Katie

I've known Katie for as long as I can remember. Met her in 3rd grade as a cute, blonde hair, freckled girl with bright eyes, she smiled a lot. She was incredibly popular. Smart and nice to boot. But I never knew her like a friend nor dated her. But our paths crossed at some odd moments...

I recall her friends would come up to me during recess and put their arm around me and ask me who I liked. The ring leader was a girl named Shelby who was a rich bitch snob who, if lessons were to be learned, just was interested that someone was interested in me. They didn’t say shit to me all throughout school, until I found out Katie liked me. I was a hot mess. I mean, worse than I am now, but I didn’t shower , had thrift shop clothes and I often played in the dirt. I think she felt sorry for me. I think she took in stray feral dogs.

We played a game called “pickle.” In baseball terms this was trying to steal a base and being trapped between two bases. On the middle school lot we extended it to three different bases. When you got tagged out, you had to go sit on a bench, until everyone was “out.” I got tagged out early. This was the opportunity for Shelby and her cronies to approach me and pry me for who I was interested in. Girls have always made me nervous. Shelby definitely didn’t make it easy for me to run. She had that cool girl thing going. Barely flinched when talking to boys. She seemed to take joy in ribbing me. “Who do you like?”

“I don’t like anyone”

“C’mon, you have to like someone” I couldn’t even look at her.

“No. Just playing pickle” (looking back this sounded sad). She scoffed and walked away, her goons in tow.

Katie never talked to me in middle school. Directly anyway. She’d get her friends to plant ideas in my head. Who I was going to take to Canteen, which was the middle school dance they held every Saturday. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I wasn’t interested in girls at that age. I was more interested in kung-fu theater and ninja shit. I would read the martial arts magazine until they just started to highlight Chuck Norris (sans mustache). Seemed really odd to me that a white dude was on the cover constantly. And Chuck Norris without a mustache is just not right. Same with Tom Selleck.

Which is why it seemed strange when I got a call one day from Katie. She just wanted to talk. She had dug up my phone number from a school directory. She wanted to know if I’d be at Canteen. I told her I would. Then she asked me what kind of t.v. shows I was into . I think I was watching “Robotech” at the time. And “Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers.” I was pretty lame. She didn’t know any of that. But she sounded interested in my boring life. I was so nervous, I wasn’t sure what to say. Just talk endlessly about stupid shit. But she kept listening. It was really nice. And strange. Since she was so popular and I was not. But looking back, that took a lot of balls to call people up. I couldn’t do it. Shit one time I wrote a letter to a girl I liked, but was paranoid she’d recognize my handwriting, so I cut and pasted from letters from a magazine. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised the FBI didn’t think it was a ransom letter. Different times.

At Canteen, I never got the nerve to ask any girl to dance. Nor did I want to dance. “Dirty Dancing” was still popular with the girls. So they were itching to dance. I did see Katie there. I freaked, since I’d just got done talking to her on the phone. And was sure the stupid shit I talked about would come up again. I grabbed a soda and ducked out. My closest friend at the time Doug called me all kinds of names for that. I called my Mom and waited in the dark until she picked me up. “How was it?” she asked. “I dunno. Fine.” but in teenage speak it came out as “Imumunun” and a shrug. My mind was on Katie and what the hell did she want. I never found out.

Eventually when we did get to high school, I developed a heavy crush on her. She’d moved on to the quarterback…blonde hair William Katt look a like by the name of Andy Knight (I’m not joking). They were king and queen of everything. Shit, they could’ve started their own island of just Teutonic super race of beautiful children. Andy’s dad was the wide receivers coach, for which I played 3d string wingback. The guy was tough. Treated me like total shit, since I was undersized and constantly reminding me how much I was wasting his time. There was one scrimmage where he thought it was funny to throw me into the defensive line. I got creamed. But I didn’t quit. Our sophomore year in high school, Andy’s Dad and a friend were flying back in a private plane after playing golf in Florida somewhere. It crashed killing them both. It was really a weird feeling being screamed at by this guy one day, wishing him ill will and then something tragic happen. If I believed in hoo-doo I’d die of guilt.

