… and Scene
… AND SCENE
BEANIE
Celebrate endings, for they precede new beginnings.
—JONATHAN LOCKWOOD HUIE
1977
Shortly after Shalom shalomed, Fish decided he wanted to try out acting. Beanie said she did as well, hoping that their time together and their mutual interest would bring them closer.
It did. They were doing an improv—a nonverbal exercise—playing strangers on a train who were attracted to each other.
From the back of the room, the teacher shouted instructions tasking them to adjust their performances in real time. “It’s a crowded train,” the teacher yelled, “you both keep trying to sneak looks.” Standing on opposite ends of the stage, they pretended to subtly check each other out. Finally, he said, “Beanie, it’s your stop, and you need to pass Fish to get out.”
As she did, Fish grabbed her.
And kissed her . WITH TONGUE!
At first she was frozen, as the stranger on the train would naturally be, and as Beanie Rosen could only be. And then both she and her character melted, passionately kissing back.
And Fish was right there, grinding against her. She didn’t know how far he’d take it, but she was willing to go the distance. She didn’t want it to end. Ever.
It was the teacher who ended it.
“And scene,” he said, indicating that the assignment was complete.
Like being awoken by a hypnotist, they snapped out of it, broke apart, and went back to their seats as if nothing had happened.
But it had. At least for Beanie. She wasn’t sure how Fish felt. They didn’t talk about it. Not during the break. Not on their ride home. But that night when she dropped him off at his house in her polka-dotted Swinger, Fish asked if she wanted to come inside and hang out.
“Sure,” she said, turning off the engine, trying not to let her voice betray the quivering inside her. Since Shalom said shalom, they’d rarely hung out after hours.
She followed him into the converted garage, which had its own separate entrance, and stood by the door as Fish turned on the lava lamp, put on a Rod Stewart record, and sat across the room in “The Beanie Bag” chair, the one he’d named for her.
“Come here,” he said, more a command than a request.
“What?” she said, unable to move.
“You heard me,” he told her, leaning back, legs spread, cigarette lit.
She walked over as “Tonight’s the Night” prophetically filled the room. It was so on the nose Beanie wanted to smile, or comment, or both, but stopped herself lest she break the spell.
“Take off the sweatshirt,” he told her.
She took it off, dropping it by the waterbed.
“Turn around,” he said, studying her.
She turned, instinctively putting her hands over her midsection.
“Put your hands down,” he commanded.
She did. She was wearing a denim skirt and a T-shirt that said, I’m a Pepper.
Be cool, she thought to herself, taking a deep breath before meeting his gaze.
“What do you want me to do next?” she asked, trying to sound sexy, subservient.
“You show me,” he said, challenging her.
Okay, this is it, Beanie girl. You can do it.
She kept her eyes on Fish as she took off her shirt.
Her quilted bra showed off her hardened nipples. Still staring at him, she played with them. She could tell he liked it. Truth was, she knew what he liked. She’d had a cheat sheet squirreled away with tidbits Shalom had shared. “He likes to watch me,” Shalom had told her. So, Beanie, emboldened, let him watch her. She unhooked her bra and dropped it on the floor then shimmied out of her denim skirt. She stood before him in blue panties with pink flowers, wishing she’d worn the black lace ones she’d bought with her babysitting money.
“C’mere,” he said.
She obeyed, walking over, holding his gaze.
“Get on your knees.”
She did.
She was having a kind of out-of-body experience. Channeling Joel Schnitzer in the purple-hued peacocked garden at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, she took the initiative, unleashing his cock, then skillfully adding her hands, then her mouth, letting instinct and his moans guide her to his climax.
But Fish never reciprocated, not the way he had with Shalom. In fact, he and Beanie never actually had sex, not the real kind. She was still a virgin that way.
He wouldn’t, he always told her. She might get pregnant.
“What about condoms?” she’d ask.
But he dismissed the thought, like she was daft or stupid, or worse, uncool. “Might as well not do anything,” he said.
She nodded in agreement, saying she was just kidding, but inside she worried she wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, thin enough.
“We can do it another way,” he said, grabbing baby oil and rubbing it on her backside. “You’ve got a great ass,” he told her, reassuringly adding, “Everyone does it.”
“Did Shalom?” she asked quietly.
“She wouldn’t let me.”
So, Beanie did.
They never discussed it. Any of it. It just became a part of their lives. Like Hebrew school on Wednesday nights, just something else they did together.
A kind of release for Fish.
A kind of intimacy for Beanie.
Falling short for both.
… and scene.