an old memory

Andover, New Hampshire.
Spring 1986.

We were waiting for an important assembly to begin. I sat outside with a bunch of other students, but really I was all by myself. For some reason, a tall senior—whose name I’ve forgotten now, who, for whatever reason that afternoon was not with his large circle of friends—sat beside me. He seemed very much alone, albeit, of course, very temporarily so. He was tall, very tall, very self-assured, and very handsome. He played all the important sports and I’d seen him many times, sweaty, covered in grass stains and dirt, weighed down with shoulder pads, kneepads, and helmets tromping back and forth with all the other boys from the field house to the dining hall. He was six-four or so with this jet-black hair and these huge blue eyes and sharply defined calves that weren’t too hairy. Too hairy was creepy to me back then. But he had the perfect ratio of bone and muscle to hair. And this was a very acceptable thing for a fourteen-year-old girl.

It was hard not to be mesmerized by athletes. I’d been watching boys kick soccer balls and dunk baskets since grade school and I could close my eyes and imagine their jaw lines, their hands, and sarcastic gestures, too. I was so in love with the idea of boys. It was beyond my own comprehension at the time. Their vast difference from me in all my self-conscious shyness and awkwardness made me impossibly curious and awestruck at their confidence. All their energy and athletic power and ability to work out math problems on the chalkboard in front of an entire class while exhibiting seeming nonchalance no matter what was so much of what I longed to be, too. I couldn’t imagine how free that would feel.

The handsome senior beside me was a tall, thin, sexy version of John Travolta. Of Italian or Persian heritage perhaps, something altogether dark and alluring amid a sea of fair-haired Connecticut wasps. Yet he fit in. He fit in and stood out at the same time. He was always polite and yet, to me, intimidating. So there I was seated next to him on this quiet spring day, age 14, horribly shy and insecure, with braces and unruly hair. And there he was: 18, graceful, muscular, broad-shouldered, and confident without a care in the world. I couldn’t think. I just felt silly and out of breath.

He small-talked with me for a few minutes, wondering when the assembly would start, what was the hold up, had I seen Coach Johnson, things of that nature. I just quietly replied, smiled, and minded my business. But, he didn’t want that. He wanted to talk. To me.

Before he said what he said, a thing I’ve never forgotten, in the hot sun that was boring a hole in my navy blue sweater in the late afternoon, both of us perched on the uncomfortable concrete walkway, I looked at how his face looked. It was so close to mine and I wondered what it might be for someone like him to want someone like me. He turned to speak to me and I was caught in his dark blue eyes framed by this enormous fringe of lashes.
He said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but----“
---- he paused and looked at me in a way that felt like someone looking right through me,
“You’re not quite beautiful now—but someday—you are going to be stunning.”

I felt my face get hot and then impossibly scorching. I smiled, faintly, looked down at my knees, wanted to disappear into the concrete walkway or jump into his arms or just shout out with some unrestrained happiness. I looked back into his face, into those huge eyes of his, not knowing what to say. But I didn’t have to speak. He looked away momentarily and then right back at me, “Really. You will be.” And then his face broke into a big, genuine smile. Like giving me some sort of honest, out of the blue gift. Like a prophet telling your future in no uncertain terms. Like somebody looking into a crystal ball. And holding it in their big, boyishly calloused, sexy hands.

And as ugly and awkward as I felt at that moment, as impossibly shy and young, I believed him.

Not long after he said this, somebody shouted something about assembly beginning and we all marched into the hall. I caught up with somebody I knew from one of my classes and he disappeared off into his crowd of friends. We never spoke again.