The cardboard box was labeled Jack’s Childhood Things. What goofy knickknacks, trading cards, plastic trophies, and magazines would he find inside? Jack stripped the mover’s tape from the top and pulled the flaps back, exposing a small tin chest that his father brought back from a business trip to England. He opened it, expecting to find a wealth of coins from foreign countries, and there she was, looking up at him from 30 years before. Her pursed-lip smile was frozen in time, her ice-blue eyes were spellbinding. The photo was mottled from years of bouncing around in his wallet and whatever dampness had seeped in during decades of storage. But it hadn’t spoiled the spill of her hair and the glow of her skin, all working together to form that exquisite face – just as when he saw her for the first time.

The hallway light was shining on her face, illuminating the perfectly formed lips, the small bump of a nose, and the eyes as blue as Nantucket waters. The tan coat that she was wearing was stylish but simple, managing to call attention to her and not itself. He sat still in the recliner in the living room, looking at her. Wondering if he had ever seen such a truly beautiful girl in his life. He threw his plate of half-eaten food aside, stood up, and walked over to her. His gait was slightly stooped, but it was brisk and not without enthusiasm.

It was December 24, 1979, Jack was 14, and he was at a Christmas party. A movie buff and bookworm, his inexperience with the opposite sex was considerable. However, there was always hope. Hope that the girl of his dreams would see past his awkwardness and insecurities straight through to what he felt was good in him -- his sensitivity, intelligence, and great sense of humor. One by one, the girls had all fallen away, put off by his clumsiness, his quiet, his lack of confidence. But he always had a dream that the next one would be different.

Jack was 6’1”, thin, a burst of dark, curly hair topping his head, freckles that he would keep for the rest of his life dotting his face. The host of the party was Bob Pennington, a workplace friend of his father, who threw this merry little soiree each Christmas Eve. Bob’s tall, gawky form, mop of hair, and dimpled smile suggested a large, friendly doll that children couldn’t resist playing with. He reminded Jack of Dick Van Dyke playing Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins -- a gangly pal that you could while away your time goofing around with and listen to the many funny stories that he’d tell you.

Bob’s parties were an emanation of his spirit -- relaxed, fun, freewheeling, and full of love of life. They were held in his comfortable, elegant townhouse in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was like a big playroom for grownups. Jack loved the comfortable furniture in the house. The sofa, recliner, ottoman, and loveseat were all plush and comfy. Once you were in them, you didn’t want to leave. The thick rug was comfortable enough to sit or lay upon if the furniture was occupied. Paintings of lush, sunflower-covered meadows and prints of Monets decorated the walls, reminding Jack of the eye-popping colors in classic Disney cartoons. The lighting was soft and intimate, like Jack’s room at night when he had a single bedside lamp on for reading. It was low enough for a calming effect, but bright enough to see who you were talking to. The buffet table ran parallel to the living room, formed an L around the dining room table and connected to the kitchen. For a hungry teenager, there was plenty to eat. Jack’s mouth watered at the table laden with thick slices of ham, deviled eggs, stuffed mushrooms, potato salad, pecan pie, cheese and crackers, Chocolate Eclairs, truffles, and even a not-so-welcome addition: the ever-ubiquitous Christmas fruitcake. Some of these were provided by Bob, others by guests. The stairway leading up to the second floor was also carpeted in black. Laying down on it, despite the feeling of stairs on his back, Jack thought a night could be spent on its soft, plush elegance. He got the feeling that Mr. Pennington, recently divorced, wanted this relaxation for his guests when they visited and as a comfort to himself when he was alone. Finally, topping it all off was the Christmas tree placed in the northwest corner of the living room. It didn’t dominate the room, but added cheer, a slight majesty, and a hint of holiness to the merry gatherings. It was full, tall, topped with an angel, and decorated with just enough ornaments to look substantial, as if it had a thousand Christmas stories to tell. Decoration-wise, it could have been used as a perfect tree in a children’s tale set at Christmastime. It was finished with elegant white lights, lending a peaceful, festive glow to the gathering. To Jack, this was similar to the feeling that he got from La Salette, the holy shrine that he visited in Massachusetts one Christmas.

