MELISSA
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Her eyes were the color of melted caramel. It was my second day Sears Driving School, and seldom in my teen-aged life had I seen a girl more confident and beautiful than Melissa. A couple of inches shy of five feet, but she could stop a crowd with her fire and her beauty; she literally took my breath away.
I was not nearly as smart as the so-called "Einsteins" that made up the majority of my circle of friends. Nor was I as cool as the stoners who rounded out my social circle—but I learned a few tricks from them. It was 1979, and I was almost always decked out in style: all designer jeans and drop-tinted shades and terrycloth shirts. My rock-star clothes earned me the nickname "Stone" (for Rolling Stone magazine, which was insanely popular at the time)–only the teachers seemed to think I was being called "Stoned."
Mustering a bit of confidence, I started talking with Melissa. When I asked her if she would like to go out, she gave me her number.
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We had a wonderful summer. We saw our first
rock concert—
Cheap Trick rattled the roof
on our local arena, and when I shyly put my arm around my diminutive beauty, she did not pull away.
I was there for Melissa’s Sweet Sixteenth birthday party. We held hands and she blew out sixteen candles on a big pink cake. Somewhere, a photograph exists of the tiny beauty hugging a gawky lug in drop-tinted shades, a teenaged Jennifer Connely in miniature and a real-life realization of that guy from That Seventies Show. You know the one, with the shades? That was me once upon a time.
Autumn brought with it the beginning of my Junior year. Melissa invited me to a dance at her high school. She showed me off–she ACTUALLY showed me off ... I’d never imagined someone wanting to be my girlfriend, let alone being proud enough to show me off to her best friends.
After the dance, we got into her Mustang (which had been the main gift at that birthday party) a telephone directory and a pillow on the seat provided her sufficient height to drive. I took her to the nicest restaurant I knew of, The Magic Pan, a creperie. We exchanged glances over cherries in brandy sauce over folded crepes. After dinner, she kissed me.
I’d never been kissed–well, not like that. She kissed me for real, not some spin the bottle crap where they kiss you even if they don’t want to. This was the real thing. I was elated. Later, I panicked. There was no tearful breakup, no heated arguments, we just sort of drifted apart. I think I got scared. Maybe she did too. After that night, I never saw my sweet girl again.
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Widower: God how I have learned to hate that word. It seems so old-fashioned, so ugly. It never has fit me, not even five years after a woman, nearly-unconscious on pills and vodka, roared through a stoplight and extinguished my precious Sheri. In one cataclysmic instant ten of the happiest years of my life were snapped off cleanly in a cacophony of metal, glass and fragile flesh.
Sometimes, late at night, I still think I can hear her speak to me. I've never believed in ghosts, and yet it seems so sad to pass off Sheri's sweet voice as some sort of auditory hallucination. It still comforts me when I think hear her or catch a whiff of my darling bride's soft hair as I am waking up. I know I should start dating again, I should meet a girl and have a mid-life girlfriend or something. I know that is what Sheri would want.
The office where I work is a natural place to think about romance. I'm the only man there in the graphic arts department, and I don't really care what people say about inter-office romances–Terry and Mike both met their wives at work.
There are some wonderful women there: Kenna is Japanese, intelligent and a superb conversationalist. She also wears outfits that push the lines of good taste–I flatter myself that maybe she is wearing them for me. Angie is tall and lanky and blonde and seems to know every trivial detail about every one of the Star Trek shows, which is pretty cool. A lovely woman (coincidentally) named Melissa is our office manager, and we get along well. She and I are both from upstate New York, and we reminisce at length about our childhoods there.
And then there is Candice. Weird, new-agey Candice, with her crystals and her "no transfusions" card in her wallet (she can't risk getting someone else's "energies"–even if it means dying). Candice is a weird cookie; her adorable daughter is named Morgan. Morgan calls me Uncle Dave and every time Candice brings Morgan (aka 'Little Bit') to work, I let her play in my office as long as she wants. Co-workers say "Dave, shoo her out if you need your space"–but I never do. Sheri and I never had any children, and Little Bit thinks watching me do floor plans in Illustrator and property photos in PhotoShop is cooler than anything in the world. She made me a note on a big piece of that ugly pulp paper (we used to have Big Chief pads when I was a kid, are they still called that?). On it, in her childish, but weirdly precise handwriting, she wrote, "I love you Uncle David, you are a rock star! Love Morgan." She circled the whole thing with a big pink heart. It still hangs right in the middle of the bulletin board, next to the photo of my nephew in his dress blues and Sheri and me at some big cathedral in Canada.
