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Old Love
Any bar that plays Neil Diamond is A-OK in my book. First: The background story. It's October(ish) of 1993(ish). I have recently been cut from the volleyball team that has, up until this point, been the central focus of my life. This sends me into a downward spiral of depression and weight gain and bad bad things - not that anyone would know it, apart from the significant weight gain that everyone just chalked up to me not working out (for the sports teams) anymore and thereby becoming a lazy pig). That's not the point, though. With sports no longer a part of my life, and at the urging of my mom, I went out looking for after school jobs. I managed to get one at a local grocery store which was the "cool" place to work at that time as its employee base was almost entirely high school students. I hated it. I didn't know then, but that was the start of my hating every new job I've ever had since then until I got used to it. It was also the beginning of my "princess" issues. I didn't really know anyone I worked with except my friend Bear - with whom I wasn't GREAT friends with before I took this job. She took me under my wing and before too long I had a lot of friends at the store and actually looked forward to working. Eventually that job would become my greatest social outlet. EVENTUALLY that job would become my favorite job ever - when I look back on things now. In any case, I went into the job with a few stereotypes floating around in my head. I went to a small, private, Catholic school and most of my co-workers went to the public schools in Rochester and the nearby "suburban" towns. I didn't like any of the boys I went to school with. Seriously? NONE. Pampered, spoiled, cocky rich little bastards and I wanted no part of that. This was okay with me though because I had a very strong group of female friends and at that time, I was fine with that. When I met "him" - I hated him at first sight. My experience with boys up until that point had been mostly negative (well, after junior high anyway...) and he seemed to represent everything I disliked about all the boys I knew. He went to school in the next town over and he played basketball and football and he was cute and he was cocky and I had absolutely NO interest in getting to know him. I hated him. I didn't have to know him to figure that much out. I found out - about 6 months into the job, that he was going to Germany on a school trip. My dad is in the Air Force and was stationed in Germany during that time. I spent the summer before I started high school visiting him and my stepmom in Germany and doing a little traveling around Europe. I remember approaching him one day as I was leaving work and asking him about this trip. I remember him blowing me off. I remember shrugging and feeling content in that my snap judgements had been justified. No skin off my nose, I remember thinking, I have plenty of friends and very little patience for your brand of bullshit. So life went on. A couple of months later he was back from his trip and I had made no move to speak to him at all. One day he appeared at the end of my aisle as I was checking someone out and out of nowhere he struck up a conversation with me. About Germany, of course, and what my experience had been. He shared his experience with me and for some reason - after that - we were inseparable. I don't know how it happened. We were constantly attached at the hip at work and neither one of us would take an assignment outside of our department without the other one. If we worked the same shift, we wouldn't leave early unless the other one could leave early too. It was the hugest about-face in our relationship, but it was wonderful. HE was wonderful. I remember that summer being at the street dance with my friends from high school. I remember running into him and his friend ("the gigantic oaf"). I remember losing all of my friends except one as I got caught up in conversation with him and then I remember him asking me & my friend to go to a party with him & the gigantic oaf the next night. I remember begging my mom to extend my curfew so I could stay out as late as everyone else. I remember the gigantic oaf pulling up in my driveway in the loudest, tiniest, reddest car I've ever seen. I remember that party and how he wouldn't leave my side...even when it was entirely clear that I was doing fine on my own. The people at the party were a lot of the same people I worked with, and I'd be mid conversation with someone when I'd feel him appear next to me, put a hand on my back, sit on my lap... I remember that the gigantic oaf had to be home early and my friend didn't feel like staying, so we took everyone back to my house, got my car and went back. I remember driving him home that night and knowing that my heart was heading recklessly out of control. After that, it was official. We were the bestest of friends. We hung out after work. On weekends. We went gambling together. We went to movies together. We sat up and talked all night long until the wee small hours of the morning together. He made me mix tapes. He brought over CD's that he thought I'd like, even though our music tastes were vastly different and very little of what we liked crossed paths. Whenever he brought something he thought I'd like, he was right. I still listen to some of the stuff he introduced me to today. The summer after we graduated