Magic
In 2nd grade, I had a crush on a girl named Jennifer.
It was right around the time of year--probably May--that we would have square dancing in school. Who remembers that? WHY? WHY SQUARE DANCING? Or maybe it was just my backward, redneck, backwoods, just-above-moron, half-witted school that decided square dancing was something that 2nd graders should learn.
Either way. Square dancing. Yeah. Awesome.
Okay, so it wasn't all bad because I got paired up with Jennifer as my dancing partner which, in 2nd-grade terms, is like hitting a home run--only not in THAT way, because first base and second base and all of that was still a ways off in middle school.
I'll fast-forward a bit because who wants to read about 2nd graders dancing? In the end, we were paired up beautifully. If there had been a "Dancing with the Stars" back then, except, you know, with square dancing and featuring just little kids, we would have been the winners.
I used to sing to her while we were in class: love songs, Christmas songs, just about anything that I thought would make her smile.
I lowered my voice--as best as a seven-year-old can manage--and gave my best Frank Sinatra impression. My grandmother had a huge collection of cassette tapes, a lot of which were from members of the rat pack. I certainly wasn't at a loss for inspiration.
I was generally a pretty awkward seven-year-old, even by seven-year-old standards. That's something nobody tells you as you're growing up: it doesn't matter if everyone is a little freaky if you happen to be just a little bit freakier. Gazelles thrive in anonymity after all. As soon as one of them is marked or injured or in any way stands away from the pack, the lions will have a meal. That's what it's like to be a kid. People forget that it's a mostly lonely affair.
But she was different. She was my first love. Oh, I'd had crushes before. Girls I followed around the playground, whose hair I pulled and tried to disgust with frogs from the pond and that sort of thing. But this was a different feeling. This was an ache. A pain in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't just lust or attraction. And it wouldn't go away.
And so I sang songs to her in class.
I remember writing in one of my journals at the time--because yes, I was in 2nd grade and already writing in journals--about the way that dancing with her made me feel. It felt like the magic show that I had gone to a few years prior.
At best, the magic tricks had probably been very pedestrian and wouldn't have even gotten a second glance from me now; but that's why magic is for children. It's exactly because of their innocence and unchecked wonder that magic is so wonderful. I remember being amazed and puzzled by the magician's act. It seemed, to me at least, as if the world wasn't quite what it seemed; as if there was always something amazing and wonderful hidden somewhere off in the background--you just had to know where to look.
I told Jennifer that we were magic. Even thinking back on it today, that's what childhood and childhood friendship is: magic. Pure magic.
Her and I became friends, best friends, which with my and her naivety, meant we were a couple. I called her my girlfriend, she called me her boyfriend. We held hands, and she'd kiss me on the cheek; a couple, at least, in elementary terms.
We were "a couple," from the end of 2nd grade until the beginning of 4th grade. During that time, she would sometimes come over to my house, or I would go over to hers. We'd play Nintendo--you know, that amazing new device everyone was talking about back then--or we'd talk, or play with toys. We were just being little kids and pretending that life wasn't bigger than us.
One day in fall, shortly after school had started and we'd entered the 4th grade together, I was working as one of the crossing guards at our school. I was just about to head back inside when I saw a somewhat odd sight: my mom driving up to the curb in the old station wagon. In the back of the car were boxes, crudely and hastily packed and thrown in the back, leaving just enough room for my brother--who was sitting in the front seat--and I. All of my clothes and a fair amount of kitchen wares and household items were all packed in the back.
It turned out that our mother was divorcing our father, and this would be the day that my brother and I were kidnapped and left homeless for six months.
My first reaction was disbelief and horror; my entire world had suddenly tilted out from beneath me.
But what passed through my mind next wasn't the fact that I couldn't play Nintendo anymore, or that I would be sleeping on the ground in a tent for the next several months. It wasn't the fact that I would be going hungry or that I'd lost my room and every other comfort of home. It was the fact that I didn't get to say goodbye to Jennifer. I'd had plans to go over to her house that day. In fact, I didn't have the chance to say goodbye to anyone. I'd just disappeared without a trace, and I was left with no way to contact any of them ever again. Gone. Poof.
About fifteen years later, I found myself divorced, unemployed, and nearly homeless (again). We certainly are the product of our parents' love, aren't we?
And I was pissed off. At life. At the world. At people. Everything. Angry. Bitter. Worn out. Addicted.
On a lark, I went out to a bar with some friends in Corvallis to watch a friend's band play, get drunk, and hopefully stagger home without killing myself. Those were, for however poor, my plans for the evening.
When I saw the girl at the bar, I knew she was out of my league, but I didn't care. She was pretty and blonde and surrounded by her pretty blonde friends. I knew the chances of getting a phone number (that would actually work) was slim to none. But I didn't care. If anything, it would be fun to have some polite banter, some joking comments back and forth, maybe get a phone number that didn't work, and call it a night. If not, nothing lost, right?
"Can I buy you a... drink..." I said, the last word sort of stammered and fell out of my mouth. By then, after getting close enough, I'd realized I'd just tried to hit on Jennifer, my childhood friend, and would-be girlfriend.
She turned around.
"What's your prob--" She trailed off. She'd recognized me as well.
For the longest ten seconds or so, we just stood there, staring at each other, combining our last moments of being nine together and scrambling them with the present, trying to reconcile the person we expected to see with what showed up in a dingy bar in Corvallis.
She nearly tackled me to give me a hug and held on to me for a very long time. She was quietly crying and mumbling, "I never knew what happened to you." And we just stood there, her hugging me and crying, me hugging her back, while her friends stood around feeling awkward and wondering what in the hell was going on.
After a few minutes, when she finally pulled away from me, she looked at me for a few seconds, and then punched me--really hard--in the arm.
"Ow."
"Dude. You're late."
In every movie on the subject that you've ever seen from Hollywood, this is where the childhood friends would hook up or get married and live happily-ever-after or have that night of crazy sex that is somehow required in these strange movie situations.
But the happily ever had already happened to her: she was happily married, had a beautiful baby girl, and a wonderful, rewarding job that paid well. She was living the happily-ever-after that had completely eluded me.
We talked for an hour or two in the noisy bar--her friends had left without her--and finally, she asked.
"What happened to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You used to be so... I don't know. You enjoyed life. You had a smile that would light up a room."
"Are you telling me my face is too ugly to light up a room?" I asked, basically deflecting the question.
"No. I'm just saying you didn't have to try. You were just so happy back then."
I nodded.
"Did your ex-wife beat it out of you?" She jokingly asked, but she had a serious expression on her face.
"No. I mean... that's probably part of it. But the rest..." I trailed off.
"I dunno. Sometimes life is just tough." I said, finishing the sentence, but not really answering the question.
She nodded.
"Well, I'm going to have to go. My husband is probably already wondering where I am."
We stood up, she hugged me again, and I walked her out to her car.
When she got in, she started the engine and rolled down the window. She put her hand out and then grasped mine for a moment.
"Andy," she said in a stern voice.
"Hmm?"
"You know, it's never gonna seem like magic if you're always searching for the lie."
I slowly nodded, understanding exactly what she meant.
She nodded at me, and then smiled, letting go of my hand.
"You'll be okay," she said, "you're Andy."
And then she drove away.