Nice To Meet You

I remember when you first came to our small little town here in Georgia. You moved here from Pennsylvania with your father shortly after your parents divorced. He took a job at the mechanics' and you moved into the house down by Cicada and Plum.

I can still remember how calm you were on your first day of fourth grade here, which happened to be in early June. Though you spoke, like your Georgian born and bred parents, with the slow drawl of the Dirty South, you had a distinct tincture of a Yankee's accent in your voice... very exotic to the rest of us and pure enchantment to me. I wore my prettiest dress the next day, a pale blue one with a very full skirt. I hoped to God that you would fall for me the way I had fallen for you. I had recently been having some success with my first forays in the world of the opposite sex, thus signaling the very beginning of my lifelong addiction to the chase. I had already started to develop what I might now term my "feminine prowess," that uncanny ability to read, manipulate, coax.

Of course, it was still all very innocent at the time. I've learned (much later) that men vary widely in their emotional functioning. Some boys have crushes very early on and pursue love and romance keenly. Others think very little of it, or perhaps have almost no interest in passion at all. The latter has always struck me as very sad. I just can't picture a life worth living without that thrilling beat of excitement deep in your core.

But you didn't seem to really notice me that day, just as you didn't really seem to notice anything at all. I wondered if you were in some sort of stupor at your sudden relocation into the South. Dazed like that, you probably would have done bad at school, but luckily for you, there was only a month left in the year. I was a bit disappointed when the last day came and went. I was feeling the pangs of unfulfilled attraction already. But by some stroke of luck, you became good friends with J that summer.

It wasn't taboo to hang out with the opposite gender yet, and I had become quite familiar with J over the last year. We had sat near each other in class because our last names began with letters that were consecutive in the alphabet. Strange how a mechanism for teachers' convenience can so drastically affect relationships. I was taking a walk through some neighborhood streets around 10 or 11 in the morning about two weeks into summer vacation.

Like many summer vacations, this one had been longed for during the schoolyear, but once I had no daytime obligations, I found that I didn't know what to do with myself besides search for mundane ways to entertain my mind. By chance I walked by J's house and saw you two playing with two other boys. J and the other two recognized me immediately and we talked exhuberantly. You hung back, just staring, and my heart raced.

J introduced us, and you said, "Nice to meet you," so gentlemenly. Your eyes had the slightest hint of recognition and interest. And I smiled at the idea that I had already thought of you a million times before.