July, 1992
Pam loved the high backed booth next to the rotating cake display in the little diner her grandparents owned. Even when customers meandered over to ogle the black forest cake, lemon meringue pie and strawberry shortcake, she could duck her head down and be hidden by the booth’s high wooden sides.
When the restaurant was empty, her grandmother didn’t need her to help serve food or wipe off tables. Her grandfather didn’t need help putting together the grilled cheese sandwiches or adding lettuce and tomato to hamburgers.
Not that Pam minded helping. She actually enjoyed it, especially helping in the kitchen. Especially when she got to help bake. But sitting in the back booth with the box of Caran D’Ache colored pencils she’d gotten for her birthday, smelling waffles, onion rings and strawberry milkshakes, sketching to her heart’s content, Pam was in heaven.
She wasn’t like most 13-year-old girls, she knew. She would rather hide out in the art room and draw during lunch than gather in the girls’ bathroom and experiment with make up. Boys were confusing and she didn’t really care enough to try and figure them out. Pam thought if a boy liked her, that would be fine, but she didn’t feel like chasing one around.
Her friend Isabelle was the boy chaser. They couldn’t have been more different. Pam thought they were probably best friends because they were so different, they balanced each other out.
Isabelle was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. She wore hats with big flowers, fell in love with a new boy every week, and plastered her bedroom wall with posters of Luke Perry, Johnny Depp, Joey Lawrence and Gerardo.
“We’re women, Pam,” Isabelle would tell her. “They have to hear us roar.”
Pam didn’t want to roar.
She was happy listening more than she talked. She was shorter, with green eyes and curly reddish brown hair. She wore jeans or jean skirts and t-shirts most days, sometimes with cardigan sweaters. She had one special outfit she wore sometimes that made her feel like an artist: a black turtleneck with a sort of cream-colored jumper that looked like an artist’s smock or an old fashioned apron. Her bedroom had Monet and Van Gogh posters, as well as some of her own water colors. Just the really good ones.
Really, there were only two of her own up. Pam wasn’t conceited or anything.
The sketching she was doing at the table was definitely not something that was going to be put up in her room. It was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t very good.
“That’s really good,” a voice said suddenly and Pam jumped. A tall boy, about her age, with kind of unruly brown hair, was peering into the booth, looking at her drawing.
Pam blushed. “Oh, um, thanks,” she whispered.
She blushed again. The boy was kind of cute. His hair was messy, he had warm green eyes and a funny sort of smile. He had on a Sixers t-shirt and his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his shorts.
He was pretty cute, actually.
Not the kind of cute that Isabelle or other girls in school would like. But Pam was never a big fan of that kind of cute. She always liked Ben more than Mike on “Growing Pains.” Although she and Isabelle had agreed that the guy who had come on to play Luke was very cute.
But this boy was very cute. She blushed again.
“It’s really cool,” he said, looking more closely, “is that you?”
He pointed to the girl in the picture, a curly redhead sitting on the roof of a house, starting out at mountains in the distance.
Pam shrugged. “I guess.”
The boy gulped a little and shifted his weight. “Um, the sign said the pictures here are by local artists. Are any of them by you?”
Pam shook her head. “One,” she said, “it’s in the back hall by the bathrooms.”
Her heart was beating kind of fast, talking to this boy.
“Will you show me?”
Now her heart was beating really fast. Cute boys almost never paid attention to her. They really only talked to her if they wanted help with homework or if they wanted to ask her if Isabelle liked them. Once, Matt Phillips asked Pam to find out if her sister, Penny, liked him.
Penny was 11.
But this boy was talking to her, and not about homework or other girls, but about art. Her art.
It was weird.
She liked it.
“Um, okay,” she agreed, sliding out of the booth and walking the few steps toward the narrow back hall toward the bathrooms. He walked next to her, close but not too close. For a second, Pam thought she felt his pinky touch hers.
“Here it is,” she said.
They stood in front of a pastel drawing, hung and framed on the wall in between the bathrooms.
It was of a sunset over the water, only Pam had switched the colors so that the sun was setting in shades of blue and green over a pink, purple and orange lake.
