I Still Stutter Around Boys

The phone only rang twice before his mother picked up. In my nervousness I launched myself across the floor to tackle the phone, punching the hang-up button as quickly as any gangly eleven-year-old could possibly move. There was no way I was going to let Lacy do this. NO WAY IN HELL. But then, almost immediately, I was overcome with the need to KNOW, know RIGHT THEN, what the answer was. Did he? Did he not? Like vultures they could sense my indecision.

So this time Lacy picked up the phone while Tiffany and Ella held my arms down on the floor. All in an effort to prevent a repeat of my earlier launching performance. The phone rang three times, his mother answered. I started to giggle. An inexplicable reaction, but I giggled nonetheless. Even at the time I knew how juvenile it was but I was POWERLESS to stop it. And so Lacy began the dance.

How are you?
How's your weekend?
Have you finished your science homework?
Are you going to church tomorrow?
Isn't school totally lame?
Are you going to the Tiffany concert in Jackson? My mom is taking me and my sister.
Did you see what Erica wore on Friday? It was so ugly.
Do you ever talk to my friend [redacted]? The one that sits behind you? She told me you guys go to the same country club. Really? Don't you think she's, like, really pretty and stuff? I heard from Sam that you might like her. Oh? Really? Well, yeah, she is. But she's still really pretty, in her own way. Yeah, I know Melanie. She lives two doors down from me. Yeah, I talk to her all the time. Oh. Sure, I'll tell her you said hi. Hey, I gotta go. My mom is here to pick me up. 'K. Bye.

Lacy hung up the phone and told it to me straight. Not in the interest of sparing my feelings- but because she was actually foaming at the mouth to tell us, and everyone within a 30 mile radius, what the Grudzien boy had said.

"He says you never talk and that you're really tall."

______________________

The Grudzien boy moved away that Christmas, much to my relief and sadness. I never admitted to a single person, even my friends, that I had ever liked the Grudzien boy. I maintained FOR YEARS that Lacy had been trying to fix me up and I'd been held against my will by Tiffany and Ella. The next year I developed a crush on another Unattainable, Thomas Hutto. THAT crush, through lack of other available candidates and total boredom, lasted from seventh grade until junior year in high school. It lasted through Thomas' chubby faze, his growth spurt and subsequent bony skeletor faze. I supported his ridiculous attempts at facial hair and baggy-pant-addiction. I adored his black Chevy truck with the sticker on the back window proclaiming "We Don't Give a Damn How You Did It Up North." I became ridiculously smitten when he developed a nickname for me our sophomore year, BTH. Neither he nor any of his Popular Smart Kid friends would tell me what BTH stood for until the day before I was set to move to Texas. That afternoon he finally caved and whispered in my ear-- Big Titty Holmes. And you know what? My mild feminist values flew right out the window and I was FLATTERED that he'd noticed something, ANYTHING, about me.

I had no real crushes once I moved back to Texas. Though I did briefly date a guy named Adam who had possibly the least amount of game of any teenage male who has EVER LIVED. The first time he kissed me came after a three hour marathon viewing of South Park. He got up to turn off the VCR, sat back down on the couch and PROMPTLY launched himself, mouth open and tongue out, at my face. I actually had to ask him to take his tongue out for JUST A WEE SECOND so I could get a breath. I was too shell-shocked to give the boy any pointers, concentrating as I was on taking regular breaths and convincing him to take me home ASAP, so I hope some girl took pity on the guy later in life. Though I heard he became a huge pothead in college.

Let's hope that relaxed his tongue muscles a bit.