At
sixteen, a girl doesn’t tread cautiously through life, she skips joyfully. On a bright, October afternoon when I was
sixteen, I skipped down my parent’s brick driveway with my flirty little
ruffled denim skirt flapping in the breeze. I’d just spent the last couple
hours in my room with my friend Karen from school- laughing, listening to
music, and talking about boys. I wasn’t
even paying attention as fate rolled by me in a little red Ranger truck.
“He was checkin you out.”
My friend Karen said with a grin.
“Who?” I asked as
I tucked a lock of long blonde hair behind one ear.
“The guy in that red truck.” She jerked her head in the direction of the
truck that was now turning at the corner.
“Was he cute?” I
asked, a little wistful that I’d missed being eyeballed by an interested
male…any male.
“I’m not sure, I didn’t get a good look.” She answered.
“Oh, oh- see for yourself, he’s coming back!” she giggled.
I turned to look.
Sure enough, the little red truck had made the block, and pulled up
beside us. The driver leaned across to
speak through the open passenger window.
His easy grin lit up his face, and when he spoke, it was slowly with a
definite Southern drawl. “Excuse me,
young ladies, would you happen to know where I could find the nearest florist?”
“Florist, huh?” I
asked with a smile of my own. This guy
was ridiculous. Anyone that could float
a line that ludicrous with a straight face was obviously confident. Confidence was, and will always be, sexy.
“That’s right, miss.
I wanna buy you some roses.” he
responded, looking directly into my blue eyes.
It was fairly obvious his come on line was meant for me. My friend Karen had pretty much faded into
the scenery, as this young man, who introduced himself as Bobby, gave me a
deliberate and unapologetic once over. I
may have weighed ninety pounds soaking wet, and had no figure to speak of, but
he must have been a fan of big blue eyes and long blonde hair. Maybe he trusted I’d develop breasts at some
point in my lifetime. In any case, he seemed to like what he
saw. I leaned against his truck to better
check him out: dark hair, tan skin, gorgeous hazel eyes. I have always been a sucker for the
eyes. Add to that a smile that made my
heart do a great big lazy somersault. As
he spoke, I watched his mouth. He had
the most beautiful lips I’d ever seen. I
couldn’t take my eyes off them.
The mere mention of flowers offered to me by a boy pretty
much sealed my fate for the next twenty years.
I suppose it was a little sad that I didn’t even need the actual flowers
themselves, just the idea of a boy
wanting to give them to me. I told I him
I wasn’t great with directions, which was the understatement of the century. He asked for my phone number instead, which I
readily supplied. We traded smiles,
flirted with our eyes, and reluctantly parted ways. I went back to my room to wait for his call,
and he sped away in his little red truck.
Boy met girl.
Hormones raged. I was sixteen,
and found out later he was eighteen.
Given these factors, most would have been having pre-marital sex within
the next 30 days. So what happened
instead was most peculiar… we became friends.
We never saw each other, but talked on the phone constantly. Instead of the predictable story line where I
fell in love with his penis, I actually fell in love with his personality. I loved his quick wit. He was always in a good mood. His energy and positive attitude were
contagious. He didn’t say hello –ever–
he sang it. He sang everything. He was like a walking music
encyclopedia. He had an easy way of
turning everything into a story. He did
make-believe better than any fairy tale I’d ever read. I loved to listen to him talk. And he made me laugh harder and more often
than anyone I’d ever met.
So we joked and flirted.
Eventually, during all those late night conversations after my parents
had gone to sleep, and I had snuck the phone under the covers with me, we
confided. His voice was beginning to be
the sound I liked best in the world. I
couldn’t figure out-since he seemed equally enamored of me- why he hadn’t asked
me out on a date. Whenever the topic
came up, he’d dismiss it with a “you’re too young”. He even began calling me “Young Davidson” in
a teasing tone that implied I was not ready to handle a relationship with the
likes of him. The boy was brilliant. The more he told me I couldn’t have him, the
more I wanted him. Five months crawled
slowly, and torturously by. He never
mentioned other girls. He assigned me
pet names, other than just Young Davidson.
We had our flirting games down to a science. He was already older than me, which made him
extremely desirable in my book. Now all
this unavailability made him downright irresistible.
He used all of this to his advantage. The phone calls were predictable, the drop by
visits because he happened to be “in the neighborhood” were not. He might stop by for 5 minutes, smile into my
eyes, and then disappear for another month or so. It was maddening.
Finally,
in February, during one of our marathon flirting sessions over the phone, he
asked me to be his girlfriend. I think I
might have jumped up and down.
Embarrassing, I know. I still
hadn’t been on date with him, kissed him, or spent any time alone with him, at
all. Nonetheless, I had planned out our lives together in my head, complete
with naming the future children we were certain to have.
Naturally, I said yes, I would be delighted
to be his girlfriend…isn’t that what you do when a stranger you met on the
street asks you to be exclusive? We
began calling each other by our titles, and had a grand time with our new found
romantic status. I was positively
jubilant. I had hooked him. Or so I honestly thought, never realizing the
one to take the bait was me.
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