The boy examined it quietly, not saying anything. He probably didn’t like it.
“It’s kind of weird,” Pam said.
He grinned at her. “It’s so cool. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Wow. He did like it. Pam grinned back at him, feeling less shy.
“It’s really trippy,” he said, then turned red. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t do drugs.”
Pam shook her head. “No, me neither.”
They smiled at each other. Pam felt that fast heartbeat thing again, with this boy looking into her eyes like that. She didn’t know what to do.
They both looked away, back at the picture.
“Um, I really like this part, right here,” the boy said, pointing to a spot near the bottom where some colors kind of swirled together. Like right here, it kind of looks like, um, like a flower?”
A flower? There were no flowers in her picture.
“Where?” Pam asked.
He pointed again and leaned closer to the picture, kind of tilting his head. “Right here,” he said, “see?”
She leaned closer to look at where he was looking, tilting her head too. She didn’t see anything flower-like.
“I don’t think I see…” she started to say, when suddenly she felt something against her lips.
His lips.
Oh my god, he was kissing her!
Pam had never kissed a boy. She’d seen plenty of kissing on TV and movies though, so after a couple seconds, she remembered to relax her lips and tilt her head a little more.
He put his hands on her waist, so she put her hands on his shoulders, like they were slow dancing.
Pam felt him sort of massaging her lips with his a little bit, sort of switching the placement of their top and bottom lips. Their lips made little sounds. He didn’t try to put his tongue in her mouth and she was glad about that. French kissing sounded a little gross, actually.
They pulled apart, dropping their hands.
She shuffled her feet a little. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets and looked at her with that funny smile again. His lips were kind of mushed together in the middle, with one corner smiling a little higher than the other.
Pam liked his smile.
“Georgia!” A man called out. “Where are you? I need your help.”
Pam jumped a little. Sometimes her grandfather called her Georgia, for the artist Georgia O’Keefe. Pam thought she would love to paint like Georgia O’Keefe. Maybe someday.
“I have to go,” she said, starting to turn.
“Wait!”
She turned back.
“I want to talk to you some more,” the boy said in a rush. “Are you going to that bonfire at the lake tonight?”
Pam nodded.
“Me too,” he said. “Will you meet me by the water ice guy, at 8?”
She nodded.
He grinned at her. “All right,” he said. “Then it’s a date.”
A date? Oh wow. Pam had never been on a date. She felt kind of sick, like there were guppies in her stomach. But good sick.
Good sick? This felt so weird.
“Um, okay,” she said. She gave him one more smile. “Um, bye.”
He grinned at her. “Later.”
****
Present
“You never showed,” Jim said quietly. “At the bonfire.”
Pam stared at him. “Have I told you this story before?” She blushed a bit, her voice cracking slightly.
He swallowed, shaking his head. “Mama Honey’s, right? That was the name of your grandparents’ diner?”
Her chest heaved. “My grandmother,” she said. “Her name’s Helen. But everyone calls her Honey. You…” she gulped, “know it?”
Jim nodded. “You’re right,” he said, “the strawberry waffles were amazing.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Less dialogue than I'm used to writing. Hopefully it fits with the characters.
Chapter End Notes:
So, young Pam might share some things with young me....
I did always like Ben more than Mike on Growing Pains (and yes, thought the boy who played Luke was quite cute). I did once have a boy steal a kiss by pointing out a strange detail in a painting until I leaned in close enough. And yes, in 1992, I also thought French kissing was gross (but unlike Pam, my decision was based on a not-adorable frst kiss experience).
Oh, and Mama Honey is named for my late aunt, Honey, who died of breast cancer last June.
I did always like Ben more than Mike on Growing Pains (and yes, thought the boy who played Luke was quite cute). I did once have a boy steal a kiss by pointing out a strange detail in a painting until I leaned in close enough. And yes, in 1992, I also thought French kissing was gross (but unlike Pam, my decision was based on a not-adorable frst kiss experience).
Oh, and Mama Honey is named for my late aunt, Honey, who died of breast cancer last June.
