Chapter 3 is here.
There indeed once was a fast food franchise named Burger Chef. However, the uniforms described here are more like the ones at Burger King at the time. The company slogans used here were used at various times in its history.
The $12 and $15 charges that Nora mentions would be about $64 and $77 today.
This is in the summer of 1974. Paul was eighteen when he had that crush near the end of his high school career.
*****
In the first week of July, Nora started her new job at a fast food chain called Burger Chef. There was a branch a few blocks from her house in Maspeth. Her uncle had threatened to evict her if she didn't get a legitimate job and contribute to housing expenses. The fast food job was the first thing she could get.
She wasn't used to arriving at a job at eight o'clock in the morning but that was the only slot available. When Nora was unhappy, she didn't suffer in silence. There was a witty but vicious sarcasm that came out and the job brought out that side of her.
The schedule did have the advantage of giving us about three hours at her house before her uncle came home. I was working as a part-time messenger in Manhattan, and on certain days I would hustle out there after work. Horny college students are not fazed by issues like that.
When she got her car in August, she would pick me up at a rail transit station in Long Island City, saving me a long ride on an unpredictable connecting bus.
During her second week at the restaurant, I arrived early at the place just to tease her.
There she was in her awful brown and yellow uniform, with orange pinstriping. Even her hat had the same design. I already knew that the uniforms truly bugged her. And I could see that she was in a bad mood that day.
Nora didn't greet me, smile, or give any indication that she even knew me. In an expressionless voice, she said, "May I help the next guest?"
For some incomprehensible reason, one of their main offerings was called the Big Shef, not Chef.
"Yes, I'd to have a Big Shef, medium-rare, please..."
She responded, "We don't cook them to order here. They only come one way." I could see that I was already annoying her, which was the point of my prank. "Just go to a diner if you want them custom-made."
"But that slogan, 'There's more to like at Burger Chef.' Oh, and I'd like a fish sandwich too."
I was painstakingly corrected. "We call them an Admiral here."
"Really? Which admiral?"
"It honors Admiral Nelson, actually." I knew she had just made that up on the spot.
"I know him. 'England expects every man to do his duty.' You ever heard that one?"
"Of course, it was at the Battle of Trafalgar."
Then I started in on her uniform, which I knew she hated. "Who would have thought brown and yellow went so well together?" I went on, "Are your pants tight in the back? Do they show off your nice behind?"
She looked around, and then she went to the back counter. Then she stuck her brown-covered rear out and shook it at me. When she came back she said, "There, are you happy now? I only flirt with guys who I think are cute."
"What flirting?"
"I mean flinging my behind around when I'm bent over at the back. So how do the trousers look?"
"Really good, nice and trim. Bad fast foot girls get me hot."
She was really teasing me now. "I'm wearing my black thong under this."
"God, Nora, I'm getting a boner just thinking of that."
She smirked and got more than a bit nasty. "Well, then go outside and jerk off somewhere."
"In Queens in the middle of the day?"
"That's not my problem. I bet you'll masturbate between the subway cars later."
I knew she was joshing with me, yet when she came over with my tray, she slammed it down harder than necessary.
"Hey, honey, don't spill my soda. By the way, I should eat here more often."
"Why? You must live at least twelve miles from here."
As I took the tray, I said, "I guess if you're here, then it's worth the trip. Look, I'll take you out later when your shift is over."
That brightened her mood. "Now you're getting somewhere. Yeah, that sounds great."
******
That summer was my honeymoon period with her. I hadn't expected that we'd click together so well and I was losing my earlier doubts about her. Probably I shouldn't have gotten complacent, but I couldn't help thinking,
all this was so much faster and easier than I had ever expected.
In the middle of July, I got permission to borrow my dad's car and take two of my friends to Bear Mountain State Park. It was about fifty miles north of the city on the far bank of the Hudson River.
Ralph and Aaron had been in high school with me, and now both were attending Boston University. During the summer break, both had moved back to their family's apartments in The Bronx.
Like most guys our age who lacked any significant sexual experiences, they were cagey about it. Both of them had told me stories about encounters with women that were totally implausible. For one thing, they didn't have any names to go along with the deeds.
Later they admitted that they had just made up those tales. But as of July 1974, I had my suspicions but I couldn't prove they were lying.
During that first term, I made three visits to their dorm at Boston University. They weren't roommates, but had other guys to share their two-person rooms. It was a huge freshman dorm building known for the rowdy behavior of its newly-liberated adolescents. The nickname of that fifteen-story pile on Commonwealth Avenue was "The Zoo."
My own stories to my friends were generally honest. By the beginning of the spring semester I was openly griping about my lack of dating success. The fact that I wasn't doing anything to improve the situation was noted by my two buddies.
I didn't tell them about my interest in Nora during that spring because there was not much to say. She said little to me for months, and when she did notice me, her disdain was obvious. Mostly she was just in my fantasies, and the gap between my imagination and reality was too painful to discuss.
Then, suddenly, almost out of nowhere she was there in my life. I waited until my first visit to her house -- I wanted to see if the relationship had any future -- before I told Aaron and Ralph about her.
We were having lunch in The Bronx when I mentioned her to my friends. I didn't want to sound like I was bragging, so I tried to be casual about it. I dropped it into the middle of a conversation about something else.
"Oh, I should mention that I'm dating a girl at City College. Her name is Nora Meara, and she's from Queens."