Bob introduced Jack and his family (father Douglas, mother Margaret, sister Carrie) to the newcomers. Jack’s father was a computer guy like Bob (they were systems analysts, but Jack never could remember that and had no idea what they did). His dad was conservative and logic-minded (which was sometimes helpful to Jack and sometimes drove him crazy), an ex-Marine from Brooklyn who fought in Korea (Jack remembered that was the war in “M*A*S*H”) and majored in mathematics at New York University (the perfect background for someone who drove you crazy with logic). He had studied to be a teacher (picturing his six-foot-tall and broad-shouldered ex-Marine father sitting with an apple on his desk always made Jack smile) before he gave it up to jump into the then new computer industry after college graduation in 1954. Jack’s mother was a housewife, also from Brooklyn, no formal education, and, belying her Brooklyn background, very loud. Jack's sister was in the 8th grade and a whiz at interacting with people. Jack was always amazed at how quickly she made friends and occasionally couldn't help but feel jealous of it.

Jack heard something about the girl’s parents and older sister. The girl’s father, Del – tall, balding, long face, and tinted glasses – did some other, unpronounceable computer thing at Bob’s previous place of employment, Tekcon. The girl’s mother, Amanda, was glamorous, articulate, dynamic, a feminist. Jack thought that his father should stay away from her. She had a smooth complexion with a glorious pile of wavy hair on top of her finely drawn features. The girl’s college-aged sister Carla was beautiful, although with a somewhat serious air about her. Jack even found himself gaping at her when she walked by him. He snapped out of it quickly, because it was as if there was a spotlight that shone only on … her. The rest of the world receded into a blur in the background. Her name was Linda.

As the night wore on, they got closer. She was 13, the same age as his sister. The three of them soon drifted off to their own little group, away from the adults. They found a hangout in the unfinished basement, suitable for sitting, crowding into corners, running around in stocking feet, and laughing at the huge, crazy, scary, and wonderful world around them. They horsed around as adolescents do, flinging themselves about, teasing and chasing each other, gossiping about the adults, and filling the night with the high spirits of youth.

He had never warmed to any of the girls in his school classes, and they had never been crazy about him. He always felt as if he were shrinking in size every time that he stood in front of them due to their brazenness, haughtiness, and sarcasm. But here was a girl miles away from the cliques and castes of the schoolyard hierarchy. She was a beauty who made him feel as if his wildly beating heart had just been lifted up to the highest reaches of heaven. Not only was she the most magnificent girl that he had ever seen, but because of her bouncy, outgoing personality and spirited demeanor, he almost felt as if she were what would later in life be referred to as his soulmate. She would be his partner in enjoying everything that life had to offer, as well as facing every hurdle that life threw at him. She was Becky Thatcher to his Tom Sawyer.

After a time, things started getting cozy. The lavender dress, white blouse, and white stockings that she was wearing felt good as she sat next to him. He could feel the warmth of her body through her clothing, and he kept sneaking looks at her profile, her naturally red lips in a small smile, her face alive even at its most passive, eyes sending out a glow like blue diamonds. Even her hair glittered, a honey-blonde mane that framed the side of her face, swooped over her ears, and stopped just above her shoulders. The scent of soap wafted over to him, tickled his nose, and swooped down to the pit of his stomach where it danced with delight. She even had a beauty mark, a dark mole about halfway up the right side of her neck, an imperfection that made her more human, less of a flawless doll, and only added to her appeal.

After some more time had passed, he started to feel a charge through every fiber and sinew of his body. It glowed in the center of his chest, then spread to his arms, his legs, his fingers, his toes. It finally reached his head where it filled his brain with a hothouse of orange light, shooting out brilliant threads that caressed every muscle in his face. After a while, his brain started intercepting commands from the light that filled his body. All insecurity and self-consciousness had left him. He seized the moment and willed his arm to curl around her neck and shoulders. It felt amazingly right. The brilliant light became an electric shock that exploded to every corner and crevice of his body. It was all he could do to suppress a smile.

