Her yelp caused Lenny to spill half his popcorn.  “Watch it!” she snapped. 

“You want some of mine?” he wondered, his mouth spilling over with crumbling yellow kernels.  Laverne recoiled a little from his overflow.

 “I’m okay,” she dusted her lap and settled back in her seat, intently staring at the screen.  This was her favorite part of Godzilla on Monster Island – the ending.  She couldn’t help but swallow hard as the little baby Gamera cuddled up to its mommy.

She wiped her eyes.  God, this whole baby thing was really getting to her.  She didn’t even notice the end credits or the gradual retreat of the surrounding crowds as she got over her second or so of self-pity.

The lights came up.  “Boy, that movie gets better every time I see it!  D’you see the way those water towers blew up?”  He noticed her tears.  “You okay, Laverne?”  she couldn’t answer.  “Didya choke on your Zagnut bar?” she shook her head.  “Oh, s’it one of those girl things, with the freshness and stuff?”

She narrowed her eyes.  “No, Len.”

He picked his red handkerchief out of his back pocket.  “Here, blow.”

She pushed away his hand, standing up.  “I got Kleenex in my purse.”  Secretly, she was so happy with his repulsiveness she could have kissed him.  See, Len?  I don’t want you!

“Oh…well, there’s gotta be something I can do.  Please, Laverne?” his blue eyes pled at her – those beautiful blue eyes.,,

She sloshed through overtuned soda cups on her way to the door.  “Can you walk me home?”

“Sure,” he offered gallantly.

*** 

“So, what’s it like being a housewife?”

Laverne shrugged her shoulders.  “It’s sort of boring,” she confessed, trying to keep as much distance as possible between their bodies. 

Lenny shoved his right hand into his pants pocket.  “I thought you always wanted to quit your job and be some guy’s wife.”

“Yeah, but I always thought I’d be busier.  That I’d have kids right away,” she lowered her eyes.  “All I do is clean and cook and sleep.  It’s like being in a coma.”

“Like the mummy from the tomb?”

“Lenny!”

He patted her shoulder.  “It can’t be that bad.  Don’t Randy take you out sometimes?”

“We go out all the time.  I go out all the time,” she pointed out – and she did, seeing Shirley at least once a day and spending plenty of time at the Pizza Bowl with her Pop, not to mention shopping, movie and church excursions.  She remembered her athletic adventures with the LAMPS and on various company sports teams and felt a little sorrier for herself.  “I guess I’m just exaggerating.” She desperately tried to ignore the feeling of Lenny’s hand on her shoulder, his warmth seeping into her cold flesh.

“Randy’s treating you okay, ain’t he?”

Laverne whirled around in mid-step, as if he’d pinched her bottom.  “What’re you suggesting, Len?”

He immediately tried to hide among the scraggly trees lining Knapp Street.  “I didn’t mean nothing, Laverne,” he swore, and in his eyes she saw fear.

She melted a little.  “I know you didn’t,” she wrapped herself up in a hug.  “Me and Randy are fine.  It’s just…”

“What?”

She peered at the busy streets around her.  Grabbing him by the cuff of his jacket, she tugged him up the stairs and into the deserted vestibule of the Knapp Street building.  As if she were confession about some sort of unmentionable personal stain, she mumbled, “I don’t ever get to see him.  He’s always stuck on duty - when he’s home, we don’t do much more than sleep or eat or go to some kind of party we ‘have’ to go to or…” she shifted her head, clicked her tongue, and winked.

Lenny’s brow wrinkled.  “Sounds like you and Shirl, back when you used to work double shifts at Shotz.”

She rolled her eyes.  “This is different.  I’m not married to Shirley.”  He bit his palm.  “Stop it!    It’s just harder than I thought it was going to be when I told Randy ‘yes’.”

“I think I understand.”

“You do?”

“Sure.  You and Shirley are married,” he nodded quickly.  She smacked his arm lightly and he whined.  “Quit it!  This jacket is one hundred percent pure naugahyde!”  He cracked a smile – and she smiled back, helplessly.  “Do you still love Randy?”

She nodded her head.  “So much.”

“Then that’s what you need, right?” He rested his head on her shoulder.  “All that really matters when you get married is that you love each other no matter what.”

Out of the mouths of manchildren.  Her tingling shoulder distracted her from confirming his words.  “I wish life was that easy.”

“It is,” he smiled.  “Just don’t think too hard.”

She cuddled up against him and nearly drowned in a wave of musk aftershave.  “Thanks, Len.  You’re a great friend.”

He raised his head from her shoulder and looked her in the eyes.  She felt his urgency – it plucked every exposed nerve in her body.  “You’re the best friend I got.  Besides Squig.  And he don’t let me hug him.”

They smiled…and moved toward each other, magnetically.   As he asked, she shut her mind off.

Completely.

The kiss, overheated with passion, sent them into a pawing frenzy.  She had begun to pull his jacket off of his shoulders when he suddenly pulled away from her embrace and, breathlessly, shook his head.

She licked her suddenly dry lips, her shoulders heaving.  “Sorry,” she panted. 

“I’m not,” Lenny whispered back.

“I didn’t mean to do that, Len – I’ve been crazy for weeks and it ain’t fair to you for me…” she trailed off. 

He held out a small brass key.  “Squiggy’s visiting his mom, he’s cooking her dinner and he ain’t gonna come home ‘til past eleven.”  She stared numbly at the key, then into his blue eyes again.  Terror and desire had combined to make him look half-insane; she knew suddenly how much of his credo he had rejected to make her such an offer.  Without breaking their staring match, he backed up the staircase, his face a mask of confused passion.

“I have to start dinner,” she called after him inanely, knowing Randy would be at the firehouse all night.  Lenny had disappeared – demanding nothing.  That made him the most dangerous temptation of all. 

The brass seemed to burn a hole in her palm as she walked up to her future.