Part III: Eighteen Over Par (or something)

Part One and Part Two brings us here, Part three, in which we make speeches, struggle through mini golf, and discuss the deeper meanings of life. Or something.

Anyways . . .

It's my high school graduation, thank the good Lord, hallelujah, thank you Jesus, huzzah, woot woot, heck yeah, pwned, and all those other exclamations of sheer glee.
Because we had made it. Finally.  It's a joyous occasion, people. JOYOUS.

And there's a part of me that wonders how I tell this bit.  How do you make a story out of a high school graduation, even one like mine where they did EVERYTHING they could to make it interesting. I mean, really--we had slideshows, speeches, prayers, musical performances, and handing out each diploma took about ten minutes because it featured a message from each parent to the student and a "right back attcha" message from the gleeful graduate. It's the kind of thing where parents cry and the freshly-freed teens roll their eyes. We had bright blue robes, yellow tassels, and all antsy to get off that stage and out of those shoes. Heels. God, why? WHHHYYYY HIGH HEELS?!

Oh, and I got to talk. I did. I was aiming for Valedictorian (in a class of fifteen--no that's not a typo, FIFTEEN--people, three of which were named "Sarah," it shouldn't be too hard, right?), I missed out by one thousandth (as in 0.001) of a point.  So, here I am, second place, trying to give a first place style speech.


I don't remember the speech exactly. I remember my opening though . . . or part of it . . . I stood up there, sweating under my robe, hating that hat because it wanted to slide off my head, hating my heels because my toes hurt, but THIS was my moment. I made gazed out into the audience, smiled through my terror and glee, and said, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' C.S. Lewis. [slight dramatic pause for emphasis and GO] When we were kids, all of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up. Some of us wanted to be firemen, mommies, astronauts. Me? I wanted to be a mermaid, but that hasn't worked out yet."
Cue audience laughter (good, I was hoping for that).
From there, it's all a blur.
I remember one of my notecards got mixed up, but I didn't stumbled. I had practiced in the mirror too much. Anticipating this moment, this hope that I could be my best just this last time.

My friends Tarisha, Allie, and Julie, Chris's sister.
My mom still hasn't forgiven me for ripping that robe off before she could get a picture.

 I break a public speaking rule: I make eye contact, a human connection, with the audience that should terrify me. I need to see their faces, that focused glint in their eyes that tells me they're listening. The confirmation that I am interesting. In the third row, I found the person I had been looking for, sitting next to his grandmother, clutching a tissue and trying to keep back proud tears.  There he was, bright-eyed, staring back, his lips faintly curled.

Chris had spent the last year in Idaho, following his best friend on scholastic adventures in the great Northwest. This was the first time I had seen him since he left.
He had a girl beside him, a pretty little thing in a blonde ponytail. So it had happened. He had found himself a sweetheart at university. Well, let's show him what he's missing, right? Maybe? Was I worth missing? But I stealed myself and I spoke. Then I sang, because I had one of those special music slots.
Don't laugh. I didn't realize how geeky it was then.

Chris has no memory whatsoever of the blonde girl. He doesn't remember what I said in my speech, but he says he liked it better than the valedictorian's . . She did a lovely job, but the mic went out, which would throw ANYONE off . . . and she loved the high school so it was one of those "I love you guys" kind of things popular kids do . . . He thought my voice was wasted on a cheesy song, that it had potential, but the whole thing was . . . cheesy. Chris abhors cheesy.
"But you did a good job," he told me, later. "Were you looking at me? I thought you were looking at me."
"Oh, my gosh! I totally was! I didn't think you cared!"
"Sure, I cared. I really liked you."

Chris with his sisters, Julie and Mel, that night.

