“Ask him lots of questions about himself. Men love to talk about themselves.”

“Make sure he opens the door for you. You need to let him know you expect him to be a gentleman.”

“Don’t choose an expensive item from the menu—and whatever you choose, eat it all and let him know you enjoyed it.”

“And remember, be yourself. Act natural.”

By the time Friday came around, I was glad I wasn’t going out with someone I wanted to impress. I’d have been a nervous wreck trying to remember all of their instructions.

Mom and I had gone to Nordstrom’s the day before to find the right dress for the dance. “I won’t spring for something new every time you have a date,” Mom had told me, “but the first time is special. You’ll want it to be memorable.”

As I put hot rollers in my hair that night, both my parents hung around my room and sighed a lot.

“She’s growing up,” Dad said.

“Her first date,” Mom agreed. She put her hand over her heart. “Our little peach is going out with a boy.”

Before I realized what he was doing, Dad got out the camera and took a picture of me. “Cassidy prepares for her first date.”

I made shooing motions with my hands. “I have hot rollers in my hair!”

“You look beautiful, even in rollers.” Mom shook her head sadly. “It’s only three short years until you leave for college.”

I put on my eye shadow, watching Dad’s camera to make sure he didn’t try to get any more candid photos. “You’re not going to do anything to embarrass me when Bob gets here, are you? You’re not going to snap pictures of us together or sit him down in the living room and ask him how he plans on supporting a family?”

Dad fiddled with his camera settings. “Not unless you’re running so late we run out of conversation topics.”

I hurried with the rest of my makeup.

Bob rang the bell at six fifteen. Not only was I ready, I was wondering if I had been stood up on my first date.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said when I let him in. “I had to wait for my pants to get out of the dryer.” He smoothed a wrinkle from his pants. “They’re still a little wet; but I figured if I didn’t come soon, you might leave without me.” He laughed at this and I politely joined in.

I noticed a large gash underneath his chin. He saw me looking at it. “I cut myself shaving,” he explained.

“Ouch.” I went to the coat closet.

Bob took a few steps into the room. “You can say that again. Be glad you don’t have to shave your face, because it’s a real pain. Of course, you have to shave your underarms, and I guess that’s just as bad.”

“Uh, yeah.” I put on my coat.

“Although, really you don’t have to shave your underarms. It isn’t something noticeable like a face. For example, in that dress I can’t tell whether you shaved your underarms or not.” I must have looked mortified because he quickly added, “Not that I’m asking if you did because that’s none of my business, and I’d never ask you something so personal.”

My parents came into the room at this point. Dad had the camera in hand and flashed a picture of us before I could stop him. Then Dad shook Bob’s hand. “Nice to meet you. How are things going at school?”

“Pretty good.”

“Well, I hope you kids have a good time at the dance.”

“I’m sure we will,” I said.

Mom gazed at me and sighed. “Doesn’t Cassidy look nice tonight?”

“She certainly does,” Bob answered. “And I’m sure she has wonderful shaving hygiene too.”

My parents stared at him with frozen smiles.

“Come on, Bob,” I said. “We’d better go or we’ll be late to the dance.”

As we walked towards his car, Bob said, “I only said that about the hygiene because I thought your parents might have overheard me talk about your underarms before. Judging from their expressions, though, I’d say they had no idea what I was talking about.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Do you think they think I’m weird now?”

“Oh, no.”

He followed me around to my side of the car, something I found disconcerting until I realized he was opening the car door for me. I had been out on this date for only five minutes and already I’d forgotten one of my parents’ dating idioms.

When Bob slid into the driver’s seat, I decided to ask him about himself. Men love to talk about themselves. I remembered hearing once during chess club that he’d done so well on the PSAT he already had colleges trying to recruit him.

“So, have you decided where to go to college?”

He pulled out of my driveway, checking for traffic. “Not yet. WSU will give me a full ride, but I still have to check out their entomology department.”

“What’s entomology?”

“The study of bugs.”

I laughed, then realized he was serious. “They have a whole department to study bugs?”

“Of course. There’s so much to study. For example, did you know that ants live in a highly complex society and communicate with one another through chemical secretions?” He kept taking his eyes off the road to look at me. “About ten-thousand different species exist, but you can group them into six categories: army ants, harvester ants, fungus growers, dairy ants—the dairy ants keep aphids like we keep cows, and milk them.”

“You can milk an aphid?”

“Sure, and they’re not even the most interesting variety of ant. The slave makers raid other ants’ nests, kidnap the pupae, and make them work as slaves in their colonies.”

I tilted my head at him. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not at all. Honey ants use certain members of the colony as living storage tanks. Those ants become so engorged with honey that they’re immobile. The ants lay motionless until another member of the colony taps them with their antennae. Then they regurgitate.”

“That’s . . . really . . . interesting.”

“Ants are fascinating.” Bob went on. “I’ve studied them since I was twelve and got my first ant farm. Did you know an ant can carry from ten to fifty times its weight? That would be like you carrying . . .” He looked me over. “How much do you weigh?”

“The right amount for my height.”

“Oh, sorry. That’s one of those questions you’re not supposed to ask women, isn’t it? Well, let’s say that you weigh 150 pounds—”

“A hundred and fifty? You think I weigh 150 pounds?”

“Too much?”

I blinked at him. “I weigh 115.”

“I wasn’t implying that you’re overweight. Actually, I think you’re skinny; 150 is just a nice round number. Anyway, it would be the equivalent of you carrying an elephant or a car or something. Ants are amazingly strong.”

I crossed my arms. “You think I’m skinny?”

Bob looked at me in disbelief. “What? I thought all women wanted to be skinny. I have an older sister’s whose main goal in life is to keep her thighs from touching when she stands. I bet there are inches between your thighs.” Then he cleared his throat. “Not that I’ve ever looked at your thighs before.”

I crossed my legs too. “You were telling me about entomology, Bob.”

“Oh, yeah. Insects are amazing. Most people don’t know anything about them. I bet there are thousands of bug facts you don’t know.”

We parked and went into the Super China Buffet. Bob and I looked out of place in our dressy clothes. Everyone stared when we walked in, but Bob was oblivious. He apparently planned to tell me all of the thousands of bug facts about which I had somehow remained ignorant until now.

I tried to block him out as we went through the food line. I couldn’t find the food appetizing while the guy next to me was using words like larvae, pupae, and maggot. I nodded and smiled and tried not to think about what all the unknown objects in the Chicken Chow Mein looked like.

When we got to the cashier’s station, the woman behind the register gave us a scathing stare. I tuned Bob in long enough to hear him say, “And since flies digest food outside of their bodies, do you know a fly can throw up hundreds of times each time it lands? Think about that next time you see a fly walk around on something.”