II. FIRST LOVE

Starting at a new high school was nerve wracking enough. Splitting the two schools who were the worst of rivals, by putting half of each class into this new high school, was disastrous. We didn’t have a choice, as there were too many kids in each school, but it didn’t make much difference. We were such rivals in 1963 that our parents didn’t even speak to one another.

In fact, the very first McDonalds was built in “their part of town”. No way were we allowed to go over there, even if it was the most popular hangout. So, all the parents from my part of town called McDonald’s headquarters and had them build another one on our side of town. That’s how bad the rivalry was. We really had learned to hate one another.

But it was in this new high school that I found my first love.

I never told anyone that I wanted to move to another high school. My older sister was the Prom Queen, cheerleader, Miss Lakewood, a straight-A student and she even modeled for department stores downtown. Everyone called me “Pam’s sister”. Wasn’t I excited to be Pam’s sister when she won the modeling contest or when her drawing was selected as the new logo of Lakewood High School or when she won the state music prize for piano? I wasn’t jealous, being 5 years younger, just in complete awe of her and I knew I could never compete. She had been out of high school for 3 years but her mark was everywhere in that school. So, when I learned that I would be going to the new high school in the fall, I was relieved. I wouldn’t be overtaken by my older sister, for once.

It was decided during the first week of high school, with the rivalries very evident, that a dance for the sophomores might reduce the tension. My mother made this killer yellow outfit, a pleated skirt and long top with puffed long sleeves. She was an amazing seamstress and looked through all the latest glamour books to find the most style-setting outfits. This was definitely just like one on American Bandstand. I had a yellow bow, yellow knee socks and even tennis shoes dyed that soft yellow. I knew I looked good and I also knew all the latest dances, Pony, Jerk, and Twist from dance classes the year before.

‘So’, I said to myself, ‘I should rock my yellow outfit.’

But inside, I was the insecure little me, staying on the sidelines until Clint asked me to dance. I knew, from the very first day of school, that Clint was going to be cool. He wore glasses and was not good looking. Big nose, long face, drooping blue eyes, and ears like Dumbo but he had so much confidence and had a group of guys and girls who watched his every move.

He was six feet to my five-two as we danced to a slow one first, his chin resting on the top of my head. The records, manned by two people who brought their own collection, began to play a fast dance. I Ponied and Jerked all around the floor, Clint right with me. The one place I was confident was the dance floor. He was all crazy arms and elbows, dancing with abandon.

We talked a little but the music was really loud, intentionally. I knew he was from “that” school and learned from a group of girls from “that” school that he played three sports, had straight-A’s, was the most popular guy in junior high, so I should feel lucky he chose me. I was a little intimidated because I always felt I didn’t own space in a room.

From that night on, I was “Clint’s girl’. He wasn’t clingy or overbearing. Just the opposite. Some days he would walk me to class. Other days he didn’t even acknowledge me. Sometimes we ate together, other days he completely ignored me.

We went to Friday night dances together but, mostly, we talked on the phone when he felt like calling. He was playing sports and his “posse” didn’t have girlfriends so I didn’t fit into many of his after-school plans.

We did go to a movie, once, where he tried to kiss me. I pushed him back and told him that I had to follow my mother’s law:

‘No kissing until the third date and then only in front of my mother.’ “You’re kidding!”, he laughed, trying to decide if I was seriouos. “Well, ok, this could be cool. And, I will kiss you.”

He asked me to go to the drive in the next week, where the best movies were playing, but I was not allowed to go to drive-ins. Again, he laughed and asked me what I was allowed to do. We decided to go to Elich amusement park. When he picked me up, he leaned toward my mother and smiled. “Number Two”. I knew what he meant.

Asking me to the Homecoming Dance meant we were “couple confirmed”, we were exclusive. My mother made the most incredible white brocade dress, matching heels and bow in the hair (of course). I was really nervous as we walked to my front door after the dance. He knocked and my mother answered.

“Number Three”, He held up three fingers toward her, bent me backward and planted a really long kiss on my lips. Then, he turned, smiled at both of us, and went down the steps to the car. My mother just stood at the door; under the strobe light she had installed.

“I don’t like him, Lyndi”

But I was in a haze of love, feeling his power, even over my mother.

“He did it! He really did it!” I whispered floating down the hall. He was a really, really good kisser, soft, gentle but definitely in control. No tongue in those day.

A few weeks later, I had a party in the basement and my mother, who soon became known as “The wicked witch of the west” greeted everyone at the front door with a baseball bat and her mantra: “No alcohol, no swearing, no close dancing, no fights, no kissing”.

She stayed in the basement, keeping all the lights on, and tapping on people’s shoulders when they were dancing too close, in her opinion. I know she was sure we would all have sex if she wasn’t there. Clint and I stole a few kisses in the laundry room because I wasn’t under rules any longer, but it wasn’t very romantic.

Then there was the infamous party at Clint’s house the next month. My mother dropped me and my next-door neighbor, Johnny, at Clint’s door. We went downstairs where most lights were off and almost every part of the floor was covered in mattresses. Clint took me by the arm and leaned me against the wall, kissing me really deeply and putting his hand under my sweater.

I was completely his. Just then, from the top of the stairs, I heard “LYNDI”.

I jumped back and went to the bottom of the stairs. There stood my mother and Johnny’s mother motioning me to come upstairs immediately. I told Clint I would be back and went upstairs where my mother grabbed one arm and Johnny’s mother grabbed my other arm and they literally carried me past his drunk parents on the living room couch, spraying whipped cream in one another’s mouth.