The ceremony ends, we throw our hats, we shake hands gives hugs.
At some point, Julie catches up with me, "You're coming, right? Putt-putting?"
"Yeah, yeah, let me change . . .again . . . "
"Chris is driving us."
Pause.
"What?"
"Will your parents care? That Chris is taking us?"
"They'd better not."
And they didn't. Well, Dad did because all boys within spitting distance of his daughter were pure evil. Mom was far more lenient. So off I went, out of my pretty graduation outfit and into shorts for mini golf in the hot, humid, smothering Florida night. There were seven of us: the three graduates, three younger friends, and Chris, trapped in a astro van filled with over-hyper teenage girls. We fought over the front seat. For one round, I won.
And I spoke to him. And he talked back. We talked Star Wars. We were trying to find a midnight showing of Episode II, before we knew what a gosh-awful trainwreck of a movie it was ("Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo" and several nerds vomit simultaneously). Luckily, there weren't any showings we could make, so we stuck to putt-putt and Steak 'n' Shake.

Me, Mel, Kelli, and Lydia, trying on sexy faces . . . we all needed lots of practice  . . .

And then we never stopped talking, me hanging slightly back to talk to this dark, handsome fellow who, shockingly, wasn't telling me to shut up.
"So . . . how's Idaho?"
"Really good."
"Cool."
"Yeah . . . um . . . You know . . . I um . . . I took a C.S. Lewis class while I was there."
"REALLY?!?! Oh my gosh, I would love to take a class like that!"

Chris had struck gold, bringing up the man he KNEW was my hero. Years later, he'd tell me that's what he liked about me: I loved Lewis and Tolkien like he did, like his friends did. He hadn't met a girl who loved those things like I did--obsessively, passionately.  And so we talked Lewis.
For the rest of the night.
Until, sitting in Steak 'n' Shake, while we were engrossed in philosophical discussion, everyone else finished eating, and, suddenly, I heard Julie burst out, 'Well we would leave if CHRIS AND SARAH WOULD STOP TALKING!! GOSH!!!" And they were waiting by the door, staring at us. 
I think they might have been suspicious, maybe, but the next day, Kelli imitated Chris saving her golf ball from the asparagus-colored water and proclaimed her love, so I stayed quiet.
For another year. I said nothing to ANYONE about how my heart pounded when Chris came into the room.

Teenage Kelli and Mel are judging me

At Julie's house, while the other girls got ready for bed, Chris and I kept talking.  He wanted us to watch a movie with him (Fifth Element--aaaawwweeesooooome), but, before that, his paternal grandmother had gifts for him and Julie. For Julie, it was a tiny clock shaped like a painted Russian egg.  For Chris, a tiny clock set into a silver set of die. On the inside, there was a tiny picture of his grandmother and grandfather as a young couple. "Oh, wow, Grandma, thank you so much," he said, turning it over in his hand while I watched, standing beside him. "Wow! That's you and Grandpa, huh?"
"Yes, and maybe one day, you can put a picture of you and a young lady there instead," and she smiled, and, I swear, she looked at me.
I remember blushing then disappearing because I felt like I had intruded on something very special.
Maybe she knew. Maybe I imagined it. I don't know.  Within ten minutes, I had pushed it out of my mind, focused on the movie.

"Do you remember that I sat on the floor while you and Julie sat on the bed?"
"Yeah, I do. I thought that was so weird."
"I had always been told that boys and beds were a bad mix. Never ever get anywhere near a boy on a bed."
"Good grief, Sarah."

But we kept talking.

Two days later, I begged my mom to go shopping with Julie, her mom, and her grandmother took her shopping for her graduation and her birthday. Oh, and Chris was going, for some reason. When I found out it was his birthday, I dug through my stationary set, found a birthday card featuring a black and white photo of an orangutang, scribbled a note, and gave it to him with my stomach in knots. I felt like such an idiot, but Chris smiled like I had really done something wonderful. I had also brought a book to lend him, and he gave me one of his--Lewis's The Discarded Image--to read. It seemed like a small action, but, as book people, this was HUGE.
That afternoon, while Julie tried on dress after dress in Anthropology, unsatisfied, Chris and I were making fun of displays, giggling, before we disappeared into a book shop.  That was the first time I discovered that Chris hated any kind of movie spoilers.  I found a newly updated Star Wars encyclopedia, and Chris refused to look at it.
Maybe if he had, he would have avoided viewing the insult that is Lucas's Episode II.
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."
And hundreds of nerds withered away and died in howling agony.


