All You Could Ask For A Novel - By Mike Greenberg Page 0,68

cheesy but in my mind is a good deal more profound than that.

I spent a lot of time in this hospital as a girl. Not for any horrible reasons; my father was president of the board of trustees. I must have gone to a hundred fund-raising events with him. I remember some of them really well, mostly the Christmases. They always had wonderful events around the holidays, with tinsel and reindeer and visits from Santa. When I got older I was allowed to go to the grown-up functions, dinner dances in fancy dresses, with floral arrangements on the tables and live bands playing standards like “It Had to Be You.” The first time I ever slow-danced with a boy was in this hospital, at one of those parties. I was sort of a tomboy then, an athlete, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to clothes or my hair, and I didn’t pay a lot of attention to boys, either, maybe because I thought they wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to me. And then, when I was fourteen, I was here, at a dinner dance, and my father was away from the table, drinking scotch and talking business, and I was peeling the frosting off a piece of chocolate cake, when Andrew Marks came to the table. He was two years ahead of me in school and handsome and athletic and smart, captain of the basketball team and the debate team, which is a dream combination if you ask me. His father was the chief of pediatrics, so I had seen Andrew at many hospital functions over the years but had never really spoken to him. I didn’t think he even knew who I was.

Then, suddenly, he was standing over me. I don’t know how long he was there. People were always milling around at those things, and I was fixated on getting as much of the frosting as I could off the cake. But finally I realized someone was standing over my shoulder, and when I turned I could tell Andrew didn’t recognize me.

“Hello, my name is Andrew Marks,” he said stiffly and formally, as though he had taken classes in the proper etiquette for asking a young lady to dance and this was his first stab at it. “Would you like to dance?”

Like all girls, I had had crushes before, but that was the first moment for me, the first time I learned what it is like when your heart beats a little faster and your breath catches at the back of your throat. I wanted to tell him that he knew me, even if he didn’t realize it. I was the same girl he’d seen at these dances a dozen times before, only this time I was wearing a more grown-up dress and mascara and had gotten my hair blown out at a salon. But then I also didn’t want to tell him. There was something about being the mysterious, pretty girl that appealed to me. It was right there, in that chair, as I said the words “I would love to,” that I first realized it was all right to be a girl and also a jock. Maybe that’s why I remember the night so well.

Or maybe it’s because of the way Andrew held me.

At first, the band was playing “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and everyone was out of their chairs in full boogie mode, even my dad was dancing with one of the divorcées in town who had been after him since the day my mother died. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about how well Andrew could dance, how handsome he looked in his suit. He was really tall. I’ve always liked tall men, beginning with that night.

When they finished the song, the next one they played was “How Deep Is Your Love,” also by the Bee Gees. You know that song, don’t you? I love that song, and had even before that night. I think it is the most perfectly romantic song I know. When the band began to play it that night, in the ballroom in this very hospital, I felt myself sweat a little beneath my arms. People started leaving the dance floor all around us; lots of people who were willing to boogie were not going to stay out there together for a slow song. Were we? I didn’t know. And when I looked up at him I could tell he didn’t know either.