I’m seven or eight years old, and Charlie and I are playing tag with a group of other kids on the school playground. When Charlie is “it,” he always, always chases me. It annoys the dickens out of me, because I don’t like being caught.
“You never chase me back,” he complains.
“I used to, but you just turn around and make me ‘it’ again. And the other kids get mad because we’re leaving them out and it’s like only the two of us are playing.”
“I like it that way,” Charlie says.
And then—anotherpoof!
•••
We’re four or five, and playing doctor. Charlie wants to listen to my heart. I unbutton my shirt, and he puts his ear on my chest. Even back then, when our chests look just the same, he’s fascinated with mine. He wants to see under my skirt, and I might have let him, but my mother walks in, and... oh mercy, does she get into a dither!
I have to confess, I never felt any curiosity at all about Charlie’s private parts. Junk, they call it now. Junk—what a hilariously terrible name for something they’re all so proud of.
•••
“Are you okay, Gran?”
I realized I’d closed my eyes. I opened them and saw a lovely, worried, young face. It took me a moment to remember: I was in the dining room with my granddaughter. “Yes, dear. I just got caught up in some memories.” I smiled at her. “Where were we?”
“You were telling me about you and Granddad. I thought you two dated all through high school.”
“Oh, we did. Although at first, I didn’t even realize we were dating. By the time it dawned on me that everyone thought we were a couple, well, we’d been together so long that no other boy even thought I was available.”
“Did you like someone else?”
“No. This was a very small town, honey, and as the saying went, the pickin’s were slim and none, and Slim had left town. The senior class at our school had only thirty-five students, and Charlie was the best of the bunch.” I toyed with a silk-covered button on my old dress. “I tried to break up with him after graduation, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the war was on. Like most boys in my class, Charlie enlisted right after graduation. Before he went off to basic training, I told him we should see other people.”
“And?”
And nothing. “He didn’t want to hear it.” He’d cried, in fact. I’d never felt so bad about anything in my life.
The whole thing flickered in my mind’s eye like a Technicolor movie, but I kept talking as the mental movie played.
We’d been sitting in his father’s car—a 1939 Ford, red as a firecracker, with a gray interior—parked out at the lake. We ended every date that way, talking and necking at a place called Lover’s Point.
Charlie’s breath had been hot on my neck. His fingers moved from my back to my breast, but I shooed his hand away.
“It’s okay, Addie,” he’d murmured against my skin. “When I come back from the war, we’ll get married.” He reached for my breast again.
I pushed him away and pulled myself against the door. “I’ve told you over and over, Charlie. I don’t want to get married.” What I really meant was, I don’t want to marry you. I don’t know why he couldn’t take the hint.
“You want to be an old maid?” he’d demanded.
How many times had we covered this same ground? “I want to be a photographer. I want to travel the world and make my mark on it.”
“So work as a photographer while I’m gone. Then when I get back, we’ll get married.”
“No, Charlie. I’ve got other plans.”
“Plans that don’t include me?”
I didn’t want to hurt him, but sometimes he was thick as a brick. I pulled at a loose thread on my sweater. “I just don’t feel about you the way you deserve to have a girl feel.”
