That Boy You Like

At twelve, Beth fell in love.

Shay lived at the top of The Lyon Street Steps on Vallejo Street. While Beth lived on Russian Hill and went to The Hamlin School on California Street, he went to Saints Peter and Paul on Washington Square. Both had to wear uniforms, and Beth thought hers clunky...a white middy blouse and a dark plaid skirt, white socks, and lace-up, thick leather shoes. She felt dumb in the uniform. But because she was one of the smartest girls at Hamlin’s, she decided that “she’d wear it and like it,” as her mother Deirdre would occasionally say. That remark would shut Beth up, Deirdre’s tone of voice being so clarion. This was difficult for the girl since she was, after all, the smartest one in her class, a fact for which her mother seldom offered a compliment. Indeed, she seemed plain resentful of Beth’s smarts. The year before, though, Beth had gotten a “B” on an essay she had written about her colorful San Francisco neighborhood, and had been hurt by the disavowal of her in Deirdre’s surprise at the grade. Beth had herself told her about it without being asked, but the news gave her mother the opportunity to complain about Beth’s watching too much television. Sometimes, when Beth would make a thoughtful reply to something her mother had said, Deirdre would chastise her for being a smart aleck. Report card day was almost never congratulatory, despite all Beth’s more usual “A’s”. Deirdre would look the card over, sign it, hand it back to Beth with continued dismissiveness.

1955 was different from 1954, when Beth had been eleven and such things as worried thrill, sudden hurrying of breath, embarrassment, and outright reserve and silence had not yet become part of her personality. But now they had, and there were also the complications of occasional sadness as disapproval from her mother had increased during the same interim. Beth herself had no particular defense against it, especially when her mother would become outright angry with her. Beth liked school and, although these new feelings of hers sometimes interfered, school remained school as the thing that interested her most. Although she did wonder if, once she got to high school, things might be a little less, well, invaded. She loved reading, but would like to learn how to dance, something her mother also thumbed her nose at. “No daughter of ours....,” etc. Beth also enjoyed going to the movies. Deirdre wouldn’t let her see this Marilyn Monroe, whom Deirdre thought “a slut.” Beth had to look the word up and when she found it out, she was thoroughly surprised. At the time, she had seen only photographs of Marilyn and thought that any girl who was that kind of beautiful had to be special and, for sure, not a slut. Not with such a bright smile as the one Marilyn had. She thought her mother was being silly, although Beth kept that opinion veiled.

Just now Beth’s favorite actor was Marlon Brando, whose face caused her tummy actually to tingle. She wondered if there would ever be a boy in high school like Marlon, so disrespectful, so disgraceful, so cute in that waterfront movie. The way Marlon picks up Eva Marie Saint’s glove that she’s accidentally dropped...and playing with it as they talk. His beautiful hands, Beth had thought. She had secretly put aside the money she would need to see the movie, an event her parents had forbidden, having read in the papers about Brando and his Hollywood notoriety. Beth’s mother had overheard her and a girlfriend talking about Marlon in Beth’s bedroom. The girls’ voices were full with wishes...“Gosh, do you think he knows how to kiss?”...with laughter and astonishment for how he looked on the covers of those magazines. In total secret, in thorough silence and worry that they would be found out, they had entered the movie theater and, once into On The Waterfront itself, both girls had been thrilled by Marlon and those searching hands.

Beth imagined being one day in the movies herself. Maybe while in high school she could play Marlon Brando’s younger sister. She knew she would ask for his autograph between takes.

But...Shay? Shay did not have Marlon Brando’s looks or anything like them. His school uniform was as uncool as Beth’s. A pair of grey slacks, a white button-down shirt and a dark, conservative tie, dark dress shoes and black socks. Every day. Shay looked forward to after school and weekends so that he could put on a pair of jeans, although his father thought jeans a little too “lowbrow” for his son. “Only bums wear jeans.” He did not understand that his son felt liberated in his. One Saturday, when his dad had criticized the jeans and Shay had explained to him how cool they were, his dad had wondered how it was that such roughshod pants “can in any way make you feel the cold, Shay.” It was on that day that Shay discovered that his own father was uncool.

