It was the 1970's, a time of mellowing change after the massive change of the 60's. I was still in love with just about everything 60's... but I wasn't loving my life though.
High School was not the best of times for me. Actually, it pretty much sucked. I was being bullied by punk hillbillies, and had a hard time with the usual teenaged hormone-fueled fantasies that I just for the life of me couldn't fulfill.
It was my junior year, and in a way, I couldn't wait to graduate and leave. There wasn't much I enjoyed there, and I needed to get away from it all. But I knew I had to stay.
But then I walked into my new anthropology class. I walked in and sat down, not knowing what to expect... And then She walked in. "Hello class!" she said brightly. And all of a sudden my mind lit up brightly, too.
Earnestine Blumenthal. Such an old fashioned name for such a very much modern woman.
She only stood about 5'2" and dressed kinda old fashioned as well. But I didn't care. She was a red headed goddess as far as I was concerned, and I fell for her like a lead zeppelin.
She was oh so cute and perky, despite her name and her old-fashioned dress. And she bopped around the room like a seventeen year old, although she was twenty-four (she later admitted) at the time. And she had her hair cut in the same way that my other favorite goddess Joni Mitchell had, with those bangs that came down to her eyes. Along with the same red hair (although Earnestines was more red than strawberry blond).
This essentially very much white woman, was there to lead us in exploration of very different and exotic cultures. She made it a joy to come to school, and even though I had math class right before hers, I didn't even notice how much the math class flew by. I didn't care. Soon I would be in Her class.
She brought in foods from various countries for us to try, instead of just dry learning. She would talk about the cultures of the countries where the food was from. What the religions that were there derived from.
I was still very much a white bread kind of guy at that point, but I tried most of it. My favorite was (and still is) the Ethiopian food she brought in. I especially took to the spongy bread called injera, so different from what I was used to. We were introduced to the whole 'eating with out hands' thing (which I still prefer if I can).
At the end of the year, I was crestfallen that I couldn't take her class yet again. I wanted to get my daily dose of Earnestine. And then she moved on from our school to another one, and I couldn't get a glimpse of my now favorite goddess, even in the halls.
My senior year was not a happy one.
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Now here I am in my late 60's. An age to reflect where most of my childhood dreams and aspirations came from.
I've had a rather colorful life, as Earnestine had introduced me to the world when I was young and very white. I went on to get my degree in journalism, so I could travel the world and bask in other cultures to my hearts content.
Oh, I'd had many a woman in that time. White, Black. American, African. But that slender sylph of a woman from my high school years kept on haunting me wherever I went.
I got married, and then I got divorced. After a very brief and turbulent marriage.
And here I was, retired to Los Angeles, a very different world from which I had grown up in. I was a very jaded and divorced man not happy with my life, but trying my best to settle in for my last remaining years.
I didn't have much in common with Earnestine, but I did share her red hair, although mine was more auburn than her bright orangey red.
And I didn't look my age. I also didn't have children (that I knew of). I would not have been able to travel as extensively as I had if I had had children. I was not one for hauling children from place to new place. I'd had enough of that growing up, and I wasn't going to subject any children to that gypsy lifestyle.
So I was also largely alone. Oh, I had friends here and there, but they were more acquaintances that actual friends. I had learned from my own gypsy years to not form very hard attachments to people as I had traveled. I never knew where my next assignment might lead me to.
I hadn't settled down much either. Didn't want that kind of attachment to form either.
But I had settled down in LA, (if 'settled' was anything close to my need to travel occasionally). I had become rather worn out in my 'old age' from the constant traveling of my youth and middle age. I was content to just spend my days, lounging in the California sun by the modest pool I had in my first (only) purchased house in all of my years.
I went out shopping. I went to the beach. I was kinda envious of all of the families that I saw there. And oh, all those nubile young coeds that I was now too old to do anything but dream about.
