I was sixteen. He was eighteen. I used to stare at him on the bus ride home. Not like a stalker stare...I'd like to think. More like I'm-pining-for-you stare. There were a few things I knew for certain about him: He loved Depeche Mode. He wore preppy clothing. He was far too cool to live in our small town, thus he was far too cool for me.
He was my crush of the moment. I'd transfer my ardent pining from one hometown boy to the next as the weather changed. They never knew of course. I'd just admire from my front step as he passed by in the cab of his john deere tractor wildly flipping cow poop all over the road like a Jackson Pollock painting. Oh, but that was a different boy. Let's focus on B.
It started with my friend Jill. She started dating a guy from the next town over. A drummer in a band. It sucked our little group of friends into our emo phase. We'd watch Dead Poet's Society and contemplate the futility of youth. Eventually I even dated a smelly friend of theirs that was of German descent and was not of my faith. I was a rebel. Rebelling against the truth of the odor signals traveling from my nostrils to my brain. But that was after B.
I was always looking for somebody to love me as teenage girls do - to prove to yourself that you are loveable. I had had a thing for B. for a very long time. Although he wasn't in the band, he hung out with the guys from time to time.
That summer the stars aligned and on Pony Express Day I was finally held in B's willowy arms. Pony Express Day is the day our small town celebrates...ponies...antiquated postal services...oh I don't know but it's an excuse to congregate on the town square and eyeball the neighbors anyway.
In recent years I've noticed the live band/dance on the crumbling tennis court that caps the end of the day's events has really fizzled. But back in the day - your know the late 90's - blankets filled the slope directly adjacent to the tennis court. Couples two-stepped while tweens separated themselves into boys and girls and would occasionally work up the nerve to dance together.
We were there pretending we were too cool for the music, for the neighbors, for the whole affair really. The band from one town over was there too. The lead singer did the worm under the stars and we squealed in admiration. B. was there giving off the vibes that he was too old for this. But he smiled and laughed with us anyway.
A slow song started and people paired up. In a bold move very unlike myself I looked at B. and suggested we dance. He shrugged and said sure. I always thought of myself as a great conversationalist. Sure maybe my curly hair wasn't your thing. My mayonnaise skin in the middle of Summer didn't exactly give off the "healthy" glow. My smile was too gummy and my laugh too abrupt and loud, but dog-gone it I was smart and I could prove it. All I had to do was open my mouth and B. would look past everything else and fall in love with my mind...like 18 year-old boys do.
So I opened my mouth and nothing. "Ahhhh," I began.
"What?" B. asked.
"Nothing," I stammered flushing red.
"Oh." B. said.
I knew B. wasn't religious but he must have really respected my values because there was at least two triple combination scripture widths between our torsos. A real gentleman, I thought dreamily to myself.
I searched aimlessly in my head for a coherent sentence that would really intrigue B. I've known this girl my whole life and never saw her for the shining jewel that she so clearly is - B. would be compelled to admit to himself, and then to me of course that he had always been in love with me. He just hadn't known it. After a quicky marriage...in the temple of course, I'm not that rebellious...we'd ditch this small town and head for the open road.
I tried again. "Ahhhhhh..."
"What did you say?" B. shouted over the band playing.
I stared into his deep brown eyes. Eyes I could figuratively swim in for days if he'd let me. He looked back at me with growing concern. Oh how sweet. He's worried about my mental health, I thought to myself. (And probably for his own safety.)
Slowing, gently, caressingly I reached up, up, up. My thumb and pointer finger opened like a lobster anticipating being pulled from the tank at a fancy restaurant. They closed firmly, inexplicably, annoyingly on B.'s nostrils.
"Honk!" I exclaimed.
"Ow! Why did you do that?" B. demanded releasing me from his chaste embrace, scorn forming in his eyes.
I stared at him dumbfounded because I didn't know. Why had I just honked the nose of the coolest boy in town? He shook his head as the romantic strains of music died behind us.
I stood glued to the spot of my ultimate mortification staring, my mouth agape as B. walked over to his friends and told them he was leaving.
I learned a valuable lesson that night. There is no place for nose honking in seduction. It exists strictly within the confines of an annoying sibling context. That was the night B. forever slipped through my fingers. Er...that is his nose slipped through my fingers.
