Chapter 21 - The Steve and Judy Affair

According to Boy: Evie and I both liked Judy (not her real name). She always tried to be helpful. She was pretty, friendly, and very adventurous. Evie had first met her when they were both freshman in high school. It was a new school for Evie, and she did not know a single person there. Judy walked up to her the morning of her first day, and introduced herself.


"Hi! You’re new here, aren’t you?"

"Yeah, and I don’t know anyone," Evie told her.

"Well, you do now. My name is Judy, what’s yours?"

"Evie. It’s short for Evelyn."

"Cute name. We’re gonna be friends."

And so they were. All the way through high school, Evie and Judy were best friends.

We had been living in our Glendale apartment for only a few months when Evie got a call from Judy. She wanted to come out for a visit. It caught Evie by surprise, because she knew that Judy had gotten married and had a son. "Why would she be coming out alone?" Evie wondered. We were soon to find out.

Evie and I both awaited her visit with a fairly high level of anticipation—nervous anticipation. Evie could not figure out why Judy would be traveling without her husband. I was excited about her visit because Judy was to be the first of Evie’s close friends that I would get to meet.

The day of her trip she called us from Grand Rapids to fill us in on her flight plan. She was going to arrive early in the evening, at LaGuardia.

We offered to come out and pick her up, but she insisted on catching a taxi. Evie still had not asked her what was up—why she was coming out without her husband and son. Our anticipation escalated.

She called us again from the airport to let us know that she had arrived safely, and to confirm our address, and the best route from the airport to our apartment. She wanted to be able to instruct the cab driver in case he had difficulty.

Usually the trip from LaGuardia to our apartment took about fifty minutes, at that time of evening. Judy’s trip took two hours. Finally, our door bell rang, and Evie ran down to let her in. I waited upstairs, as I wanted to give them a little time to greet each other. After only a minute of giggling and loud talking, Evie yelled for me to come down and meet Judy.

"Mike, can you help us with these bags?" Evie asked.
I ran downstairs to meet Judy, and to help her with her two huge suitcases. I wondered at the time why one little person would have brought all that stuff, for a four day visit.

"Hi, I’m Mike."

"Evie told me all about you," she said. "You’re her guy in New York."

"That’s me. And Evie told me all about you too."

"She did, did she? That could be bad."

All three of us laughed, and I headed up the stairs with both suitcases. Judy grabbed one of them out of my hand. And I’m glad she did, as they both weighed a ton.

Once we got up the stairs, and set the suitcases down, I poured all three of us a glass of Red Ripple.

"What’s this?" Judy asked after tasting hers. "I like it."

"Ripple," Evie answered, "It’s a wine."

"A cheap, fruity wine," I added.

"Tastes good," Judy said approvingly. "Cheap or expensive, I like it."

We sat and talked for over an hour. And I kept the three glasses full. I heard all about their teachers in high school, and some of their other friends. Finally, Evie popped the question. "What’s up with you and Dave (Judy’s husband)?"

Suddenly Judy’s eyes grew moist, and she just looked down. "It’s not working out," she said. "All he wants to do is get drunk and beat on me. I finally had enough."

Evie was shocked. "What about your son?"

"He’s living with my parents, until I can get something going," Judy said.

I knew right then why the suitcases were so heavy. Judy was moving to New York, or at least wanting to.

I didn’t hear much more of the conversation. I started thinking about all the possible ramifications of her situation. Our apartment was small. We did not even have a bedroom door. The plan was to have Judy sleep on the hide-a-bed couch in the living room. But that certainly could not be even a quasi-permanent arrangement, no matter how sweet this girl was, or how good a friend of Evie’s. "This could be tricky," I thought.

The weekend went well. She was a great kid. She even went to the store and bought some groceries. She was a really great kid.

Then Evie and I got to thinking about hooking her up with someone we knew, and we could go out. All of our friends were already married, except for Steve (not his real name). So we talked to Judy about Steve to see if she might be interested in meeting up with him in the Village, we’d hit a couple of the little clubs.

"Is he rich and single?" she asked, half serious.

"He’s single, but there’s no such thing as a rich grad student," Evie informed her. "He’s very smart, and he will be rich some day. But right now he’s just as poor as Mike and I."

"That’s okay," Judy responded. "I’d love to go out with him."

It wasn’t like we had a lot of choices. After all, Steve was our only single friend. He was, however, very anxious to join up with us at the Village Gate, one of our favorite clubs.

The two of them really hit it off. Steve was a bit of an egghead, but he was a great conversationalist. Judy was impressed. So, when it came time to head back, she took Evie aside and asked her to have me invite Steve back to the apartment for a drink.

The only thing that could mean was that Judy wanted to get to know Steve better, because the subway/bus ride back to Glendale was an hour or more, at that time of the night.

I asked Steve if he wanted to head back with us, that I had a bottle of Red Ripple with his name on it. I am not sure if it was the lure of food and drink, or the sweet charms of Judy, but he seemed quite anxious to come back with us.

I was not even a little secure with getting the two of them together at a more serious level. I did not know Judy well at all, and I had never known Steve to date much. But, it was Judy’s idea, so what the heck.

When we got back to the apartment we played cards for a bit. Judy, however, was playing a different game. She could not keep her hands off of Steve. And it was very clear that Steve was eating it up. "This just might work out okay, after all," I thought. Soon Evie and I retired into our bedroom, leaving the two of the on their own.

While we had no door on our bedroom, we did have a thick curtain of hippie beads. While the beads did provide a little privacy, they did not block out sound at all. Within minutes I heard Steve and Judy telling jokes and laughing. Then I heard them struggling to pull the couch out and into a bed. Then they laughed some more.

Evie and I were both really tired, and it was late. We immediately drifted off.

The next morning they seemed friendly enough, but not like lovers. I remember thinking that maybe they had a different way of dealing with sex. I got up and offered to make the some breakfast. They were both just sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

Neither of them wanted breakfast. And Steve said he had to get back to the city. He had an apartment in Manhattan. He excused himself pleasantly, and left.

Evie came out and joined Judy and me at the table, and I poured her a cup of coffee. Evie never ate breakfast, so I just popped a slice of white bread into the toaster for myself. "Sure you don’t want some breakfast?" I asked Judy again. She did not answer, she just stared into her coffee and slowly shook her head. I could tell something was up, but I was not about to inquire.

Evie, on the other hand, was blunt. "Well, how’d it go?" she asked.

"It didn’t." Judy replied.

"What do you mean?" Evie followed up.

"I have never had a guy try that with me before. It was really weird! I just want to drop it! I don’t want to talk about it!"

I was not a part of that conversation, but I sure wanted to know all about it. However, Evie did not pursue it further.

Dozens of times throughout the following years, whenever we would bring up this story or other stories that involved Steve or Judy, my mind would go back to that morning conversation over coffee.

The more prurient demons of my nature have caused me to speculate in intricate detail some of the things that Steve could have done (or tried to do) that Judy found so crazy weird. I never asked Steve about it, so I never found out—but sometimes my mind still wanders in that direction. I can only imagine.

I guess it will just have to remain one of those mysteries that never get solved.

After a few more days, Judy headed back to Grand Rapids. I considered her a sweet girl, but we never heard from her again.