What Was I Waiting For?

Prompt: Your character reminisces on something that happened many summers ago.

What Was I Waiting For?

It was midnight. Sleep was running away from me. My thoughts were racing as I had earlier in the day witnessed my son graduating from high school. I was so proud of him. Nostalgia tugged at my heart. I found myself reminiscing about those special days when I was my son’s age. I pulled off the bookshelf my senior high school yearbook. Instinctively, I turned to the page where my photo was. I cringed when I saw it. Inserted into the crease of the book were several small pieces of paper. Apparently, I must have written a journal summary of that moment in time. It was dated June 1973 “and into the unknown.” I read it slowly reliving each experience. It began with an explanation and followed with a detailed account of a torrid romance that haunts me to this day. It read:

My senior year of high school was truly the best of times and yet the worst of times as Charles Dickens would have quipped. My English Lit teacher would be so proud of me for using this line. The impending school year offered the senior prom and the pomp and circumstance of graduation. But the majority of the summer before these exciting days would be gobbled up by our summertime jobs. They would leave little room for frolic and friendships. For most students the summer labored on, despite the anticipation that was running high for the new school year to begin.

But not for me and my work. I was hyped and ready because the summer would be different. I became enchanted by the magic and allure of a young girl named Dena. I was spellbound when I first saw her at the grocery store where I worked. I was captivated by her grace and beauty. She had long dark hair and eyes. She looked European like Italian or Greek. Unlike most seventeen-year-olds, I felt I was ill equipped to express myself and ask her out. I was in utter despair because my self-image had been trashed from peers at school over the years. My self-worth was virtually nonexistent. I was, in effect, a loner, and an outcast. Even though I really knew nothing about her my heart ached. I yearned to be in a relationship with her.

My focus on other activities like private college prep instruction had deteriorated since that day I saw her. I had to ponder a plan to muster up my fortitude to be a real man. But in the meantime, thankfully I still had my music. I would listen for hours on my LP record player listening to amazing music like the album Who’s Next by Pete Townshend. I’d blast the stereo twiddling my fingers on an air guitar. The lyrics and mesmerizing music transported me to his concerts everywhere in the world. But in ’73 it was a conglomeration of music from the Who’s Quadrophenia that helped understand my sense of identity. For you see, I identified with the main character, Jimmy, in the musical opera about his loss of self-identity and his living a dreary life. Jimmy wanted to identify with a more radical group of people, the Mods.

Well, I was certainly a nonconformist in high school with long, bushy hair, facial stubble, a peach fuzzy moustache, bell bottom pants, and a student who ranked in the top 3% of his class (out of 450).Maybe I was graduating with a class of dummies. Thinking about my appearance I suspect the aforementioned were good reasons to avoid me much like using garlic and a wooden stake to ward off Dracula. I was a hippie who looked like he needed a shower (although I didn’t) and was an academic nerd at the same time. For some women that would not sound so appealing. I prayed Dena was not one of them. I was just so nervous every time I saw her at school or the grocery store.

How could I reach out to Dena without compromising my emotional sensitivity making me look like a pathetic romantic, or rather just pathetic? From typical school chatter I learned that Dena was a senior like me. She lived within walking distance of my house. I also heard her father operated a restaurant somewhere in the area, but not sure where. She had a much younger brother and sister. I hoped that they would not be a future problem in my quest to get to know her.

What could I possibly say or do to catch her attention without adding to my dweeb factor? I did the next best thing to stimulate her interest in me. I sent her one of my favorite albums. Certainly, the album, Who’s Next had been my first thought, but I wanted to lay it on thick with a catchy song title. “Love reign Oe’r Me” was my obvious choice from Quadrophenia. It really wasn’t a romantic love song, but a lament from Jimmy’s personal crisis in life of not belonging. Well, that was me, but I was hoping Dena was unfamiliar with the rock opera story and I made it about myself. In a short note to her, I said love reigned down from heaven whenever I saw her. I wanted her to think of me when she played this song. I’d be thinking of her when I would listen to it (I signed my first name and the initial of my last name). I mailed it out for delivery the following day. It wasn’t cheap to do this.

