Please enjoy Part Five of First Love.
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As does the
sound from snapped fingers dwindle quiet… it lost to time… so does each of our
lives… that which happens… is lost… can never be retrieved… relived… only
reviewed… yet, everyone wishes for a do-over
AGE she 32 and he 30
SUBJECT Hobson's choice (first choice)
Months earlier, he stood
motionless in the foyer, half way through the mail, he paused, with an unopened
letter jutting from the small catch-all table.
That one piece he mused over, not realizing tension tightened his
features. The item was again, set aside.
Days became a week, before
returning to it, reflected on its request, but was reluctant to RSVP his ten
year high school reunion. No, it was not
because he was unmarried or didn't have a date.
No, weight gain or lost hair. No,
lack of esteem of a career gone wrongly.
No, fleeing memories or had he grown from the people. It was simply one fact. The reunion was at the Drake Ballroom, the
same ballroom where the prom was held, no, not their school’s prom but Dickinson’s
prom. The prom he escorted Cathy. A vision of her prom night flashed but he
didn’t dwell on it, simply tucked it away with the rest of those aged-washed
memories. His remembrances of her were
always bumpy drifts through melancholy, presently more pragmatic then painful,
though there were still regrets. He
feared a night in that room, where everything might become unnervingly vivid;
recalling that depressed period might be unsettling. He replied to the invite.
Yes, he accepted.
Went alone.
Now, while driving to the reunion
Keegan continued to recall Cathy, almost the way one would flip through a pile
of photos, quickly with a smile at some, fond and slow with others, and pausing
to reflect more intently with the special ones.
Their first meeting was one of
the special ones, she wore a tight-waist dress with a flowing skirt. He couldn’t recall the color just that it
somehow matched her smile, brilliant and engaging. She was with four friends, and he noticed she
seemed to be the listener and her friends sought attention, perhaps vying for
advice. She was fascinating. It wasn’t looks though, he remembered,
thinking lovely, for she was more then the encapsulation of beauty. She radiated something, confidence perhaps, a
general ambiance of brightness and approachability.
He refused to fight off the
remembrances.
And he did approach the group,
excused himself, and asked her to dance.
She declined, but the softness of her response, the eye-contact that
never wavered, the attention to his request took the sting out of rejection. Then, later that night she asked him. Neither danced with anyone else that
evening. There first date was of all
places bowling, why an odd choice, because neither bowled, finding great
amusement in that feeling it was so perfect.
And at that moment, that precise
moment, that they seemed to know they were, as all their friends insisted,
meant for each other, was at the state wrestling finals. Her brother representing Dickinson and Keegan
sporting City High colors were both competing and she cheered for both. It was not ironic in that they competed
against each other, for they did not, but more so that she and all their
friends found comfort stepping over the barriers of school allegiances. She wore her school colors, a cheerleading
outfit, showing spirited school pride was good but loyalty to friends and
family was grander. She cheered and all
of their friends followed her lead. Her
voice bellowed a made-up cheer for him that spurred Keegan to pin his
opponent. And he, in turn, clapped and
whistled her brother to success. He
remembered the commonality of their excitement, pulling together, connecting.
He refused to fight off the
remembrances.
Then there was their first kiss,
it more the accident then the plan. She
helped him type a term paper, critiqued its contents, and when completed he
gave her a thank you kiss on the head.
This was a kindness share with a friend and it reverberated instantaneously
through him, with one sentiment; she was a kind friend. Again, there was that rare sensation of being
linked and over time that platonic kiss found lustful reasoning but the first
one was far more important. The first
sealed an emotional memory that became neither strained nor foggy with
time. Cathy and he were bound in
friendship, rooted deep and pursued by want, and the call of the wildness in
their spirit for the other.
This
now accomplished adult recalled the torment of maturation, the lies told to him
by family and friends, and the battle to understand the construct of an honest
male. Certainly, he struggled with the whys and whats of the loss of Cathy but there were more complicated
inner-personal contentions. He proudly
remembered he had a metamorphosis from being an unaware, and then an admitted
sexist, to a more respectful man, turned from a misogynist to a caring
man. That path to get there was long and
he was amply proud of his changes and growth.
Early
misleading messages created a conflict and when he finally found the motor of
his feelings he discovered he was far from a sexist and knew he respected and
honored genders equally. From time to
time he juggled shame against foolishness and forgave his foolishness and
quelled his shame.
Today,
he championed women in his workplace and fought daily for the rights of the
weak. Indeed he had matured. Yet, lost in those years was one very obvious
fact, he let the truth of love lose favor as if it were a birthmark just
ignored. Did he want love? Deeply but failed to understand how to grow
it with just anyone, knowing that true love was not a series of words or events
played out while dating but a cosmic gift whereas two individuals connected at
many levels and every level fought for its own rapture.
He
had changed and he wondered how much others had. He believed he’d discover a very bald
Jake. His hair had been thinning back in
senior year when they were football teammates.
Roscoe had to be pressing all of three hundred plus pounds by now. Then again, Jake could have a hairweave and
Roscoe might just have found the right gym.
Jake had been dating that kick-boxing trainer last he heard. But it was Tom and Donna he was anxious to
see. They had moved to California not
long after high school, and though they kept in touch, mostly the yearly Christmas
card, he wanted to know more about their lives and their three sons. Tom wrote that they’d both be there, one of
the motivating factors to attend. He
didn’t marvel that the two were still together.
It would have been more surprising if they hadn’t been. They seemed so perfectly fluid within each
other, nearly blending. You could not
think of the one without the other. He
and Cathy had been pretty much the same.
Only for them, it turned out differently.
TO BE CONTINUED
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