When they dropped me off, I said my goodbyes. I forced myself to say Chris's name, and, to my shock, he looked me in the eyes, and said goodbye right back, smiled even. He had only done that once before, when he was home for Christmas and had tagged along when his mom dropped Julie and I off at a movie. Looked right at me, smiled--really smiled.  Little did I know that Lisa had teasingly asked him if he were interested. He objected with the fierceness only the justly accused possessed, but Lisa let it go.

All these little details, they don't matter to most people. But my brain remembers details. It remembers these tiny things that made my heart skip and my palms sweat and my mind go into a fumbling blank.  I remember, because, back then, they were shreds of hope.
Hope that he saw me like I saw him.
Hope that, one day, just maybe . . .

But I was young and naive and little bit stupid. I knew I was goofy, with limbs too long, no sense of style, and a social awkwardness no one could make out and I couldn't destroy, no matter how hard I tried.

But Chris thought I was sweet.
He thought I was different, interesting, with long red hair that, when wet, made me look like a mermaid. He didn't think about dating me, really--that was preposterous, but he said I didn't leave him alone. He'd see a pretty girl, and, suddenly, my face was there.

I'd see a handsome young man, and I'd think of Chris. How did he compare to my dark-haired musician, my king of the nerds who loved his mother and sisters? Who let me borrow his sunglasses and lent me a book by our favorite author. Why was he still there, in my mind, when I knew this could never happen? Why?

So he flew back to Idaho and, after two months and a ten-day trip to Tokyo with a home-stay recruitment program, I drove off to Mississippi.
That's where it should have ended.

But it didn't.

Part 2: And the Moon Danced

Read Part 1

It's my sophomore year of high school, 2003, and summer is approaching.
I think it's spring but it feels like summer. It's hard to tell in Florida. 

I'm in Julie's room, changing into my pajamas after swimming, when Julie bursts in. "Julie! Gosh! I'm not dressed!"
I'm too modest for my own good. No, really, I won't even change in front of my own sex. It's pathetic. Thank God I get over that after a week in college.
"Get over it! Put clothes on, quick! If we're fast, Chris will take us to go watch a lunar eclipse!"
"THERE'S A LUNAR ECLIPSE?!"
"Yeah! So hurry up!"

I scramble into my clothes, try to comb my hair, and follow Julie out into the living room where Chris and Joe are waiting.  "See! I told you we could be ready!" Julie says. "So, we're going now, right? Right?"
Chris smirks. "Sure, fine."
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!"
Julie squeals when she's excited, like a child at Christmas. She's almost sixteen, but she's so petite she looks twelve, maybe younger.
Then there's me--everything feels too long, the wrong shape. But my braces are off, finally. At least  I have that going for me, if nothing else.

At the surprise party for my sixteenth birthday.
You know, I really loved that hat.
And, funny story, see the fellow in the top row on the left? That's my future brother-in-law.
More on that later.

 Boys don't speak to me so I assume they don't see me.
Apparently, I'm a bit wrong.

Because, you see, Chris has seen me. Something about my eyes caught his attention that first night, when he woke up from a nap on the living room couch and saw this stranger with his sister (he tells me years later). Suddenly, whenever I'm around he grows bewilderingly nervous and shy. He hides it well--cool, collected, uninvolved--and he makes a habit of staying out of sight. The day I meet Joe, he hopes that Joe doesn't see me, too. Joe gets all the girls, you see, with his charm.  Usually, Chris doesn't mind, but, he thinks this time he might.
I've been told I should like Joe, and, in all honesty I do.  Julie has convinced me that he's everything I had hoped for in a guy. She's talked him up something lovely, even though she said he looks like Orlando Bloom and that was an outright lie.
But there's something about Chris that makes my heart pound and my palms sweat. Something I can't push out of my mind. He's all wrong for me, with his gaming and his quiet.  I need noise, don't I?
Maybe. Maybe not.

