as well, but Astrid didn’t seem to notice. Those luminous eyes never left my face. She was wearing frog earrings. Blue frogs that matched her blouse. You notice everything at times like that.
Meanwhile, she seemed to be waiting for me to say something else, so I amplified my previous remark: “Thanks a lot.”
“Are you going to have a cigarette?”
“Me?” It crossed my mind that she was spying for my mom. “I don’t smoke.”
“Walk me back, then?”
I walked her back. It was four hundred yards between the smoking area and the back door of the gym. I wished it had been four miles.
“Are you here with anybody?” I asked.
“Just Bonnie and Carla,” she said. “Not a guy, or anything. Mom and Dad won’t let me go out with guys until I’m fifteen.”
Then, as if to show me what she thought of such a silly idea, she took my hand. When we got to the back door, she looked up at me. I almost kissed her then, but lost my courage.
Boys can be dopes.
• • •
When we were loading Paul’s drumkit into the back of the microbus after the dance, Norm spoke to me in a stern, almost paternal voice. “After the break, you were off on everything. What was that about?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
“I hope so. If we’re good, we get gigs. If we’re not, we don’t.” He patted the rusty side of the microbus. “Betsy here don’t run on air bubbles, and neither do I.”
“It was that girl,” Kenny said. “Pretty little blondie in a white skirt.”
Norm looked enlightened. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a fatherly little shake to go with the fatherly voice. “Get with her, little buddy. Soon as you can. You’ll play better.”
Then he gave me fifteen dollars.
• • •
We played the Grange on New Year’s Eve. It was snowing. Astrid was there. She was wearing a parka with a fur-lined hood. I led her under the fire escape and kissed her. She was wearing lipstick that tasted like strawberries. When I pulled back, she looked at me with those big eyes of hers.
“I thought you never would,” she said, then giggled.
“Was it all right?”
“Do it again and I’ll tell you.”
We stood kissing under the fire escape until Norm tapped me on the shoulder. “Break it up, kids. Time to play some music.”
Astrid pecked me on the cheek. “Do ‘Wild Thing,’ I love that one,” she said, and ran toward the back door, slipping around in her dancing shoes.
Norm and I followed. “Blue balls much?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. We’re gonna play her song first. You know how it works, right?”
I did, because the band played plenty of requests. And I was happy to do it, because now I felt more confident when I had the Kay in front of me, an electric shield plugged in and ready to drive.
We walked onto the stand. Paul hit the customary drum-riff to signal that the band was back and ready to rock. Norm gave me a nod as he adjusted a guitar strap that didn’t need adjusting. I stepped to the center mike and bellowed, “This one is for Astrid, by request, and because . . . wild thing, I think I LOVE you!” And although it was ordinarily Norm’s job—his prerogative, as leader of the band—I counted the song off: One, two, you-know-what-to-do. On the floor, Astrid’s friends were pummeling her and shrieking. Her cheeks were bright red. She blew me a kiss.
Astrid Soderberg blew me a kiss.
• • •
So the boys in Chrome Roses had girlfriends. Or maybe they were groupies. Or maybe they were both. When you’re in a band, it’s not always easy to tell where the line is. Norm had Hattie. Paul had Suzanne Fournier. Kenny had Carol Plummer. And I had Astrid.
Hattie, Suzanne, and Carol sometimes crammed into the microbus with us when we went to our gigs. Astrid wasn’t allowed to do that, but when Suzanne was able to borrow her parents’ car, Astrid was permitted to ride with the girls.
Sometimes they got out on the floor and danced with each other; mostly they just stood in their own tight little clique and watched. Astrid and I spent most of the breaks kissing, and I began to taste cigarettes on her breath. I didn’t mind. When she saw that (girls have ways of knowing), she started to smoke around me, and a couple of times she’d blow a little into my mouth while