-----------------------------------
Of course, when I left school and made my way home I was floating. In like a lion, out like a lamb. The day started terribly, as terrible as any day of my life and then, in last period, I waited and waited for the bell to ring and class to be let out. I didn't think it would. When it did my heart leaped into my throat and now I'm terrified. Terrified that this was all just another joke, or another part of the same joke. My hands were sweaty - the ink on the note was surely running by now - and my steps were awkward. I didn't worry about the note, I had it memorized:
Meet me at Sherry's after school
ok!
Margret
I felt like an out of control see-saw, nervous and euphoric by turns.
Now, I walked down that sidewalk, my feet picking up and setting down one-in-front-of-the-other by their own power. I was floating down the sidewalk. There it is, Sherry's Soda Fountain. I'd never been in there, my parents wouldn't take me because of the 'bad crowd' and I couldn't bring myself to step foot in the place because of her. Margret owned the place and she owned my heart and I could never go in there, ever.
I stood across the street looking in through the windows. Or, I tried to, rather. The sun was doing something funny, it turned the big window into a big mirror. I caught a glimpse of myself and wave upon wave of doubt rolled over me. I loosened my hand that held the note, I had to be sure. The ink had run with my sweat but the note was still fairly legible. I hadn't remember wrong or invented anything. The exclamation point was still dotted with a bubbled heart, that was all I needed.
My chest filled with air and when my lungs started burning, I let out the breath I'd held and crossed the street.
What if she's not there? What if Rob's in there?
Oh, the horror. In the few moments it took me to cross the street, my mind ran through a thousand possibilities. None of them good.
I opened the door, the little bell that hung there jingled and I damn near jumped out of my skin. It could have been a gunshot, I would have reacted the same.
There she sat. Margret, who I cherished and loved in the way only the young can. The girl of my dreams sat at the counter on a little stool. The kind that swiveled and sat high up off the floor. Her legs - the most beautiful legs god ever created - swung back and forth above the floor. After I'd gained my composure and the jingling bell came to rest she turned. The stool swiveled around so now her back was to the counter and she looked right at me. A part of me turned on heel and fled, instantly. I ran and ran until my heart exploded and I fell dead on the ground some hundreds of miles away. But only a part of me, the rest stayed right where it was: inside Sherry's Soda Fountain, ignored by most of those around me. Most save one, Margret.
She looked at me and I looked back. The few seconds stretched on and on, then she smiled. Not just with her mouth, Margret smiled with her whole face, eyes mostly. She waved me over to the empty stool next to her and I went. Despite all the nerves telling me to catch up with that part that was halfway around the world by now, I sat next to her. I'm sure we talked, we must have, but I can't remember a single word she said that day. Only the way the sun played with her hair, the silver bracelet around her wrist, the sound of her laugh. Mostly - and this is the magic of it - the thing that has travelled through time with me, the way we parted that day. It only took half a second, if that.
We stood outside the door of Sherry's Soda Fountain looking at each other. Both of us wearing big silly smiles. I remember a cloud dimming the sun from my eyes and then the most wonderful thing happened. The most magical moment of any young man's life.
She tilted her head and went on tiptoes and she kissed me. Not one of those full-on, make-out kisses, no. She kissed me so sweetly, just a peck on the lips. Yet, that peck on the lips has maintained itself for - what? - four, five, six decades. It's hard to tell anymore, calendars don't make much sense when you look at them these days.
What I'm telling you is that if you ever like a girl and she grants you that brief moment of complete bliss, don't you forget it. Don't you hound her for more or screw it up. Just let it be what it is, forever and ever. A first kiss, a slice of beauty and magic that no one can take from you. As the hardships of life come down on your back you hold onto that memory like a life raft in the middle of the ocean.
No comments:
Post a Comment