When it was my 13th birthday, we held it at my parent’s restaurant. Man, was I lame. I hadn’t spoken to Katie in years. And yet…I invited her to the party. I thought it was to reconnect from those kid years where we both seem to like each other, although I didn’t understand it at the time. Her mother was the one to call to confirm. Seems she’d heard about me years ago from Katie and thought it was cute some immigrant kid was inviting her daughter to a party. To my surprise, Katie showed up. I didn’t say much to her, as I’d rented “Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark” & “No Holds Barred.” I look back on these choices with embarrassment. At this point, she’d made the best of it, put on her best attitude and enjoyed the party. I just couldn’t believe she showed up. I wanted so bad to tell her how much I liked her. Couldn’t do it. I still have photos of that party in an album, wondering what was going on in her mind.

She went on dating Andy through high school. I saw her in the hallways from time to time. I just nodded. She just smiled. Pleasantries. Classes were dull as shit. I was bored. I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I had a girlfriend at the time (Amy) who occupied my life. Made my life Hell since she couldn’t decide if dating me was driving a big wedge between her and her parents who didn’t like me (as I figured out, people still didn’t accept the interracial thing, forget that her brother turned out to be a homosexual…very nice guy though). I chalk it up now to the fact that they saw no potential in me. And Amy was ambitious, and intelligent and didn’t need me as a boat anchor.

There was a massive graduation party in a field out in the middle of nowhere. There was a lot of alcohol and a bonfire. It was amazing. Although we graduate with only 119 students, it looked like freaking Woodstock. I was sure it wasn’t just seniors. Off in the distance I saw a familiar figure: Katie. She was alone drinking from a red Solo cup. She was looking off to the woods, seemed deep in thought. I peeled off from my friends and went towards her. Which is when I noticed her shoulders moving. Shuddering. She was crying. It stopped me. I vividly remember her standing away from everyone in the firelight. It was chilly that night. I wanted to tell her good luck in college, as I think we’re supposed to. The infatuation feelings were gone. It was just two people going out into the world. New beginnings. I inched closer. Then I completely stopped. Whatever it was that she needed to work out, didn’t involve my dumb ass making it more difficult. She didn’t need to share with me whatever it was that was bothering her. That she may be missing many people, least of all me. So, I turned and walked back towards my friends. I kept an eye on her that night. I caught glimpses of her here and there. Then that night just went blurry.

When we all graduated, I went out to Los Angeles, Andy went to Stanford in Northern Cal, and Katie stayed local at John Carroll University. A school for which had a great field hockey program (she got a scholarship). She could’ve gone anywhere, she was that smart. Andy became a doctor and at the forefront of discovering cures. He really was The Golden Boy.

Loyola Marymount University my freshman year introduced something to us all called Eudora. It was an early chat system via colleges. You could find people at colleges and send them text, and it would, like magic, show up in their window. This was EARLY chat. And was only available through universities throughout the country. Out of curiosity, I searched for Katie. If you think about how clunky the system was these days and where we are now, it’s ridiculous what 20 years ago was like. It was as basic as you could make it. I found her at John Carroll. I typed a message, and waited. The window was blinking. Then bing…a message popped up. She was “online.” I was amazed. We’d now reconnected again in the new cyberspace. Or whatever it was called then. We “chatted” about the technology. Was just floored by how easy it was. And we chatted for hours about the dumbest college shit. The food. The dorms. People she’s met. She was interested in Los Angeles. I told her all I saw was the campus so far. Eventually she had to sign off (I was using a community computer and had limited time as well). That was the last I heard from Katie.

A few years ago I signed onto Facebook and instantly added my friend from 3^rd grade, Kevin. Kev and I ran into each other a lot. Played in a band together. Played in orchestra together. He now lives up in northern California. He was really good at keeping in touch with people.

I looked through his friends page and…there she was: Katie. She is married now with three daughters who are at the age in which we first met. I know without a doubt she is a great mother. Her own mother was so sweet, it was a no-brainer. I sent her a friend request, clarifying who I was since I use a pseudonym. A few days past. Then I got notice that she’d added me. She didn’t follow up with any message. Just that she knew it was me. And here we are again, decades later, online…as close and distant as we’ve always been.