A few years ago I went through a divorce. After two 10 year marriages, I decided to get off the marriage-go-round and kind of took myself out of circulation. I didn’t purposely decide to not date; just to not pursue dating. At my age, it doesn’t take much not pursuing to assure non-dating. I was home sick one day trying to figure out just exactly what people watch on TV in the middle of the day if they can’t stand soap operas and fluffy talk shows. The movie “Mean Girls” came on, a teen coming-of-age, girls-inhumanity-to-girls type comedy, and I decided I’d rather watch it than the same 20 minutes news loop on Headline news for the 3rd time. If you’ve seen this movie, you’re familiar with the main characters, all “queen bees” of their high school. One, Gretchen Weiners, played by Lacey Chabert (who played Claudia on Party of Five) is a somewhat clueless, yet conniving, yet somehow fragile portrayal of a girl whose pedigree gets her in the top club, but now that she’s there, she’s not quite mean enough to pull rank on anybody, and therefore is willing (if not destined) to follow them in a sheep like manner. She is, however, completely, thoroughly, insanely, intensely beautiful to my old eyes. Ms. Chabert is of Cajun extract, her father being a French speaking Cajun originally from Louisiana. She has that beautiful dark complexion, hazel eyes, dark brown hair of a classic Cajun beauty. And she’s easily half my age. So, what’s the attraction? “What is this really about?” as my therapist would say.
Let me take you back to 1971. I was a junior in high school, a recent transplant from a smaller school, and as such, somewhat considered “fresh meat”. I was marginally successful at athletics and didn’t break mirrors when I passed them, so I was considered something of a “catch” in this little high school. I wound up dating the homecoming queen, herself a bit of a “queen bee”. She was no “mean girl” by any stretch, but she was top echelon. There was a girl at the outskirts of the queen bee circle who I had classes with and knew through friends, although not closely. Her name was (if memory serves) Jane Newirth. She was dark complected, dark hair, dark eyes, quiet, even a little timid. But I was going steady, as they used to say. (Do they still say that?) I found myself in many situations, even a couple after high school, where I would be in the same room as Jane, and friendly smiles would be exchanged, a little prolonged eye contact, but she was shy, and so was I. My relationship with the queen bee had fizzled out just as my freshman semester at college had, and I was “at loose ends” as they used to say about 300 years ago. I’d walked into about the only decent bar in town, and suddenly Jane planted herself in front of me - perhaps emboldened by a couple of beers - such that I would either have had to run her over to get by her, or ask her out. I didn’t. Jane was my Gretchen Weiners.
I suppose it is the provenance of aging folks that we should sit and wonder, wish about long times past; “What if” ourselves. I really regret having never had the nerve to ask her out. We may not have had anything in common, but we certainly both knew that we were connected in some basically physical, almost spiritual way. Now, these hundreds and hundreds of years later, I’m sure she’s a grandmother, although she’s fixed in my mind as that long, dark haired beauty planted in front of me at the Fyfe and Drum in DeKalb, Illinois. My memory might even be gussying this whole deal up. Perhaps she just wanted to talk. Perhaps she was leaving, although I doubt it. I was not the assertive jock that I might have been perceived of at first. I wound up on the creative writing team, for crying out loud. We were pretty timid. If I could go back, I wouldn’t be timid. I better stop now because I’m starting to sound like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. Jane/Gretchen, you still haunt my dreams.
Later.
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