"FOURTEEN" PART THREE: MERI (1st section)

MERI
(1st section)

     Craig Hughes was a romantic. Throughout his life, the notion of falling in love seemed to be as beautiful and elusive as the most enveloping of early morning dreams. One would say that he was in love with the possibility of being in love. Craig knew better though. He knew he had love in his heart and he was anxious to see who would be accepting of it but he wasn’t about to give it to just anybody. His fascination with girls had existed for as long as he could remember. There was a time at the Chatam Avalon Nursery School and Kindergarten, where his mother, after frantically searching for him at pick-up time (to which none of the teachers had a clue as to his whereabouts), found Craig behind a series of lockers being kissed by an amorous little thing named, Sheri March. Affections of this sort continued into first and second grade with a similar relationship with Margaret Mattson, the daughter of a well-respected reverend in the Hyde Park community, whose faith in spiritual compassion was tested by watching his pure as the driven snow, blonde child fawning all over this bespectacled dark boy from the other side of town. Craig also harbored the deepest of crushes on his first grade teacher, Mrs. Lori Tyler, a young woman with an interest in comic books and “Star Trek”, and treated Craig’s childhood obsessions with growing up to become a superhero seriously, tenderly and respectfully. And so it went throughout grade school. In fact, one of the things that made going to school tolerable (especially during high school) was the hope of some kind of magic. The fleeting flirtatious moments in the hallways he looked forward to daily. The classroom daydreams. The nighttime wishes that the object of his affections would be swept away by his charm and honest affection. These desires only intensified during middle school. With the onset of puberty, more lustful imaginings would clash or caress themselves with his romantic leanings. As matters with the opposite sex continued during this period, relationships became cloudy, emotions fragile and ambiguous.

     In order to get a complete picture of Craig’s eighth grade love life, such as it was, we must rewind to the conclusion of seventh grade. That year contained the requisite crushes (one student, one teacher), one misguided love-letter (to the student—they remained friends), and a first-kiss, bequeathed to him by a close friend named Naomi, who described her first kiss simply as “moist”. What made this year so special in Craig’s mind were the events which played themselves out on an end-of-the-year class trip to the Indiana Dunes.

     Although Craig spent the bus ride to the Dunes holding hands with Naomi, he somehow ended up in the presence of Tanya Yang, one of the first girls in his class to take on a curvier physique and therefore became the unwanted topic of conversation in the boy’s locker room during gym classes. Craig, with an unusual display of confidence and bravado, approached Tanya, flirted with her and somehow, the two of them spent much of the day walking in solitude, holding hands at times, embracing at other times and at one point, the two shared a kiss. To Craig and Tanya, the world seemed to contain just the two of them, at least for a while. In reality, they were in full view, and soon, the talk of the entire seventh grade class. For the last three days of school, Craig and Tanya endured jokes, questions, and lewd remarks written to them and their sudden relationship in their respective yearbooks, all the while rarely speaking to each other. While Craig was embarrassed, he secretly enjoyed the attention but mostly, this experience was just the sort of magic he was hoping would pass his way.

     As quickly as this magic had been bestowed upon him, it vanished. Throughout the summer break, Craig and Tanya never saw or spoke to each other. In a sense, this didn’t bother Craig because he seldom saw his school friends during summer vacation and not seeing Tanya didn’t deter his mood or his hopes that he would drown in the sea of love Stevie Nicks so eloquently sang about. It was the first day of eighth grade that would feel like a punch in the gut. And it was only a precursor to the hurt doomed to follow.

     Craig’s anticipation of returning to school in the fall would play itself out during frequent trips to the mirror, fretting over his weight and the unusual nostalgia of back-to-school television advertisements. The night before his return would be plagued with insomnia. Once back at Lab School, there was tension in the air, rejoicing and fearing just whom he would come in contact with next. There was the additional frustration of having a locker that wouldn’t open regardless of the combination given to it. And after a while during the morning hours, Craig spotted Tanya, enclosed in a gaggle of girls. She looked his way and their eyes met, yet neither made a move towards each other. By lunch period, Tanya greeted him as he continued to fight his locker.

     “Hi Craig,” she said plainly.

     “Hi Tanya,” he replied, distracted and confounded with the locker.

     “Looks like you’re having some problems, huh?”

     “Yeah,” he answered, wishing he could focus his full attention onto Tanya, feeling increasingly frustrated that he could not.

