April 2002

I was wrapping up the last hour of my shift when she walked in. Greeting her like I did every customer who came into my store, it took me a couple of seconds before recognition kicked in. Not because she'd changed so much...she really hadn't...but it had been so long since I last saw her. More than 25 years, and yet I was not surprised to see the youthful gleam in her eyes. I'd always remembered her as a very beautiful girl, but now she was stunning...a truly magnificent woman.

Linda was the center of my universe when I was 15. It wasn't just her good looks that drew me to her. Lots of guys thought she was attractive and most of them would have jumped at the chance to go on a date or maybe even...*gasp*..."go steady" with her. I was no different, but I was painfully shy. And, maybe, just maybe I didn't think I was good enough for her.

The most I had the guts to do was call her on the phone. Just to talk. No agenda. I only wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her. She may have led a normal, uneventful life up till then, but to me it was fascinating. For better or worse I had her perched, in my mind, on a throne with a tiara on her head and wielding regal authority over me and my heart.

The telephone conversations became an important part of my day...every day. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that we spoke to each other every single day of the week, sometimes for 15 or 20 minutes...but just as often we gabbed for several hours at time. What we were talking about for all that time is a mystery to me now. I do know that a lot of that time I was working up the nerve to tell her how I felt. Easy enough, right? Just three words. But God, the fear that she would reject them was debilitating.

Eventually I threw caution to the wind and spilled the beans. I like to think that my profession of love meant something to her. Maybe it did, but Linda thought of me as a friend. A good friend, a best friend, a special friend...but "only" a friend. Knowing she felt like that meant a lot to me...but not enough. I wanted more. When I found out that she thought highly enough of me to call me "best friend" I spent days practically begging her for a romantic relationship. She insisted that our friendship was better, more important, than that. It would only screw everything up were we to get more serious. Yes, she was quite savvy for a 15 year old.

It was an unusual arrangement. From all our telephone talk you'd think we'd be inseparable as friends. Yet we never spoke to each other at school, other than a polite "hello". I always thought I saw an expression in her face that told me it was okay for things to be that way...that it was normal...that it could be no other way under the circumstances. It still chafed me. She may have been right, but I thought it was a messed up situation.

To make things worse, there were a couple of boys in our class that she found herself attracted to. One of them wound up being her "steady boyfriend". There are not words strong enough to express the combination of frustration, disappointment, despair and hopelessness I felt at this turn of events. Yet we still continued calling each other every night. Things were different now, though...much of the time she spent gabbing about her new beau, asking me for advice, all that kind of stuff. I helped out where I could, and wondered if she realized how miserable it made me.

One night it all became too much for me to bear. It was about a year and a half after our first conversation. By that time she had 2 or 3 boyfriends. The "Can't-We-Just-Be-Friends" option was wearing thin. I thought I should be given the opportunity to see if it would work, if we could make it as a couple in the real world. And so an ultimatum of sorts was presented to her. The kind of stupid "either-or" choice that only an immature teenager would demand a response to.

Linda maintained that it would be much better for all involved if we didn't take things to the next level. I turned it all around in my mind for a long time afterwards. Why? Was there some reason she didn't want me to know for the way she felt? Was it me? Would she have been emberassed being seen with me? She told me a couple of times that she loved me, were they just words to her? Maybe words used so that I would get off her back with all my own professions of love?

At any rate, Linda and I drifted away from each other. I stopped calling her on the phone. I eventually fell in love with another girl and began a long term relationship. But all that time I still carried a torch for Linda. Within a few years I was wise enough to understand the value of a good friend and how she was right about romance often screwing up a good thing like that.

Time passed. Eventually the memories I had of her were all but replaced by the ones I'd made since we parted ways. I never even thought of her anymore. Those were the fabled days of our youth and they were gone, long gone. You look back to those times and you realize just how little you knew about "love". Not that what you had wasn't a powerful, almost palpable emotion. But "love"? I don't think so. That kind of "embryonic love" comes once in a lifetime and when it's gone, it's gone.