She relaxed into his body, her head flopping onto his shoulder, her hair filling his nose with the fruity-sweet scent of her shampoo. He thought that his brain would explode. His body might have been in an unfinished basement in Manchester, but his head, his mind, his soul were hundreds of miles above the earth, floating in a stratosphere where his senses were filled with the best of every sight, sound, and smell that God created. He soared through monumental clouds with electrified linings of soft, golden light. The warm breezes whipped through his hair and caressed his face. Every muscle in his body alerted him that there was no limit to his thoughts. He had never felt more alive as he floated above the earth, lifted by the softest and gentlest of breezes. His body picked up speed and shot up above the clouds as if powered by the energy of a million suns.

It continued throughout the rest of the night. They would move upstairs periodically, whisking like spirits through the softer lighting, the increasingly inebriated adults laughing, punching each other heartily, their mirth-filled faces whizzing by, plates and silverware clattering, Bing and Frank on the turntable. Jack moved about in a daze, his hand across her shoulders, on her back, or hooked through the crook of her arm. He’d never felt anything like this before. The childish, primal feeling of Christmas Eve as a magical night where anything was possible still clung to him as a 14 year old. It would stay with him for the rest of his life. However, this year it was married to a new feeling, a feeling that opened doors into new worlds, chased out some of the old pixie dust of childhood, and brought in more grown-up enchantments.

The December air swept over them when they stepped out. As the children and adults gathered in front of Mr. Pennington’s front stoop to say their goodbyes, Jack stood in back of Linda and wrapped his arm around her. She placed her hand on his wrist. He breathed in a few more gulps of her shampoo, the sheets of ice on the lawns around them sparkling like fairy tale concoctions. As the chill settled and the steam of everyone’s breath swirled around them, he hugged her tighter. She hugged him tighter back. He wondered if anyone ever died from happiness.

As the adults said their goodbyes, he leaned down to her ear and whispered, “Merry Christmas.” She turned around, looked up at him, and with a smile that gave him a small heart attack, said, “Call me.” With her other hand, she put a phone number-bearing slip of paper in his coat pocket. She turned to Carrie, pointed at her, and said, “Call me,” in a far more sisterly way. She then got into her parents’ car. With one last smile at him and a wave, the car pulled away, and she was gone.

Jack spent the rest of that evening and all of Christmas Day in a glorious fog. He lay on his bedroom floor at home, staring up at his ceiling. Every movement that she made was recreated in his head. He couldn’t get her eyes, her smile, her skin, her hair out of his mind. Twice at dinner he came out of his reverie blinking, his family laughing at him. Both times, his mother had just asked him a question. He had responded by continuing to stare into space, still mooning over the night before. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, and his face was flushed. They all knew what was going on, and the question of the day was When Was He Going to Call Her?

The answer, alas, was not anytime soon, for the days soon turned into weeks, the weeks into months. For Jack was a dreamer, a moony child who had a habit of contemplating and ruminating rather than actually doing. Later, he would learn to act upon opportunities to get what he wanted. But at 14, he was content to meditate. His head had become so filled up with that luminous Christmas Eve that he had become afraid to take it to the next level. Jack couldn’t help but feel that the memory would prove more satisfying than the reality. As a result, he was happy to keep his head full of the dream that night had become and let his daily life occupy his time. School, friends, and family all kept him busy with that wonderful party as a beacon in the back of his brain. No hurry, he had all the time in the world. And because of this, winter slid into spring, then summer, then fall, until finally December was upon them once again. And with it, another invitation to Mr. Pennington’s Christmas party. But there was a problem this time. They couldn’t go.

