Sooner Or Later

13 year old Jessie Walters is in love with the idea of love.
And as our tale begins she is sitting in an 8th grade classroom in Englewood, New Jersey being taught about sex by a very lackluster filmstrip.
“Sex Education is a joke.” She states flatly in the first real line of the book.
She muses how her teacher Ms. Molloy hates the filmstrip as much as she does, because Ms. Molloy doesn’t wear a bra and is living with a man she isn’t married to.
So instead of paying attention to the “movie”, Jessie is reading a romance novel that might not quite be in her demographic.
Ms. Molloy is no fool and she soon catches Jessie in the act.
She asks Jessie for the book and then goes into a long ramble about how the book is about bad love…but there is good love out there.
The kids all roll their eyes, the bell rings and it’s on to the weekend.

The next day is Saturday and Jessie and her best friend Caroline are in a neighboring town of Lodi going bra shopping for Caroline…who doesn’t really need a bra yet but as Jessie thinks: “I guess she figures wearing a bra will give her unborn breasts something to shoot for.“
However, Caroline gets cold feet about getting fitted for her less than there boobs and the girls head to the make up counter instead.
Jessie isn’t allowed to wear make up yet but when she spots a make up artist that is willing to give her a makeover, she figures since her mom isn’t there, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
Once the artist is done she proclaims that she has turned Jessie from age 13 to age 16.
Jessie is amazed at the transformation in the mirror and quickly buys the starter make up kit.
Flying high on her new look she and Caroline leave the department store and stumble upon a local band playing on a temporary stage outside.
Jessie and Caroline run to the front row and as the lead singer Michael Skye launches into a new song, he stares directly at Jessie and starts singing.
Jessie is in love.
Later that night as Caroline is spending the night and Jessie is practicing the guitar, they discuss what it must be like to really have your first kiss.
As Jessie is strumming tunelessly away, Caroline suggests she gets a new guitar teacher.
“I’m teaching myself!” Jessie scoffs.
Caroline tells her that she knows that, but she should probably still get a new teacher.

The very next day after Caroline leaves, Jessie heads out to Hackensack to find a guitar teacher.
She winds up at the Eddie Nova Guitar Institute and after being interviewed by Eddie himself she says she wants to start right away.
Eddie tells her to wait and finds an available teacher.
As she enters the room he told her to go into, she is face to face with Michael Skye!
He of course doesn’t recognize the make up-less Jessie and asks her to play a few chords for him. She does and there is a moment where he comes up behind her and helps her play that she is in amazement over. He eventually relaxes her enough to play some real chords without his help and she does for a minute before messing up.
There is a cute exchange about how she will catch on as long as she keeps practicing and she asks if she will ever be as good as him. He tells her isn’t so good and she says he is and he asks her how she knows and she tells him that you can just tell..

The next day in woodshop, Jessie spills the beans to Caroline about who her new teacher is, only to be met with a lecture about how she needs to watch out for older boys and what their intentions are.

That Friday has Jessie at odds about attending her next lesson with Michael. She has decided that she MUST wear make up so that he will not think of her as a little kid, but because she has such a great relationship with her parents, she doesn’t want to deceive them in any way and this feels shady. In the end Michael wins out and she paints her face for the lesson.
When Jessie shows up at the music studio, she is very disappointed to find that Michael didn’t recognize her as the girl he sang to the weekend before at the mall. That he had no real reaction at all other than to start teaching.
The lesson goes very well, he is sweet and gentle with her and teaches her two new chords. While she plays the chords over and over he joins in with his guitar and creates a melody. She is so excited to be playing what sounds like an actual song that she doesn’t freak out so much over being in the same room with this gorgeous man.
Once the class is over there is a brief flirtation between the two that Jessie awkwardly cuts short with the lie that she needs to get home to feed her diabetic father before he goes into shock.
Not to be put off that easily, Michael asks her if she needs a ride home.
After an initial silence on the drive home the two get to talking and Jessie ends up fibbing that she is an avid jogger after Michael mentions he jogs in a park near her home.
Since she was already warmed up by that lie, she tells him another falsehood when he asks her age…that she is sixteen years old.
He is naturally curious how he’s never seen her around school so the young Jewish Jessie tells him that she goes to the local Catholic school for girls.
After Michael drops her off she wipes off all her make up with some cold cream she happens to have in her bag before joining her family…late for lighting the Sabbath candles.

The next morning Jessie decides that she is going to go jogging. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Sundays are the days that Michael told her that he jogs and hmmm, it just so happens around this time as well.
Self admitted non-athletic Jessie “runs into” Michael while she is jogging and he is pleasantly surprised to see her. They fall into sync together and Michael happily prattles on about this and that, not even noticing that Jessie has fallen of step with him…in fact she has not just fallen out of step, she has fallen down completely. She has collapsed from exhaustion.
When he finally realizes what has happened, he circles back around and finds her on the ground.
She feigns a twisted ankle and the two decide to walk back to the park entrance with him supporting her.
As they are walking, Michael asks Jessie to come to band rehearsal with him the next day and before she can stop herself she says yes. He tells her great, that he will pick her up at the girl’s Catholic school (that she does not go to) at 3:30 and tells her to bring her guitar.

