slept with a pack of those darn things in my pajama shirt pocket, just in case she climbed up the deck post and walked across the roof and tapped on my window in the middle of the night. I was prepared. Hobbs was satisfied. He said I had a good spot. I was pretty well aligned. He thought that she was ripening a bit too. His words. She had already busted out in all those physical female ways, but the emotion wasn't there yet. She was getting ready, though, and he could tell. He even ventured to predict the exact week when Annie Barkowicki would feel, for the first time in her life, that she wanted a boy in that way. He put it down for the second week of March.
That was a fine, long winter that year, working for Hobbs, getting in line for Annie, feeling that I was finally making progress in life. I pretty much had my hands full. Hobbs kept me going on various projects, and the rest of the time I was dreaming about her and hoping I wasn't setting my sights too high. By the time the month of March came around, I was getting ready to make my move. I didn't tell Dennis about it, or rather, I didn't ask him if I should. I was pretty sure of myself at that point. Annie was spending moments with me regularly. Kids were making room for me in the cafeteria. My grades were stellar. I was just like the squirrel. I had my thing down pat. On my own I'd discovered another of her special needs and started serving up chocolate covered wafers as regularly as menthol lights. I had merely asked her one day if there was anything else she'd been craving lately. It was as easy as that. Talk to the girl. Ask her what she wants. Give it to her. I figured the sky was the limit.
We were by now chatting with each other at the bus stop in the mornings too. I don't even know what we talked about. My head was simply swimming. It was probably little more than 'good morning' and 'hey school sucks', and stuff like that, but for the boy who had only dreamed of exchanging intimate banter like this, it was all good. I won't go into all the gory details of how I swaggered around the halls, how I bounced up and down in my seat in class, how I stayed up light at night preparing reports for Hobbs as if it was going to make my fortune. There were a few weeks there when I was on top of my game like never before and rarely since. Hobbs certainly noticed. He was not shy of showing his appreciation and showered me with compliments, telling me that a man of my skills would go far, that very important people could use a guy like me.
Monday, March 9. That was the date I had circled on my calendar, literally, my page three girls pinup wall calendar in my bedroom. It was clearly the second week of the month, no one could argue with that, and I had written in the box, in small letters, a proverb Hobbs never tired of telling me: when the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree. I had kept my plan simple, also according to Hobbs wisdom. Short and sweet, I waited and waited for the long school day to end. Then the bus. Then a brief interlude while Annie said goodbye to a couple of her friends while I hung back, loitering, and waiting some more. Then she turned and noticed me there and she smiled. We walked together across the street and up towards her house. She gave me the little questioning chin lift she'd come to use to signify, 'got any smokes?’ I gave her the little head down completion of the nod to indicate 'but of course, my dear', and she laughed a little at our routine. I mentioned there was something I wanted to tell her. She stopped and turned towards me. I gestured towards her front porch. We hopped up the steps and stood by the door. I stepped a little closer. With my right hand I took her left, and then I got up on my tippie toes and I kissed her on the mouth.
Just like that. I planted that kiss right there and she didn't stop me and she didn't push me away, but she didn't kiss back either. She just let me. My initial thrill subsided and I removed my lips from her face and dropped back to my heels. She smiled again. She told me it was okay. She just wasn't ready yet. Her exact words.
I'm just not ready yet.
Where had I heard that one before? I handed over the cigarettes and she said thanks, and then with her right hand she patted me on the cheek, said thanks again, and went inside her house. Patted me on the cheek. Was that a good sign? Was there potential in that gesture for genuine eventual true love, or did it signify she considered me something like a cute little puppy dog? I didn't know. I was all confused and too excited to think straight. I had made my move. It was the second week of March. The fruit was supposed to be ripe and was supposed to be falling from the tree. Was it falling? Well, if it was, I was certainly 'there', wasn't I? Just like Hobbs had told me to be.