At breakfast one morning, his father casually made mention of his grandmother wanting them to visit her in New York this Christmas. They had talked about going the previous Christmases, but nothing had ever come of it. This time, they had to do it. They owed it to her. No Pennington Christmas party this year? “Afraid not son, looks like we won’t be here for it. Are you thinking about your dolly?” Jack’s father playfully asked (any cute girl was a “dolly” to Jack’s dad). “Yes,” Jack said, blushing. As the disappointment weighed in on him, he surprised himself by asking, “How about if we ask her over. Maybe…February vacation?” “Good idea!” his father said.

And so Jack and Carrie finally called her on the pink rotary phone on their mother’s nightstand. His sister gabbed first. Carrie had a wizard’s ability to conjure conversations, and she spent a full ten minutes weaving threads from subjects as disparate as Rick Springfield and Marshmallow Fluff. She threw him the phone when she was done. He was surprised at how subdued Linda’s voice sounded on the phone, particularly since he was carrying an image of her as the cheerful sprite that she was a year ago. She seemed to brighten as they talked, and he heard a slightly seductive lilt in her voice that wasn’t there before, both warm and somewhat womanly. After chitchat, he asked the question. Would she be able to stay over at their place during winter vacation in February, possibly the last three days? She said that she would. “Awesome!” he said. They’d call back with directions and to finalize the time. He half-joked that he couldn’t remember what she looked like since he hadn’t seen her in a while. She promised to bring him a photo. Jack had a hard time thinking after that.

Carrie went back to her room. He sat for a while and stared at the phone. It was exciting talking to Linda again, but he was surprised at the somewhat blasé sound of her voice. She didn’t sound even half as thrilled as he felt. He had put this excitement into his conversation, trying to convince her that coming to his place would be nothing less than a life-changing phenomenon. She still sounded like a cutie, but this time she came off as disconnected. No matter, he told himself. Some people sound different on the phone than they do in person. His friend Sean, a firecracker to hang out with, always sounded half asleep on the phone. It was almost as if he were recharging his batteries and getting ready for the next time they hung out. Then his real self would show up, bounding around like an electrified marionette. Maybe it was the same with Linda.

A late February grayness greeted the day that Linda showed up at their house. Jack sat at the kitchen table and waited, scooping up Cheerios and reading Bananas magazine. His sister shouted from her room upstairs, “They’re here!” when she heard their car pull into the driveway. He stared at the door, his heart pounding faster with every second. Movement was impossible. For some reason, he couldn’t go outside to greet them. He sat transfixed, waiting for his sister to bring them in. His heart was pounding, his hands placed flat on the table as he heard the shuffle of shoes and boots, mixed with the swish of heavy winter coats. Carrie breezed through the doorway. Linda’s father came in next. He gave Jack a wave and hello that somehow managed to be both casual and hearty. He stepped aside and there, at the top of the stairs, stood Linda.

Her hair was still the same honey-blonde he remembered, but now richer, heavier, with more body in the style of the day, a Goldie Hawn-style spill down her neck, past her shoulders, and down her back. It was a look both soft and sexy. Every strand sparkled, every highlight glowed with patches of light both gold and white. The same pert nose as before, but her red lips were more fully formed and enticing than ever. Just staring at her in those few seconds brought him to places where his young mind had never been, places lusciously forbidden and tinged with danger, places where he knew respectable adults would not approve, heights and sensations that surely no human being had ever experienced. If this was growing up, he couldn’t wait to grow up some more. If this was becoming an adult, he couldn’t wait to leave childhood far behind him.

The next half hour was spent sitting at the kitchen table consuming breakfast. Jack kept stealing glances at her as she talked and listened, marveling at the eyes that were now almost statue-like in their hard, deep blue perfection. It was a feeling that both intimidated and excited him. He walked by her at one point to get orange juice from the refrigerator, his face passing just above her hair, and got a hint of the sweetest spray of perfume mixed with the harder, but no less appealing, scent of hair spray. He thought that he would be walking to the refrigerator on his knees. He noticed the pads of light spilling over her perfect skin, highlighting every perfection that God intended to show to the world.