In a stroke of amazing good luck, the Catholic high school gets out a half an hour after Jessie’s jr. high does. That leaves her a half an hour to dash from her school, board the bus, do her make up and get to the high school just as the last bell is ringing and classes are letting out.
She pops in the backdoor and joins the throngs of girls leaving their respective classrooms all in their school uniforms. She panics for a moment but it all blows over when she tells the waiting Michael that she was sorry she was late, she had to change.
He questions nothing…not even the fact that she wasn’t actually late and they head off to rehearsal with a whole lotta flirting going on.
At rehearsal Jessie is extra nervous. She is positive that all the older girls that are there can tell that she is only thirteen, but if they do, they don’t let on.
The band rehearses and they take a little break before Michael tells Jessie to grab her guitar and follow him up to the “stage”.
He asks her to play the chords that he has taught her and then one by one the band comes in with their respective instruments and it turns into an actual song. Complete with the lyrics that Michael has written. Lyrics that sound very much like he wrote them for Jessie. Love lyrics.
At the end of the song Jessie is so moved that she throws her arms around Micheal and kisses him.
On the way home Michael asks her to the movies on Saturday night but she tells him she doesn’t know.
The reason she tells him that is because she isn’t sure that she can control herself around him if they are alone. She never intended to kiss him at rehearsal and that showed her how out of control she might get. And she reminds us yet again, that she is only thirteen after all.

Friday rolls around and with it, another guitar practice with Michael. She still hasn’t decided what to tell him about the date but in the end she does the very thing we all know she will do and agree to the date.
As luck would have it, her parents are going to be out of town on the night of the date so she gets all dolled up and waits for her prince charming.
After he picks her up she all too soon realizes that they aren’t going to the cinema like she thought…they are going to the DRIVE IN! (GASP!)
So everything you think is going to happen, happens.
They are watching the movie and Jessie is very distracted, eventually she starts to cry after Michael starts singing a song under his breath and he rightfully inquires what is going on with her.
Instead of him being put off, he asks if he can kiss her.
(I’m sorry what?? The girl is sobbing and now you want to make out? Bad timing Michael!!)
They kiss and then start making out and Jessie panics and pushes him away.
He tells her that he likes her and she says that she loves him.
She then reveals that she was the mystery woman at the mall and he remembers her.
She should be elated but she starts to cry again.
And after some minor confusion she confesses that she is only 13 years old.
Michael is shocked and says nothing. He merely starts the car and drives her home.
When he drops her off, she tells him that she loves him again.
“Do you think that helps??” is his response.
She goes into the house and cries the rest of the night after putting away an entire Sara Lee chocolate cake.

Her mom isn’t dumb and suspects something is wrong after Jessie won’t leave her bed the next day (Sunday) claiming she is sick.
On Monday the mom sends the dad off to work without her claiming she has to run some errands on her own and confronts Jessie and Jessie comes clean. What follows, after some initial anger, is a heartwarming moment where a parent realizes her baby girl is growing up. They both cry and then she drives her daughter to school.
After school Jessie has a guitar lesson but Michael is no where to be seen. She has her lesson with Eddie Nova himself and he is not as gentle a teacher as Michael is. As he is wincing at her guitar skills or lack thereof, he lets it slip that Michael isn’t sick but playing hookie. Jessie is upset by this news but I’m pretty sure she knew that was the truth all along anyway.
Eddie leaves her to practice and after a few minutes Micheal comes in and they reunite and talk while she keeps playing the chords he had taught her. He says if it was to work they would have to take it slow…and they keep strumming and talking until he takes her into his arms and …

That is how the book ends.

I first fell in love with this story by watching the TV movie when it first came out. Rex Smith was pretty easy on the eyes back in the day and this might have played a hand in my long time love of rock stars with long hair.
I’m not sure when I found out it was a book, but when I did I read it several times. The movie as I remember it was pretty close to the book but as always, the book was better.
As a young girl reading this book I thought it was EVERYTHING! She not only fell for this rocker but he fell for her even though she was so young! The deception didn’t matter and because I WAS that young girl wanting the rockers to fall for me, there was no creepiness factor in a 17 year old guy dating a 13 year old girl.
I mean, granted for 98% of the novel he didn’t know she was so young.
As an adult reading this book again, there is a definite creeper factor in last 2% of the novel where he knows just how young she is and still comes back for more. I mean, I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt until I read this exchange:
“It’d be up to you.” He says. “Setting the pace. Saying yes, saying no.”
“Would you listen?”
“I’d try.”
Okay, DUUUUUUUDDDDEEEEEE….she’s 13 years old! She shouldn’t be saying yes to anything and she isn’t going to know how to set any pace. And also, you would TRY???? How about you try and fail and that is statutory rape, my friend?
Nope, nope, nope.

So without taking the whole age thing into consideration, I still find this a very well written book. It is written by the point of view of Jessie and written in such a cute and quirky way that I feel like we are in her brain and picking up her funny and bold yet insecure and shy personality at the same time.
I don’t feel that the age difference thing really spans the test of time as I feel that for some reason in the late seventies and early eighties it wasn’t that big of a deal for older guys to date younger women. I remember in my high school senior guys dating freshman women all the time and we thought it was cool.
As an adult though, it sets off my creep-o-meter quite a bit.