I'd had a few unsatisfactory romances since I'd move here almost three years ago, but nothing stuck. I found most of them too shallow, and I was too old to take a wife just so she could have me as a 'retirement' plan in her bed.
I was at the Coop one day, doing my twice weekly shopping, when I stopped dead in my tracks.
In front of me, strolling down the aisle I was in, was a familiar (still) red headed woman walking, not particularly paying attention, in my direction.
"Earnestine?" I asked her, and her head snapped to attention to see who it was who knew her name.
"Do I know you?" she asked, somewhat hesitatingly, looking as if she was about to run.
"From high school," I said. She looked at me curiously and asked, "What high school?" asking me for validation before not running.
"Friendstown High. You were one of my teachers."
Her attitude softened a bit, as she looked harder at me. Some flash of recognition seemed to occur, but she began looking at me again.
"Roger Dean," I told her. "I was in your anthropology class. You know? The first class you taught just out of college?"
She visibly relaxed some, but not completely.
Of course she was changed. I knew I was. But although she had some streaks here and there of grey in her hair, she was still very much a red head. Just not as vibrant a one as her hair once was.
"Ok," she sighed. "How can I help you?" Once the teacher, always the teacher.
"I just wanted to say hello after all these years. You know, you pretty much still look the same after all these years."
She laughed that light elvish maiden laughter again that I had loved so much from her. I'm glad that she hadn't changed all that much from my memory.
She sighed and told me, "I don't go by Earnestine any more. I changed to Tina many years ago."
And also of course, she was no longer the smoothest skinned girl fresh out of college that she once was. I noticed that there were lines in her face, and laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, but not like too many of the women of 'our age' (she being six years older than me).
I gushed like a high school boy as I said, "I just wanted to tell you how much I was desperately in love with you back then. I know that you no doubt have a family and husband, but I just need to tell-- You that."
She lowered her head and blushed brightly. When she looked up, she was biting her bottom lip, as if to prevent herself from saying anything.
"Yes, I have children, but of course they're all grown up now with families of their own. And no, I'm no longer married. I'm widowed. My late husband passed about ten years ago"
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about that," I told her, it now being my turn to look down at my feet. She sounded like it were still a fresh memory of loss, and I hated to have brought that on for her.
"Oh, it's ok. I loved my husband very much, but... Well, he's long gone at this point. And I still have my children."
Looking up shyly through her eyelashes, she asked me, "And are you married? Do you have children?"
"No. You introduced me to the world, and so I became a foreign correspondent, traveling to all of those countries that you opened my mind to. Back then."
Her smile was deafening to me. It spoke of so much, and didn't dare to speak of her liking that I was complimenting her so much. She blushed again, and sighed, then looking back down in her embarrassment.
I unconsciously moved forward in her direction. She saw that I had and began backing up slightly. But then she moved forward again herself, shyly intrigued that I was still paying her that much attention.
"I'm sure that you have many women vying for your attention," she said, her smile suddenly turning to one of longing. "I doubt that you would still have those kind of affections for an old woman like me."
As far as I was concerned, she looked pretty much like the young woman that I had fallen madly in love with in high school. Yes, she was older, but that didn't really matter much to me. She was still quite beautiful, even being in her mid seventies.
My hand began lifting, as if to reach out to touch her, but I quickly drew it back. I didn't want the 'delicate fawn' in front of me to start to turn to run away again.
But I also noticed that we began moving towards each other, ever so slightly closing the distance between us.
She set her hand basked down as it had apparently begun weighing heavily on her arm. I deftly moved in to take it from her and lower it to the floor. She began rubbing her wrists, as if she had hurt herself, and I moved in quickly and began rubbing them myself, working to relax her trembling arms.
She looked up at me through her eyelashes again, hesitantly but with interest. She almost pulled her arms away, but didn't resist that much.
I bent down and gently kissed her wrists, first her left one and then her right. Even her evidently wrinkled arms felt soft to me as I did.
I wanted to lean down and kiss her, my hands going up to caress her face...