After her father left (“See you Sunday!”), and their mother puttered off to do her household chores, the three of them went to the living room. They loosened up when the adults were gone, putting on some records (The Beatles -- oldies!) and dancing. Jack took special care to maneuver his galumphing form away from his father’s recliner and the upholstered rocking chair Jack often slung himself over watching horror movies. Linda danced in the self-conscious way of most 14 year old girls, tightly choreographed down to every movement, but imagining themselves to be loose, free, easy, instinctual dancers. It didn’t take away from the fact that she was very good. Her movements were confident, athletic, and brazen all at the same time, her feet planting themselves, hands curled, eyes hooded, mouth slack, jean-clad hips swaying in rhythm to the music, burning the image into his head forever.

At one point, Linda pulled him aside and grabbed her purse. She took something out of it and handed it to him (as she did, he noticed a spot of eczema peeking out from under her shirtsleeve -- once again, a humanizing feature that only enhanced her elegance). It was a class photo of her, the one that she had promised him. It was perfect, her lips lightly pressed in a smile of amusement, her eyes looking to the side and slightly to the upper right corner of the frame. Jack suppressed a sigh of contentment. From somewhere, he heard himself promising that he’d get one for her as well, only to realize that he hadn’t had a picture taken in years.

The afternoon drifted by. Jack and Linda hung out in the guest room that had been converted into a bedroom through a foldout couch, being used now as a place to sprawl out and talk (Carrie had disappeared. When she later told him that it was intentional, he realized how much he loved his sister). Their languor became a part of the quiet. The fading light from outside and the lengthening shadows of the day gave them a laziness and calm. Even though Jack and Linda both talked and reacted, there was a separation that hung between them. Try as he might, Jack couldn’t call up the giddiness from their earlier encounters. At one point, she had been talking about gymnastics, a subject about which he knew exactly zero. She patted her right thigh with both hands briskly for several seconds, kneading it, exclaiming how fat it was getting because she hadn’t been involved with gymnastics this year. It was then that he decided to take a chance and establish some intimacy. He patted her thigh the same way with both hands with what he had hoped was warmth and affection. After about 3 seconds, with a slightly irritated tone she said, “What are you doing?” He responded meekly with, “Just checking. Seems like pure muscle to me.” He gave her what he hoped was a dazzling smile. It probably wasn’t. He felt the blush creep behind his ears.

It was like embracing a scarecrow. She sat ramrod straight, not moving an inch, eyes staring ahead, arms folded across her chest. The human body could not be less mobile. They sat like that watching the late afternoon news, the awkwardness creeping in like a panther. He knew that something was wrong, but he was determined to pursue this to the end. His mother called him into the kitchen, asking him if he wanted rice or mashed potatoes. Mashed, please. He walked back, thinking it was strange that she called him into the kitchen to ask him that. She knew how much he loved mashed and, even if she didn’t, she could have just as easily called over instead of asking him to walk over. Then it hit him. This was her way of saying that she had seen them on the couch, and that she was uncomfortable seeing him with his arm around her.

Roller skating was something to do in the interim between middle school dances and high school parties. Skating was full of tweens, teens, and twentysomethings desperately trying to stay teens. On the way, Jack sat up front with the bright evening lights rolling past him, each car gliding by on its own errands of the night. Something was up. Something had changed. Linda’s lightheartedness of 14 months before seemed to have hardened into a bland indifference. Whereas previously she had charmed him by being fun and cute, she now had cooled into a teenager’s confident self-possession. Linda was polite enough toward him, and they shared the occasional joke. But for the most part, her behavior was merely sociable, lacking the flirtations and exuberance from that Christmas Eve when the world seemed new and lustrous.