     “Um…I’m not sure how to start with you on this. So…,” Tanya began tentatively yet coolly.

     “So… what is it?” Craig started, sounding more confused than curious.

     “Craig, I don’t know what happened between us at the Dunes last year. And while I’m not saying that I didn’t have fun, I just don’t think this is going to work out,” said Tanya flatly.

     “Wait a minute…” Craig began finally turning away from his locker.

     “I just think it is in my best interests to try and see new people,” Tanya continued.

     “’Best interests’?! I don’t understand what that means. You mean, you don’t…”

     “Craig, I’m sorry. It’s not you. But,…I’m sorry,” Tanya ended.

     As she walked away, Craig wondered how it could not be him. She either liked him or she didn’t. And what was that whole thing about not being in her “best interests”? It sounded like she was competing between two job offers and realized that a career in “Craig Hughes” wouldn’t advance her on her fast track to…who the hell knew where. And damn this fucking locker!

     By day’s end, Craig had endured his classes, including the aforementioned French class, the confusion of being dumped by Tanya Yang and the final straw, being assigned a new locker located in the seventh grade section of middle school. The humiliation had been mounting throughout the day and Craig hadn’t taken full stock of it until the moment he began to head towards the parking lot to wait for his mother. Just as he attached his headphones to his ears to provide a musical antidote to his day, he was tapped on the shoulder.

     “Hi Craig?” asked a brown-haired, bookish looking girl he had seen in school over the years but never really knew her name. “Look, I just want to tell you that if you want to get Tanya back, I think I could help you. I thought you guys really looked nice together at the Dunes and we’re friends, so maybe I could talk to her or something."

     As she spoke, Craig took his headphones from his ears and regarded this strange request.

     “What’s your homeroom?” she asked.

     “Um…I’m in Ms. Gardner’s homeroom.”

     “Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow?” she asked pleasantly. “I could find you and we could go talk and stuff.”

     “Sure. That’s fine,” Craig accepted although equally confused as he was during his earlier conversation with Tanya.

     “OK. Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” and she left.

     Craig, feeling like the last person to know a vital detail in his own life, slowly placed the headphones back onto his ears and listened to the drum machine opening of “Duchess.” His personal soundtrack followed him out of the school and into the parking lot.

      Exzine Hughes arrived, shortly thereafter and as Craig entered the car, she promptly asked him not just how his day was but for the all-important details.

    “Well, I didn’t have all of my classes today. They don’t all start on the same day, you know.” It was difficult to talk to his Mother about his school day. It had always been that way. As he saw it, he had already lived through the day and the last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. 

     “Well what classes did you have?” asked Exzine growing slightly impatient.

     “Algebra…,” he began dispassionately.

     “Who’s your teacher?” his mother cut in.

     “Mrs. McTurner.”

     “And what did you learn today?”

     “Oh, I dunno,” Craig began, irritated. “It was like a review of things from last year. We didn’t really get into anything new. I guess it was more of an introduction”.

     “So what was it? A review or introduction?” asked an equally irritated Exzine.

     “Maybe a bit of both. Something like that,” he finished, leaving the conversation wide open for his Mother.

     “Boy, when I ask you about what are doing in school, I expect a lot more from you than ‘something like that’!” And Exzine Hughes continued in this fashion for at least half of the car ride home.

     That evening, before Craig became deeply involved with his homework, he retrieved his seventh grade yearbook from his bookshelf to try and gain the identity of his seemingly new ally. He ran his fingers over the class pictures of the previous year until he came across the very face that stared at him this afternoon: Meri Skinner.

     Meri Skinner was the kind of girl one wouldn’t immediately notice. She was intelligent yet not in an arrogant way. She was pretty in a preppy way, with glasses and long somewhat bushy sandy-brown hair that complemented her studious face. Even her voice had an almost “newscaster” quality to it. She looked rather intimidating but she did appear to have several friends and Craig remembered that he did see her in that gaggle of girls surrounding Tanya earlier that day. She was friendly to him, at least. Because she didn’t call attention to herself with the latest hairstyles and fashions (yet was always well-kempt), boys wouldn’t immediately notice her next to a curvaceous social-butterfly like Tanya Yang. This gave Meri a mysterious allure to which the 13 year old boys in her present and the 13 year old men in her future would not recognize. Craig did fit into this category but once he caught on to this allure, this bookish look of Meri’s was one he was attracted to all the way through his adulthood. After recognizing who she was, he began to look forward to tomorrow’s lunch.