My wise old mom once told me "If you dote on a woman's kids, you'll have her wrapped around your little finger." I suppose I can be pretty clueless sometimes though. When Kenna took me into an office a closed the door to tell me "something private," I really hoped she'd be professing her undying love to me. As I'm sure you've guessed, there was no such luck.
Now, despite her 'naturopathic medicines' and her chakra re-alignment and her insistence that she can see the auras of people, plants and animals, Candice is really a nice woman. I could easily ignore a little freakiness, but there is a major factor which will forever prevent us from dating. She has a husband; he is about four inches taller than me and has a prison record. I may at times be a little slow of mind, but I'm not crazy.
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After I told Candice 'no' things continued pretty much as usual for the next month or so. One Friday nigh], however, I got a telephone call from Little Bit.
"Uncle Dave! Did you used to date Melissa?" Was the first thing she said.
The last thing I needed were rumors about me and the office manager. Or, to be accurate, I did not want to get accused of anything I did not get to do! "No honey, Melissa is the boss, not my girlfriend."
She feigned exasperation in the adorable way that little kids can do, "No, silly! Miss Melissa from the gym! She was your high school sweetheart..." She said the last words dreamily, I could imagine her putting a hand to her cheek or forehead in a melodramatic, cartoony gesture.
As it turns out, the girls from the office take their children to a certain gymnastics place, and they were gossiping about me (fancy that) around the teacher. So, can you imagine who that teacher turned out to be ... (what's that? You have? Well you're way ahead of me there...let's go on to the last chapter, then.)
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There was nothing for it–I had to go. Still, it was guaranteed to be weird. Nearly thirty years have passed and things just have a way of changing.
We arrived at "HomeTown Gym" on a Tuesday evening–just Candice, Morgan and me, along with two boys belonging to one of the other women in the office. The place was like a largish warehouse, with yards and yards of gym mats and equipment. Kids, from about five years to fifteen wandered about, playing, cartwheeling and seeming to have a lot of fun.
Behind a folding table sat the first girl I ever kissed. Time had added highlights to her hair and tiny traces of lines around her eyes and mouth, and her beauty and fire were undiminished. When she spoke to Candice, the voice I knew from a long time ago came back, identical to my memory.
Eye contact–a thrill ran through my body, she smiled, "And are those your boys?"
The question caught me off guard, I laughed. "No, no. I'm just a family friend." A pause, "I hadn't seen you in almost thirty years, I thought I'd come along.
My tiny blonde co-conspirator, Morgan, covered her mouth with both hands and laughed. Michelle looked absolutely puzzled, "Thirty years ...?" Then, those melted-caramel eyes met mine again, "David?"
If this were a Harlequin Romance or one of those chick flick movies (what is that writer's name? Efron?), we would have embraced and run off together, perhaps to a happily ever after ending. That's not what happened, of course, but I can't say I was disappointed.
It isn't easy to condense 30 years of living into 15 minutes of talking, but we did pretty well, between her barking at the children and introducing me to her cute, teenaged daughter, Danielle. Me: widowed, community college for journalism and photography then a career of pre-press, layout, design. No kids, a modest house that is paid for, two cats. Her: divorced, scholarship to a small but very prestigious university for biology then some graduate school to learn about helping special-needs children. Going back to school this fall to start on her masters. Ultimately, she wants to teach disabled kids. She was always a noble one.
There is a speech in my brain somewhere that I had prepared for this occasion, believe it or not. It starts with the words "I'm so sorry we drifted apart like that..." That is as far as it got, or ever will. Her laughter cut it off and those beautiful eyes filled with mirth. She said, "We were so young." A meaningful look at her daughter and a pleased smile. We were so young.
I walked with a light gait out to the SUV where Candice awaited, curly hair glowing in the vehicle's interior light. "What did you find?" she asked.
I just smiled, there are times when it becomes very easy to communicate with new-age crystal-wavers. "I found some peace."
"Face to face
no telling lies
The masks they slide to reveal a new disguise"—Siouxsie and the Banshees, Face to Face