They got to the rink, paid their admission fee, and threw themselves into the tacky hubbub. Kids were everywhere, sliding, stumbling, eating, yelling, sweating, high-fiving, the experienced skaters oiling about like fiercely choreographed eels, the younger, inexperienced skaters blinking in the brightness like cartoon moles in the sunlight. The air was filled with the blaring Top 40 sounds of the era, heavy on Kim Carnes, REO Speedwagon, Cliff Richard, Eddie Rabbitt, and John Lennon.

Multitudes whirled around the rink floor, many of them weaving expertly with teenaged bravado, many of them clumsy. He was one of the klutzes. He was a recent recruit to the skate scene, flailing about the first few times amid the whir of the lights and the other more nimble skaters, but he was gaining in experience and could now manage to glide around without hurling himself into a wall. He skated around and around in circles, the other skaters whizzing by. He couldn’t think about anything but her. What was going on? Occasionally, a friend would flit by yelling at him, making faces or goofy moves, or pursuing a dream girl. He managed to stay in a contemplative haze most of the time, finally realizing that he had to ask her out by the end of the night. Then he heard the house DJ announce that it was Ladies Choice.

They glided together wordlessly on the floor. He glanced at her face and noticed that she looked a combination of determined to get this done, stricken, and bored. He made a stab or two at conversation, yelling to be heard over the din of the music and the endless drone of the skates. She responded with a wan smile at both attempts. He gave up after that and resigned himself to keeping his mouth shut until the end. Her skating was both impressive and intimidating, legs keeping perfect rhythm and balance, upper body making the lunges with a graceful aggression, her hair rising and falling softly behind her.

The song ended. Should he let go? But what if she didn’t want to? He wanted to be with her and wanted her to know it. He wanted to be her protector against the elements and all that challenged her. He felt his hand clamping down on hers. She pulled away, gently. For some reason, he grasped her hand harder. She pulled harder. Why he was holding her tightly he didn’t know. They were practically wrist wrestling trying to hang onto and separate from each other. He watched a flicker of annoyance flit across her face as she jerked her hand free, nearly losing her balance, but catching herself before a disastrous tumble. She skated away and, within a second, was lost in the crowd.

The ride home was covered in shadows as they giggled over the night’s adventures. Jack sat with a smile plastered on his face, but inside all he could think was, When we get home, I’m going to take the plunge. I’m going to ask her out. The fact that she and he lived about 35 miles apart, with neither of them currently driving, nagged at him a bit, but this was quickly swept under that mental rug that so many other boys of his age conveniently had. It was a minor detail not to be worried over. Good would prevail, where there’s a will there’s a way, everyone will get everything they want, and only happy endings exist.

He took her to a corner of the kitchen, away from his family. She seemed tired, and he would find out later on that she wasn’t feeling well. It barely made an imprint on him through that beacon of hope filling him with anticipation. This could possibly change the course of his life. Which would it be? Transcendence -- or oblivion? He was finally doing it. He was asking a girl out. It all narrowed in on this night, this moment. This milestone. He touched her arms gently as she stood in front of him, and he looked at her clear, beautiful face. The blue in her eyes managed to shine out into the darkness. He asked her.

She walked over and sat next to him on the bed, facing him. “Hey,” she said softly. She placed her hand gently on his arm. He felt that it was wrong to highjack her attention this way. He felt weak and cheap for trying to gain her sympathy. But this was tempered by the fact that he felt so low, plunging to emotional depths that his 15-year-old self had never seen before. It was an awful place, full of pain and the feeling that everything about him was so wretched that there was no purpose in going on, that everything about him was worthless. It was a gray and brown place where no hope or joy or love existed. He needed her sympathy. And he realized that this might be the last time that this girl that he had thought longingly of, both night and day, would ever pay him any attention again.

She restated how much she liked him. Looking at her, he wanted to stay by her side forever, drinking in the soothing gentleness of her wide eyes. The only thing that mattered was to be with her. Yet he felt that this chance at the perfect match was being cruelly snatched away. He didn’t think that this horror show was actually happening. He had seen it coming throughout the day, but there was no way that he could see the impact that it would have upon him.

