Inspired by this literary exorcism, I’ve decided to write five memories that have stayed with me, all pre-5th grade, all set in Waterbury, Connecticut; one for each blogging day of the week. All are succinct, unedited, and serve only to warm up the cerebral fluids for my days of writing and work here at the office. I hope you enjoy them.
Day One: Fancy
The first girl I ever called (and that ever called me) was named Annabelle. Contrary to the farm girl associations her name conjures, Annabelle was born in Puerto Rico. Annabelle had a twin sister but I never confused the two.
Annabelle came to my school in second grade from New York City. She stood out from other girls, something my young mind felt drawn in the vaguest sense. I liked Annabelle, yet was at an age where I couldn’t know why. In a sense, what could be more pure? I knew she was pretty. She wore headbands that drew the long, black hair away from her face, bringing emphasis to her big, dark, glossy eyes. She smiled and laughed a lot, moved gracefully, wonderfully unaware of herself. I didn’t have any of the notions triggered by adolescence. There wasn’t a desire to touch her or to call her my own, I simply liked being around her. I didn’t need to know why. She made my heart light.
She initiated our first conversation. I was wearing a digital watch and upon seeing it, she felt giddily impelled to show me hers; we the time-keepers. She smelled sweet, like grape candy, and wasn’t afraid to be close to me. Comparing our time pieces, she put her shoulder against mine, quickening my blood, making me blush. Her hair brushed the skin where my shirt sleeves ended. Her watch was purple with a small face, the digital rectangle bordered with sunflowers and daisies. The band was translucent and I marveled at the way her dark skin changed the color of the plastic.
Annabelle and I agreed to call each other on the phone, something that I was glad to have approved by the department of Mom. We never had much to say to one another, but I so liked that she called me. When I called her, a man answered the phone in Spanish, and an impulse of fear made me want to hang up, but I would ask for Annabelle. There were chortles of laughter, indecipherable words in the background, a timeless pause, and then Annabelle would be on the other end of line, her voice smiling in clear English. We’d talk about homework, animals, or sports, then hang up. I would get playfully teased that Annabelle was my girlfriend and it made my face hot and uncomfortable. I’d insist through blushed cheeks that it was a silly idea, and my heart cherished the notion.
After the call, my light heart would quickly be absorbed by the fundamental distractions of childhood. I’d hang up the heavy, beige rotary phone that hung in the kitchen, enveloped in something like afterglow. I didn’t pine or lament for Annabelle, I didn’t anticipate her calls, in fact I didn’t think about her much when she wasn’t around. But I liked the thought of her thinking about me, maybe remembering a joke I had told her or a favorite toy I had shared with her.
Annabelle moved back to New York City at the beginning of fourth grade. Annabelle, who had always stood out in the crowds, was now amongst 7 or 8 million people. That environment contributed to her outgoing nature and I liked that sometimes she would be shy around me. I never saw her again and it’s staggering to think she’s out there as I write this. I feel she would not remember me, I feel she grew up beautifully; I feel she might not have had a chance to leave New York or Waterbury. I don’t feel compelled to follow up or research her whereabouts. Her quiet exit in fourth grade was neither dramatic nor painful. It was perfect closure. I was free to play baseball and ride bikes in the sunny kingdom of childhood, unfettered.
In 1998, the year I graduated college, I worked on a landscaping crew with a guy who was my age and stayed in the area after I moved to the more rural setting of Wolcott. He remembered Annabelle and her twin sister (Amirez her name was, I think) had come back to Waterbury, though he didn’t really know much more than they had dated a few of his friends. He filled me in on another girl I knew in grade school, a Greek girl with giant anime-style blue eyes named Despina Zachary. She sat across from me at our lunch table, always wore her black hair in a pony tail, and would often wear the same pale-blue floral shirt with elastic short sleeves several days in a row. She got good grades and her father was an effusive Greek man who had curls of dark hair exploding from every place his skin bordered his shirts.
Despina grew up to be a clerk at 7-11.
I can’t imagine her as anything other than a little girl eating a sandwich with two hands. I can’t imagine Annabelle as anything other than a smiling voice on the other end of a phone. It’s best that way. I’m hidden safely away in Boulder and they are archived in Waterbury, never to be sought or found again.