Shay had something, though, that not a lot of other boys had. Girls liked him. He was nice. His hair had curls. Like Beth, he was one of the smartest students in school, excelling in reading, essays, and book reports. He was pretty good at Math and Science too, but really he preferred Robert A. Heinlein in Boys Life magazine. He liked Ray Bradbury, too, his favorites being The Martian Chronicles and especially Fahrenheit 451, from which Shay first learned about book-burnings. That story brought Shay to one of his first real intellectual struggles, causing the boy to worry about why anyone would want to outlaw a book. Books give you stuff, Shay thought. It was then that Shay decided that if some book got banned and if he was interested in why that was so, he would rush to read it. Sadly, he discovered right away that he was too young to buy The Catcher in the Rye, the one Father Collins had lectured the parishioners about at Mass a few weeks earlier, it and “its filth.” When he had asked for it at the new bookstore City Lights, the guy behind the counter had grinned and asked him “What are you doin’, kid? Tryin’ to get us raided?”

One day walking home from school, Shay had spotted a group of three girls in Hamlin uniforms. They encountered one another walking in the same direction and, to the girls’ immediate surprise, he said “Hi!” He was nice. This surprised all three of them since it was well known among the girls that most boys were dumb. Boys stuck to themselves in noisy back-and-forth and were universally crass. The girls would not have used that specific word to describe the boys, at least not until they would begin reading British novels or Edith Wharton some years later. Nonetheless, most boys were crass. One like Shay was a surprise. These three girls were nice and he especially wanted to talk with one of them...”Beth,” she had said. “Short for Bethany.” Beth was herself cute...small, with a big smile and nice eyes. Right away, nice eyes. She was the one girl among the three most forthright in the back-and-forth with Shay, the one who actually conversed with him, asking him questions about what it was like going to a Catholic school, about where he lived, what did he enjoy doing.... The two other girls lived closer to Hamlin’s than did Beth, so that eventually Shay got to accompany her home all by herself. She asked him questions, and once he had answered, he would ask her a question. Back and forth. What movies do you like? Do your parents have a television? What about Elvis Presley? “’It’s down at the end of Lonely Street...at Heartbreak Hotel,’” he sang, grinning to himself, way out of tune. “So cool,” she rejoined, enjoying how Shay had looked when he had attempted crooning the line, moving his hips back and forth in a shaky jig. Beth knew she could shake her hips better than he could.

They were way too young to have an actual date. So, Shay continued making the effort to join her on her way home from school. They spoke of all sorts of things. Beth was always reading, and when she discovered that Shay liked books too, they would talk about the ones they especially enjoyed. Beth told him how much she wanted to dance and that her mother wouldn’t allow it, and Shay admitted to her that he didn’t know how to dance either. “I kind of jump around,” he said. “And that’s it.” One day on Market Street, he had seen some black kids dancing to a transistor radio, Chuck Berry’s Maybellene. “You done started in doin’ the things you used to do” hurtled from the radio. Shay had never seen anything like it and, asking one of the kids where he’d learned how to dance, the kid, actually smiling as though he were glad to be noticed, had pointed at the sidewalk. “Here, man. Right here.” When Shay asked if he would teach him, the kid had looked him up and down, probably noting the Peter and Paul uniform, and said “Nah, man. Sorry.”

One day, at the corner of Broadway and Divisadero and waiting for the signal to change, Shay had taken Beth’s left hand into his right. She hurried with an effort to remove hers from his, but then glancing at him, allowed it to stay...at least until the signal changed, when they fell back into the more usual isolation. When they paused at her front gate, Beth smiled at him, which allowed Shay to think that maybe she had enjoyed his holding her hand.

Deirdre awaited Beth in their living room. “Who was that boy you were with?”

Beth, suddenly a little embarrassed, was yet not intimidated. “Shay.”

“Shay!”

“Mom. That’s his name.”

Deirdre grumped, folding her arms and looking toward the floor. This was a gesture familiar to Beth, and she awaited what was to follow. Deirdre let out a frustrated breath. “And that’s a Peter and Paul uniform he’s got on.”