So . . . one day, Chris's female friends were super bored and decided to clean him up, take off the glasses, style his normally scruffy head of hair, and make him model.  For him, it was torture of the highest level. That smirk? That's his "I'm going to kill you all when this is over" face.
He would kill me dead several times if he knew that I had posted this picture.
But I love it, so I'll take that risk.
Do you see why I couldn't resist, people?

"Well, if you're ready hurry up. We're meeting Ande and Alyssa. I don't want to miss it," Chris says, and we follow him outside to his Ford Bronco. It's an army green clunker, but I haven't seen a car that cool before, not ever.  Climbing inside that bucket of bolts was like entering hollowed ground.  Sheltered as I was, I had never been in a boy's car before. What a little thrill it gave me. 
I still hold a soft spot in my heart for Broncos, just because of that night.

The moment the doors close, Chris hits the gas, and, man, can that truck move. Joe fumbles with the dials on the dash, and music roars out of the stereo.  He and Chris are yelling and headbanging, fists held aloft, like men charging into battle.
It's not the music you'd expect twenty-year-old boys to mosh to. It's not death metal, punk, or rock 'n; roll.
It's an Irish Penny Whistle.
Screaming its cheery little tune. And the boys are screaming with it.

I want you to picture it, picture that moment. Here we come around a corner, far too quickly, Julie and I tumbling into each other, Chris and Joe's collection of empty Yoohoo bottles rolling and clinking under our feet. Joe is chugging from a bottle of Canada Dry pop, and the music is so loud it's pounding in our chests.  Celtic music.
Music you do a pleasant, skipping jig to on a happy day.
They've turned it into a testosterone-charged battle cry.

I'm scrambling for my seatbelt, laughing, because I have never seen anyone act so wildly  but be so cool at the same time. 
In that moment, Chris and Joe are the coolest boys I've ever seen. No one could compare to the road warriors of the penny whistle.

They didn't speak to us, but we fussed at them for the driving. I can't remember what I said, but I was so nervous and excited that I'm sure it was idiotic.
Probably entirely true, but sounded idiotic.

Chris and Joe being Chris and Joe
He still has that orange vest and the afro stashed in our closet.
Because you never EVER know when you'll need to pretend you just escaped the 70s

We finally pull up into an empty field in the middle of the woods, but you can hear the highway on the other side of the trees.
I know, it sounds really bad. If this were a horror film, this is the moment when some serial killer pops out and destroys us all.

Luckily, it's not a horror film. It's my life, which, apparently, is less exciting and considerably less bloody.

Instead of leading us to our doom or slaughtering us, Chris hops onto the roof of the Bronco and begins drumming.  Joe accompanies him, beating on the hood of the truck. It's like a weird moment from that musical with the trash-cans, Stomp. Different tones, perfect rhythm. Oddly musical.

I applaud. I can't help myself.
I say something stupid about liking all music except Michael Jackson, and Joe refutes me saying that, if I like all music, then I would like the King of Pop, because disliking him would make my previous statement false. He's logical and philosophical and all that jazz.
I'm mortified so I shut up for the rest of the night. Actually, I'm still embarrassed about it. My former humiliations cling to me for years. It's been ten years, and I'm still, "Gah, why was I so awkward!?!"

And, before you stone me, let me be clear: at sixteen, I had only ever heard one song by Michael Jackson: the music video for the "Free Willy" movie. I was so encased in an anti-media bubble that I didn't fully understand who he was, only that he looked like a bug-eyed corpse in a wig. That scared me.
As an adult, I fully recognize his musical genius.
But he still looked like a scary bug-eyed corpse in a wig.