At least that's what I thought until she walked in the store that day. It all came back to me in a flood of those memories I thought I'd buried. I was overjoyed to see her again. I could tell she was delighted to see me, too. She had driven from Fort Worth to Kansas City just to visit me, to see what I'd been up to, to reminisce, just to spend a little time with an old friend.

It was difficult to make conversation in the store where I still had 30 minutes of work left to do. We made plans to meet later that evening. Not much to do in Kansas City on a Tuesday night, but it didn't matter. I'm sure both of us would have been happy just driving around enjoying each other's company.

We ate dinner at a very nice restaurant. It was one of a chain of steakhouses that Linda managed. We joked about the employee discount! But this much was no joke: I walked in that place with her on my arm and I felt like the King of the World. I was so comfortable with her that I began to pine for "what could have been" way back in our high school days. I don't believe in "soul mates", but if there are such things I was convinced, in that moment, that she was mine.

We made some small talk during our meal. Then we spoke of more important things. Before the second course had arrived we were confiding our deepest secrets to each other. We filled in the gaps between the 25 years since we last saw each other. It was fascinating. I began to deeply regret breaking off our friendship "way back in the day". We could have really supported each other through the tough times we'd both lived through. I would have learned so much from her. She could have confided in me when the pressure of every day living brought her down. Maybe I could have said just the right thing to cheer her up...like I did when we lived a good portion of our lives with telephone recievers pressed to our ears.

We decided to go for a drink. I knew of a very nice up-scale establishment on the east side, so I took her there. I led her up the stairs onto the second floor. There was an awesome view of the City through the full length glass walls. There wasn't a big crowd, just a few guys watching a football game on the big screen television. None of them seemed to pay any attention to us, and we returned the favor.

We had delved into each others lives for so long this evening that it was easy to simply relax and enjoy each other's company. We lamented the fact that she had to return to Fort Worth the next morning. There was the very real possibility...no, probability...that we would never see each other again.

Then...out of nowhere...I swear I had no idea it was coming and that I never expected it...

She kissed me.

Without a doubt, the most passionate kiss I've ever been a part of. What prompted it? I will never know. She didn't tell me and I wouldn't have asked anyway. I didn't care. All that mattered at that moment was the rush of emotions, the intensity of passion I felt, the desire that bubbled up to the surface, the way all the good and bad things from the last 25 years were temporarily forgotten as her lips pressed against mine.

The television was blaring and the guys watching the game were a noisy lot...but all I could hear was the rhythm of her breathing as we embraced and kissed again. I held her body close to mine. She wrapped her arms around me so tight that I felt like she might never let me go. As if I wanted her to. She was much shorter than I am, and she had to crane her head up to reach my lips. We both thought it was funny, but it was so endearing to me, just one more reminder of how much I really did love her long ago. It made me think there might be one more chance for the kind of relationship I thought I wanted in my 15th year.


Linda excused herself and walked downstairs to the ladies room. I stood up and walked to the glass wall, surveying the bright lights of Kansas City. Something I've seen a thousand times. And yet it all seemed so different now. A better place. I actually felt like the star of a romantic movie, something like "Casablanca" or "Love Story". The atmosphere was charged. Ecstasy. Elation. Eroticism. I hoped she felt the same.

Alas, as all things must pass, the evening came to a close. We both accepted the events of the night as if they were only what usually happens on a good date. Which is exactly what it was (though the word "good" is a little weak to describe it). She drove back to Fort Worth the next morning, to the life she'd made for herself during the last quarter century. I went back to the store, to my own.

In one single evening, in one particular moment, in one special kiss my life had become more bearable. Enriched. Enlightened. I would not forget her this time. I wouldn't forget the steak that was slightly undercooked but I didn't complain, just ate it, because it was the last thing on my mind. I wouldn't forget the smooth jazz we listened to on her stereo driving to the club (she said she hated it, that she needed me to get her up to speed on all the good music she was too busy to check out herself). I wouldn't forget that she ordered bloody marys for us at the bar. I wouldn't forget all the little things from that night. I relished them and placed them almost on the same level as the kiss because I wanted to savor each and every second of that night.

And I do.