July, 1992
Sometimes Jim felt like he didn’t belong.
In his family, for example. Tom and Pete were 12 and 9 years older than him. They got along great, almost like they were married to each other or something. They were both loud and could kind of act like creeps, which girls seemed to like for some reason.
For example, when the waitress brought their food, Tom had loudly remarked that Jim was a queer because his strawberry waffles - the house specialty according to the menu - were pink because, you know, they had strawberries in them.
Their father had smacked Tom upside the head, but Jim was pretty sure the people at the next table had heard Tom asking Jim if the waffles were the same color pink as his panties.
And Pete had stared openly at the waitress’s giant cleavage and called her “babe.” Which, apparently, she seemed to like, because she leaned over even more and said “thanks.”
For the most part, Larissa didn’t torment him much, but she was only ten. She could be a huge brat though. As the youngest and the only girl, she was definitely spoiled with attention. She shoveled chocolate chip pancakes into her mouth, whining about not wanting to go on a canoe trip that afternoon.
‘There’s a bonfire carnival by the lake tonight,” their mother was telling Larissa. “If you’re a good sport about canoeing, you can get a cotton candy.”
Jim wondered if he could paddle a canoe by himself.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said, and got up without waiting to be excused. No one really seemed to notice.
He wandered toward the back of the restaurant. He didn’t really have to go to the bathroom, he just wanted to get up. Sometimes Tom and Pete were assholes (sorry, Mom).
He almost didn’t see the girl sitting in the very back booth, by the cake carousel. She was scrunched into a corner, concentrating on the drawing she was doing on the paper table cloth. He leaned in to look closer. The girl didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s really good,” he said. The girl jumped. Jim hadn’t meant to scare her. He’d just wanted to tell her that he liked her drawing.
The girl blushed. “Oh, um, thanks,” she whispered.
She was cute, with shoulder length hair that curled in a reddish brown frizz that she had clipped back in a barrette. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt. She had a little nose (everyone had a little nose compared to him) and green eyes, which stood out against her pink cheeks.
She was really pretty.
She wasn’t the kind of girl his brothers would like, or most of the guys at school. They tended to like girls with straight blond hair who acted dumb, but like they thought they were great. And girls who had big boobs.
Actually, this girl had nice ones. Not that Jim was looking. Okay, he was, but just a little, not staring or anything. Pete would stare. So would Tom.
The girl blushed again. Jim hoped she hadn’t seem him notice her chest. She was really pretty.
“It’s really cool,” he said, looking more closely at the drawing, “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.
The girl shrugged. “I guess.”
He gulped a little and shifted his weight. She probably thought he was a huge dork and wished he would just go away. But his stupid mouth kept on flapping.
“Um, the sign said the pictures here are by local artists. Are any of them by you?”
That seemed like a safe thing to ask. Maybe. Jim hated himself a little. He had friends who were girls, like Hallie Harris and Abby Schafer, but he had no idea how to really talk to girls. Sometimes a pretty girl would come and talk to him, but usually because she wanted something. Usually having to do with another guy. More often than not, having to do with one of his brothers.
The girl shook her head. “One,” she said, “it’s in the back hall by the bathrooms.”
Jim took a deep breath before blurting out the next question: “Will you show me?”
Holy crap, what had he done? What did he think, that this pretty, talented artist girl was just going to stop what she was doing, get up and show some strange, dorky looking guy her artwork?
But then he saw a look cross her face. Not quite a smile, but something that showed she didn’t think he was completely annoying. She looked, maybe, a little happy?
“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. Their pinkies accidentally almost brushed and for a split second, Jim thought about taking her hand.
“No, you dork,” he scolded himself. He followed her down a narrow hall.
“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 she had switched the colors so that the sun was setting in shades of blue and green over a pink, purple and orange lake.
Jim examined it quietly, not saying anything. It was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen. The colors all swirled together, like the time they did marble printing in art class. And he really liked how she’d made the sun blue and the lake pink. His mother would say it had personality. Jim liked girls with personality.
“It’s kind of weird,” The girl said, looking like she wanted to hide.
He grinned at her. “It’s so cool. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The girl grinned back at him, looking happier. He was glad. She looked really pretty when she smiled.
“It’s really trippy,” he said, then turned red. Stupid thing to say. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t do drugs.”
Jim thought he must have sounded like an idiot. “I don’t do drugs,” like he was in some fucking “this is your brain on drugs” commercial. Dork.
The girl shook her head. “No, me neither.”
Thank god.
They smiled at each other. Jim felt his heartbeat go faster, with this girl looking into his eyes like that. He didn’t know what to do.
Actually, he kind of did. He felt like he wanted to, sort of, maybe, kiss her?
Whoa.
They both looked away, back at the picture.
“Um, I really like this part, right here,” Jim 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? A flower? There was nothing that looked like a flower. He didn’t know how the word flower had come out of his mouth. Great, now she probably thought he was gay.
“Where?” She asked.
And now he had to keep on pretending he saw a flower.
