GrowingOlderHopeWiser

I suppose the boys were starting to notice. I’m not sure exactly when. I just know there was no going back to playing Tickle Monster and victim for Eddie and me. Not after those special secret senses awakened.

I lived with my elderly Great Aunts, Maria and Julia, from age 10 until I was 14. Maria was my official guardian in the mid-1960s. We lived in Washington Heights, New York. Eddie’s mother, Julieta, and my Aunts Julia and Maria were best friends from Colombia. Eddie, his younger sister, Susanna, and I played together whenever they came over with their mother for dinner. My Aunt Mary always held formal dinner parties and loved to cook for them. It was a welcome break from the rigid formality of living with a pair of elderly Great Aunts from the Victorian era. I actually had friends to run around with and be wild. Even though I had a best friend, Nena, who lived in the apartment upstairs, I was always watched closely and seldom allowed to venture beyond my block. Nena was not allowed to play in my room, nor was I allowed to run wild. My aunts, however, were lenient with the three of us. We played in my room, which was to the left of the apartment’s front door, next to the only bathroom. A long hallway led from the front door, separating my room from the rest of the apartment. At the end of the hallway was a dumbwaiter and then a large kitchen, also to the left. The hallway was where we ran up and down, playing silly games, but we always ended up in my room. There, we had records we could spin and board games we could play. One of our favorite games was Tickle Monster, which was fine and dandy at age 10 but became more serious when Eddie and I turned 12. Susanna had ratted us out because she was beginning to feel left out. That’s when my Aunt Mary said, “No, closed doors!”

My school, Incarnation Parochial School, just up the block from my home, began hosting chaperoned formal dances with live bands once a month. It was a Catholic school where boys and girls were taught in separate classrooms. These dances were an opportunity for boys and girls to socialize and mingle in a controlled environment. The girls were given strict rules and encouraged to dance when asked, so no boys would be embarrassed. Eddie was allowed to come to my house and escort me to the dances. His mother would bring him all the way from Brooklyn, where they lived, just for these occasions. Our relationship was beginning to feel different. Those dances made us feel more grown-up. Eddie dressed up and even wore cologne, and I got to wear the beautiful dresses my aunt Mary created for me from scratch. Aunt Mary made her Singer sewing machine sing for me. She poured her love into every pattern she created. She would say, “Pick out an outfit from this magazine,” and then recreate any designer dress I chose. She would lay out the pattern using only my measurements. I remember watching her unroll the large sheets of brown craft paper. She drew the pattern, cut it, pinned it to the fabric, and cut it again. It was like magic to watch the process, especially the results.

Aunt Mary always dressed to the nines whenever she left the house. She also made sure I was well-dressed. She would roll my hair around craft paper, so I would have beautiful corkscrew curls like those in Gone With the Wind. I suppose that was when Eddie started to notice me. In many ways, I still felt like a child playing grown-up.

1968 was a year of firsts: my first formal dress, my first dance party, my first boyfriend, and my first real kiss. I was 12, unaware of the young lady I had blossomed into on the edge of a new discovery. No longer just imagining what romance would be like, no more random fantasy crushes on older, more mysterious boys who were never going to happen. Like the boy-man with the yellow-and-black souped-up Pontiac GTO on my block, or the boy with dreamy dark brown eyes who circled me on his bike whenever I was outside alone, or the handsome, chiseled-faced teacher with jet-black hair and icy-blue eyes who blushed whenever he had to teach health science to the classroom filled with giggling girls. Eddie and I were for real. He had wavy black hair, dark brown eyes, and full lips. Same age, same Colombian heritage, same religious upbringing. We had been friends since we were 10. He was handsome and intelligent, and a serious boy most of the time.

Aunt Mary made me a particularly beautiful Jackie Kennedy-style satin sky-blue gown with a silver-studded neckline for the Christmas Dance. My hair was curled into a half-ponytail. She let me wear makeup for the first time. Eddie’s eyes widened when he saw me, and he would not let me dance with any other boy that night. It was a magical night. The school had acquired a disco ball, and colorful lights twirled across the dance floor. My favorite band was playing Wilson Pickett’s “I’m Going to Wait Till the Midnight Hour.” Eddie held me close, and I could feel his breath on my neck. I did not mind at all. I began to notice Eddie.

Sometimes, Aunt Mary and I visited them at their Brooklyn home. They lived in a brownstone with a basement where we would go to play. This time, Eddie was more serious and took me to the basement alone without Susanna. Without saying a word, he grabbed both my hands and kissed me, twice, actually, the first time I felt only teeth, but the second time he really kissed me, and my feet lifted off the ground. As I said, there would be no more playing Tickle Monster and victim for Eddie and me.