A Tale Of Two Skips
By Dixie Fried

I didn’t date much as a teenager.  Maybe it was my fear of he opposite sex, or the more extreme fear of my catholic god, but I did manage to date a few boys. I went out with boys named Mark, David, Anthony, John and even an Alfredo.  But I may be the only girl who has ever dated two Skips.

Skip #1 used to work with me in a godawful t-shirt shop in Philly.  I was an angry little rebel, at least by my standards.  I wasn’t pierced or tattooed like the other employees, and my garter belts I’d wear in public belied the chastity belt underneath. Basically, I was out of my league. At work, I sold t-shirts, bad rock posters and those ugly Grateful Dead shirts. It was a horrible job with a horrible boss, but since I used to take acid before work, selling those posters and listening to my boss yell at me wasn’t so bad.  Making only minimum wage, I used to steal as much from the register as I could. When some poor sap walked toward the register with an extra-large Bauhaus poster, I knew I just made another sixteen bucks.

Skip worked with me for a few months. Day after day, he would spend the entire shift trying to convince me to go out with him.  He was blonde, he was a skate rat, and he had the smile of a used car salesman. I don’t know why I agreed; if it takes a boy two months to convince you that he is worth spending time with, it just isn’t meant to be. On our first date, Skip took me to his huge brownstone apartment. Nothing led up to this–no movie, no lunch–except the walk up to his front steps. Hell, I don’t even think any small talk was involved. Three other skate rats were sitting in the living room playing Nintendo. There were bags of chips and empty Ramen noodle wrappers everywhere.  He led me past the mess to the bedroom, and I started to panic.  I knew what he was trying to do (God, what underwear was I wearing?) and I couldn't believe how sure of himself he was.

We spent the afternoon making out, and I fought his groping hands the whole time. He was frustrated, and finally I left, naively thinking he would call me again. Philly was like a small town. Everyone put out except me; it seemed to me an incestuous cesspool of germs, hangovers and regrets.

Days went by without a phone call from Skip. I couldn’t understand why I was getting the cold shoulder. If he liked me enough to pursue me for two months, he could have waiting a little bit. It wasn’t like I was saving myself for marriage. (Actually, I saved myself for a drunken Irishman who took me on my carpeted living room floor, but that’s another story altogether.)

One afternoon, I was hanging on the corner with my friends, trying to figure out how to buy beer when a friend blurted out that Skip was seeing my girlfriend. She was older and cuter, and most importantly, sexually active. It was no contest.

I would see Skip around every so often, and his used car salesman smile made me feel good that I never showed him what kind of underwear I was wearing.

* * *

Skip #2 went to the same college as I did. A friend whispered over the cafeteria table that this guy liked me. I looked over at this adorable boy–his smile was sweet and he seemed shy.

"What’s his name?" I asked.

"Skip," she replied. Oh, no, I thought.  Not again! And when I looked over at him, he took off his hat, shook his blond hair, and then skated away. I refused to be second to a skateboard again, and soon forgot about him.  I avoided skate rats, blonde or not.  They only cared about skating, smoking pot, drinking 40s and eating junk food.  Plus, they were rude to women.

One night a few years later, I went to a house party. Just as I was about to leave, a guy timidly asked me if my name was Dixie. It turned out to be Skip from college.  We started talking, and it became apparent that he was really nervous.  His sweet little smile made my heart melt. And best of all, he wasn’t holding a skateboard.  We left the party and walked to the park.  He was stuttering, trying to get a sentence out and I grabbed him and kissed him.  We stood under the moonlight, kissing for hours. Amazingly, he didn’t try to lead me to his apartment for a quickie, although by this point I had discovered the joys of sex and was kind of hoping he would. He walked me back to my apartment at 3 a.m.; we were grinning and walking that drunken walk you walk when a kiss knocks you off of your feet.  He took my number, and promised to call the next day.

When the phone rang, I knew it was him, and I smiled when I heard his voice. From that moment on, we were inseparable. I spent the every night with him in his big bed, laying next to him naked and looking at his smile. But as the weeks progressed, I realized we had nothing in common. He must’ve realized it as well, but we were nevertheless thrilled to be in each other’s arms.

After about two months, we settled into an old, married couple stage. Soon, we had nothing to talk about at all. It was around this time that my best friend Laura died, and instead of finding Skip comforting, I couldn’t be around him. I needed to surround myself with memories of her.

Soon after, I moved to New York. In the insanity that followed, I forgot all about him. But one weekend, when I was visiting friends in Philly, I saw him. He was more beautiful than I remembered–sweet, shy and beautiful. We spent the night talking, and staring at each other’s lips. We had so much more in common now. I became overcome with regret as I watched Skip’s lips talk, and I remembered those first weeks lying naked with him watching those lips talk and then feeling them kiss me.  I thought about them all the next day on the bus back to New York.