I have a boyfriend and I feel ten feet tall. He even goes to the rival high school. He’s top of his class too. It doesn’t get better than that. He calls me everyday or comes to pick me up at school when he can. My mother doesn’t like him and no one in his family likes anybody. According to them we’re both from the “wrong side of the tracks.” His family is poor, being raised by a single mother. Even though we are not quite middle class, his mother thinks we’re wealthy and “high falutin.” Now I think I should have stayed on my side of the tracks.
I wanted so much for myself back then. Most of all, I wanted to be a teacher in Africa. My mother didn’t like that. I wanted to be a writer and that wasn’t good enough either. When I announced I was going to go to flight school to be a pilot or flight attendant, I got laughed at. Anything short of marrying a millionaire was unacceptable. In first grade, it was pretty obvious that I was suppose to marry a boy named Danny. His folks and mine were long time friends. There’s a photo of us, on the day of our First Communion, and we look like a miniature bride and groom holding hands and smiling uncomfortably. Both our mothers are pregnant.
I got a box of chocolates from Danny for Valentines Day and I think that was part of the down payment for the bride. I was staying with my auntie and her family at the time and I got teased mercilessly about it. I hid my chocolates and much to my dismay someone, other than me, was eating them. It was then that I became less trusting. If you can’t trust your own family with your chocolates, who can you trust.
Anda and I used to have crushes, on unsuspecting boys, every other week. We would cry the obligatory crocodile tears when our obvious undying love was not returned. We’d then cast about for the next one who would obligingly break our hearts. Until he did, he was the cutest, sweetest guy in the world. After the fact, he was a creepy and a jerk, not fit to wipe our shoes. We were 11 and 12 at the time. When we got older, they became asshole bastards who weren’t fit to wipe our butts. We had our hearts stomped on many times, by ungrateful slobs, because we believed we were so special and if they just gave us a chance, they would see just how incredibly wonderful we were.
Oh Lord…how many times did we pick daisies and pull off the petals one at a time…he loves me, he loves me not…if the last petal was he loves me, we’d dance and cheer “yes he loves me!!!!” The fact that the object of our affection didn’t know we existed had nothing to do with anything. If the last petal was he loves me not, we would bemoan what would have been the love affair of the century, and making the poor guys wonder who these two weirdoes were, that kept giving them dirty looks, when they passed us in the halls.
But now I was dating Jonathan and everyone had something to say… Anda’s father was the most upset and most vocal. He knew that family. Said he was no good, that I would regret it…called him “Okie from Muskokee…”
I was dating someone from the wrong side of the tracks and it was getting serious…
Next -> Anda & Me
Tags: crocodile tears, flight school, teacher in Africa, wrong side of the tracks