What Love Isn't

Sometimes I think there's something wrong with me, some strange virus or disease that I just can't shake. Boyitus. In the Latin that means "easily distracted by males, particularly those of nice proportion who dress well, drive fast cars but otherwise are complete losers". Most girls go through the cooties stage. Boys are gross, right? Not me. I skipped that stage altogether. Now you're probably psychoanalyzing me. I bet you're sure my father abused me or some crap like that. Nope. Not at all. Things are pretty cool with my dad. He works a lot and he doesn't always appreciate my taste in music and clothing, but it's okay. My mom's home a lot more now than she used to be. Her mom moved in with us. She's old. I used to stay with her on the weekends when I was a kid. Mom cleaned condos up on Henelopen and Dad was usually out on the fishing boat, so I stayed with Gram. She lived just a mile from us but she had a view we didn't.

From her front porch you could see the curve of the dunes and a splash of blue ocean and if you strained to the north you could just make out the cape where the lighthouse used to sit. I used to climb the grape trellis like it was a ladder and perch myself on the edge of the porch roof staring past the growing hotels and condominiums, past the lookout towers and trace the hazy outline of the cape with my eyes. Sometimes, if I squinted just right I thought I could make out the light and the keepers house, pristine white against the glistening sea, surrounded by scrub and sea grass. I could just imagine the square house filled with family and the keeper climbing long twisted stairs, carrying an oil lamp, fighting back the dark making sure that each pane of glass was sparkling and each light in working order, warning the ships at sea not to venture too close to the jagged shore. I imagined my father in his fishing boat bobbing aimlessly until he saw the light and knew which way was safe.

But the light was long gone. I think it was 1939, but it hadn't been used for years before that. Gram told me there had been a big fuss about saving the lighthouse and a dozen politicians were having a fancy fundraiser on a yacht within sight of the house. They gavesome pretty speech about saving such a historic artifact and then went inside the cabin for a sip of wine and when they came back on deck the horizon was empty, but foam was still rising from the ocean where the tower had collapsed and crumbled into the sea.

That's where I was sitting when I met Jake Reynolds. A yellow taxicab pulled up in front of the house and a tall woman with whispy brown hair climbed out. She carried a leather travel case and the face of one who had seen enough for one day and just wanted a cup of warm tea and a blanket. A small boy with matted brown curls followed her lugging a backpack and a pair of shoes that should have been on his stocking clad feet.

Gram bustled onto the porch opening her arms to the woman. "Grace!"

"I am sorry, mama. I could think of no where else to go." Her voice was the most beautiful I had heard. Her words carried a lilt as they rolled off her tongue.

"Oh, no!" Gram wiped tears from the lady's eyes. "No, child. Welcome home."

"This is Jake." Grace's long fingers stroked the boys arm as she pulled him forward to present him to Gram.

"Hi, sweetheart." Gram stooped toward him, but he ducked his head behind his mother.

"He does not speak the English well." Grace apologized.

I blew a gum bubble and popped it loudly.

"Emma?" Gram's fingers wrapped around my ankle. "Come down and meet Grace. You remember Grace, don't you?"

The Grace I knew from photos was much younger than this woman who stood before me. I knew the stories that surrounded her well. She came to work in Grandpa George's restaurant for a summer while she was going to university in Maryland. She was full of life and spirit. Everyone adored her. She cooked grape leaves and taught my mother Greek and came back every summer and every break she had until she finished school and returned to Greece where she promptly fell in love and married but we still got Christmas cards and long letters from her and now, here she was. Old and tired. I climbed down from the roof, shook her hand, stuck my tongue out at the boy and grinned at my grandma. She shot me a glare then ushered the new comers inside where she gave Grace coffee and Jake milk and made me put cookies on a plate for all of us. Gram and Grace talked without stop. The boy never opened his mouth. Never drank his milk. Never ate his cookie. I ate it. Then I stood. "It's five o'clock Gram. I'm going home."

"Alright." She nodded, checking the clock. "Call as soon as you get home."

-0-

I started first grade that fall and suffered through my first crush. William Heiste. He had short blonde hair, a dimple in his chin and thrived on beating kids up during recess. But it was love. I knew that. So did he. He held my hand on the bus and drew pictures for me of the two of us all grown up. It was all cool until my mother found the one labeled "you" and "me" with anatomically correct body parts. That was the end of that.

Second grade I adored Billy Johnson. He was a third grader who was so cute! I followed him around the lunchroom and I almost succeeded in winning his heart but in the middle of our Christmas Pageant Jake Reynolds decided to kiss me. Out of nowhere. Smack on the mouth. I was in the middle of my angel dissertation and as Joseph he should have been kneeling reverently in front of the manger, but nope he was trying to snog me. All that slobber and tongue was pretty gross. I shoved him away and he landed on the manger toppling it over and managed to whack his head on a wooden sheep. He spent his night in the emergency room getting 5 stitches. His mom wasn't happy to be spending Christmas Ever in the emergency room. It wasn't like it was my fault. He was the one who kissed me. I acted purely out of self defense. But I got grounded anyway for all of Christmas break.

