The First Date

January or February 1961. I was driving home from Fiber Industries where I was a chem lab technician. It was after five, not dark yet but approaching dusk. For some reason I was going through town rather than down highway 74, which would have been closer. I saw her in my rear view mirror just as we were crossing the railroad tracks (on Marion street I think). It was only a momentary glimpse. A second sooner or later and I would not have seen her. I have noticed that most girls look their best viewed this way, from a rear view mirror driving a following car. In her case, since she was already lovely, she was now impossibly beautiful.

I don't think I called that night. But I am sure I could not get her out of my mind. I asked somebody the next day at work about her - maybe Harold Dobbins who had gone out with her once she later told me. Harold said she was dating Jerry Carpenter and that he was away in the Army. Something might have been said about Jerry being a tough guy, about Brenda being a little strange, living as she did in a house full of drunks.

At some point - maybe within a week or so, my grandiosity got the better of me and I called her. I don't remember if she answered the phone or if her mother or father answered and I asked to speak to her. I do recall that everybody seemed pleasant. But when she did get on the phone my courage left me.I identified myself, blurted out something and hung up. She later told me the incident seemed very odd.

That was it for several weeks. Not too long after the aborted call I went to West Palm Beach with Frank, Bill, and Coleman in Frank's little Fiat 1100 sedan. There was snow on the ground when we left Shelby. By Daytona Beach we had rolled the windows down. I sent Brenda a post card from Daytona, maybe trying to explain myself.

By the time we got to West Palm Beach I had more-or-less forgotten Brenda. Renting a Triumph TR3 sports car and then borrowing a Corvette belonging to Joe, who had moved from Shelby to West Palm Beach in 1959, I went out three or four times with Dottie, one of my sister's friends. Dottie was exotic Greek girl who had grown up since we left West Palm Beach (also in 1959 - the day that Joe moved into town).

When we got back to Shelby I wrote Dottie a letter. I might have told her I loved - and meant it at that moment. If she had responded sooner I would have probably never called Brenda again. But Dottie didn't write for several weeks. In the meantime, I had called Brenda and this time managed to stay on the phone.

I don't remember if the extended phone conversations preceded the first date or if the calls came afterward. Afterward I think, when we either went out or talked on the phone every night.

I also don't remember the discussion that preceded the date. I did not know then - as I was to learn years later that it was hard for her to answer any question unequivocally yes or no. So when I asked her out she probably said something like that I wouldn't want to go anywhere with her - that I wouldn't have much fun. Which I would have certainly answered oh but yes I would.

In any event we picked a night - it was probably in March or April of 1961 and I showed up.

At that time walking up to the door at 722 Blanton St was like walking up to any door on a first date. I got no special feel - there was no hint of sickness or evil. It was just a place.

I was met by either her father or her mother - the former I think. Whoever it was, the person was very friendly, almost eager. This seemed to be more than an ordinary date. Naturally I didn't put any of that into words. I was barely sentient at the time.

A parent - and maybe both Isabel and Curtis were in the living room by then - called Brenda. She must have been waiting just down the hall - maybe in the den or the kitchen, maybe in her bedroom. She had probably been chain smoking before I got there and might have used the time to do something to kill the cigarettes on her breath.

She came out wearing a lavender dress. It seemed a little long, a little out of style. (Brenda always liked the dress although her coworker Mayo would later deride it and asked her where she got it.) She was at the same time hostile, friendly, nervous and shy. I think she might have had trouble looking at me. (In retrospect I wonder if she had threatened to back out on the date and that her parents had made her go through with it. She had the manner of someone being made to do something - a theme in our life.) She was wearing a lot of makeup and she was so beautiful that she seemed unreal, like a tall wind-up doll.

It seems that somebody - maybe it was Brenda, cut short the living room conversation and suggested that we go ahead and leave. (Her parents, although they did not seem impaired to me, would have certainly been drinking and she could have been nervous that they would do something embarrassing.)

We went to Red Bridges Barbecue place and sat in the my little red Corvair coupe drinking coffee. And we talked. And talked. I am sure I liked the way I sounded to myself when I talked to her and she must have liked the way she was reflected in my image. I don't know when the bond was sealed. It might have been when I said that she had lovely "brown" eyes - when in fact she had blue eyes. (I had been thinking about Brenda Willis.) This cut though something - my posturing, her reserve. Maybe it was after that when we both opened up and revealed ourselves - at least as much as we were able. We stayed there until the parking lot was empty. I remember that driving away from Red's she actually thanked me for buying her coffee. No girl had ever done that before.