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Every fifteen years, the senior high school I attended publishes an alumni directory. I heard about it at the very last minute, since my mother has moved away from the small town in which we were raised. I called the 1-800 number and was able to get my new address and phone number entered into the records.
It arrived three days ago. I immediately flipped through it to see if Robin Altemus was listed. Nothing. I then went and read the almost the whole book. I come from a pretty small town, so this wasn't really much of an endeavor. Most of my classmates have married each other and moved back to this very same town. Many of our parents hailed from there as well, so a single last name could take up several pages.
I rang Lasha, my best friend and partner in crime from high school, and we giggled and rehashed high school crap for a good three hours. She's getting married again in a few weeks, so we spent some quality time on that, as well.
After Lasha and I hung up, I stuck the book on a shelf in the library, in between my yearbook and a bunch of photo albums, and promptly forgot about it. There was no one I hadn't spoken to recently that I felt compelled to ring up.
Yesterday, my phone rang. The number on the Caller ID box was local, but unfamiliar, so instead of answering it, I went into the back bedroom where the answering machine lives and listened. "Um, Sara, this is Tim McCartney. From high school..."
I snatched up the receiver. "Did you say Tim McCartney?"
Timmy McCartney was my first boyfriend of any consequence. We started going out when I was in eighth grade and he was in ninth, and I was completely overwhelmed by my good fortune. Going out with a ninth-grader was a big deal.
Timmy was wicked cute. He dressed preppy, but he played lead guitar in a band. He surfed. He had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He was the epitome of junior high cool.
We grappled on golf courses and in our parents' cars, stealing kisses and holding hands. We dated a long time for junior high school kids, but Timmy had a wandering eye, so we broke up a lot. It wasn't a big, heartbreaking deal, because in junior high, six weeks is a meaningful relationship.
This little dance of ours continued through the following year, when he was in high school and I was still in junior high. Timmy's home life wasn't so fabulous, and my father liked him, so I think that maybe that was part of the reason we were so involved for so long. He knew he could always come over to my house and see David, even when I wasn't home. Timmy was one of the few boys I ever knew who wasn't terrified of my father.
Timmy was well-manned and respectful to my parents, but when we were alone, messing around under the bleachers, the pressure he put on me was fairly intense. We had entire silent wrestling matches, my hands grabbing at his to keep them out from under my skirt.
Our hands would be locked tight while he kissed me. Those were the rules in junior high-- everything above the waist (first and second base, we called it) was fine. Below the waist, third base, was totally off limits. And a home run? Not even in the equation.
Most of the boys we dated stuck to the rules. Not Timmy. I would grasp his hands with every ounce of strength I had to keep them above the waist. We never discussed these wrestling matches. He kept trying and I kept fighting him.
I didn't tell my friends, because they would've told me to break up with him, but even with the silent wrestling, I didn't want to stop. I wanted to do everything with him, and I hoped and prayed that we would be able to hang on long enough as a couple... until I was in high school, at the very least.
But these weren't the kind of things you told your ninth-grade boyfriend where I grew up. Instead, we said, "No. I have to wait until I'm married." You couldn't even give them a glimmer of hope. And in these early-Sara years, I was still a good girl, even though at night, alone in my bed, I wished I weren't.
I was crazy about Timmy, but I didn't wish to hand over my virginity to someone to whom it didn't mean everything. As badly as I wanted to have sex, to unload the baggage of the first time and get it over with, I wanted it to be special. So that's why Timmy is number 2 on The List. After I was done with the special boyfriend, the one who went out with only me, for an acceptable period of time, I went straight back to Timmy.
I'll tell the whole story eventually. But you get the gist of it, I'm sure. And now he's calling on the telephone. He's married to a girl I knew peripherally in high school, Carmella Lundquist. They have three children, all with perfect preppy names. But he did give me his home telephone number, so I'm assuming this is on the up-and-up.
Still, Timmy McCartney... We're having lunch today. It's been eight or nine years since I've seen him. He married when I was 23, moved down to Florida back then. Frankly, I'm surprised that I haven't bumped into him already. This is a painfully small town.