We wander to a clearing--their old backyard, I'm told, and, one day it is my backyard--and I stub my toe on a pine cone. I can still smell the damp, swampy air, hear the mosquitoes buzzing in my ear and the frogs chorus. I don't mind though.  I stand close to Chris, just to try it, feel him almost smiling, staring into the night.
And a woman jumps on his back, hooting like a banshee.

Moment ruined.

Ah, he has a girlfriend. Or an almost girlfriend, I think, and inch away, hovering closer to Julie. We are outside observers, after all, tag-alongs on an event not intended for our company. I best remember my place.

Chris catches the excited female--Ande--and tries not to grimace. Alyssa appears quietly at her side, and the four young adults begin to chatter,  the two high schoolers forgotten. These four have been friends for years, a friendship that continues to this day. Good people.

Ande just happened to have jumped on Chris when we were both unconsciously trying to make a move on the other.
Kind of.
Almost.
LOOK--if you're shy, breathing the same air as your crush is "making a move."
And I was doing all kinds of moving that night.

Adam, Chris, and Joe, then Alyssa and a girl who is not Ande . . . I'm not sure who that is . . . aren't I dreadful???

We wait and watch for the eclipse, but it's an overcast night. Tonight, the moon appears, disappears, appears once more, and disappears again. I don't know how long we waited, sweating through our clothes, sucked dry by insects.  It may have been hours, it may have been twenty minutes.  But the eclipse never appears.

Or, maybe it did, and you couldn't tell because of all the stupid clouds. The moon winks at us again and again. It knows what's going on even if we don't.

I have no idea that Chris finds a "brightness" in me, something he can't keep out of his mind.
Chris has no idea that I can't push him out of mine either, that I'm beginning to wonder if Julie is rooting for the wrong crush. That I like his sweet, thoughtful quiet more than chattering charm. That, for once in my life, I find myself liking green eyes more than blue.

Chris and Joe drop us back off at Julie's house, where we scurry off giggling to bed.
The next morning, Chris's door is shut, as it usually is.  I stand there, wanting to knock and say thank you. Thank you for such a very fun night . . . but I can't make myself do it. The words catch in my throat, and I just can't.
So I do what seems the next best thing. I tear out a piece of notebook paper and begin to scribble a thank you.  I sign it, "Your sister's twerpy friend" and slide it under the door.

What I don't know is that he sees it.
That he reads it.
And then he keeps it.

He doesn't know that I never forget that night, that little kindness.
That, in our following English class, I write about it as one of the best nights of my life.

I write him several notes over the next year--thank yous for driving us, for lending us things, for treating us like people and not pests. Thank you for seeing me, I keep trying to say and can't. 
What I don't know is that he tucks them all away in a safe place.

And he saves them all.

Part 1: When I fell for what I shouldn't

You know the old adage: "Boys marry women like their mothers, and girls marry men like their fathers." You go after what you know, the familiar.  It's not a law set in stone, by any means, but there's a grain of truth in it.

I, however, was told the exact opposite. 

I was about seven and sitting in our car waiting for my cheeseburger-ketchup-only-PLEASE at the Burger King drive-in.  I don't remember what we were talking about, but, apparently, it had something to do with espousage because my father said, "Sarah, you'll probably marry someone more like your mom . . . or your brother, since he's so much like her."
Surely I had just been handed a fate worse than death.
"But I don't want to marry someone like Matthew! He's annoying!"
I hope Matt poked me or pinched me or something right then and there. Seven-year-old me deserved it.
"Sarah, that's not nice. And, well, you're quiet and your brother and mom are both outgoing. You marry your opposite."
There was no way. None. Not ever, not ever ever EVER times infinity.  Yuck.

Actually . . . now that I think about it . . . I think my four-year-old brother and I were arguing about who got to marry Dad when we grew up . . .  Kids brains are scary, funky places, I'll tell you what.
Luckily, we BOTH gave up on that idea PRETTY QUICKLY. Phew.
That could have been REALLY awkward. Dodged a bullet there, didn't we?
Wow.

