You know when people use the term "I almost swallowed my gum?", well, I actually did when Kathryn asked me that question. Went into a coughing fit, too. Lovely...
We were both just 18 and had been friends since second grade. Kathryn's house backed onto mine and our relationship had started the way many young ones do: us staring at each other over the dividing hedge from the safety of our own yards. Her family had just moved in; I'd lived in my house all my life.
"What's your name?" I'd asked.
"Kathryn. What's yours?"
My parents and older brothers, everyone actually, had always called me Bobby, but here was this pip-squeak kid with huge eyes using her formal name on me as if she was someone special. "Robert," I replied.
And it was done. Over the last two weeks remaining in that summer vacation we became friends, two peas in a pod as my father was fond of saying. Truth was, there was a lot of truth in that. We were both awkward even as kids. Both of us wore glasses, for instance, and even for seven-year-olds that wasn't too cool. For the entirety or our school years, we basically only had each other as friends.
The other kids, picking up with their infallible radar that we were different, zeroed in on us with their cruelty. It's always thought that boys are the worst at this, but the whispered stories that Kathryn told me of the misery inflicted on her by her gender made it clear that I had no idea what cruelty could be.
We had a lot of things in common: we both enjoyed reading widely, we actually LIKED school and did well there. I wanted to be a university professor and Kathryn wanted to be a psychologist. All our classmates aspired to, it seemed, was taking over their fathers' hardware stores, or opening a beauty parlor, something that didn't require a whole lot of book learning. Just two wanted to be doctors -- but only if their pro football careers didn't pan out. Such was life in a small, southern town in the '50s.
So we bonded. It wasn't a gender thing, either. We were just two outcasts against the world, best buds, and each took solace in the other's company. To our parents' amusement, we always referred to each other formally. For some reason I could never imagine calling my friend Kathy, or worse yet, Kath. It just didn't fit.
Fast forward eleven years. I'd turned into a gawky string bean, just over six feet tall. On hitting puberty, I'd had a bout of acne, not really bad, but enough to make my face a bit pocked. This was the mid-60s, after all, and treatment for that sort of thing was expensive.
Kathryn had gotten somewhat tall too, being now nearly 5'7". Her hair had grown very long indeed and she usually wore it in a braid. As for the rest of her, she wore those "granny dresses", several years before they were trendy. This was in response to the inevitable gibes and taunts in the girl's locker room. Kathryn had grown very quickly at age twelve and consequently had been very skinny. Coupled with her rather large feet, glasses and the fact that she was late to develop "other things", she been the target of all the "popular girls" and made to feel more of an outcast than ever.
She developed asthma and this eventually enabled her to drop Phys Ed. Smart Kathryn had set up the whole thing, though, and while she did actually have some trouble with her breathing, after a little research at the public library, she figured out how to fool her parents, doctor and the school into thinking she was much worse off than was the case.
In short, we were both class A "dweebs" as far as the other kids, and truth be told, many parents and teachers were concerned.
We were the brains in a school that really didn't honor such things. In our school, football was king. And when it wasn't football, they made do with basketball and baseball. If you were good at sports, you were golden, so the jocks ruled the roost. If you were female, your existence revolved around whether you were going to be able to crack the Varsity Cheerleading Squad or by going out with one of the jocks. Rumors swirled around those girls willing to do "anything" to snag one of these sought-after males.
Rather than withdrawing like Kathryn, I tried playing sports. Football was out since I was so slight. They would killed me. I wasn't very good at basketball, but baseball,
that
I could do. I had a good quick eye and natural swing, but it always seemed to amaze everyone when I jacked out another home run. My dad, originally from Boston, said I swung the bat just like Ted Williams, the "Splendid Splinter". It wasn't much, but my involvement in at least one sport (and a couple of games my hitting had saved over the years) kept the worst of the jocks off my back. They still made me feel like an outsider every chance they got, though, since baseball was definitely the bottom of the sports pile.
Kathryn would come to a lot of the games and sit in the stands with a quizzical expression on her face, book in hand to read until the next time I was at bat. She always sat by herself.
All through school we'd been the top two in our class and this had led to some friendly rivalry. We each spent far more hours than necessary on papers and preparation for tests just so we would be sure to beat the other. There were many times where we were the only ones in our grade to get 100s on tests and each of us maintained averages above 98, year in, year out. We'd also spend hours discussing politics, literature, art, whatever took our fancy. Kathryn and I both felt that the other was the only person we could really talk to.
Of course, we often studied together since we could work more efficiently. That was what we were doing in the basement of Kathryn's house on the day she asked "The Question".
So here I was, literally choking on my gum with Kathryn pounding me on the back. Eventually, a glass of water got the coughing under control. Kathryn was very apologetic for catching me off guard like that and tried to pass her question off as a bad attempt at trying to be funny, but I quickly made my exit.
After passing through the hole we'd worn over the years in the hedge dividing our yards, I ran into the house, up to my room and flopped down on the bed, feeling more of a dweeb than ever. Truth was, I had a major crush on Laurie, captain of the cheerleading squad, a total blonde fox and girlfriend of Todd the captain of the Varsity football team. She sat in front of me in English and History, but we'd never exchanged more than a dozen words. Laurie was always turned away, speaking breathlessly to her friends about her life of parties, shopping and cheerleading. I definitely lusted from afar.
Truth was, when Kathryn asked her question, I'd been daydreaming about Laurie and remembering how I'd jerked off that morning in the shower, thinking of her lustily kissing me. THAT'S what had caused me to unfortunately swallow my gum.
Now I looked like a fool in front of my closest friend. Somehow I suddenly felt un-loyal to her, even though, I'd never remotely even thought of Kathryn in that way. How could I? She was my best bud.
As I lay there feeling sorry for myself, the phone rang. My mom called upstairs, "Bob? Are you home?"
"Yeah," I called out.
"It's Kathryn on the phone. She wants to talk to you."
I wished I'd opted for a long walk. "Tell her I'm coming."
I heaved myself off the bed and went downstairs with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man walking his last mile. My mother handed me the receiver and smiled.
"Hi Kathryn."
"Robert, I am
so
sorry for what I did. I don't know what came over me."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not! I feel just terrible."
"It's already forgotten." Yeah, right.
"Will you come back after lunch? We still have a lot more studying to do for that Physics test. You're better at it than I am, and I really need your help."
"Well, okay..."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! You've always been my best friend. See you around 1:00?"
"Sure."
I put down the phone and stood there, amazed by what Kathryn had said. In all the years we'd known each other, she'd never once said that I was better than her at anything academic. It wasn't true, either. She was every bit as good at physics as I was, better probably.
Kathryn was sitting on her back steps when I came through the hedge. Her face brightened as soon as she saw me. I stopped and looked at her differently than I ever had. I tried to really SEE her for the first time.
She still had those same big eyes, amplified by the thickness of her glasses, but her hair (combed out that day) was dark brown and lustrous in the sun, framing her oval face beautifully. In her typical long dress, sitting up quite straight with hands clasped tightly in her lap, she reminded me of one of those Madonnas you see in old religious paintings.
