Read Online The Baby Blue Rip-Off by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Max Allan Collins
Tags: Mystery & Crime
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your old girl friend. Debbie Lee. Only she’s Debbie Nelson now. They got a kid, I think.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I just didn’t figure that marriage would’ve lasted this long.” I shook my head. “Debbie Lee. Been a long time since I thought about her. My old flame.”
“That dates back a ways, doesn’t it?”
“Hell, yes. My first love. Junior high.
American Bandstand
and going steady and dances Friday night at the YWCA. Jesus, I haven’t thought about those days in years.”
“Well, neither has she, I’d bet. You ought to look her up.”
“No,” I said, “no, I don’t think so. Married women tend to have husbands.”
At this point the conversation drifted into other areas, mostly concerned with briefing each other on what we and friends of ours had been up to in recent years. At five-thirty I talked Lou into staying around for supper and while he called home to tell his folks, I got a couple steaks and some friestogether, his share of which he wolfed down gratefully. Lou was pretty ragged from living at home. “You can love your parents without liking them,” is the way he explained the situation to me.
At seven Lou and I were watching an old rerun of
Star Trek
when the phone rang. I answered it.
“Is this Mallory?” A female voice. Soft.
I said it was me.
“Mal? Can I see you? I have to see you.”
“Who is this?”
“Debbie. Remember? Debbie Lee... Nelson now. Can I see you? I can be over in ten minutes.”
I held the receiver out and looked at it for a second. Then I shrugged, brought it back, and said, “Okay.”
She hung up.
So did I.
“Who was that?” Lou said.
“You wouldn’t even believe it,” I said.
I showed him the door.
12
I was thirteen when I fell for Debbie Lee. It happened at a sock hop after school in the gym at the junior high. In certain obscure areas in Iowa hinterlands, this bizarre ritual is still practiced.
Debbie was just an inch short of five feet tall and looked like something her parents might’ve won at a high-class carnival: heart-shaped face, enormous blue eyes, appropriate Kewpie lips, cap of curly blonde hair, the living doll cliché come to life.
Also, she was cuddly looking, just a trifle plump (baby fat), and she wore pink a lot. Especially fuzzy pink sweaters. And even at thirteen she could fill a sweater out, one of maybe ten girls in the whole seventh grade who could. I think that was what was so appealing about her, really; not only did she look like the sort of picture-book princess a thirteen-year-old boy could worship with knightlike purity and devotion, but she was also the stuff wet dreams are made of, the possessor of a body designed to further madden an already puberty-deranged adolescent.
I expressed my love for Debbie, at that first junior high sock hop, by asking her for each slow dance; she accepted every time, and we would dance to the strains of “Wonderland by Night” or “Blue on Blue” (the only two slow tunes in the record collection of the acned fat kid who emceed every hop). It was heaven! Here I was, holding Debbie Lee in my arms (sort of—you could’vedriven a truck between us, actually)—though I wouldn’t dream of hanging onto her like the “steadies” in the eighth grade who, rumor had it, “made out” frequently.... Well, I would
dream
of it, but I wouldn’t dare try it. We didn’t say a word to each other—“yes,” “no,” and “thanks” all being communicated by nods of the head—but nevertheless, true love it was, and I had optimistic enough an outlook to hope Debbie shared my feelings.
This, of course, is where the go-between comes in. Every junior high love story has a go-between. Our go-between, Debbie’s and mine, was a girl named Darla whose complexion looked like the surface of the moon. Her hair was a ghastly reddish fright wig, her nose a beak, her eyes beady, her teeth buck. She was not attractive.
Which is what being a go-between is all about. The go-between is a
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I just didn’t figure that marriage would’ve lasted this long.” I shook my head. “Debbie Lee. Been a long time since I thought about her. My old flame.”
“That dates back a ways, doesn’t it?”
“Hell, yes. My first love. Junior high.
American Bandstand
and going steady and dances Friday night at the YWCA. Jesus, I haven’t thought about those days in years.”
“Well, neither has she, I’d bet. You ought to look her up.”
“No,” I said, “no, I don’t think so. Married women tend to have husbands.”
At this point the conversation drifted into other areas, mostly concerned with briefing each other on what we and friends of ours had been up to in recent years. At five-thirty I talked Lou into staying around for supper and while he called home to tell his folks, I got a couple steaks and some friestogether, his share of which he wolfed down gratefully. Lou was pretty ragged from living at home. “You can love your parents without liking them,” is the way he explained the situation to me.
At seven Lou and I were watching an old rerun of
Star Trek
when the phone rang. I answered it.
“Is this Mallory?” A female voice. Soft.
I said it was me.
“Mal? Can I see you? I have to see you.”
“Who is this?”
“Debbie. Remember? Debbie Lee... Nelson now. Can I see you? I can be over in ten minutes.”
I held the receiver out and looked at it for a second. Then I shrugged, brought it back, and said, “Okay.”
She hung up.
So did I.
“Who was that?” Lou said.
“You wouldn’t even believe it,” I said.
I showed him the door.
12
I was thirteen when I fell for Debbie Lee. It happened at a sock hop after school in the gym at the junior high. In certain obscure areas in Iowa hinterlands, this bizarre ritual is still practiced.
Debbie was just an inch short of five feet tall and looked like something her parents might’ve won at a high-class carnival: heart-shaped face, enormous blue eyes, appropriate Kewpie lips, cap of curly blonde hair, the living doll cliché come to life.
Also, she was cuddly looking, just a trifle plump (baby fat), and she wore pink a lot. Especially fuzzy pink sweaters. And even at thirteen she could fill a sweater out, one of maybe ten girls in the whole seventh grade who could. I think that was what was so appealing about her, really; not only did she look like the sort of picture-book princess a thirteen-year-old boy could worship with knightlike purity and devotion, but she was also the stuff wet dreams are made of, the possessor of a body designed to further madden an already puberty-deranged adolescent.
I expressed my love for Debbie, at that first junior high sock hop, by asking her for each slow dance; she accepted every time, and we would dance to the strains of “Wonderland by Night” or “Blue on Blue” (the only two slow tunes in the record collection of the acned fat kid who emceed every hop). It was heaven! Here I was, holding Debbie Lee in my arms (sort of—you could’vedriven a truck between us, actually)—though I wouldn’t dream of hanging onto her like the “steadies” in the eighth grade who, rumor had it, “made out” frequently.... Well, I would
dream
of it, but I wouldn’t dare try it. We didn’t say a word to each other—“yes,” “no,” and “thanks” all being communicated by nods of the head—but nevertheless, true love it was, and I had optimistic enough an outlook to hope Debbie shared my feelings.
This, of course, is where the go-between comes in. Every junior high love story has a go-between. Our go-between, Debbie’s and mine, was a girl named Darla whose complexion looked like the surface of the moon. Her hair was a ghastly reddish fright wig, her nose a beak, her eyes beady, her teeth buck. She was not attractive.
Which is what being a go-between is all about. The go-between is a
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