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It was second grade, the year my parents divorced. The year started off awkwardly. The previous summer my dad and I spent three weeks in Corpus painting his parents' den. When we returned to Friendswood he found a pair of men's socks under the bed that did not belong to him. History repeating itself. Soon after, my mom casually announced that she was moving out. In the ensuing stress of shuttling back and forth between my dad's house and my mom's apartment and dealing with her new (or rather, not so new) guy and his daughter, I didn't do so well in school or with my friends. I was invited to a slumber party but couldn't stay the night because of scheduling conflicts involving custody battles. The girl got mad and hated me forever afterwards. I couldn't understand why she was so horrible about something I couldn't help and that didn't really matter at all. That was when I started hanging out with boys. Apparently, like some grown men have a weakness for blondes, I had a weakness for blonds myself as a child. The Cherub wasn't in my class in second grade—they liked to mix us up so we'd all get to know each other (it didn't work)—but there was another blond boy in my class. He was thin, with sandier hair than the Cherub, hazel eyes, and a band of freckles across his cheekbones. He was also given to blushing, but not so often as the Cherub. It was more than just that similarity that drew me to him. Every day at recess our class would divide itself according to gender, and each would chase the other on alternating days. Girls Chase Boys Day was full of early feminist or misogynistic sentiments; while Boys Chase Girls Day was meaner and rougher, punctuated by the occasional incident of bullying. That was how I noticed FO: He pulled boys off girls and wouldn't chase them himself. His sensitivity was touching. Sometime later, the teacher decided to change our lunch seating arrangement by seating us boy-girl, boy-girl. Every so often teachers did this to encourage more quiet lunches. It never worked since we just leaned around each other or shouted down the table. On this particular occasion, however, I was not interested in doing so since I found myself seated across from FO. It was like P.E. with the Cherub all over again. I was paralyzed. My sandwich turned to mush in my mouth. An extremely tentative conversation began. I think he asked about my napkin. My dad, knowing that I was having a tough time dealing with the divorce, drew cartoons on my lunch napkins to brighten my day. I explained that my parents were divorced; FO said that his parents were also divorced. I was surprised and delighted that we had something in common. Nobody else in the class had divorced parents; we were unique. He would remember me now. We talked a little bit about our respective families until someone interrupted him and the conversation died. Then lunch ended and we returned to class without saying anything to each other. I looked longingly after him, knowing that we would likely never speak again. I saw him a little more in class after that, but our seating chart changed again and he was no longer in my line of sight. I briefly focussed my attentions a dark-haired boy next to me. That ended abruptly when I discovered that he had a crush on a snooty girl who sat across from me, who had foul breath and blew her eraser crumbs all over my desk. This taught me to brush the crumbs away rather than blowing them, for which I'm sure many of my classmates were grateful. Not that they had much to fear from me as I brushed my teeth regularly, but still. I returned my attentions to FO. I had to peer over my shoulder to do this, which meant I had to be quite furtive. I didn't want a repeat of the public embarrassment of the Cherub, after all. I gradually abandoned him, however, upon learning that I would attend a new school the following year. My aunt had decided that I needed to go to a private school. I didn't want to, but she insisted I'd get a better education. I didn't. |