We hung out in high school, in a mixed group of guys and girls. Nearly every time we did anything fun, she would get mad about something and decide to walk home. Making a dramatic point, no doubt, but the guys laughed at her passive-aggressiveness.
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When her son was young, she told him the water at school was drugged by the Russians. She covered the water heater with a towel so it couldn’t watch her. Every time I visited, she felt my clothing. I wonder if she really saw me.
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You interviewed me just to offer some advice and ended up creating my first job. Your blazer had wool elbow patches and random cigarette burns; you talked fast, like the newspaper editors in movies. You were a techno geek before anyone knew what one was.
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Her rebellious ways and attraction to the forbidden worried me. Even more unsettling was the anxiety she hid away as she did her best to wrest control over imagined dangers…because I’ve been in that world. I’m not worried any more. She’s handling herself beautifully.
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I met him my final semester of college; we were fast friends and I hung out with him and his dorm buddies. Just before graduation, he said he loved me. Later, he rejected me…but both declarations helped move me where I needed to go.
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I knew the moment I met him that he’d be fun to work for. And I was right. SweeTarts and Starbucks for lunch. Wads of paper playfully thrown my way. Respect for my random ideas, and sometimes the special instruction: “Make it so, Number Two.”
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Endlessly cheery, patient and energetic, she was the perfect preschool teacher for my reluctant 4-year-old daughter. She taught scrapbooking and showed me my own creative power. When she had a hysterectomy, her friend made her a tampon bouquet. She knew middle age can be funny.
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I thought he was an okay boss, until he asked a female colleague to talk to me about my inadequate postpartum wardrobe. Humiliated, I wore a plain dress and heels the next day. “You don’t look like a washerwoman now,” he said as a compliment.
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We sat side by side among the small group of December arts and communication graduates, but we didn’t become good friends until after college. Artist, mom of three boys, and brave enough to move across the country to pursue her dreams – she’s a role model.
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Kind, handsome and pre-med, he was also a townie, so 10 of us haphazardly piled into someone’s car and drove 20 minutes to surprise him on his birthday. Several years after graduation, an asthma attack stopped his heart.
His secret was that he was gay.
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She called us from the Midwest Corgi Rescue, after we had applied to adopt a dog for Moon’s 9th birthday. Foxxi would be a good match for our family, she said, “but she can be a dominating little bitch.” That word! Oh, right … dog person.
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He was the Jeff Spicoli of our high school band, a gentle soul in a chemical-induced haze. We’d joke in class; his trombone would poke my back. But when I asked for Carmex, he solemnly responded: “No, dude … but I have some Black Cadillacs.”
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A handsome young ad salesman with a somewhat short fuse, he and I shared an office when we worked for a religious newspaper. I waved my hands and shook my head when I heard him angrily telling a priest his attitude was “not very Christian.”
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We were college girls – and conservative Catholics. We caught up with each other a decade later, two moms with preschoolers and part-time jobs. Except hers was an outgrowth of an open marriage and a husband with a cuckold fetish: she was a high-end call girl.
(P.S. Her job paid better than mine.)
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When given the chance to sign up for an overseas pen pal, I selected the most exotic country available: India. Raja lived in Calcutta, but his family had money. His father was an attorney; Raja used the word “advocate.” Pre-Internet, exchanging letters took time.
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My favorite high school teacher carried an afro pick in his back pocket; its handle was a Black Power fist. He made us band geeks feel like we might be cool, even though we had to march wearing those polyester uniforms and tall furry hats.
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With his thick glasses and unruly blond hair, he was a perfectly cute 5-year-old. But through my kindergarten eyes, I saw him as tormenter. All because he kept tagging me with quick kisses, especially when we were seated in tidy rows awaiting storytime.
[This is my first of, hopefully, 365 daily 45-word posts about people that I have met over time. One word for each year of my life. I found out about the x365 project through Schmutzie, and thought it might jump-start my writing. Check it out – you might just want to join in.]
