2005-03-11
So I still can’t shake "Blankets." (See previous entry.) I’ve always believed that everybody - everybody - will be part of at least one great love story in their life, a belief which "Blankets" reaffirmed and validated.I feel inclined to share (in greater detail than before) my great love story. And if you don't appreciate such a thing, then I suggest you read something else. Strap yourself in, kids. This is gonna be a marathon. But it will be worth it.
I was fourteen years old, she was twelve. I knew her wry dark eyes, her long blonde hair, and the musical cadence of her voice before I knew her name – Allison. In Inherit the Wind, the play that we were in during the sweltering summer of 1996, there were two parts in the entire play for children, Howard and Melinda, which were played by the two of us.
On the night of our first run-through, Allison and I bonded over the discussion of horror films in the tiny rehearsal space that the summer stock theater company owned. It was one of those "Have you seen this? Have you seen THIS?" movie chats that can go on forever. She mentioned how she was going to watch The Haunting of Hill House with her dad, who was also cast in the play. That, you see, was my stepping stone to talk to her during the next rehearsal. "How was that one movie you were talking about?"
After that, we didn't need any stepping stones.
Now, my primary motivation in continuing to talk to Allison was to make a new friend. I had always figured that Allison had a little crush on me, but as an entering high school freshman, it is neither my right nor my privilege to know what the hell to do with these things you call girls. I was attracted to her from day one, but I didn't act on it. Didn't know how. And so, opening night rolled around and there was a red rose and a gummy worm (a joke taken from our dialogue in the first scene of the play), and a note left on the prop table for me.
THE NOTE, IN ITS ENTIRETY, WHICH I JUST PULLED FROM ITS HOME IN MY DESK DRAWER:
7/96
Dear Andy,
Hey! Happy first night! I hope you like the rose and the worm.
I'm not sure when but definitely this week I would really like to go to a movie with you. Not anything serious, just a movie, you know? My dad of course would either be with us in the movie or seeing another while we watch ours. I hope I'm not being pushy. Ask your mother of course. And to surprise me tell me after tonight's show =:)
Allison (Melinda)
(Holding this folded piece of notebook paper reminds me that it was all real.)
The movie was the smash Michael Keaton comedy, Multiplicity. Her dad sat about ten rows behind us, laughing loudly on occasion. The theater was nearly empty. As much as I wanted to, I didn't hold her hand. I was shy. But when she took a few seconds to nuzzle her head into my shoulders, and I could smell her hair, for the first time I knew what everybody was talking about concerning this fascinating creature called a girl. After the "date," her dad took a picture of us in the front yard of my home. I never saw a copy of that picture.
At the wrap party at a swank hotel downtown, Allison and I spent the evening together just chatting and walking around. I wanted to make my move, so to speak, but - and this is a problem that has lingered with me my whole life - I didn't know how to make my move. There never seemed to be the right moment. So we exchanged phone numbers and said we'd call, yada yada, but let's just call a spade a spade. I blew it.
After the party had ended, we were walking through the parking lot with her dad and my mom. As we reached the point where our paths were to part, she stopped me and kissed me on the cheek. Just once. Fear of our parents be damned, she walked right over to me and finally gave me an irrefutable symbol of her affection for me.
She smiled her bright smile and turned away.
Several weeks later - a long time, I know, but everything's forgivable when you're fourteen - I decided to call her up. A foreign voice answered on the other end of the line. This voice told me that due to some circumstances that I didn't understand, Allison had moved to Wisconsin. Just like that.
I was crushed. All I wanted to do was to tell her and show her how I felt. I wanted to do that, and I wanted to kiss her. Sad thing is, when you're just a kid, a couple hundred miles away might as well have been the Pacific.
THREE AND A HALF YEARS GO BY.
My senior year of high school, I was at my first speech tournament ever at Bradley University, the largest tournament in the Midwest. As I'm combing through the events and the contestants' names, I see it. "Allison Hardin." So I do what any normal kid would do. I stake her out.
That first night of the tournament, she emerges from a classroom. She was wearing a burgundy suit and she had grown her blonde hair longer. She was becoming a woman, and she was just absolutely radiant. I approached her and said hi. She didn't recognize me. Fortunately - serendipitously - I was wearing my Inherit the Wind t-shirt as an undershirt. So I actually unbuttoned my dress shirt and showed her my shirt. She flipped out, hugged me, and introduced herself to her friend as "My first date!" We made plans to catch a movie and then something to eat the next night.
The movie was the smash Johnny Depp thriller, Sleepy Hollow, her choice of course. The theater wasn't nearly empty. As much as I wanted to, I didn't hold her hand. I was shy. But when she took a few seconds to nuzzle her head into my shoulders, and I could smell her hair, I remembered how much I wanted to tell her how I felt and how much I wanted to kiss her when I was fourteen, and that sense of failure and loss that I felt when I didn't make good on my ambitions three years ago... I had been given a second chance by no greater a power than God Himself, and I intended to take full advantage of it.
After the movie we went to Steak N' Shake and made small talk. I didn't open up to her yet. I wanted to make it my finale, so to speak. That time came when I dropped her off at the home that she and her dad were staying at for their brief trip to Peoria.
