Not wanting to hijack This thread by Mr. Blue Sky, I’ve started my own, with a different question. All responses appreciated.
This much I posted in the referenced thread:*
Wood shop, metal shop, auto shop and eventual dropout guy checking in…
It’s a long way from here to Miami, Florida, but there are a few guys from high school that I wouldn’t mind seeing, learn how it turned out for them and so forth. There are about seven or eight girls that would probably love it if I showed up. They could give me one last, richly deserved, “fuck you” face to face. I could shoot it right back at them, and that would be just as richly deserved. You know the kind I favored. Flashy, slightly slutty girls that didn’t go home after school. They hung around stores and places, drinking cokes and smoking cigarettes. Yeah, several of them owe me a “fuck you”, as I do them.
There’s one girl I’d like to see, if her platinum-blonde hair has turned a scraggly gray and she has added 200 more pounds to her skinny-assed five foot, three inch frame. I’d pay money to see that!
But then, Linda might be there and I ain’t got the guts to face her. Hell, I don’t even have the guts to send an email to her.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, so, coming soon to an IMHO thread near you: A poll Re: Linda & reunions.*
Now for the new stuff:
Linda was a plain looking girl. Not ugly or anything, just plain. Her clothes were inexpensive and she wore the same outfits more frequently than most other girls did. She was kinda’ cool. Like when us guys would wad up a piece of paper and throw it around the classroom when the teacher was writing on the blackboard, most girls would let it fall to the floor and give a “how immature” sort of look, but Linda always caught the paper and threw it at somebody else. Or we’d pre-arrange for everybody to cough loudly, at six minutes after 2 o’clock. Most girls wouldn’t join in, but Linda always coughed along with the guys.
Linda and I had lunch period at the same time our junior year and sometimes if she was already seated I’d go sit by her or across from her and we’d gossip. She’d do the same if I was already seated. Nothin’ big.
I guess she was a “friend” as far as it went. Back in those ancient days, guys and girls weren’t friends in the sense that they seem to be now. Back then, if you went to a girls’ house to study or just hang out with her, she was your girlfriend. Otherwise, you hung out with the guys.
Then one Friday night late in the football season I rode to the game with three other guys in one of other’s cars. Towards the end of the game, we started talking to Linda and two girls she was hanging around with. They were all spending the night at Linda’s. We offered them a ride home and they accepted, so all seven of us crammed into the car, four in the back seat, with Linda next to the door on the right side, and me scrunched right up against her.
We drove around awhile, playing the radio loud, laughing and talking. The driver knew the back roads and he was speeding, going over small bridges too fast so that the car would become airborne for a few feet. Everybody laughin’ and squealin’. You know how it is.
The way we were crammed in there, the easiest thing for me to do was to put my arm around Linda. After some time I reached around and touched her chin, turned her face to me and kissed her. Not some simple peck, no, it was a real slobber-swapper. I could tell, even if she was 16, she’d never been kissed like that before. But she was an adept and very willing learner. After the kiss, she turned her body toward me and put her head on my chest, right below my neck. She put both arms around my neck and held on tight…tight. Every few seconds, a small shiver would go through her body. I was thinking: “This girl wants more. If we were in this car alone, or alone anywhere, she’d be ready”.
But in just another minute one of the other girls yells, “Slow down, there’s Linda’s house.”, so that was that.
Her house was different, way back off the paved road with fields of vegetables and commercial flowers being farmed around it. I knew the house well, because my grandpa farmed the same things just three miles down the road. I’d been riding in Grandpa’s truck several times when he stopped there to talk to the man who turned out to be Linda’s dad. They’d talk crops and prices, like farmers do.
As we were pulling into her driveway, I said, “I didn’t know you lived here.”
“See”, she said, “We’ve got more in common than you thought. Now that you know where I live you can stop by some time.” So I said that would be cool.
Then after we’d all piled out of the car she paused on her way to the front door and said, “Come by any time.” So I said yeah, sure.
But I never went to her house, and never thought much about her again. Monday at school I just resumed things with her the way they’d always been. I ignored the few clues she dropped; I acted like I didn’t catch on. I had a vague feeling that maybe she thought that she could be The One, the girl that would make me stop flitting from pretty flower to pretty flower every couple of weeks and settle down, contented. That wasn’t even something I thought about though, it was just a feeling I’d get sometimes at lunch, while we were talking.
A new girl came to school later, moved down from up north. I took up with her for the rest of that school year. Then didn’t go back for my senior year. Passed some tests and joined the Air Force instead. Never thought about Linda. For decades, she never crossed my mind.
Then two years ago my wife signed up for “Classmates” and fixed the ‘puter so I could go look at my old school. I didn’t pay to have my name or email posted there, but you can lurk and scan for free.
There were 2800 students in that high school during those years, and the only person registered at Classmates whose name I recognized was Linda’s. She used her maiden name and I wondered if she had never married, had married, divorced and took her maiden name back, or had simply registered under her maiden name so that people would know her.
Thought I might go ahead and pay to enroll there so I could drop an email to her. Then the clarity of hindsight set in and I thought about how badly I’d treated her. What would I say in an email?
“I shouldn’t have kissed you like that if I didn’t mean it.”?
“I shouldn’t have caused you to get your hopes up if I wasn’t going to give you your chance.”?
“I should have come to see you the next night, but that was Saturday night, and I must have had all these COOL! FUN! things to do?”
“I should have come to your house Sunday afternoon, taken you for a drive and bought you a chocolate shake at the Dairy Queen.?”
“I could have brought my skiff with the little outboard on it up that canal behind your house and taken you for a boat ride some afternoon, but I just didn’t”?
Or maybe:
“Sorry I was such a callous, clueless bastard?”
“You deserved your chance; earned your chance, and I didn’t give it to you.”?
“I can’t remember all the too-heavily made up faces but I remember your open, honest, freckled face and your light blue eyes.”?
“I can only vaguely remember the sexy fashions of the day, tight skirts and sweaters, but I clearly remember your white cotton dress with the blue flowers printed on it.”?
“I can’t remember the fragrances of those over-splashed perfumes that sometimes gave me a headache, but I remember the clean, soapy smell of your hair.”?
No, I think not. I hope she forgot all about me shortly after I left there. If she didn’t forget, I’m sorry I acted like a jerk. She deserved better. At the very least, she deserved her chance, and I never gave her that chance.
What say you, doperettes? (Dudes too, if you want) Would you want to be contacted, or would you rather let old sores be healed?
Oh, yeah: If there was to be a reunion this year it would be Linda’s 45th. Indeed, it has been a while.
