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George knew better than to explain her parents’ antennae on a first date. She ignored Helen’s irritation and spoke to Frank instead. “Thank you for picking me up.”

“Sure thing. Mel, George, you know each other, right?”

“The girl who flies airplanes,” said Mel. His neutral tone yielded no hints as to whether he was impressed or put off. He must not be too put off, she supposed, since he’d agreed to this double date.

“That’s right. Seven more hours of solo time and I’ll have my private license.”

“Well, that sounds nice,” said Mel.

“Frank wants to see Stagecoach . That okay with you, Mel?” asked Helen.

“Sure. That sounds nice,” said Mel.

“Don’t pretend you don’t want to watch John Wayne for two hours, Hel,” teased Frank. Helen and George laughed, and, after a beat, Mel joined in.

George was grateful for the enforced quiet of the theater.

Mel, beyond agreeing that things sounded nice, didn’t contribute much in the way of conversation.

George sympathized. Talking with people she’d just met wasn’t always easy, but at least she tried.

Her mind ran through everything she knew about him—not much, it turned out—or might ask him.

What’s your favorite class? seemed like a question that only a grind would ask.

What do you like to do besides play football?

sounded like something her father would ask.

While Frank and Helen chattered away in the front, the air in the back seat thickened with awkward silence.

Maybe Mel was struggling to think of things to ask her too.

She glanced over at him. His expression was placid; he didn’t appear to be thinking anything at all.

At the ice cream parlor, careful to keep the desperation out of her voice, she asked what his favorite flavor was.

“Oh, pretty much anything.” He didn’t ask about hers.

George envied the ease of Frank and Helen’s banter. They had fun together. They tried to include George and Mel in their fun, but the strain in Helen’s eyes showed that it was heavy going.

Back at the Ector house, Mel walked George to the door.

She hoped he wouldn’t try to kiss her. Not with Helen and Frank watching from the car.

Then again, if he didn’t try to kiss her, that would only confirm what a disappointing date she’d been.

Oh well. At least now she’d been on a date.

She’d be better prepared for the next one.

She knew which dress to wear. She had the lipstick.

She just needed to memorize some questions and a few interesting anecdotes.

She was already combing through her personal history, searching for possibilities, when Mel leaned in and pecked her on the cheek.

“That was fun,” he said. “Want to go out again next Saturday?”

The peck on the cheek felt exactly right. Not too much, but more than nothing. “Yes,” said George. “That sounds nice.”

Just like that, she had a boyfriend. Someone who held her hand in the hallway between classes.

Who took her to dances and the movies. In exchange, George enrolled in a secret extra class, one with an endless homework assignment of thinking up topics to discuss and stories to tell.

Mel’s responses were always kind, although they never did much to move the conversation into new territory.

She’d been nervous the first time they parked.

She’d never kissed a boy before, only seen it done in movies.

Those movie kisses appeared deceptively simple: a man and woman pressed their lips together for longer than seemed necessary.

She could tell something else was going on, but it was impossible to suss out the mechanics of it.

“Tongues, George,” said Helen. “They’re using their tongues. ”

This information was both unhelpful and slightly terrifying. Using their tongues for what? George, already feeling like a baby, didn’t ask Helen to elaborate.

Mel parked near the lake. He turned off the car and slid to the middle of the front seat.

George scooted toward him, praying she wouldn’t make a fool of herself.

He put his arm behind her and pecked her on the cheek again.

She turned and pecked him back. Then they pecked on the lips.

Mel put his other arm around her and pulled her toward him.

He put his lips on hers again and then opened his, and George thought, Aha!

Tongues! She didn’t need specific instructions.

She knew what to do, and so, apparently, did Mel.

As they kissed, George pressed close, mashing her breasts against his chest. She wished she could press right through his clothing.

She wished his hands, which remained locked against her back, would move to her front.

Her insides felt electric. She could have kissed him all night, but eventually he pulled back.

“It’s nearly eleven thirty. Better get you home. ”

After that night, they necked at the end of every date.

Once or twice, all they did was neck. She looked forward to parking, to the cessation of talking.

