The benches in the quad glistened with dew. Pippi  wiped one down with her red cardigan, which she wasn’t going to wear since her tucked-in blouse flattered her figure. She sat, waiting and wondering if Friday night had really happened, Gordon’s arms around her during the last slow dance.

But then, there he was, golden bronze in the morning sun, hair cut short and bristly.  Gordon loped over to her, grabbed her hand and walked her to his locker.

Just like that they were a couple. And now it had been six months, September to March, their anniversary.

She had memorized his hands, so large compared to hers, nearly every callous from summer work on his dad’s farm except the bump on his left middle finger from his pencil.

Gordon wrote notes to her in algebra, and she answered them in calculus. When she got bored in Latin, Pippi practiced writing Gordon and Pippi Marcovitch, which was ridiculous but amusing. Anything could happen in the next five years.  Why she might go to New York or join the San Francisco poetry scene though Gordon read no poetry. They had quarreled over his request for her help on his book report of Johnny Tremain. She refused, saying that would be cheating.

          She wore his school service pin, which showed the world they were together.  His class ring with its red stone, a fake ruby, dazzled her, and she knew he would ask her to wear it soon. Then they would officially go steady even though after the spring prom and summer beach parties. They hadn’t talked yet about their relationship next year when she left for Berkeley. He was kicking around junior college or joining the Marines.

“No Marines, Gordon, please,” she had said at Sunday dinner with his folks. “Vietnam is not a good war.” Gordon hadn’t answered.

Mr. Marcovitch threw in, “You’ll probably become some hippie-commie antiwar activist like Jane Fonda up there in Bezerkely.” Gordon laughed at his father’s joke. Pippi excused herself to smoke on the porch.

On Friday night, they goofed around on the miniature golf course, rather, she did. She talked with Cheryl and teased Max., sort of flirting but not, just for practice for fall rush.  Gordon missed putts and swore. He didn’t wait for Pippi.  He didn’t hold her hand.  Pippi talked louder and faster. Surely he was only worried about giving her the ring. Why would he worry? She had been true to him. She had told him she loved him on New Year’s Eve.

          When they dropped off Max and Cheryl, Gordon drove to their favorite lovers’ lane in the upper lot of the high school.  Though they had been together so long, they had done nothing but some deep kissing.  Pippi thought about leading his hands to her breasts, letting him know that now, on their six-month anniversary, more of her would be available to him, until fall.

          They kissed. She cuddled into Gordon between kisses. She loved his solid shoulders and the way he smelled of Zest soap and the fresh laundry scent of his shirt. He looked into her brown eyes, making a serious study of her face. Was he picturing their children someday, after college, with his swarthy skin and black hair, her fair blondness?

          Her heart beat hard and fast as if she had run up a steep hill. She touched his ring, turning it on his finger.

          Gordon gazed out the car window, steamy from their breath. He pulled a calendar from his wallet.  They would go over their months together, from that first shouted hi when she was painting ‘Welcome Back to School” posters to their first dance to their holding hands and the all the crazy moments of falling in love. She would never smell poster paint again without thinking, “Gordon.”

  Gordon said, “I have to be honest with you.”

          “You always are.”

          “I joined the Marines.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “After graduation, I’ll have basic training. I leave the day after graduation.”

          “But the summer?”

          “You’ll keep busy.”

          “Like how?”

          “Shopping, your job, your other friends.”

          “But you’re the only one who matters, Gordon.”

          “I am?”

          She kissed him. “Yes.” She kissed him again and blinked her eyes in that fetching way she had learned from Natalie Wood films. “Vietnam scares me.”

          “Good. I need to serve. There is no peace without war.”

          “Who told you that?”

          “My dad.” Then, instead of slipping off his senior ring, he took a small, velvet box out of his pocket. “Here’s your ring. Open it.”

          Pippi’s heart squeezed with panic. She only wanted to go steady and only until fall. Why would he think they should get married?  “Gordon,” she started to say.

          “Just say you’ll marry me so I’ll have you to come home to.”

          She hesitated. With the box on her lap, she pressed his hand to her cheek. “What about college, all those other things out there waiting for us? Can I think about it?”

          He rolled down the window in jerky turns. “You need to think about it?” Gordon grabbed the ring box and threw it into the night. “What a joke.”

          They drove to her house in silence. Pippi cried quietly into his shoulder. He turned off the ignition and opened his door without leaning in for a kiss

“Gordon,” she said, “I have my dress for prom. You’ll still take me, won’t you?”