy is what we wrote down in the book. That was some years back, and I see her sometimes, Lucy, across the street or on a bus, and though she is with someone else, there’s a look that passes between us and she smiles so only I see, and I think I know what she’s thinking and feeling then.
Patricia Ann McNair 
Our dad said we could have the garage and it could be just ours. A private place, he said. And we moved in old sofas and a record deck and a table. With the door closed it was dark as nighttime in there and so we used candles that we put in glass jars. It was like a club, and we could be anything and anyone when we were there.
We were fourteen years old or near enough and we had parties. And they were carefully arranged so there was a girl for every boy, and not just any girl. We chose the pretty ones from school and we said they were to dress nice. Then there was dancing, and Joey, who was eight, was working the music so he took the nod from me and played slow records when the time was right. Dancing so close I could feel the pressing heat of Emily Prant’s body through her dress and through my clothes, or Kirsty Willis or Karen Chopin.
Then kissing one day and just kissing and no dancing. One boy to one girl and it was like a competition and Joey was the judge and he snickered into the cup of one hand and we pretended he wasn’t there. And Lucy Robertson was the best kisser because she let you do tongues and she tasted of parma violets and she purred like a kitten.
I asked Lucy back for a private party. Just me and her, I said, and we weren’t to tell. We turned the music down low so no one would know, and we lit only one candle. I said I loved her and she said she loved me back. And I said how Lucy was more grown up than the other girls and she let me touch her under her sweater.
I never did tell and neither did Lucy, so that it became a regular thing. Thursday after school and her parents thought she was at band practice and we met in the garage. And we took to drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and talking like adults in the movies. And kissing and touching and finding out. A whole year of discovering Lucy and we wrote things down in a book and it was like a diary and we’d take turns reading what we’d written.
Then Lucy was coming up fifteen and she said that was almost old enough to be married and she said I should give her a ring to wear. I stole some money from my dad’s wallet and I bought her something from the second hand shop. She could only wear it when we were in the garage. Or on a chain around her neck and tucked under her clothes when we weren’t.
On her actual birthday we moved the cushions from the sofas onto the floor and made it like a bed with sheets and pillows, and I had some wine with fizz in it which we drank from the bottle till we were dizzy and silly. And we took off all our clothes and it was the first we had been naked with each other. Lucy and naked and candlelight – and I thought I could die at that moment and it would be enough.
My dad found us like that, curled up into one ball and our smooth and naked bodies all touching and hot. The wine had made us sleepy and so we hadn’t really done what we’d planned. My mom helped Lucy get dressed and she kept calling her a child and she promised not to tell Lucy’s mom, not this time, and Lucy was crying, and wiping the snot from her nose on the back of her hand and saying she was sorry.
Our dad took the garage back from that day on and all I have of Lucy is what we wrote down in the book. That was some years back, and I see her sometimes, Lucy, across the street or on a bus, and though she is with someone else, there’s a look that passes between us and she smiles so only I see, and I think I know what she’s thinking and feeling then.