Can't hardly wait - part deux

OK, continued from a previous post, where was I? Grade 8, danced with my muse at middle school grad, Beatrix, thought about her all summer, lost games of Risk while nerdily defending Indonesia at all costs because I thought she was from there, carried a pic of her clippped out of the yearbook around in my wallet like a lovesick dork, etc..

So here we get to the part of the movie that mirrored my life somewhat. The main character in the film recounts a series of events whereby fate decreed that he was to meet this cute girl who was new to teh school that day. From them both being late that day, ending up in the same class, sharing the same taste in breakfast pastries, etc, but he didn't make his move and got un-seated by the high school quarterback, who eventually wooed this pretty young thing, played by Jennifer Hewitt(the girl , not the quarterback).

So here I am in grade 9, it must have been around 1983, first day of high school. I'm decked out in my rugger pants (or Rugby pants or whatever they were called) and I manage to find my homeroom. Gloucester High school is as big as an airport terminal and I quickly found out that you never ask seniors for directions to your class because you'll end up in some spooky place with a bunch of pipes with steam coming out of them.
If you're slightly nerdy like I was, there was also a chance you'd end up in the specimen cage which was this set of glass doors set into a glas wall behind the auditorium. When you propped these doors open it formed a glass triangle and seniors used to stuff some hapless grade 9 in there, kick the doorjamb in until it you couldn't get out and leave you there as the bell rang. Some teacher or janitor drawn to your cries would have to get you out.

So I'm in homeroom, kinda sitting near the back, and who walks in but Beatrix(not her real name)! I was floored! She was gonna be in my home room all year! This was amazing.. So the teacher walks in, looks at his class list, then us. He has decided to quit smoking this year and has a funny habit of putting chalk up to his lips like he is going to take a drag. He looks up and says "I'm going to seat you all in alphabetical order and this will be your seat for the whole year". Everyone grumbles except me. And I'm not grumbling because my last name begins with C and Beatrix's last name begins with B. So I'm looking around, seeing who might screw with fate and land between us, and &*%$# there he is, why the &%$* did Charlie-whose-last-name-begins-with-a-C-and-comes-before-mine have to be in my homeroom! So that screws the order up, he is seated between me and her. She is 2 seats in front of me (sigh). Thankfully Charlie is part midget and at least I can stare at her back kinda!

Then the teacher calls us out into the hall for locker assignments. He goes in alphabetical order and this is where I lucked out again. Beatrix is the first locker in the class, like 201 or something like that, and I am 203 with Charlie being 202, but like house addresses, they stagger the numbers back and forth across the hallway. 201(Beatrix) and 203 (me) are beside each other, Chuckie is across the hall! Woohoo! I could get used to this for a whole year.. I thought.

At first things went rather well. She introduced herself, she remembered me from the dance just before the summer, what did I think of the teacher, etc.. I'm sure she caught on that I was dumbstruck, cause after awhile she started calling me her "little buddy". Her girlfreinds would make fun of me, which I thought might be a bad thing, but could also be a good thing, (hard to tell with girls at that age). But throughout it all I DID NOTHING! I couldn't let her know, etc.. Not sure why not, but man was I stupid! The grade 9 girl of your dreams is right there, and I couldn't bring myself to say anything or do anything. So of course, the obvious happened.

At high school I quickly found that that male seniors were too immature and stupid to impress girls their own age, so they looked down a few grades where they could impress a younger girl with A) their age B) their driver's license and C) that's about it... (please see A and B). Female high school seniors dated college guys or something, and so on.. So it wasn't too long before one of the seniors came circling. It was at this point that I learned that all important skill on how to act nonchallant while getting your books at your locker as your fantasy crush girl is playing tonsil hockey with joe-cradle-robber the next locker over(grin).

And so on... She had a few Boyfreinds that year. We'd still talk, I hid everything well, she'd complain about her latest boyfreind and I'd stupidly stick up for them, trying to act like I wasn't jealous and didn't want a piano to fall on his head(grin). IDIOT!

Years later when I could actually talk to girls without having a seizure, we never ended up being single at the same time, so nothing ever happened. About 6 years ago (17 years after this story took place) I was looking up a freind's email address at a Univercity out west where he was teaching and I stumbled across, of all people. Beatrix! Couldn't be too many people in this world with that name so I dropped her an email. She answered back. It was her but she had no idea who the hell I was, and to have a nice day. Later that summer out of the blue, I get an email from her again. She had gone home to her parent's place for a visit and actually cracked open a yearbook to see who I was.

I was an idiot. She said she would have gone out with me in a second.

Fast forward to 3 years ago. Her and her same sex partner moved back to Ottawa from out west. It looks like she simply got fed up of guys, quit and moved on to the other team. Zoinks! Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I certainly didn't see it coming, and maybe being shy back then worked out for the better!