Third Grade I spent following Michael Leifort around the lunchroom. Finally in the middle of April he turned around and smiled at me. The next day Chelsea Simons showed up with a brand new game boy. That was the end of that.

Fifth grade, I couldn't decide between Travis Parker and Tommy Shoemaker.

Seventh grade, I failed 2 semesters of math so that Jeff Randall could tutor me for the 3rd and 4th semester.

In 8th grade Grandpa George was starting to feel his age so Uncle Joe took over the restaurant and I started getting paid for the time I spent helping out there. He still sold baklava and muskaka. I waited tables, fried french fries and spent my breaks sitting on the boardwalk staring across the water. There's not much to do in a resort town. Maybe you laugh at that? Maybe Rehoboth's shops, boardwalk and expensive hotels sound like heaven to you. There is something thrilling about the rush of people, the crowds that line up in front of the restaurant on a Sunday morning for breakfast, the clatter of the bumper cars and kids screaming for their parents from the haunted house. Maybe it's just part of being 14 but I ached for change, some break from the routine and grind of normal life.

Then ninth grade hit. The school districts had been redrawn and students redistributed. We lost half of our class. Michael Leifort, Jake Reynolds and Travis Parker were all gone. But we gained 75 new classmates, and 42 of them were boys. We were freshmen in high school. Lisa and I were ecstatic the first three days of classes. We were fearless striking up conversations with all of the hot upperclassmen until Lisa made the mistake of flirting with the head of the cheer squad's boyfriend. She didn't even get a chance to say "oops" before rumors were flying that left her huddled in a bathroom stall for all of 6th period while I waited patiently outside whispering consoling words and swearing to her that we would seek revenge. We both knew we wouldn't, but if felt good to say the words and condemn Kelly Smith to the misery she deserved. When Lisa finally emerged from the stall we snuck past the hall monitor and rode our bikes the whole way up to the look out towers were we stayed until dark just talking and eating her supply of strawberry Poptarts. We learned the hard way that 'freshman' was just another word for 'fodder'.

Grandpa George died the summer before tenth grade and Gram had her first stroke that October. Grace was the one who called the school to let me know. Her voice was cracking and swollen with tears. "It's not good, Emma. Your mom did not want me to tell you everything, but I think you need to know. She will need you to be strong for her." So I was. Gram was in the hospital for nearly a month before she moved back into her house. Dad and Uncle Joe remodeled the downstairs turning the living room into a bedroom so that she didn't have the climb the stairs. I helped mom with her cleaning jobs and fixed meals for her to take to Gram.

Eleventh grade. I fell in love. Jimmy Peterson. 2nd period Algebra II/ Trig. I stared at his shoulders hunched in front of me and blushed anytime he looked my way. His dad managed several rental properties and his mom was the head of guest services at the Boardwalk Inn.

I spent the summer working at the restaurant. He worked at Funland selling ride tickets to frazzled parents until their children had enough merrygorounds and dragon ships to last a year. I found plenty of excuses to wander by and relieve his boredom for a minute or two with a charming smile and a little wave.

My effort paid off in my Senior year. During lunch in early September he brushed past me slipping a crumpled gum wrapper into my hand. "Wana go 2 Tommy's. 7 friday?" Tommy Shoemaker's parties were infamous. Lisa said I was crazy, but she was jealous more than anything else. She helped pick out my clothes for the party. Nothing too over the top, nothing too casual. Just right. And she coached me, don't want to act too excited, or too into him or he'll just think you're desperate, you gotta be cool, casual, like you go out like this all the time, like if he doesn't pay enough attention to you then you've got a dozen other more exciting places to be. It must have worked because after that night it was Tommy and Emma. Emma and Tommy. Every party. Every weekend. He was on the football team and I suddenly developed a passion for the game. He was a running back, though I wasn't entirely sure what that meant it didn't stop me from wearing his extra jersey to games and reveling in the envious stares I got from the sophomore girls. Lisa still thought I was crazy, but I didn't see a whole lot of her that fall so it didn't bother me much.

Life isn't split up neatly into chapters like a book and it never ends neatly on the hour like the sitcoms, I guess that's what makes telling this kind of story a little more difficult than other stories. How do you know when to start and when to finish? Sometimes something seems so important and you think it's gonna be a major theme or plot twist that changes the course of everything but after a year or two when you get a chance to look back it's only a line or two, a paragraph if your lucky. Here I am everyday writing the next word no matter how much I want to race ahead or turn back.

-0-

Author's Notes:

I hope that posting this will help jumpstart my writing. I am struggling.

I like constructive criticism.