James at 16 – continued

It is said that when we grow up, we spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture our youth. Each in our own way, we long to relive the best moments and hold on to them forever. Like a roll of bright, shiny pennies we keep in our pocket for safe keeping. Or the pouch of jacks your mom once bought you at the five and dime. These are the things we treasure, the mementos of our life.

But here’s the quandary: You can’t go home again. You can’t get it back, and thinking otherwise is like trying to capture lightning in a jar. For me, it’s the memory of James at 16.  When I think of him then, I feel an ache of a thousand dreams, for the choices we make in our youth can reverberate for a very long time.

By the time I met James, I was already dating Jake, a senior. I was a junior, and dating a senior carried a lot of cache, particularly if he had a car. Meanwhile, James was a lowly sophomore. Our high school only went from 10^th to 12^th grade, so you couldn’t get more bottom of the barrel than being a sophomore.

I was giddy, head over heels in love. Jake was an amazing guy who was so dazzling and over the top, he was like the host of his own game show, unabashedly greeting the rest of us as if we were the audience–his legions of fans. And perhaps, we were.

With his razzmatazz smile, he’d be pumping hands and doing his best game show host appeal. Guys loved hanging out with him. There were always a few around who didn’t seem to have girlfriends of their own, and, the fact that Jake had a car, while most of us relied on bikes was key, no doubt. But more importantly, Jake always had on hand a stash of pot, and he was happy to share. He’d look you in the eye, flash his best TV host grin and dare you to figure out your utmost desires–did you want what was behind door number one or door number two? I could never decide.

I was so crazy wild in love with Jake, I thought this was it (Read more about him in my post, First Love). That we’d marry one day, and have a slew of game host children. He told me what I wanted to hear, wrote me poetry, spent hours with me on the phone, and said we’d have a future together. I almost stopped breathing, holding all that joy inside. I was that happy.

James was in my geometry class. We called it remedial math because it was for slow learners who needed that “extra push”—a year and a half to learn about isosceles triangles and the like, when most everyone else could do it in just one year. I took the class because I didn’t have a choice. Math of any kind was definitely not my forte. Blame my guidance counselor, Mrs. W., who never really took me seriously as a student and was just trying to put me anywhere she could in order for me to stop pestering her. Mrs. W., with her teased, bouffant hairdo and a look that always made her appear dumbfounded.

“Mrs. W.,” I’d say. “I want to sign up for chorus.”

“Mrs. W., I have a note from home that excuses me from debating in debate class the rest of the semester.”

“Mrs. W, is there another English class I can take? Everyone says Mr. D is a tough grader.”

“Mrs. W, is it too late to sign up for music appreciation instead of home ec?”

Honestly, you’d think that someone who showed as much interest in my education as I did, would get a break from the guidance counselor. But she never did, which later proved to be a tricky thing when it came to my college apps.

Anyway, back to geometry. I spent at least two months, maybe more, without saying bupkis to James. I sat in the second to last seat, in the middle of the classroom and had a great view of the entire class, except the back row—and guess who sat right behind me? Yep, James, and next to him was his best friend from grade school, Sam.

Somewhere around the third month of class, our teacher, Mrs. C, had a brain fart. Mrs. C. was actually really nice. She only looked strict and scary. Inside her was one of those hearts of gold. Outside, she was painfully thin with pale, taut skin. Wait—who am I kidding? The woman was ghostly white. Practically skeletal, with a smear of red on her thin, veiny lips. Her stark black hair was cut off at the chin. If you ask me, she appeared almost like an aging Snow White. No make that Snow White as an addict. Addicted to what? I don’t know. Parallelograms, I suppose.

On this particular day, Mrs. C. decided we should break out into small groups to do some team assignment. Ugh. I hated group assignments. It usually meant you had to produce some work and actually participate, demonstrating that you understood how the problem was solved. And then someone had to be designated as the spokesperson for the group. And, you better believe, it wasn’t going to be me.

When it came time to break into groups, Mrs. C. assigned me to work with, you guessed it, James and Sam. Being in the class was bad enough, but now I had to team up with sophomores?

Don’t get me wrong. Some of my best friends were sophomores. Like Barbara. She and I would sometimes hang out during lunch and sing duets of old tunes like, “Lullaby of Broadway” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” We were so good, we could’ve taken our act on the road. Okay, maybe not.

But, the verdict was out on these two yahoos. True, I had talked to Sam a few times and he was pretty funny. Acerbic and witty. My kind of humor. But, James on the other hand was shy. Super shy. I never really heard him talk. Perhaps he was thinking hard of what to say, but I didn’t have time to wait around and find out. On the few occasions that I had given him a nod in greeting, I always caught him gazing at me with some foolish grin on his face. Okay, maybe it was a cute grin. More like a half smile. But really, who smiles like that for no reason?

I turned my chair around and said, as I often did, as a result of watching too many late night Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney movies on TV, “Okay, you dirty rats. Let’s cut to the chase. Which one of you is going to do the assignment and which one is going to present?”

For a second, they blankly stared at each other. Then, James looked me square in the eye. Handing me a pencil, he replied, in his best Bogart impression, “Listen here, Sister, this is how it’s going to be, see? You’re gonna help us solve this problem, and Sam here, he’s gonna present. I’ll make sure of that. But, you’re in it for the long haul, see? Now, suppose we get to work.”

So, the kid could talk and hold his own, too. Feeling somewhat chastened, I took the pencil and moved my chair closer in. Maybe team work wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.

(To be continued.)

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