from high school...he disappeared. I didn't see him the entire summer. He didn't call. I didn't call. And, out of NOWHERE, a week before he was going to leave for school, he called. I don't know why. I was angry and hurting. He said he didn't want to get close to someone he knew he was going to leave. I argued that we'd been close for a long time, and that his argument was a cop out. We made awkward, weird conversation and then said goodbye. I didn't hear from him again until spring break of that year (1996ish). I was still working in the same grocery store, only now I did the bookkeeping. I was in the little cubby of an office by myself when the phone rang. I remember answering the phone and hearing "How the hell are ya Shell?" and I remember saying "Um. Fine?" and I remember him asking me if I knew who he was and I remember saying no. He asked if i was freaking out and I replied, honestly, that no, I wasn't. He asked what I was doing and I must have said "working." I asked what he was doing and he said "eating an apple" and something in his voice when he said that was familiar to me, and I knew. He came over to my house that night and we sat and talked and talked. Suddenly it was 4 a.m. and we just sat next to each other watching something that had been on the TV for hours and it took us a few minutes to realize that it was the spanish channel. We laughed at how neither one of us had noticed. He said he should probably go, and I agreed. I walked him to the door and he hugged me for about 3 hours and I didn't ever want it to end. Then he left, and I didn't hear from him for a long time. My friend Bear transferred to UW-Madison the following year. I remember telling her that that was where he went to school. We laughed at how funny it would be if she bumped into him on such a huge campus. She called me on her first day of school to tell me that she had bumped into him on her way out of her first class. She said he had asked about me. She said she had given him my number, and that he would probably be calling. He did call, about a week later and we talked for over an hour. I told him that when I went to visit Bear in Madison, I'd like to see him. He agreed. He would like to see me too. So I went to Madison to visit Bear. We called him and he invited us to this party. We went, and it was strange. And awkward. So we left. I didn't hear from him again for a long time until one day he just appeared, out of nowhere, in my parents driveway. We went for a walk in the field nearby and we talked a lot. And it was weird. And awkward. And I started to think that maybe our lives were headed in separate directions now, and that maybe it would be easy for me to let him go. And then he left, and it wasn't so bad. I went to visit Bear in Madison again a while after that. We got in touch with him and, though he was busy, he agreed to meet us for lunch on my last day there. Lunch was okay, the conversation flowed easier than it had for some time. We talked for hours, the three of us, and then I had to go. He walked us to the street and it was a misty, chilly day in Madison. We walked a bit down State Street and then he stopped, nodded his head and said this is where our paths split. He hugged me and let go, we promised to stay in touch, and then he hugged me again and held my hands. We had one of those movie moments involving one of those looks, and I thought he was going to kiss me. I thought my knees my give out on me. And then he let go of my hands and walked away. That's the last time I ever saw him. I moved to North Carolina in December of 1999. I sent him a letter before I left - not wanting to leave things left untied like they were. I wanted him to know what he had meant to me. I wanted, perhaps, to leave a door open. Or maybe I wanted to close it. I never heard back from him. Bear would say that she would see him on occasion. She would tell me that he was fat now, or that he seemed to be partial to lime green sweaters. I don't think she ever talked to him though, and I don't think she ever sees him anymore. I think I might have seen him last night. I can't be sure, because it's been a long time now and the bar was dark. When he walked in, I did a double take. I tried to figure out if it was him without being crazy stalker chick, but he was wearing a hat and i couldn't tell. I tried to watch for mannerisms I could recognize, but my memory plays tricks on me. He was with a teeny tiny girl and a few boys I didn't recognize. It might not have been him. It probably wasn't him. But it could have been, and it made my heart hurt. I decided that I miss him, but I won't try to track him down. I don't want to find out that he's married or that he has a girlfriend or that...it really WAS him last night and he just didn't want to say anything to me. It might just be better to leave this fairy tale unfinished. There was a time, right after I left for North CArolina, that I imagined our paths would cross again the way they had seemed to since I first met him. I imagined being in the produce aisle of some grocery store in NC and turning around and spotting him and wondering how the world could be so small and how we could possibly mistake this for anything but a sign. That, obviously, never happened though, and maybe it's time I let go of it. Heh...pretty intense stuff to come out of a night at the karaoke bar. Harumph. |
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