     As promised, Meri arrived at Craig’s homeroom at lunchtime and off they went to sit outdoors on the courtyard. Their conversation was lively, natural and flowed smoothly. At Meri’s insistence, Craig recounted the day at the dunes and the previous day’s conversation with Tanya. While Meri and Craig didn’t exactly hatch a plot to return Craig to Tanya’s good graces, they did, however, have a nice lunch together, which ended before either of them were ready to.

     Craig and Meri continued to have lunch together daily. They greeted each other in the hallways upon sight. They often sat in the courtyard before school began and studied in the library together after school ended. And whenever any of their respective friends questioned them with a leading, “What’s going on with you guys?” Craig and Meri would truthfully reply, “We’re just friends.”

     On the day of the eighth grade class picture, Meri saved a spot, exclusively for Craig, right next to her. This gesture did not go unnoticed by their classmates. Once again, Meri’s friends would ask, “What’s up with you and Craig?” to which she would truthfully reply, “We’re just friends.”

     Craig and Meri began to spend time on the telephone together (only on weekends due to Craig’s parents’ strict telephone policy). They spoke of all relevant topics in their early adolescent lives. Yet, unknowingly and surprisingly, the subject of Tanya Yang decreased in its’ relevance until it was barely uttered, even in a whisper. Upon gaining this piece of information in Craig’s life, his friends would then ask him, “What’s going on with Meri? What happened to Tanya?” Craig would truthfully reply, “Meri and I are just friends. There’s nothing going on.”

     Although Craig protested, even he had to admit to himself that there was something different about his friendship with Meri Skinner. It was just as easygoing as any of his other friendships, but he noticed something deeper with Meri that was lacking in others, and he enjoyed that. Not to say that Meri was humorless or overly serious. Meri was mature and her maturity carried itself over to their friendship. Before he knew it, he found himself smiling at something she had said hours earlier. He appreciated her intelligence, which made for provocative conversations. He discovered a sense of intimacy, previously uncharted,  in the way he spoke to her, and looked at her. After a while, Craig could not help himself but to realize just how attractive she was. Soon, Craig could admit, if only to himself, that maybe, just maybe, there was something more to Meri and his feelings for her. He also began to wonder and then, hope that Meri felt the same for him.

     Everything came to a head by the time of the first school dance of the year in which Craig Hughes was presented with a quandary only Keith Partridge could relate to. It had been decided by the eighth grade judicial committee that Craig Hughes would have to make a choice between Tanya Yang or Meri Skinner by the evening of the dance. Craig often joked that it would be impossible to have a private thought in this diminutive school without the entire student body knowing about it. And here he was again, the center of attention, gossip, and speculation. This time, it was much less enjoyable. It didn’t even seem to matter to anyone that he had rarely spoken to Tanya since the first day of school. It had been decided that there was to be the drama of a love triangle to play itself out in front of the audience of the eighth grade. It unnerved him. Meri, in her maturity, took it all in stride and tried to keep Craig calm through her gaze, her voice and her occasional touch upon his shoulder.

     The Saturday evening before the dance, Meri spoke on the telephone to Craig about the situation.

     “This whole thing is so silly, you know,” she began. “And it doesn’t really matter to me what you do. I mean, I did tell you that I thought you and Tanya looked good together at the Dunes. And I also told you that I would help you get her back. But, I have to tell you Craig, I like spending time with you.”

            “I like spending time with you, Meri,” Craig interrupted.

            “I’m not finished yet," Meri answered hesitantly. “I think I like you, Craig. You know, let me change that. It makes me sound so unsure. I like you, Craig and while I would understand if you chose Tanya over me…,” she stopped cold.

            “Meri?”

            Silence.

            “Sorry, Craig,” she said softly. “I was just…I don’t know…Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

            It was so crystal clear as to what Craig wanted to do and would do. His feelings for Meri were not to be denied. It mattered not what anyone else thought anymore and he mentally kicked himself for allowing the superficial nature of his class to get to him. He knew that whatever he felt for Meri Skinner just felt so right, so true and he had to tell her.

            “Meri, I want to be with you,” Craig said. “If I really had to choose, I would choose you.”

            Meri sent her beaming smile and pounding heart through the telephone and Craig heard it all.

Copyright 2014 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.