Then I got to thinking. Let it be said I am guilty of overcompensating and over analyzing my actions. I felt that sending her one album wasn’t enough of an expression for my feelings for her. I had to send her a second album. But which one? A bolt of lightning struck, and my other favorite album was Three Dog Night’s Harmony. One song in particular, Just an old Fashioned Love Song, was the perfect strategy to hook her into my arms. Like the first album, I mailed it out for delivery the next day. Again, it wasn’t a cheap thing to do.

I must have been brain dead at the time I was thinking and doing this mailing of an album thing. And to do it twice! I had not developed a plan to follow-up on: a) if she got them ok; b) if she listened to them; c) would she know who even sent them to her; and d) how would I even get any feedback?

Moron, moron! For a guy with a high GPA, I was such a moron. I feared my whole plan would be a devastating failure. But like the song, love did reign over me at school the next day. I found out that a friend of hers had a suspicion that she knew who I was. And, holy high heaven, Dena walked up to me in the hallway at school!

I remember her saying, “Are you Michael G.?”

I stammered, “Yyyesss.”

She gave me the biggest smile. The she followed with “Do you want to get together sometime?”

Again, I stammered, “Yyyess.”

When I collected myself (I do not have a speech impediment), I said to Dena, “Could I pick you up for a movie tomorrow night?”

Her face shone brightly as she said yes. I almost fell over backwards.

The movie house offerings were slim pickings, and we decided to see the classic “Fiddler on the Roof”. We sat in the very back. Two things I remembered about that movie. There was a guy who played a fiddle on a roof. The second was we kissed. And we kissed. We kissed some more until the end of the movie. She had spectacular oral hygiene coupled with tender lips and a voracious appetite to be repetitively kissed. An oxygen cylinder might have come in handy to catch my breath. It was insane.It was awesome! I was in LOVE!

We agreed to meet in the school library the next day. We sat behind some book stacks at a table. We played the roles of good students studying, but under the table we held hands. When the librarian was occupied, we would sneak in a few slobbering kisses. Oh, it was magical. This went on each day at school. My work schedule at the grocery store dampened our intentions to see more of each other. Plus, her dad did not make it easy for Dena because she had to help at the restaurant.

We finally found a night we could see another movie together. I made sure that the day before I had used plenty of lip balm to keep my lips moist and supple. I picked her up at her house. She was not ready when I arrived, so I was asked to wait in their small family room. Her little brother and sister were waiting like leopards to pounce. They never asked me a single question, but both gave me the evil eye like you better behave with their big sister. It seemed like an eternity, but Dena came in and sat next to me on the sofa. We smiled at each instinctively knowing what lay ahead in the evening. I think her father may have sensed some love potion number nine floating in the air so he asked me a question. It was only one question.

In heavily accented English he asked, “What movie are you planning to go to see? So many movies are full of not so good things.”

I looked at him straight in the eye saying, “Jesus Christ Super Star.” He nodded and quietly went to another room.

We did go to see that movie, but honestly neither of us watched it. Thankfully, we were both Christians, so we knew the plot line of the story. We kissed. We kissed some more. We kissed to the end of it. We never disrespected each other. Ever! But we could never seem to want to stop kissing one another.

Before I knew it, the senior prom dance was just a few weeks away. Like I said, I tend toward moronic behavior. I cannot explain it, but I never asked her to the dance. I decided I was too cheap to rent a tuxedo, buy a corsage, and take her to a dinner afterwards. I thought I would work the third (graveyard) shift at the grocery store stocking groceries while everyone in my class was partying away.

We never spoke after prom and graduation until I saw her on campus at the university. But that is a whole other story in itself. To this day, I never asked if she ever listened to the albums. But given her initial response to my first date inquiry, I suspected she had.

The ever-haunting question has always been, “What was I waiting for?” And “Why did I let our relationship fall apart?” Had I sought out the face of God, I might have had a reason:

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. *

-END-

Author Pete Gautchier

Acknowledgement: Reedsyprompts.com

*James 1: 5-8, New Living Translation