“I know. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Well...yes, Beth. That means he’s Catholic.” Deirdre’s look was a scold. “They’re all Catholics down there.”

There were a couple Catholic girls at Hamlin’s, and Beth discerned nothing particularly objectionable in any of them. One, Kayla O’Connell, had also been born in Ireland and all the girls enjoyed how Kayla talked. Beth herself thought her accent pretty. It was fun, too, and thus made Kayla fun.
“Everyone in Ireland is Catholic,” Kayla had once told Beth. “At least that’s what my Da says.”

“But, Mom—”

“I won’t have you walking around with a Catholic boy.”
“Mom!”

“Catholics, Beth. There’s something wrong with them.” Deirdre turned away, her left hand at the side of her neck, her head nodding back and forth in silent derision.

“Why?”

Deirdre did not lower herself to a further answer. At the time, Beth did not know that her mother was herself half Irish American, her mother’s father having come to the U.S. as an infant. Deirdre’s maiden name had been Agnew, a name about which Beth knew nothing. It was just a name, as far as she knew. Indeed, she didn’t know anything at all about Ireland except that it is an island and that she liked Kayla O’Connell.

This refusal from her mother caused Beth to enter into the first of what would be many disagreements with Deirdre. There was nothing wrong with Shay Flood. He was smart. He was cute. His hand in hers was friendship itself, as far as Beth could tell, the first such friendship in her life of the many she was to have with guys. If her mom would just calm down or get less upset or stop being so mean, she would eventually see that Shay was a good guy. And Beth was enjoying having a...a boyfriend! So, even against her better judgment, Beth decided to introduce Shay to her mother.

She wanted Deirdre to see that Shay had no bad intentions. At twelve, Beth did not completely understand to whatever things bad intentions...which Deirdre frequently warned her about in boys...could possibly lead. But Beth wasn’t worried about any of that because Shay treated her with real kindness. Surely her mother would see that...and maybe even like it.

Beth had imagined even sitting in her own living room with Shay and reading to each other or talking about school or even about the San Francisco Forty-Niners, having learned in an early conversation about this one flaw in his character. Most girls could care less about the Forty-Niners. But at least the football team was not the only thing Shay wanted to talk about. She found him easy to converse with, a talent that few other boys their age ever exhibited. Sure, some of them were okay. But only Shay could do this. She even came to harbor the notion, although only momentarily, that maybe the Forty-Niners could be interesting, too. But she couldn’t imagine what it was that made her father, while watching the Forty-Niner game on the Sunday afternoon television, stand up and raise his arms in victorious excitement now and then during the game. The announcer would be shouting. Her dad would be grinning and striding around the living room. There would be more shouting, all of it causing Beth to go upstairs to her room to straighten her closet or read something or look out the window.

“Hi, Mom.” The two kids stood in the foyer of Beth’s house on Pacific. “This is Shay.”

“Hi, Mrs. Cronin.” Shay wasn’t nervous or anything. But the way Deirdre fixed on him with such silence worried Beth. It wasn’t quite the foyer yet, because they had been standing just outside the open front door, on the porch. This was a thrilling porch, the only such one that Beth had ever encountered, because it bordered the entire front of the house, which itself stood almost on the top of Russian Hill. So, anyone standing on the porch could get a big view of all downtown San Francisco. The view always changed with the weather. On a bright sunny day, the city reminded her of one of those illustrations of a fairy castle in the books she used to read when she was little. On foggy days, it was mystic, soft, faraway, and furry at the edges. When it was raining, the downtown seemed silvery and even reflective of somber grey light, while at night, it was filled with jittery lights, made even more so if the wind were blowing in from the ocean. Just now, Beth had been pointing out to Shay her mother’s gardens. He had appeared only mildly interested, maybe a little bored by them. But they were indeed beautiful, Beth thought, almost the only thing that she discerned could make her mother happy.

Deirdre had appeared in the front doorway and stepped out onto the porch. She had been gardening, so that she was wearing pedal pushers, a blouse and jacket, and rubber boots. She had a trowel in her right hand and a glass of water in her left, and her hair was held back by a thick rubber band.

