Charlie

(Nerds www.donttouchthefeet.blogspot.com ...thank you for making me think about this…)

I was so emotionally exhausted. It was 3:15pm on Tuesday afternoon, a couple of weeks before my twelfth birthday (was I really that young?). I walked towards the bus stop. I’m not sure how I knew where to go, not having thought things through ahead of time, but I guess I had figured it out at some point during the day.

It was the end of my first day of Grade 7. I don’t remember much about that day. I do remember that although I had felt good about the way I was dressed when I left the house that morning (a little nervous but good), I felt really out of place when I left the school that afternoon. Plaid really wasn’t the way to go.

Changing schools from suburbia to downtown for Grade 7 was a bit of a shock to the system. These kids, all of them, were cool. Street smart, teen movie, after school special cool. But like the movies & tv, some of them seemed years over. I mean some of the girls even had boobs! Real boobs! These were girls my age and I wanted to be just like them when I grew up.

I was in love with the school. Everything had more texture, more colour and was more vibrant than my earth-toned-colour-themed existence growing up in the burbs.

I was heading to dance class. Something familiar, people I knew. I didn’t want to be late for class. I was waiting with other people at the bus stop, but I wasn’t really paying much attention. The bus pulled up. It was the right bus, but it didn’t really matter, they all went where I needed them to get me.

Then I saw him.

He must have come from my school. I didn’t recognize him from any of my classes, but he must be about my age. There were 4 other Grade 7 classes right. He could be in one of those.

I got on the bus and sat down at the back. He sat right in the middle at the back. I was sitting close enough to study him. He pulled out a book and started reading. It was one of those thick fantasy novels. He was my height, with short dark hair and just the cutest face in the world.

I watched him, I studied him, was enthralled by him. Who is he? Where is he going? How can I see him again? Please let him go to my school.

We hadn’t gone very far when he looked up from his book, looked right at me and asked, “Does this bus go to the Rideau Centre?”

YES…yes it did. Two out of the three buses that went to that stop ended at the Rideau Centre, but this was the fastest route, and it ran more often. But I couldn’t tell him all of that; that I knew each schedule by heart; that I prided myself on having every piece of worthless information possible on something that I might require in the future; that I was a pack rat of senseless information.

So I just looked at him and smiled all goofy, “yes….it does” I squeaked in a barely audible voice.

He smiled at me in that cool way boys do. All relaxed and non-challant, not in a thank-you-so-much kinda way as in a confident you-just-confirmed-what-I-already-knew kinda way. He almost seemed to say thank you with his eyes, betraying his confidence, but then he dropped his head, his slightly too long bangs falling forward as he went back to reading.

I was mesmerized. He had seen me, spoken to me and smiled at me.

I had one of the best dance classes that afternoon.

This little girl still has a crush on that boy and probably always will. Once in a while I think to myself, “I wonder what he’s doing these days?”.

I hope that you’re well.

I see your face in my mind like it was yesterday. Since then I have always fallen for boys like you. Charlie….you’re my zsa zsa zsu.