I walked her to the door. She opened the door. We said goodnight. She smiled that smile. She closed the door.
...
I walked back to my car and looked up at the house and realized it. I was fourteen again. I blew it.
Needless to say, I was most disappointed with myself. Even my high school drama teacher noticed the way that I morosely carried myself. To help deal with and rationalize the blowing of my God-given second chance, I wrote a short story about the whole experience. It ended up being published in my high school literary magazine.
ONE YEAR GOES BY.
I am a freshman again, at Webster University. My experiences in speech and debate that began with that single tournament in high school had blossomed into a lust for the activity in college. Eager to bring up a prose interpretation for the national tournament, I chose the Allison story. In March of 2001, in Boise, ID, I won fourth place out of 126 prose entries and the healthiest of respect from my peers.
Back at Webster, I told my dorm friends about the whole Allison story up to that point. I left briefly to go to the bathroom, and when I returned, a name had come up on the Hotmail search. Allison Hardin from Sun Prairie, WI. "Is this her?" they asked. So I sent this address an email.
It was her.
She was thrilled to hear from me. We sent each other a few emails, I sent her a copy of my story, which she loved, but our correspondence eventually lulled.
ONE MORE YEAR GOES BY.
I don't remember how it happened, by we began corresponding again.
AN EMAIL FROM ALLISON:
hey....I'm finishing up all of my college financial shit right now and I just randomly decided to check my mail...to my suprise you had replied..anyway...hopefully I won't have to much going on tonight and I'll be able to give you a call. I would love to talk to you again...and come see you in St. Louis......
She had broached the subject. I had half-jokingly suggested it. But she was serious. And in March of 2002, shortly after my birthday, Allison was going to come and stay with me in St. Louis for three days.
In the time leading up to her visit, we spoke on the phone at great lengths. While I listened to the then-new John Mayer album, "Room For Squares," she confided in me how her dad had fallen victim to alcoholism, how she planned to attend Carleton College in Minnesota, and plenty else. Thanks to the marvelous invention called the telephone, we were the closest we had ever been since 1996. The night before she arrived in town, she called me at 1 in the morning from a bus stop just to say hi and tell me that she was on her way, not to mention colorful descriptions of the creepy folks that inhabit Greyhound stations.
My goal was to take full advantage of my God-given third chance.
Allison stepped off of a Greyhound bus just after the sun rose over St. Louis. I had made sure to roll out the red carpet for her during those three days. Primo floor seats to Phantom of the Opera at the Fox Theater. Dinner at Sidney Street Cafe, one of the best restaurants in the city. A walk through the Botanical Gardens, you name it. But she seemed nervous. Aloof. Nevermind that we slept in the same bed for those several nights. When I casually mentioned my affection for her, she seemed particularly startled. I was fourteen again, never feeling that it was the right time to acknowledge the impact that she had made on me those five years ago.
Our last night together, we were lying in bed, and I was lying on my back thinking to myself, "Kiss her, you asshole. Do it. Do it. Do it do it do it! C'mon! Stop being a pussy and DO IT! C'mon! C'MON! C'MON YOU SONOFABITCH ASSHOLE YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO FUCKING KISS HER YOU WAITED OVER FIVE YEARS FOR THIS YOU ASSHOLE SO JUST FUCKING KISS HER!!!"
And she turned over and kissed me full on the mouth. Every number in my head went up by one.
She rolled back over and said good night, but I (finally) took her hand and said, "You want to try that again?" And she turned to me, and met me. We kissed for several minutes, our hands wandered, my hand was lead by her up her shirt... but she stopped and said that she couldn't do it. Not like this. I was confused, but I held her hand until she slept despite the fact that, once again, I felt like I blew it.
The next morning, it poured like hell as I drove her back to the bus station. We ran through the rain to meet her bus. Once we met it and as she was about to board, I tried to kiss her. She stopped me and said, "No, let's leave it like this. Let's leave it like friends." I said all that I could possibly say. I said, "Okay." And she got on the bus.
I walked - not ran - through the rain back to my car. After that exchange, I couldn't muster such enthusiasm for, of all things, keeping myself dry. Upon returning to my car, I saw that she had left her water bottle on my dashboard. Reluctantly, I ran back through the pouring rain to the bus. I stepped into the cabin, and saw Allison sitting in one of the front seats. I held up the water bottle.
She stood, took the water bottle, and said, "Must be a sign." She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me. It was bar none, no contest, the best kiss I've had in my twenty-three years on this Earth.
I told my friends that I became a walking John Cusack movie that morning. I walked back to my car again, numb to the rain, numb to the world, numb to everything but the overwhelming, all-consuming sense of satisfaction, joy, and closure that had enveloped me once Allsion's lips met mine on that bus.
We sent each other an email and an IM here and there shortly thereafter, but aside from that spring of 2002, now just short of three years gone by, we haven't spoken since.
I'm crying right now. But I'm not crying because I'm sad. I'm happy. To paraphrase "Blankets," I'm happy to have made my mark on somebody's life.
No matter how temporary.
-Andy