The Indignities of Valentine's Past

When I was at the tender age of eleven, I had what could be described as a slight crush on a rotund young man in my class, Josh Frank. In addition to being the proud possessor of two first names and a full head of bushy hair, Josh managed to be chubby and yet still stay on the fringes of the 'cool' crowd in our class. Since there were only twenty-five youths in our grade, we were all quite aware of each other's social rank in the elementary school hierarchy.

The night before Valentine's Day, I carefully signed a valentine for each of my classmates, and chose which conversation heart I would include for them. I certainly would not be giving Gabe one that read 'U R A CUTIE,' for he was not. Josh, however, received one that read, 'LIKE U.'

We had our nametags out on our desk, and we all walked around, distributing our valentines to our classmates. This was a process that could take upwards of half an hour, and our teacher sat at her desk, visibly bored, as we each gave her our largest and most colorful cards.

As I was passing my valentines out, I stopped at my desk occasionally to peruse the cards that had been left for me. I saw one with Josh's telltale scrawl on it, and plucked it from the bunch. I opened in quickly, glancing around the room to make sure that he wasn't watching me, and pulled the card out of the envelope.

It was a Michael Jordan card, with a picture of the athlete dribbling a basketball down the court. 'You're Nothing But Net to Me!' the card read. I turned it over and Josh had written,

WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME????

Circle One

YES NO

My heart racing, I put the card back on my desk and went back to passing out valentines. I realized that finally, I would be a woman, I too would have a boyfriend like so many of my classmates. The rest of the class party passed as if in a dream, and I planned how I would slip the valentine back to Josh with 'YES' emphatically circled. I saw Josh standing next to my desk, and I coyly ignored him.

When I finally returned to my desk, I sat down to read Josh's valentine again. I opened the card, and saw Michael Jordon staring back at me. Only this time, when I turned it over, there was nothing there save some eraser marks and a faint penciled reminder of what could have been.

* * *

Valentine's past.