“In the car! Now!” My mother bellowed. “Where’s Johnny?” I asked, looking at his mother.

“Boys will be boys but girls have to be in charge and careful. I’m so glad Johnny called to tell us what was going on!”

My mother was starting the car and nodding with emphasis. They both talked to me all the way home about the dangers of boys, mattresses, Clint and many other things I tuned out. I was furious! Why did Johnny get to stay? What was I going to tell Clint?

Clint didn’t talk to me for the next three days and I was devastated. My friends tried to talk to him but he brushed them off. I found a sign on my locker “Virgin Mary” and was horrified. Rumor was that I was frigid, a tease and stuck up. Humiliation and anger flooded me.

I talked to my mother (not the best idea) and she advised me to ignore all of them, start flirting with other boys and he would come crawling back or, if he didn’t, he wasn’t worth caring about. I did as she suggested, not looking at Clint or any of his ‘posse” and flirting with older boys. In fact, one senior offered to take me home from school and I accepted, only after I was sure Clint saw me get into his convertible.

And he did come back, first calling me for a few nights and then walking me to class and to lunch for two weeks. I apologized for leaving his party and even told him what my mother told me to do. He laughed at “the wicked witch” and forgave me. We were a couple again.

Within a month, he was back to his old ways, ignoring me at school, saying he would call and never calling, expecting me to wait outside each class in case he decided to walk me to the next class. And I did everything he asked, but cried openly every night, feeling so sad.

“He treats you like a tramp. You wait by the phone and cry when he doesn’t call. He has no respect for you and it is time you just ended things. You will feel much better and he probably won’t even care.” My mother said several times.

“I don’t understand”, I wailed, “Why does he do this?”

“Look, you need to understand this now. Boys become men and men are all like this. You can’t trust them, depend on them, or expect them to treat you well. You will always feel better when you are by yourself.

My mother did not like men. At all.

It took a few more days of crying jags before I decided to tell him we should just be friends. I practiced with my mother, (again, not the best choice), and went to tell him.

While he ate with his friends, I told my best friend what I was doing. She was shocked. “You can’t break up with Clint! He is the most popular guy in school! Everyone will think you are an idiot!”

“I hate the way he treats me, like a tramp.”

“Every guy treats girls that way. He isn’t mean or cruel and he takes you to all the dances.

Most important, he’s told everyone you’re his girl. He will be so pissed off.” She turned away just as Clint walked up.

I took a huge breath and said very quietly, “Hey Clint, I think we should just be friends.” He leaned down very close to me.

“Wha? You breaking up with me?” he hissed.

“Well, I think we should just be friends. We can tell everyone that we decided together.” He just stared down at me for a long moment, turned and walked away.

I really hoped he would argue, tell me he didn’t want to break up, say I was special. But he didn’t. In fact, by that afternoon it was all around school that he broke up with me because I was a tease and frigid. I tried to tell people we made a mutual agreement and they could see I wasn’t crying so some might have believed me but it was never said aloud. I was the piece of used Kleenex that he threw away.

I was devastated. I didn’t want to break up with him. He was my first love in the only way a 16-year-old girl could love. I thought about him constantly, wrote his name and my name on everything. I watched for him everywhere. Every song described him or described me loving him. He wore English Leather aftershave (I don’t think he even shaved yet) and that smell could probably excite me, even today.

I dreamed about his arms around me, his smile, his laugh, his blue eyes, the way he said my name, which became my secret unrequited love for years. But he obviously didn’t love me, or even like me. That was hard to admit, even years later.

From the day we broke up to the last day of school two years later, he haunted me. He had his friends ask me to parties and then leave me there to call my mother to pick me up. He asked me to the Junior Prom after being so nice to me a few weeks before the dance and my mother made an incredible soft pink, off-the-shoulder, dress, I had my hair done, new shoes, a matching bow in my hair and waited. And waited. And waited. He never came and then called about eleven, o’clock that night. “So how does it feel to be stood up?” and he hung up.

He tried the same thing before our Senior Prom but I told him no, which tore at my heart.

A friend of his called that night to tell me that he was with the girl who stood next to me in the Pom Pom line, Tana. He made sure I heard him tell her he would call her after practice or pull her away when she and I were walking down the hall together. She was a year younger and did not know what happened two years before but kept asking why he acted like he hated me.

On the day we graduated, we were in the gym all day signing yearbooks. Someone gave him mine and he wrote: “Lyndi, I really don’t have enough room to tell you what I think but if you want to know, ask me. I won’t mind telling you, and it won’t be all bad. Talk is cheap, Lindi, so you can put your own price label on me. Really, I don’t think you’re so bad, except I go on a person’s attitude toward me and yours hasn’t been good. I know you want to be friends; you need them just as bad as the rest of us. You need help Lindi and I hope you find it. Really, I wish you luck, big of me, isn’t it. That’s something you didn’t know.”

I wanted to explain myself as an innocent sixteen-year-old with a very controlling mother and very little self-confidence, who loved a boy with all her heart and just wanted to be treated with kindness, love and respect. But I never talked to him again.

Yet, even after all of that, I still carried that hole that first loves carved into my heart. My friends told me he was really hung up on me and I was the one girl he could not conquer, which is why he was so cruel. That sounded crazy.

It was so hard to let go of the idea that we would meet someday and fall in love. He haunted my dreams for years. It took a very long for me to acknowledge him as just a conceited jerk and nothing more. And yet, a few years ago when he “friended” me on Facebook, I felt the rush, the tingling anticipation of what could have been. I now believe the anguish and pure ecstasy of first love never disappears.