A Scandalous Affair

I didn't include Mikey in my earlier post, Seventh Chance, (about my seven chances at love) because our relationship ended just a couple of weeks after it had begun.  I was a junior in high school and he was an eighth grader, and at the time, it was a scandalous affair.  But, Mikey was mature for his age and I was, well, desperate.  All of my girlfriends had significant others (Peggy was married already, and no, she was not pregnant), and I wanted someone to call my own, too.  The boys my age couldn't get past my unattractive exterior, but Mikey saw something special in me and told me so within forty-five minutes of meeting me in my friend Becky's front yard.

"He's the little boy next door.  I used to babysit him," Becky said while lathering her body with baby oil and iodine, a concoction used to absorb more of the sun's harmful rays.  We were lying on two blankets spread out on the grass when I asked about the cute boy playing in her neighbor's driveway.  A short time later, the little boy next door was sitting on his babysitter's blanket showing interest in--WHO?--me?  Really?  Me?

A FEW  HOURS LATER

Mikey and I were sitting on a sofa in his living room.  His parents were jewelers, and they were both at work.  He liked me a lot, he said.  He put his arm around me and told me he wanted to give me something special. After leaving the room for a few minutes, he was back with a velvet-covered display tray with row after row of women's rings.  "Pick anyone you want," he said, so I chose one with a large star in the middle, with multi-colored stones, surrounded by smaller stars encrusted with diamonds.  After knowing Mikey for only three hours, I had a ring.

I didn't care what Becky or my classmates thought.  The age difference didn't matter to me.  I now had what all my friends had--that special someone who cares.  I was no longer a third-wheel, or a tag along, or the odd one out, or the one never chosen.  I was like everyone else now: coupled.  

It ended as fast as it began.  Who knew a young mind could be so premeditative, so cunning?  Obviously, not me.  My parents were at work. Lynnette was taking a nap. There was a knock at the door.  An unexpected visitor.  Mikey. My boyfriend had been thinking.  Now that I had a ring, he felt our relationship should advance to the next step. We hadn't even kissed yet, so I thought advancement was a good idea.  "Could we pull back the drapes on the windows to let in the sun?" he asked.  I opened the drapes.  "Could we lie down on the carpet and do our kissing there?" he wanted to know. We got comfortable on the floor. And, would it be okay if we did our kissing with him lying on top of me?

HUH?

While I was returning the ring and saying goodbye to the little boy who lived next door to Becky, something in the window caught my attention.  Three bobbing heads.  Giggling, bobbing heads.  Friends of Mikey's I presumed.  And so there it was.  The truth.

While I was trying to make sense of the betrayal, my story grew legs and ran through the school's corridors.  "Ha! Ha! What a funny story," everyone said.  I laughed along with them and pretended that none of it mattered.  And so there it was.  The lie.

So did I, at seventeen, learn anything from my brief brush with love? Nah!