Annie was especially nice to me the next morning too. She went out of her way and even asked me to sit next to her on the bus. This had never happened before. There was something different about her, for sure, but I couldn't say exactly what it was because I was seeing in hyper-vision. She was more than real in my eyes. It seemed I could distinguish every strand of her hair, every pore on her cheeks, and every sparkle in her eyes. Time stood still and yet roared by too fast at the same instant. Was she looking at me? Was that her hand touching mine? Oh yes, it was time to get up. We'd arrived at the school. It was painful to separate. I could not conceive of the notion of being apart from her. Really, that's how I felt. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to follow her around all day and just be near, just be there, but I couldn't. I had to get to class.
There were two hours before I saw her again. First there was Chemistry class, always a bad idea first thing in the morning. I was daydreaming and clumsy and mixed one wrong thing with another wrong thing and the combination was a plume of smoke and a kind of bubbly blue liquid that leaped out of the decanter and stained my shirt and pants. That was terrific. Next was Social Studies, which at that time meant sorry excuses for why our country had to go and occupy some harmless little nation full or poor people who only wanted to be left alone. The waste of time and energy was simply wrong. I should not be there. I should be with Annie. And I would be with her soon, I reasoned. After Social Studies and before English there was study hall. Usually that meant going to the library, finding Dennis and presenting my latest work, but I had nothing to show him that day. He had given me an assignment but I'd blown it off. I didn't even remember what it was. I was only thinking of her and of my plan to track her down between periods and, and, and … well, my plan was not yet complete. Just to see her, I guess, that was it.
The Social Studies teacher was ranting about something when the ball rang, and he made us wait a minute while he finished whatever it was he was saying. I was itching to go, half-risen from my seat like every other kid in the room, and when he finally dismissed us I ran out of there and through the crowded halls to the spot where I'd predicted she would have to cross, but she wasn't there. I was cursing that darn teacher under my breath, and rushed off to the hall which held her next class, but when I got there, she was nowhere in sight, not in the hall, and not in the room. I sighed, and decided I would just have to wait another hour until English class, when I would definitely see her, and started back towards the library, but as I looked up, I caught a glimpse of Annie turning the corner up ahead.
By this time, the halls were clearing, as the next period had just begun, and she was not going to class. I followed. I got to the corner just in time to see her slip out a side door. She was walking fast, nearly running. Where was she going? I walked faster too but when I got outside, I didn't see her. To the left was the gym building. To the right was the auditorium. She would have no reason I could think of to go to either of those places. I tried the auditorium first. There was no one in there, not in the main area, and not back stage either. I went back out and circled the building but she wasn't there, so I went over to the gym. I went inside, and saw a class of seniors doing calisthenics. Unless she was in the girls' locker room, she wasn't in there, so I went back out and circled the building.
And there she was, standing against the side of the building and smoking one of her precious menthol lights. I slowed down and tried to compose myself before she saw me, because I was a mess, sweaty and panting with my blue-stained chemical-smelling outfit. I wiped my forehead with my sleeve and made an attempt to pat down my hair, t
hen I took a deep breath, and took a step toward her, but that is as far as I got. Someone else was coming from the other direction. Annie threw down her butt and ran toward him and she jumped into his arms. He caught her and spun her around a couple of times, and then, with her legs wrapped around his waist, he pushed her up against the brick wall of the gym and their faces converged at the lips. It was some pretty passionate stuff, I have to admit. It was Tuesday, March 10, and apparently the fruit was definitely falling from the tree, right into the waiting and willing arms of my buddy and pal and leader, Dennis Hobbs, because he was the guy who was holding her. He was the guy who was kissing her. He was the guy who got her, in all of her glory.
You'd think I would have seen it coming, but what did I know? Nothing. I turned around, and slowly walked away, telling myself that at least I knew it was over, and that should be a relief, but it wasn't. I felt my heart would turn to stone, and I wish it had, because then it wouldn't have
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