Trieste, Italy. 1988.

By Thursday it would be fever pitch. The cinema outing, the one activity we were allowed on, would be our sole focus as the school lessons chugged on.

Two sleeps to Saturday. We had attempted a mixed seating for weeks now, the girls plotting the formation, the boys only apparently oblivious to it. A nudge, a slight shuffle would intersperse us in between the boys. It would be done casually. It would pass for fluke. Then, two hours of darkness, allegedly aiding our snogging, in truth a kind veil to our blushing. Puppies.

We plan this, in between history lessons, diagrams scribbled with scented gel pens and exchanged on flashcards. We rehearse it in the girls’ bathrooms at first break, when the older, Year 9 girls are still in PE and not there to mock us.

Only, it never comes true. At crunch time, one of us would lag at the popcorn stall, or maybe point-blank chicken out, and duck down to tie up their All Stars, and it would all fall apart. The flocks would regroup to find their own, alien schools of fish, reconfiguring at the sight of a predator.

We did not seem to mind. The attempts were daring enough to feed our imagination and thirst for adulthood. And there would always be another Saturday.

But this time, with spring knocking at the door, we are upping the ante. Soon our parents would demand family outings by the sea, to welcome the good weather. There would be no more darkness.

Getting ready became more elaborate. The boys smelled of cologne. Probably belonging to somebody’s older brother. They smelled foreign and promising and a little dangerous. Our hair was carefully arranged into “the pineapple”, a spiky gelled up concoction, immune to Trieste’s gusty winds.  In our pockets, the 5000-lira bill, our whole weekly allowance, that will slip us into the warm dark cave of entertainment.

Movie poster sourced from Benitomovieposter.com.

We meet at the piazza where the movies are listed in glo lights, huddled in our gendered tribes, carefully listening out for each other’s choice to stage a coincidence. The boys dare each other to read out loud the titles of the X-rated movies showing down the road, some claiming to have been snuck in there by mysterious older mates.

The one screening that will get us home before curfew is something nobody’s heard of. But the poster shows a hunky guy and a girl in a pretty dress, touching, so there is consensus.

At the till, the horde of kids clamouring for tickets, popcorn, sodas. Eyes darting around to orchestrate the move. Legs in miniskirts and cotton socks taking the much-rehearsed position.

It happens! Boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, seated just as the scribbles had it. Nobody expects to be watching the movie now. There will be kissing! Maybe, if the chairs don’t squeak, there will be more. The lights cannot go down soon enough.

Duff. Du-duff, dang! Duff. Du-duff, dang! A sound like heartbeat. Then another. Rich, promising chords filling the room. An aching voice commanding our attention. The key change building to the chorus and backing vocals.

On screen, slow motion black and white clips of scantily dressed couples dancing like we did not know they could. Boy and girl, slinking around each other to the music, boy and girl, backs arching, heads tilting. Boy and girl, hips grinding.

The notes to Be My Baby mark the space between the before and after, our gateway to new, prohibited knowledge.

The cue may well have been in the movie title but we don’t speak a word of English yet, so we do not know what Dirty Dancing means. We’d soon find out.

On the afternoon when boy, girl, boy, girl finally slot into place, our eyes are glued to the big screen, teasing out everything we have always wanted to know, and never dared ask.

There are no furtive fingers down the cinema rows, only ravenous absorbing. Hungry eyes.

We don’t know the lyrics to Be My Baby, but we can hear its longing. Duff. Du-duff, dang. Our hearts race to the tempo, to the urgency, as more bodies unfurl in deliciously adult ways.

How did we even get in? This looks like the 18+ movies down the road. We don’t know and we don’t care.

We were there, watching. We were ready. Or so we thought.

 

Stereo Story #760

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Chiara Vascotto is a writer with a keen interest in dance. Her work spans creative non-fiction, playwriting, and fiction. She has been published in in various online magazines. When not writing, Chiara works in consumer insights and branding. She comes from Trieste, Italy, and lives in London.