In his depressed stupor, he could barely piece together what they were talking about. His limbs ached, and his hands drooped over his knees. He wanted to be with her. He said he really liked her and thought she was great. As the words came out, he questioned them. Was it his memory of her 14 months ago that made her so appealing? He couldn’t come up with the answer. He was in love with her beauty, her confidence, and the memory of what she was like at the Christmas party. Maybe she was still like that but was afraid to cut loose since she was in the company of strangers. He would resolve to be friends with her so that he could use every waking moment that he could to look at her. The time spent together and the eventual ease that she would feel when she was with him would chip away her reticence and bring back her old self.

He sat with her for a few more moments, his head bowed. He told her that he thought that they had something going at the Christmas party. She touched his arm and looked at him with those big eyes and said hopefully, “We did. I liked you then,” hoping to cheer him up a bit. But she could tickle him and promise him a million dollars a day, and it still wouldn’t buck him up as much as the words, “Yes, let’s go out.” He asked her if she was sure that the only reason that she wasn’t going out with him was that she was going with someone else. She said she was sure. His mind was racing so much, the heartbreak and disappointment dogging it every step of the way, that he actually asked if she would consider going out with him if she ever broke up with her boyfriend. This seemed to catch her by surprise, as a slight hitch passed through her face. She then gave a tiny shrug, an incline of her head, and a faint purse of her lips to indicate that she wasn’t sure: a gesture completely noncommital and sensible.

They talked for a few minutes more. It was apparent that her mind was made up and that they would remain “friends.” He knew deep down that they would never be more than that, but he refused to let that thought travel to his conscious mind. He retained a smidgen of hope that someday they would become more. He gave Linda a small smile and told her that he was OK. She smiled back, reached over, and gave him a big hug. They parted and said good night. There was an air of finality about it, as if they were closing a chapter of their relationship.

The next day they went to the movies, a favorite pastime of Jack’s. The Incredible Shrinking Woman, a lightweight comic farce starring Lily Tomlin, was no classic, but enjoyable enough. They picked up snacks at the local convenience store. Jack found a magazine that had a foldout poster for the movie Private Benjamin, a close-up of Goldie Hawn looking fetching in military garb. He held it next to Linda’s face. The resemblance was uncanny. She rolled her eyes and seemed embarrassed, although Jack assumed any girl would give anything to look like Goldie Hawn.

When he woke up the next day, he was cold all over. His body felt as if it was being pressed down into the mattress, the bedcovers clinging to him like damp rags. He got up and looked outside. It was actually sunny, the first warm day since Linda had been there. And today she was leaving. Even though the sun shone, the trees surrounding his house still had a gray pall to them, silent, cheerless, towering sentinels looking down at him, caging him in and not letting him move. Through the trees, he could see two people walk by, slow-moving, as gray and listless as the trees. The air around him had a smoky quality, as if it were squeezing his lungs.

They got out at the large colonial. The sun still hung in the sky, baking the ground and pounding at his back. Jack barely acknowledged her parents’ hellos. Her father clapped him on the shoulder and said, “What’s goin’ on, skinny?” Just what he needed --- a little positive reinforcement about his appearance to perk him up. How much lower could he go? He took in their friendly, tastefully decorated house, realizing that he’d never set foot in it again. In the spacious backyard, that nasty sun shot its tendrils at him through the trees, still pushing him down, still sapping the life out of him. He smiled politely as they played with her dog, a wire-haired terrier named Sam who leaped up and down like a yo-yo.

He grabbed a stick, gave it to Sam, and started a vicious tug of war. He gripped the stick, Sam tugged on it and growled loudly and playfully, then Jack let it go, then Sam chewed on it, then padded over to Jack and dropped it in front of him. He threw it, Sam went after it, brought it back, dropped it in front of Jack, Jack threw it again. Through all of this, he could only think of Linda’s face that just floated over the backyard. The weekend ran in his head like a film loop, from one lowlight and disappointment after another. “Time to join the animals with two legs,” Jack said to Sam. He threw the stick one last time. When Sam brought it back, Jack scratched him behind the ears affectionately and went back into the house.

