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| Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez |
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When he approaches her at the market, he has no idea the next three weeks of his life would change him forever.
It’s the late 1980s, summertime, on the North Shore of Long Island. The air stirs with possibilities as it often does during this time of year. And so begins the romance between one Hispanic seventeen-year-old male, on the verge of manhood and ready to conquer the world, and one beautiful and intelligent young woman named B.It is much more than romance, though. B will forever become a part of this young man’s soul. He will never forget her.
This is a coming-of-age story, a love story, replete with milestones, tangled emotions, and adventures that are the embodiments of first love. Not just for the young, but for the young at heart.
Available on Amazon
My review: It’s the Summer of ’87 and love is in the air.
Sparked by a
random woman in the supermarket, who was a dead ringer for his wife, a man
recollects his first meeting with her. It was 1987, and they first met as
teenagers in high school in the supermarket smelling citrus fruit.
The story
had a hard-core setting of the 80’s. The pace was languid, but the writing was
decent. I enjoyed the ambition and wit in the story, which is something I think
that most readers would relate to. Even if they weren’t from the 80’s, most
people would relate to a first crush or love.
A puppy love
tale immersed with Latin culture and rockin’ with an 80’s theme.
The book was
a teen romance all the way. The boy just couldn’t get enough of the girl, which
was sweet, but I kind of wished the story would’ve picked up a little. I didn’t
think that we really needed to hear the boy’s every minute thought. Perhaps a
little tension in the story could’ve heightened the intensity.
All in all,
I thought this book was pretty good.
My rating: 3 stars
---Excerpt---
The bowling alley was located at a strip mall near my house.
We checked in with the guy behind the counter, who assigned us a lane, then
gave us each a score sheet and a pair of really fashionable bowling shoes. You
know the ones. Red and black separated with a white stripe down the middle,
white soles, shoe size emblazoned on the back. To this day, they still remind
me of clown shoes.
We
found a couple of black bowling balls and put them in the ball return area. I
placed the scoresheet on our bowling desk and wrote our names down.
Back
then we didn’t have electronic scoreboards, so you had to know how to keep
score. You had to know the difference between a strike and a spare, how to
score it properly, and what happened in the last frame if you threw one. Of
course, each table had the rules written down, so if you didn’t know how to
keep score, you could read the directions and learn the rules. It was bowling,
not rocket science.
We
were playing the best of three. Like tennis, the loser would buy pizza. “And
don’t take it easy on me. I plan on winning again,” she warned me, grinning.
I
laughed. “Oh don’t worry; I don’t plan on losing two days in a row. I hope you
brought your wallet.”
I
wasn’t much of a bowler and only played now and again. I was lucky if I broke a
hundred, but don’t judge. How many famous Hispanic bowlers do you know? I bet
you could rattle off a few hundred Hispanic baseball or soccer players though,
right?
Besides,
most kids in the neighborhood didn’t come to the bowling alley to bowl. We came
to play video games. I remember when they got Ms. Pac- Man. Adults and kids
would put their quarters down on the lip of the machine and patiently wait
their turn. While you waited, you could play another video game, like
Asteroids, or play pinball.
They
had the classic pinball games like Kiss and Pinball Wizard. Today, it’s all
about X-Box, iPads, Sony PlayStation, and online computer games. Man, times
have changed. But that day, we were there to bowl.
She bowled first. She did a
quick stretch, blew into her right hand, and picked up her ball. Before making
her approach, she bent over and stared down the bowling pins as if to say, “You’re
mine.”
What a view.
She
inhaled, held it, and exhaled. Then in a very fluid motion, she took a few
steps and released the ball, knocking down nine pins. She twirled around,
smiling, and looked over at me, raising her eyebrows. “I hope you brought your
A game!”
Oh, crap!
I
just smiled back. Her ball returned, and she picked it up. She went right back
to her previous spot and picked up her spare. She yelped and did a fist pump.
She then turned around and bounced back to the bowling table as if it were no
big deal. So, she can bowl. Who knew?
Maybe she got lucky. Yeah, that’s what it was—luck. Just
like tennis yesterday. Luck.
“Do you know how to keep score?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know how to keep score. This isn’t my first time
bowling,” I replied. It’ll only look like it.
We spent the rest of the afternoon bowling without a care in
the world. Strike! Spare! Gutter ball! Seven/ ten split! Spare! We laughed. We
high-fived. Most importantly, we had fun. We only played two of our best of
three games. Yes, Charlie Brown lost again . . . sigh!
I just laughed it off. Besides, she had distracted me with
her awesomeness.
“So where do you want to go for pizza?” she asked.
“I know a joint,” I joked.
Like most Long Island strip malls, this one had a grocery
store, liquor store, card store, record store, Carvel ice cream parlor,
drugstore, dry cleaner, Chinese food, and, of course, a neighborhood pizza joint.
On Long
Island, every neighborhood has a locally-owned Italian pizzeria in every
shopping center. You had Tony’s, Vinnie’s, Mario’s, Johnny’s, and an assortment
of other places that were names ending in a vowel. The very best pizza on the
planet, in my opinion, was our neighborhood’s local pizzeria—Giuseppe’s.
If you want to get into a pissing contest, make the mistake
of saying your pizza place was better than someone else’s. You know the
expression about never discussing religion and politics? Well, when you’re on
Long Island, add pizzerias to the list. You will argue for hours.
When the pizza chains started to open up, people would order
from them only if they didn’t feel like driving, or were in a jam; otherwise,
people looked down their noses at those places. You never admitted to ordering
from Domino’s, or being seen in Pizza Hut.
It wasn’t raining very hard, so we walked a few stores down
to Giuseppe’s Pizzeria. We ordered a couple of slices each and Cokes and found
a booth toward the back. And that was how you ordered it: “Let me get a couple
of slices and a Coke.”
Back then, you didn’t have a great
selection. You couldn’t order a Hawaiian slice or a Meat Lovers slice.
Gourmet
slices like goat cheese and truffles or escargot pizza were not yet in
vogue.
For those of you wondering, yes, I was the one who once had
eaten escargot pizza. Yes, it was awful, and yes, there was a
girl involved. Fortunately, the girl I was trying to impress that day, still
agreed to marry me the in the mid-’90s. The lesson I learned that day?
Don’t be a shmuck! When in doubt, go with pepperoni. Okay, back to the
story . . .
“Did you let me win again?” B teased.
“You were
there. Did it look like I let you beat me? Besides, you only beat me the last
game by two pins.
And I do recall someone
coughing real loud as I threw my last ball. I’m not making any accusations or
excuses,
mind you, I’m just saying.”
She tried to hide her smirk.
