Chuck E's in Love

October 30, 2006 | Category: Not The Nightly News

Walk across the lawn in tight designer jeans. Young butt wiggling, thin hips swaying. Smiling with my eyes, and no idea how much trouble my lips could get me in.

It's dangerous to be 15.

He was my first boyfriend. Curly hair and long hands. Luckily for me, he'd been brung up right. All those hours, alone in his house - his bedroom - and he never let it get very far.

Though, oh, he could kiss.

It was just that his honor roll meant just as much.

I'd try to steal a few, but Guy would wave me back to my books. Tell me to finish my chapter and let him finish his.

I'd steal his highlighter. He'd laugh, and indulge me. I was a wild girlfriend, needy and unsure. He was grounded, and kind.

You look back and realize that there were those intense, lovely moments.

First boyfriends that win stuffed animals at the fair. Hold hands for hours and run out for ice cream on warm autumn nights.

Put away the breaking up. The heartache and the sad songs on the radio.

Remember the carnations bought at high school fundraisers, borrowing his sweater, and counting stars.

"Mommy," Bear asked me last night, stuffy with last of a cold and sick of television and Vick's Vaporub.

"Yeah, Bear?"

"Daddy was your first boyfriend, right?"

"No, but he was my boyfriend, first."

He looks at me as though I am teasing him. Freckles scrunched in thought.

"Was he nice?"

"Who?"

"Your first boyfriend."

"Very nice."

"But not as nice as Daddy," he informs me firmly.

"Well, Bear, he was only 16 or 17 years old."

"Oh," my son nods. "That's REALLY old."

"Well, not a good age to get married," I tell him. "But it was fun."

"Ew," he says.

Our eyes meet, blue to green. We will agree to disagree.

Soon enough, he will know.

Soon enough, it will be gone.

And soon enough, it will be his memories on a warm autumn evening. Old songs on the radio. And a smile in his eyes, that no one else will understand.

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