second wind

Later in high school, he went through more women than I through textbooks.

And I assure you, that was no small feat.

There was this girl way, way back in Grade 8 that I fancied. Sort of.

But you know how trivial adolescent love is — it’s a truly turbulent time, what with swirling hormonal mood shifts, awkward hair, squeaky pubescent voices and bad, bad, bad posture.

She was cute. Short, brown eyes, shoulder length brown hair, itty bitty hands, and a button nose. Almost the very definition of sickly cuteness.

I’d often stop by her locker in the morning and sorta squeak out a measly excuse for a conversation.

“Sup,” I’d say.

“Not much,” she’d say.

Then we’d sort of grin at each other and go our separate ways.

No long deep conversations on abstract math, no lustful eye-gazing, not even a bit of innocent flirtation.

I was young. It was hard enough to walk without tripping over my own shoes.

So Christmas comes, and she surprises me with a small gift. Which was totally out of the blue because we were locker buddies in spirit. Certainy not the kind of friends to exchange gifts.

It was a really cute present: a packet of a few dozen pennies individually hand-wrapped in red Christmas paper. The story of why I had such a public obsession with pennies is so vague to me now that there’s no real point in trying to remember it all.

The point is I liked pennies.

She gave me pennies. A lot of them. Individually wrapped.

And this, I reasoned to my young, naive self — could only mean one thing: She wanted to jump my eager little bones.

Obviously.

So school lets out and I deviously find her number. You know, through a friend of a friend of a friend. I’m not sure what outrageous lies I had to tell my friends to solicit her number without warranting suspicion, but I’m sure my hastily fictionalized excuses were entirely noble and pure at heart.

“Hi, is this Sally?”, I said.

“Sure is,” she said.

“It’s Phil,” I said.

“Hi Phil,” she said.

She was cheery. And the fact that she didn’t say, “How the fuck did you get my number, you perv?” pushed me onwards.

“Iwuzondring…uh…if-yud liket’go… [muffled cough] movie w’me?”, I gasped in one entirely strangled breath.

Smooth, Phil. Real smooth.

Right. But this is where it all gets blurry. If you were preparing yourselves for some amusing climax, I’m afraid you’re going to be severely disapointed.

It was a bust.

From my vague recollection, she agreed, though somewhat unenthusiastically. We then carried out an unusually protracted game of dueling datebooks which consisted of me: serving possible days for our coveted event and her: clumsily returning sympathetic excuses.

Oh, but what a tumultuous phone call it was. Minutes later, I slumped, exhausted and sweaty into my chair, mopped my forehead, and pondered the final decision: we’d both agreed — well, it was more 70/30 — to wait a week or so until school started again, after which we’d find a more suitable date.

It never came.

But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Only a few days after school started, I found out that one of the schoolyard kids — an asshole, even at that age — had asked her out and they were now an exclusive couple, whatever that meant.

Which you know, kind of sucked.

I would have appreciated a bit of an advanced warning. I don’t think she spoke to me much after that whole fiasco.

It didn’t really matter, of course. They eventually parted ways a whole 3 weeks after and he was off oogling another girl before I had a chance for a second wind. Later in high school, he went through more women than I through textbooks.

And I assure you, that was no small feat.

I did hear about Sally from a friend a few years ago. Apparently, she’d put off plans for university after high school with the intent of moving in with her amourous partner.

And here I am. 7 years later.

I don’t think I’ve ever look at a penny the same way since the Christmas of 1999.