“What’s your name?”

“Shay.”

“No. Your family name.”

“Flood.”

Seeming puzzled, Deirdre passed the two kids by, when, thinking twice about it, she turned and addressed Beth. “You need to let me know, dear, when you’re going to bring someone home with you.” She turned toward the steps to the garden. “And don’t you two go anywhere else besides the living room.”

Beth brought Shay a glass of milk, a banana, and a cookie, the same snack she brought for herself. Deirdre said nothing else to them, not even saying goodbye when Shay was leaving after half an hour.

“Where does he live?” Deirdre, arranging flowers in a tall vase in the kitchen several minutes later, was actually smiling. Beth knew that the flowers she grew brought her pleasure.

“Vallejo Street.”

“How long have you known him?”

“A couple weeks.”

“How did you meet?”

“Walking home from school.”

“And he hasn’t tried anything, as he?”

“Well, gee, Mother.... Yes. He tried to hold my hand.”

“You didn’t let him, did you?”

“Mother!” Beth swallowed, wishing silently for the end to the conversation. She was embarrassed and felt that, when her mother took up the trowel from the kitchen sink and rinsed it off, she was rinsing off Beth herself. As though little splotches of some other kind of dirt rested here and there on Beth.

“Don’t hold hands…sweetheart.” For Beth the moment before the endearment reeked with a silent sniff. She escaped to the stairway leading up to her bedroom, her feelings scuttling into each other back and forth, a flurrying of them, with hurt sadness.

The weekend passed and, the following Monday, Beth had to walk home alone. She worried that Shay must have understood Deirdre’s distrust of him. Maybe Deirdre’s silences had gotten through to him, the silence of disavowal.

Coming up the stairs through the front garden, Beth decided to bring this up with Deirdre. Her mother was once again in the garden, snipping at several flowers that, Beth knew, Deirdre would arrange in the slim crystal vase that she so cared for. It had been a wedding gift from her mother. The sound the clippers made seemed always to attract a smile from Deirdre, or a kind of pleasant notice in her eyes, the tool’s precision and the resultant flower on a stalk that came of it. She would place the flower with others on a piece of newspaper on the ground, as though she thought it pleased to be kept there with its friends.

Beth was worried. She knew her mother would not allow being questioned in such a way. But Beth, with a kind of brusque sense of herself that was new, felt she had to let her mom know how she felt, how hurt she was that her mom had simply dismissed Shay.

“Mom, why were you mean to Shay?” When she asked the question, she awaited the answer, and the wait was long. Deirdre swallowed, placing the clippers to the side and removing the gloves she was wearing. The cut flowers, lying next to her knee, were beautiful, despite their having just been sacrificed. Their colors were like lovely smirches. Deirdre’s lips tightened. She gazed at her daughter, who knew from the look that she was about to be punished.

“Beth! He seems like a nice boy, that boy you like. Why wouldn’t I like him?”

Beth studied the question, simply astonished by it. There was in it a sense of actual kindness. She thought maybe she hadn’t heard her mother right. But she saw in Deirdre’s now renewed digging in the ground with the trowel something like actual enjoyment of the conversation. The trowel went into and out of the dirt with what seemed like slow grace. Approval was something Beth had so little experienced in her mother’s speech that the girl now fell into a state of plain wonder. Mom! she thought. What’s wrong? She remained quiet. She had gotten so used to Deirdre’s fault-finding and the constancy of it that the appearance of joy in Deirdre’s behavior was simply unexpected. Beth, intimidated by this turn to approval, remained silent.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I like him?” Deirdre said once more. The trowel she had taken up made its way into the dirt and the soft turning of it, the dirt now even damp and darkened. Stunned by the turn to simple back-and-forth, even with the bit of negativity in Deirdre’s question, Beth realized that it was a suggestion of actual approval. Her mom’s approval! Surveying the clear pleasure the dirt was giving to the trowel and to her mother, Beth didn’t know what to say.

Copyright © 2026 Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.

Note: No Plagiarism Software, also known as Artificial Intelligence, was used in the composition of this story.

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