To the desire—always unfulfilled—to lie down, strip off her clothes and his, too, to feel his hands wander her body and touch her somewhere, anywhere, besides the center of her back.

“Maybe he’s being a gentleman?” suggested Helen when George confided in her about Mel’s well-behaved hands. But the doubt in Helen’s tone confirmed that she thought it was odd.

Eventually, Adele insisted that Mel come in for a glass of tea and a slice of pie.

She wore a dress for the occasion, without George even having to ask.

Mel shook her father’s hand and said yes, ma’am and no, sir to her parents’ questions.

He bolted the pie and gulped down the tea.

“Thank you. That was nice.” At last, after a stilted half hour in the Ector parlor (“ What do you like to do besides play football, Mel? ”), her father released them, saying, “Well, we should let you two get on with your evening.”

“Thanks for doing that,” George said after they’d made their escape.

“Oh, sure. It was nice,” said Mel. “Your parents are nice.” He sounded surprised. George wondered if he might suggest she meet his parents, too, but he didn’t.

She and Helen ran into Mrs. Carson, Mel’s mother, in Woolworth’s the next week. George was hunting a replacement for the depleted red lipstick, and Helen was spritzing herself with the cologne sampler when Mrs. Carson approached the cosmetics counter.

“Hello, Helen,” she said.

“Hello, Mrs. Carson,” said Helen. Helen’s and Mel’s mothers were second or third cousins, which meant Mel and Helen were distantly related. “So distantly it doesn’t really count,” emphasized Helen. George supposed that was why Mrs. Carson greeted Helen first.

“How is your mother doing these days?”

“She’s just fine, thank you, ma’am. This is my friend, Georgeanne Ector. She’s Mel’s—” But Mrs. Carson’s gaze locked on to Helen in a way that erased George entirely.

“And your brother? I heard he had scarlet fever.”

“Oh, he’s fully recovered. I’ll tell him you asked. This is—”

“No loss of eyesight?”

“Not that we’ve noticed.”

“Well, I’m relieved to hear it. I’ll say a prayer for him.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Helen as Mrs. Carson walked away.

“That was rude!” Helen whispered to George once the woman was out of earshot.

“Maybe she was in a hurry,” said George, eager to find a reason beyond herself for being rendered invisible.

“Maybe,” said Helen. But there was that doubtful tone again.

That night on the way to the lake, George told Mel she’d seen his mother at Woolworth’s.

“Yeah. She mentioned that.”

“Oh. It seemed like she didn’t really notice me.”

“How could anyone not notice you?” He slid toward her on the seat.

“Maybe you should introduce me to your folks soon,” suggested George.

“Okay, that sounds nice.”

Then they stopped talking and necked until it was time to drive George back home.

On the drive, she told him the news she’d been saving. “I got my private pilot’s license! That means I can fly with passengers. I could take you up sometime.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“It’s really fun. I’d love to take you.”

“Well, that sounds nice. I guess.”

His lack of enthusiasm left her deflated. Besides Stu and her parents, no one seemed excited for her. Helen certainly wasn’t interested in going up in George’s plane. “No offense, Georgeanne, but I’d prefer to keep my feet on solid ground.” Evidently Mel felt the same.

“Hey, George,” he said. She turned toward him in surprise. Mel never initiated conversation. “How long do you plan to keep flying?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, now that you’ve gotten your license, you’ve shown everyone you know how to fly. So I thought, well, maybe you’d gotten it out of your system.”

“Gotten it out of my system?”

“I mean, you’ll have to stop someday. You can’t fly once you get married. Or ... engaged.”

It wasn’t okay to get angry at a boy unless he did something terrible, like kissing another girl.

Otherwise, a girl was supposed to smile, say something bland, and smooth over any rough patches in the conversation.

No one had ever explained this to her, but deep inside she knew this was how it worked.

Mel must have known it worked that way too.

His smug tone and expression declared his confidence that she’d agree with anything he said.

Because that’s what she was supposed to do.

Her heart pounded. Heat flooded her face.

All the “supposed tos” inside her dissolved in the acid of her anger.

“Then I’ll never get married. Or engaged. ”

He looked stunned. “Yeah. I guess not.”