All We Ever Wanted(55)

I liked her open-ended questions, especially because I could work while I talked (which seemed a lot less intense than sitting on a couch saying all the same things). Anyway, we started with Beatriz and Lyla, quickly touching on all my single-father woes. That eventually led her to the subject of women and why I wasn’t dating and then my entire romantic past. She asked about my first time—how, where, and to whom I’d lost my virginity.

I gave her the full scoop, telling her all about the summer I turned fifteen, when my buddy John landed us jobs at Belle Meade Country Club. John lived on my street and grew up basically like I did (i.e., not exposed to golf). But somehow he developed a love for the game. I was pretty indifferent myself, but it was an easy, decent-paying gig. All John and I had to do was pick up balls from the range, clean the carts and clubs after use, and work with the caddies to get the members’ bags ready to play. Incidentally, all the caddies at Belle Meade were black. We heard the reason was because members didn’t want their daughters falling in love with them. Rather than worrying about the obvious racist implications of this, John and I took it as an insult to us, i.e., why weren’t members worried about their daughters falling in love with us white bag room boys?

   Cue Delaney.

At sixteen, Delaney was an older woman—a rich older woman—who drove a cherry-red BMW convertible, a birthday gift from her father. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Delaney had a reputation for being somewhat advanced. (We called it something a little different at the time.) We saw the way she sauntered around the pool in the tiniest string bikinis, undoing her top while she sunbathed facedown, exposing ample side boob (which we heard had also been a gift from Daddy). She loved to flirt and did not discriminate, shining her bright sexual light on everyone—married men, black caddies, and lowly bag room boys.

John and I both developed a crush on Delaney, viewing her more as a potential sexual conquest than as a girl we thought we could actually date. At some point, we placed a far-fetched bet—twenty-five bucks for every base one of us got to with her. Over the course of the summer, we managed to work our way into Delaney’s social circle through another bag room boy who knew some members, and the bet no longer seemed so unrealistic. Then, one evening in early August, in addition to getting a blow job from Delaney in the backseat of her convertible, I earned myself seventy-five dollars from John. A true windfall. Unfortunately, word got out about our escapade—and I was fired. Delaney tried to intervene on my behalf, but her father quickly squelched her campaign for justice. He also told her she could never see me again, which only fueled our interest in each other, as those things have a tendency to do.

   We ended up going all the way a few nights later, which should have earned me another twenty-five dollars from John, but I didn’t charge him. It just didn’t seem right to get paid for your first time, especially with a girl as hot as Delaney.

“Did it cross your mind that this was a sexist, demeaning bet?” Bonnie asked as she sipped her tea.

“Yeah,” I said, sanding away. “I think it did. A little. But it wasn’t her first time. Besides, I got the feeling she was using me, too.”

“So you were using her?”

“At first. When I made the bet, yeah.”

“But then?”

“But then I started to like her. A little.”

“And how was she using you?” Bonnie drilled away. “Also for sex?”

“I like to think so,” I said with a smirk.

Bonnie smiled back and shook her head.

“I’m kidding. Delaney could have slept with anyone….I just made her feel like even more of a rebel.”

“How so?”

“You know ‘how so.’ Sleeping with a bag boy—a status that was beneath her. She got off on bucking the system, whether in the form of her swimwear or her choice of screws.”

   “Did she tell you that?”

“Not in so many words. But she talked about that shit a lot. Money and social class. She even used that word a lot. Classy.” I rolled my eyes, feeling the inferiority all over again.

“So you didn’t feel like…star-crossed lovers?”

“No. I felt like a pawn,” I said. “Then, one night, she really went too far.”

“Uh-oh. What did she do?” Bonnie asked.

“She used the expression salt of the earth to describe my mother.”

Always getting it, Bonnie winced, then groaned.

“Yeah. I kinda lost my shit. I told her it was a condescending expression,” I said, envisioning Delaney sitting on the cement floor of my basement, sipping from a can of Budweiser, calmly insisting that the term was a compliment—synonymous with sweet and wholesome.

I told Bonnie how I had asked Delaney what about my mother came across as sweet or wholesome when all she had done was say, Hello. Nice to meet you. Would you like a drink? We have Diet Pepsi and OJ.

Bonnie laughed a hearty, openmouthed laugh. “And her reply?”

“She got defensive. She didn’t like getting called out. She liked doing the calling out….But I pressed her. I asked if she’d ever call a doctor or lawyer ‘salt of the earth’? Or if there were any country club members who she would describe as ‘salt of the earth’?…She said no, because they all ‘sucked.’ I remember thinking that they couldn’t all suck, any more than all single mothers were ‘salt of the earth.’ But I dropped the subject. I figured it didn’t matter enough to argue about it.”