He pointed again and leaned closer to the picture, kind of tilting his head, like he was concentrating. “Right here,” he said, pointing to the swirly spot, “see?”
She leaned closer to look at where he was looking, tilting her head too. She was squinting at the picture, not looking at him.
The girl was concentrating on the picture and looking really cute and Jim realized that with the way their heads were both tilted, if he was just about a foot closer to her, he could…
“I don’t think I see…” she started to say, when something inside Jim’s brain screamed “do it” and he swooped down without really knowing what he was doing and pressed his lips to hers.
Holy shit, he was kissing her.
Jim had never kissed a girl. He’d seen plenty of kissing on TV, and he’d definitely heard guys talk about it in the locker room, so he kind of knew what to do, a little bit. He knew to not press too hard and not to make his lips all puckered.
“Don’t smack me, don’t smack me, don’t smack me,” he prayed silently.
She didn’t smack him. After a couple seconds, he felt her 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. He had slow danced with Hallie at the Spring dance and she’d put her head on his shoulder. It had been nice and he thought for maybe a second about trying to kiss her, but that would have just been way too weird.
She’d called the next day to tell him she was really sorry, but she just found out she had lice, and he should probably check himself out. Fortunately, he didn’t have it.
Now, he was glad he hadn’t kissed Hallie, because he liked that this pretty artist girl would always be the first girl he kissed. Jim wanted to try French kissing her, but her mouth wasn’t really open very wide and he didn’t know how to start it without basically forcing his tongue into her mouth. He massaged her lips with his a little bit, switching bottom, top, bottom, top, like he remembered hearing on a TV show. Their lips made little sounds.
They pulled apart, dropping their hands.
She shuffled her feet a little. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets and looked at her, smiling. She smiled back, her cheeks getting pink again.
She was really, really pretty.
“Georgia!” A man called out. “Where are you? I need your help.”
The girl jumped a little. That must be her name, Georgia. It was a nice name, kind of old fashioned. Jim thought maybe she even smelled a little bit like peaches.
“I have to go,” she said, starting to turn.
“Wait!” he called out.
She turned back.
“I want to talk to you some more,” he said in a rush. “Are you going to that bonfire at the lake tonight?”
Georgia nodded.
“Me too,” he said. “Will you meet me by the water ice guy, at 8?”
She nodded again.
He grinned at her. “All right,” he said. “Then it’s a date.”
It’s a date? It’s a date?! Jim wanted to kick his own ass. Could he have possibly sounded dorkier? He wanted to throw up in his mouth a little.
“Um, okay,” she said. She gave him one more smile. “Um, bye.”
Or maybe she didn’t think he was a huge dork. Maybe. All right, he could be cool.
He grinned at her. “Later.”
That was… well, it could have been worse. Actually, it could have been a lot worse. He felt kind of… high, actually.
****
That night at the bonfire
Jim looked at his watch. It was 8:52. He’d eaten four water ices.
She’d never shown up. She must have decided she didn’t want to hang out with him, or maybe she met someone cooler.
He threw away his cup in the trash can next to the stand. The water ice guy gave him a kind of pitying look. Jim shrugged and walked off. He didn’t have to meet his family until 10. He figured he could just wander around until then.
***
Present
“We left the next morning,” he said. “I tried to get my parents to go back there, but my dad wanted to beat traffic so they insisted on waiting until we were on the road to get breakfast.”
Pam was staring at him, her eyes wide.
“I can’t believe…” she said. “That’s impossible.”
Jim shook his head. “It’s crazy,” he agreed. He felt dizzy.
“It was you,” Pam whispered, almost to herself. “I never forgot about that. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
He laughed. “I hope I look different. I was a giant dork with huge ears.”
She laughed. “You’re still a giant dork,” she teased gently, “with slightly more proportional ears.”
Jim felt more relaxed than he had in months. Laughing with her, even among all the sadness, the heartache, the insanity, felt so…honest.
He had to know something. Fifteen years later.
“What happened that night?” he asked quietly. “How come you never showed up? At the bonfire?”
Pam blushed. All the memories that had faded with time, both a little and a lot, came rushing back, and he thought again how pretty she was with pink in her cheeks.
“I was riding my bike home,” she said, “and I tried to jump the curb and flipped over the handlebars. I broke my arm.”
She smiled sheepishly and any last shred of lie Jim was holding on to that he wasn’t in love with this girl anymore went flying out the window. He smiled affectionately at her.
“Beesly, you klutz.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Same story, different perspective. A mystery kiss through another set of eyes.
Chapter End Notes:
I feel like Jim might have felt like an outcast as an adolescent. He's a tiny bit of a dork, but he owns who he is and knows that his charm is in his mind and wit. I think this is Jim before he found his ease with himself.
Also, I very much slow danced with a good male friend (who now dates a very nice young man) at a middle school dance and found out the next day I found out I had lice. Fun times.
Also, I very much slow danced with a good male friend (who now dates a very nice young man) at a middle school dance and found out the next day I found out I had lice. Fun times.
