Gracie
Some things never cease to amaze me. Like the Christmas tree atRockefeller Center. Or the way a good cup of coffee can take the chill out of an early autumn morning. Or how a sunset can paint the clouds like wildflowers, all fuchsia, lilac, and gold.
Or like how the smallest, most meaningless interaction can get into your head and start fucking with you.
Colin Yarmouth was not in my orbit in high school. We shared a zip code, but little else. He played varsity baseball and soccer and ran laps around the field during his free periods. The only placeIever ran was the girls’ bathroom after a surprise maxi pad leak on a white-jeans day. He had name-brand clothing from the actualstore, whereas my wardrobe consisted of last season’s outlet picks saved for the following year and the occasional trip to Chinatown for knockoff shoes and designer fragrances bottled in six-inch aerosol cans. (Like Obsession by Calvin Klein? You’ll love Preoccupation by Smells by Joe!)He had girlfriends. Like, beautiful human girls he dated for a few weeks or a few months, ultimately trading up for the next conquest, leaving in his wake scores of used Kleenex to dry the tears of the forlorn. I, meanwhile, had Ronald. Ronald played exactly zero sports because—courtesy of his chronic asthma—he was better suited for the triangle in jazz band and after-school sessions in front ofthe television, vicariously working out his suppressed deviant inner life through the controller inGrand Theft Auto.
The first time I ever laid eyes on Colin Yarmouth was in freshman biology with Ms. Villani. He was seated in the front row over by the windows, where the sun could caress his stylish mushroom haircut. I sat in the back of the room near the fetal pig jars, which was probably for the best because the over-straightened, half-burnt bangs covering my forehead were not exactly what one would consider an A-game. I studied him longingly, noting his left-handedness and his royal-blue Bic pen. He wore a green fleece vest over a long-sleeved white thermal shirt, jeans from the Gap, and simple black Adidas Sambas on his feet, which he wrapped around the bottom of the legs of his chair-desk combo while he copied down the assignments from the blackboard.
I’ll never forget that day’s task: Pick a name out of a hat and spend five minutes getting to know your new lab partner. The people in the front two rows of the classroom got to pick the names. The small white slips of paper contained the first and last names of those of us seated in the back two rows.
Ms. Villani was awesome. She was reserved and sweet, and she must have known how nervous we were. (Here, I’m projecting my feelings onto the entire class of freshmen, but I think it’s a fair assumption.) She had one downfall though: her cursive handwriting was maybe not as neat as it could have been, so when Colin Yarmouth pulled the name, “Gracelanding,” I can understand how he might have thought it was a verb, like the act of going to Graceland.
He was the first one asked to read the name on his slip of paper aloud because of his elite placement in the front corner of the room.
“Gracelanding?” he asked, as if my existence was a question. “Like, Elvis?” he added.
Kids laughed, while I quietly died.
The nickname stuck. The teacher, unfortunately, did not. Poor Ms. Villani was struck by a school bus the following morning and spent the remainder of the year in traction with two broken legs. She was replaced by Mr. Bacharot, a surly older man who came out of retirement to cover her classes. He wore a lab coat every day and seated us in alphabetical order, explaining that whoever sat next to you in class would be your lab partner. Which was fine. Cindy Lee and I were a more appropriate match: both quiet, smart, and good at not blowing stuff up. Colin ended up with Alexis Yacolino, and by October, word on the street was they were getting to third base regularly.
He was my first real crush.
Ever the author, I wrote notes to him and slipped them into his locker in the hallway, signed,Your faithful secret admirer.As a freshman, he was recruited to play on varsity teams, so even the sophomore and junior girls noticed him. All that fall, I brought my notebook to the soccer field a half hour before games were scheduled to begin, and while the boys on the team changed into their uniforms right there on the field (alas, there was no locker room), I described on paper the things I could only imagine doing to him in person. Just a quick peek at his boxer shorts could send my imagination into overdrive. His hairless chest set my young heart ablaze.
In November, the soccer season ended, and thanks to Cindy Lee, I learned over a formaldehyde-soaked dead frog that Colin and Alexis were officially porking one another. I stopped writing the letters then. Rather, I stoppeddeliveringthem. All hope was lost of Colin and I deflowering one another, so I poured out my heart to my journal instead.
But just before Thanksgiving that year, a curious thing happened. I was eating lunch in the cafeteria, and I overheard the boys at the soccer table talking. Scoffing was more like it. The goalie, a thick-necked senior named Gus Nikolaides who always smelled like roasted lamb on accountof his dad’s (hugely successful) gyro food truck business, was boisterously dramatizing my confidential thoughts, with the remainder of the team and many surrounding tables as a willing audience.
“‘If only you would have me,’” he read, in his best attempt at a female voice, “‘I would ravage your body with my lips and you would forever dream about the taste of my skin on your tongue as our souls merged, two into one.’”
Billy Gutierrez, a loudmouthed sophomore who rarely got any field time, howled, throwing his head back for effect. “Damn, son! If some chick wrote that shit to me, I would ride her all night long!”
“Don’t play yourself, Billy.” Gus laughed. “The only thing you know how to ride is thebench!”
“Oh!” a chorus of testosterone ejaculated on the lunch table.
My face grew beet red as I watched Gus paw the perfume-sprayed page with his sweaty sausage fingers. His booming voice commanded an audience, and he stood with one foot up on the bench of the cafeteria table, towering over his teammates. I fought back nausea as I continued listening to my deepest fantasies being blurted aloud for the whole cafeteria to hear.
“‘I want to feel the touch of your hard body up against me; the slow motion of your fingers as they adeptly unhook my bra,’” Gus went on. “Yo…she used a semicolon. Like for real? Whoever this admirer is got mad grammar skills!”
I glanced over. Colin looked decidedly uncomfortable, despite his outward laughter.
“I’m just sayin’ bro, you need to find out who wrote that shit,” Justin Gagliardo said, slapping Colin on the shoulder. “If someone wrote me notes like that, I’d definitely do her.”
I guess that’s how my letters ended up photocopied and circulated among the whole school, until the principal finally put an end to it a fewdays later. I mean, it makes sense. If the captain of the soccer team says to do something—like, locate a secret admirer by checking the handwriting of every girl in school, you know, like Cinderella and the glass slipper—you do it, I suppose.
Two things changed as a result of my private humiliation though. The first, of course, was my penmanship. I very intentionally began crafting extra small, neat letters, a stark contrast to the giant, loopy scrawl I’d been using in the notes.
Also, I discovered that I might have a future as a romance writer.
I started penning short stories and fan fiction about my favorite television shows, and by the time junior year rolled around, I chose Creative Writing as an elective. I went to Boston College and majored in English. And now, all these years later, here we are.
It never dawned on me that Colin Yarmouth was the impetus behind my entire life path. I mean, at least not until now.
PART ONEApril
Gracie