Jack asked, “Can I see it?” and took it when she held it out to him. He sat on her bed holding it six inches in front of his face. Linda and a boy about her age were joined in a deep kiss. Her hair was slightly shorter than it was now, and the trees around them glowed in autumn oranges and yellows. It showed them from the waist up, possibly sitting on a bench in someone’s backyard, a baseball cap backward on the boy’s head. They were joined at the lips, faces obscured. There was a casual air about them, as if they had all the time in the world and were alone in this Eden. The carefree tilt of their faces showed their youthful enjoyment of the knowledge that there was no one to stand in their way.

When he got home, he went straight to his room and didn’t come out for the rest of the night. Dinner failed to interest him for the first time in 15 years. The Amityville Horror was on television, a movie that he had been looking forward to seeing. He skipped that as well, its imagined terrors now pallid next to the horrors in his mind. He laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. On its white, rough surface, he projected every second that he remembered from the last three days. He went over it all in his head, picking things apart, second guessing himself, wondering if he should have reacted differently, asked her a question, or not said what he had said. Then it occurred to him -- was she angry that he never called her? How could he have been such a fool? Did he have no consideration for anything that she felt? Maybe she resented his failure to reach out. Serves him right, if that was the case.

He lay there for hours. When his mother knocked at his door and mentioned dinner, he said, “No thank you, not very hungry.” She asked if he was all right. “Yes, fine!” he said, as cheerily as he could. Which wasn’t very. He could imagine his family talking about him at dinner, worried. What were they saying about Linda? Would his sister ever call her again? He restarted the endless loop of the weekend, playing the highlights (none) and lowlights (multitudes). The dull brown light of the day turned into the harsher late afternoon sun, then the mellower dusk with its soft, grayish light, and finally the cold blanket of night. After he turned out his light, his tortured mind finally let him drift off to sleep.

He went back to school feeling as if the whole weekend had been a bad dream. School jolted him back to reality, making the weekend hazy and dreamlike. The students occupying it seemed vague, unformed, and ill-defined. He wondered if there would be another Linda. Could he ever go through this turmoil with anyone else? He felt as a child would feel if a toy were held out, its colors sparkling with the promise of enchantment and play, then cruelly yanked away. Would anyone else ever matter? The rest of the world seemed silly in comparison.

After a while, Linda became a blur in Jack’s past, a casualty of time. Every once in a while, something jogged his memory: a mention of gymnastics, or of roller skating, or an especially nubile girl rolling her hips in delicious abandon at a dance club. Then the memory of the weekend hit him like a locomotive, with a sweet and sharp pang of nostalgia. He’d let the bitter pain run through him. He would shake it off and resume living.

He had kept the photo buried in his wallet through most of his teen years, identifying her as a friend anytime someone asked (a few girlfriends had looked at him, their faces set and eyes narrowed at him suspiciously, but they let it drop). Eventually, no longer holding the significance it once did, he gave it a home in the small tin chest. And now, feeling nostalgic, he found it while poking around in the basement, after his 50th birthday, and two heart operations.

His experience with Linda, so important in that long ago age, was now a memory. His life was full of triumphs and failures, the excitement and disappointment of new relationships, new experiences, new thoughts. In meeting the woman he would marry, he realized a level of commitment he could not have imagined. In the birth of his daughter, he experienced a wave of tenderness he never would have known himself capable of feeling and expressing. His desire for Linda had been unschooled, wide-eyed, unformed. How could he have felt so strongly about someone he hardly knew? He realized that not only was it important to him at the time, but that it opened him to what would come later.

End

Jim Cannizzaro is a lifelong film buff and has years of community theatre experience behind him. "Seasons of

Love" is a true story that he's wanted to tell for years.

Shirley Gerald Ware-Publisher

SEASONS OF LOVE