MOVING ON.

Still, what Dad said stuck--I should marry my opposite.
Being a hopelessly romantic child (thanks SO much, Disney -_-), I was ALWAYS on the lookout for my Prince Charming.  I knew my destiny was some chatty class clown, the kind who can't help but be friends with everyone, the one who doesn't know a stranger and can make you laugh with just a wink.
Someone to talk where I was silent.
Someone whose charm covered all my awkwardness.
Someone so full of life I never went back to my bookish corners.
Opposites and all that jazz. Destiny.

Isn't it funny when Destiny doesn't look at all how you imagined?

At fifteen, I went with my new best friend to a concert.  We stopped by her house to grab something (I don't remember what, but it was a big deal because her dad was pissed that we might be late), and, inside, there was this body collapsed facedown on the couch.  It was just this giant mess of hair mushrooming out of what must have been a head, face buried in his arms.  I was terrified.  Not because I thought it was dead but because it was most decidedly MALE, and cute male, on top of it.
Cute males are the most frightening specimens of the teenage animal kingdom. Why, I don't know, but they put me in a cold sweat every time they were remotely in sight. .

So, this guy.
This cute guy with too much hair and big yellow green eyes like I had never seen before. 
This enigma.
The best friend's big brother.
I hated the cliche, the age-old tale of a twittering, adolescent female falling for her friend's older sibling. I had always sworn I never would. It was shallow and stupid and just blech.
But none of my friends before this had older brothers like THIS.
Oh, be still my heart.

He didn't speak unless spoken to, but he had a ready smile. His sisters adored him because he was kind, and his great-grandmother favored him because he was clever. He played guitar and video games with his second-cousin-once-removed, staying up til all hours of the night drinking Yoo-hoo and eating canned spaghetti straight out of the can.  Sometimes they talked religion, philosophy.on the importance of Han Solo shooting first. My friend tried to convince me I should be falling for the cousin--outgoing, witty, never a stranger, an ideal match.
Her brother, on the other hand, was quiet, funny, talented, and a bit of a pessimist.

He was EXACTLY like my daddy.
Too alike. Off limits. Do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars, thank you very much.

So why didn't he leave that little corner of my mind? He just kind of settled there, built himself a comfortable nest and strummed guitar anytime I glanced at another fellow. He was a mental squatter of the worst and most delightful kind. I wasn't sure I wanted him to leave.
But he should . . . shouldn't he?

Sometimes, when he'd show us some new internet cartoon or play video games, I'd stay a little longer than the others just to feel the air crackle. I was so thrilled, so nervous, just to sit there in silence and not be sent away. He let me stay. He didn't necessarily speak to me, but, sometimes, he'd smile at me--not long or deep or wide, just this quiet glance as if he almost liked that I was there. 
I was all jitters and pounding heart. Oh, be still, be still, be still.
Adolescent crushes are some of the most powerful, silly things, aren't they?

Once, I do remember speaking to him. He let his sister borrow a pair of sunglasses, which were then passed to me (SCORE). When it came time to return them, I just hovered by the kitchen counter, staring at him on the couch, watching television. I tried to force myself closer, even just by inches, and couldn't move. My palms were sweaty and my heart was raising, and, finally, I mustered every ounce of courage I had and slapped them on the counter.  "UmmmhereareyoursunglassesChriskthanksbye," I burst out and literally RAN for cover in his sister's room.

Smooth moves.
I have them.
By the boatload.
You can't handle my moves.
BAM.



Miracle of miracles he didn't laugh at me. He didn't make fun of me. He stayed.

And, in my own way, so did I. Despite all of my expectations and prophecies, I stayed.
Against all odds, I fell for the musician who was too like me--too quiet, too nerdy, too still.
Opposites did not attract.  How bizarre.

But, I suppose, there's more of that story for another time, isn't there?

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Photo by Isaiah Eyre