They say you never forget your first dance… and you’ll never forget this clever, touching story by Tassie Kalas Haney! It earned her an honorable mention in the 20202 SWFFP contest. It made us laugh and feel for her well-crafted, relatable characters. We hope it brings you a smile.

 

First Dance

 

The happy couple settled themselves comfortably into the back seat.  I glanced in the rearview mirror.  He looked nice enough with his shock of brown hair, peach-fuzz fighting the freckles on his cheeks. I smiled smugly.

I could take him down.

I knew him.  All it took was a few phone calls to some well-connected mothers, and I was armed with his life history.  But he did not know me.

I’m Greek!  I wanted to shock that confident smirk off his face.  We make soup out of testicles and serve it at Easter!  I recalled how my father, undershirt stained with sweat, would polish his guns when a non-Greek boy dared to come over.  As a result, I had many first dates in high school, but never a second.

Where was my dad when I needed him?  As a single mom, I baked cookies and joked, but inside I seethed and plotted.

It started off innocently enough.

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”  My precious 15-year-old daughter sighed. “Kole.”

“Coal?” The name tasted bitter on my tongue.  “What Santa brings bad boys?”

“K-O-L-E,” she spelled dreamily.

“Kole.  Oh…” I heard my father’s heavy accent in my mind. “Like the Greek word kolo, the body part you sit on.”

She thought he was perfect, Kole with a K, an aspiring saxophone player, and I thought he was one letter away from being an ass.

“We’re going out,” she continued.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”  I knew my daughter’s whereabouts twenty-four hours a day: school, church, basketball practice, never remotely near anyone named Kole, or his kolo.

Her eyes rolled.  “We talk.  We text…”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“He wants to take me to…”

“No.”  I wielded my index finger like a weapon.  “Not until you’re sixteen.”

We ended up compromising.  They were going out without going anywhere, and I pretended that was acceptable.

Months passed and the inevitable happened.

She turned sixteen.

Outwardly, I celebrated.  Inwardly, I cursed my predicament.

She cornered me the day after her birthday.

“There’s a dance.” She took a deep breath.  “I want to go with Kole.”

“No.”

“But you promised!  I’m sixteen.”

And that was how I found myself driving, one eye on the road and one focused in the rear view mirror, spying on the young couple huddled together in the backseat.

“How was the dance?”

“Fun!” My daughter gushed.  “Everyone loved my dress.”

I watched her in the rear-view mirror tug self-consciously at the bodice of her first strapless gown.  Kole loosened his bowtie.

The hairs on the back of my neck sprang to attention.  I changed lanes unnecessarily so I would have an excuse to look over my shoulder into the dark back seat.

It was then I saw it.  His hand rested ever so lightly on my daughter’s pearly white, perfectly shaped knee.

That’s my knee!  I gave birth to that knee!  Get your grubby little hand off my perfect little knee or I’ll show you what a knee’s good for…

Rage blinded me as I fought the urge to kick him in the kolo.

I talked to distract them: death, war, the famine in Haiti.  We were ten-minutes from Kole’s house when my daughter rested her beautiful head of curls on Kole’s shoulder, and closed her eyes.

“Look out!” I swerved the car.  Her head flew left, then right.

“Mom!  What the…?”

“A dog!” I lied. “I almost hit a dog!”

I turned on the radio to a Christian station and raised the volume to gospel proportions.  A chorus of nuns sang the Lord’s Prayer in soprano.  I’d just turned onto Kole’s street when I saw him leaning closer, his full, pursed lips hovering dangerously over her glossy, vanilla-flavored ones.

I jammed on the brakes.

“Ow!” Kole’s head snapped forward, then backwards, as the pungent aroma of burned rubber filled the car.

“Kole, are you ok?” My daughter hissed at me.  “Mom, what’s wrong with you?”

“Cat!”  I fibbed.  “A black one!”  I screeched up in front of Kole’s house and snapped on the interior lights.

“Thank’s for the ride.”  Kole oozed politeness.

“Anytime Kolo.”

“It’s Kole.” He limped unsteadily up the front walk.

I turned to my daughter and patted her knee.  “You never forget your first dance,” I whispered to the breathtaking princess in the back seat.

“As if I ever could,” she muttered.

Smiling softly, I headed for home.

And we didn’t hit a single animal along the way.

 

Tassie Kalas Haney writes humorous short stories inspired by her big, fat Greek life about growing up and growing older and laughing without fear of the future. Her work can be found in “Laugh Out Loud, 40 Women Humorists Celebrate the Then and Now…Before We Forget,” an anthology which was named a finalist for one of the best humor books of 2019 by the Next Generation Indie Book Awards program. She’s been published in “The Ocotillo Review,” volumes 2.1 and 2.2, and was awarded Honorary Recognition for two stories published in “Outside the Window-Tales of the World.” She’s a member of the Houston Writers Guild. Visit her at TassieTypes.com.