...That's What She Said

The summer before I started high school was a mixture of adulthood anticipation and childhood nostalgia. Camped out in my backyard by the lake, the splintered picnic table served as my stage: front, center and behind the scenes. Living in a sprawling, unincorporated township filled with elderly people, trees and alligators, meant that the recently transplanted youth would have to travel miles to find one another. Given that, I felt very lucky to have found a friendship with a girl two years my senior named Kelly Jackson. I taught her how to sew discarded buttons onto old socks and soon we were giggling from behind the overturned wooden table. While our puppets entertained the nearby birds and squirrels, I wondered if this was what it felt like to have an older sister. Would she teach me how to put on make-up and let me borrow her clothes? The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to leave the childish play behind and explore her home, two neighborhoods away. Kelly, however, seemed quite content to stay, climb trees and explore the mucky lakeside, even when the puppeteering grew tiresome. As summer sped toward an ending, her visits grew less frequent. I had been so excited to show her the three new outfits I’d managed to purchase at the mall by scrounging together all of my babysitting money and I truly wanted to obtain her thoughts as to whether or not my dollar store canvas shoes could pass for Keds. I knew that her approval could open the doors out of nerddom, as just having a friend who was a junior in school would impress my fellow freshman… but add to it that this friend was Kelly Jackson, well, that was just as good as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. Kelly was a pretty, blonde, mid-drift showing, new boyfriend every month kind of girl… which was the polar opposite of everything I considered myself to be. I’d had one “boyfriend” in the sixth grade, and I got laughed at by everyone on the bus for not holding his hand correctly. Kelly was going to change everything for me. I was sure of it… so sure, that I brushed off her absence in the week before school started as her just wanting to prepare for the big first day back.

Monday morning greeted me with a wave of anxiety induced nausea as I smashed the snooze button and stumbled into the bathroom to begin the arduous process of waiting for the water to become hot. Running late, as usual, I scrunched my socks down, careful to make sure that the yellow on the left foot rose to the exact same height as the turquoise one on the right. With a cold Pop-Tart protruding from my mouth, I grabbed by backpack and raced down the sidewalk. I wasn’t sure if Kelly would be at the bus stop at the end of my cul-de-sac street or if she’d have caught a ride with someone lucky enough to drive their own car to school, but I wanted to get there early enough to say hi before the cheese wagon arrived. To my dismay, I heard the steady rumble of the large engine as I rounded the last bend and had just enough time to get in line behind the last fluorescent clad student before the pressurized doors were pulled shut by the driver. Kelly was sitting in the back, all seats full. I thought about waving, but I didn’t want to look like a complete dork when I hadn’t met the other older kids yet. Instead, I slumped down in one of the front seats and decided I’d catch up with her on the way home.

Later, the bells had released us back out into the Florida sunshine and diesel fumes, and I jogged past the first few busses idling in the loop to find the one that would take me clear across town to my section of swamp. I saw that Kelly had just arrived and took an empty seat two rows from the last. Before she had the chance to turn around, I plopped myself right beside her. Two older boys with sparse facial hair and a girl with enormous hoop earrings in the row behind Kelly turned their surprised looks toward her, as I smiled from ear to ear. She glared at me and demanded that I get out of her seat. Her snarl caught me by surprise and my only question of “why” was lodged in my throat. Without a sound, I slipped away and took my rightful place behind the bus driver. I paid no attention to the whispers of the other riders as we rolled forward, keeping my eyes locked straight ahead for fear that any movement might cause a tear to spill out and call further attention to my utter humiliation.

Sadly, my quiet embarrassment was not enough for Kelly Jackson. After the bus pulled away from the corner, I scurried as fast as I could down the uneven sidewalk. Kelly followed behind. She shouted at me to stop, but I couldn’t turn to face her. Her footsteps closed the gap between us and the straps of my backpack jerked my shoulders backward. She wanted to know “who the hell I thought I was” and demanded an explanation as to why I’d want to make her look bad. Voice cracking, I simply murmured that I thought we were friends. The fire in her eyes subsided for only a second before her clenched fist connected with my rib cage. The shock of what was happening caused me to miss the complete details of how I’d transitioned from holding my side, still upright… to lying face down on a bed of loose gravel, sand and dandelion weed. I could feel the impression that a broken shell was leaving in my cheek as intensely as I felt the toe of Kelly Jackson’s puffy-painted shoe jabbing into my left thigh. She screamed at me to get up and fight, and when I didn’t, she kicked at me again… each time harder, like an angry mule. The problem was, I didn’t know how to fight. This was my first time. Just like I didn’t know how to dress, how to kiss or how to be cool. I had foolishly hoped that the older girl from the other side of the street would teach me these things... in exchange for what I had taught her about sewing and construction paper prop making and recording our summer sock puppet performances on blank cassette tapes. She called me stupid and pathetic and finished with “I hate you” as a shower of kicked up dirt rained down upon my tangled, brown hair. Over the course of those few minutes that felt like hours, I didn’t say a word and I didn’t get up and hit her back, though it seemed as though she’d really wanted me to. I kept my eyes closed and my nose pressed down, even as I heard the soft crunching of sand that her departing footsteps made. As I tasted the dry earth on my tongue and crunched the tiny bits of tarred asphalt in my teeth, I realized that my only lesson from Kelly Jackson had just been learned.

• Post 1 will be on TODAY, June 12 - Share with us your 1st FIGHT scene on your blog. It can be physical or verbal, fists or magic. Whichever you want to share.
• Post 2 will be on Thursday, June 14 - Share with us your 1st KISS scene on your blog. It can be a peck on the cheek or a full fledge kissing session. Whatever you would like to tell us.
• Prizes? Absolutely! Jackie and I will each pick our favorite scene from each day. That’s 4 prizes total, folks. What are the fabulous gifts for the winners? $10 email-giftcards to Amazon or Barnes & Noble so you can choose that book you’ve been wanting or download it to your Kindle or Nook.)