Every broken heart starts with a love story
The first thing I noticed about him was his hands.
My junior year in at Avondale High School, I sat kitty-corner from him in French class, one row back, hiding in my John Meyer of Norwich sweaters and skirts. Languages were easy for me – I’d taught myself to read before kindergarten – so when I got bored I had a lot of time to pore over his appearance. His hair, though dark, had a blond-green sheen, like you get from too much time in a chlorinated pool. Parted on the left, long enough to flop over his brow, but short enough to not yet curl. This was a year or so into the Beatles’ reign, and he seemed torn between letting a mop-top grow, and keeping it short for his swimming. His face was still smooth and soft, but getting chiseled. He wore those plastic glasses, translucent frames which would now be nerdy, but back then were the norm for our mid-western city. Later, in college, he’d go full John Lennon, hair over the ears, wire-rims, worn work jacket and jeans.
But his hands; he had “good hands”. Perfectly proportioned, in my estimation: fingers and back of equal size, nails with short white tips, ending just at the top of each digit. Palms neither skinny nor fat. He seemed in control of his fingers; at rest, only slightly curled, and moving them independently when he gestured. I could see his right hand best, and the veins on the back traced curved, not straight lines from wrist to knuckle, a very pleasing pattern. The hands of a doer, not a thinker, I felt.
I vaguely wondered if he knew I was there, sitting off his right shoulder, but we were on the right side of the classroom, and he never really had any reason to look my way. For the first three months, when I got bored with declensions, I would fantasize about those hands, and pretend they showed his soul.
“He’s a senior?” Lizzie asked when I confessed my obsession in the lunch room one drizzly November day. We’d arrived late, and the Johnny Marzetti casserole had grown cold.
“I know he’s on the swimming team. Debate team, too.”
“Debate? Is he the one who almost won the regional match, with Beto last year?”
“Don’t know. All I really do is stare at him when Mr. Gleason starts doing that unintelligible Gallic thing in class.”
Lizzie Upton and I were best friends. She was a blond-haired goy, a dancer, and just the sweetest girl in class. We sang together in choir, worked together on the school paper, and shared the same disdain for Jocks and Jills.
“Janie, it sounds to me you want to meet him somehow.”
That gave me an inner shudder. I spent my time either studying or running from one school service task to another. Big sister. Student Council. I was just coming out of a prolonged early adolescence ugly ducking phase. Boys were kind of scared of me, and scary to me. I had three older siblings, two brothers who’d gone to Brown and Princeton, and a sister just off to Beloit. In our family, good grades and good schools were all my parents – well, my mother really – cared about. No sports, no “make sure you find a good Jewish boy”. My older brother Eddie rebelled a bit. He was already married, with a kid on the way. He could have gone to law school, or had a good job on Wall Street, But he was living on a farm in Rhode Island, with three other couples, eating a macrobiotic diet, and sewing his own clothes. Middle brother George, still in the Ivy League, had maybe never gone on a date. I don’t know if he was a monk, or gay, or what. We never talked. Linda had been voted “Wittiest” in her class, the quintessential class clown. She’d landed in a lower-tier college, and was already being written off by mom. I seemed to be the family’s last, best hope, and was trying so hard to be the Good Girl that I thought I had no time for boys. But, at sixteen, I did have feelings, stirrings, and found I couldn’t fight them off any longer.
Christmas was coming up. Lizabeth and I were both in choir, and rehearsals started coming daily. Even though 20% of the school was Jewish, the only songs we sang were things like “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” We’d march onto the stage in our blue robes with gold collars, carrying burning candles in the otherwise unlit auditorium. I couldn’t help giggling when that made everyone’s face look like some kind of dybbuk. During all the solos, we whispered out various scenarios we could try to get the debate team’s attention, come January.
“You know, these guys are really good at their tournaments, certainly doing better than the football or basketball teams.” Our college-prep high school, pulling all the smartest kids city-wide, had never gone to team sport regional, much less state competition in the five years we’d attended.
That flashed an idea through my head. I started laughing, catching the stern glance of our choir director, Mr. Hammons. Sotto voce, I mouthed to Lizabeth, “They’ve got cheerleaders at every game. That must be some consolation. And I bet it’s easier to get asked out by the players if you’re bouncing around in one of those short skirts and all.”
“You want us to wear mini-skirts or something and dance in the audience?” I couldn’t see her, but could certainly feel the feminist skepticism in her voice. Not being part of the social crowd, we prided ourselves on making fun of what we thought of as the debasing behaviour of even some of the smartest girls in our class, when it came to getting boys’ attention.
Always comfortable approaching teachers, the next day I went to room 338 about ten minutes before the home room bell rang. Even though Miss Foley had never taught me, she certainly seemed to know me. She looked at me over her cat-eye glasses, her smile mellowing out the pock marks on her cheeks.
“Well, Janie, you lost?” she chortled.
“Miss Foley, you coach the debate team, right?”
“Yes…”
“Lizzie Upton and I, we were thinking, maybe they need some cheerleaders. They’re going to do well this year, right?”
“If we can get by my sisters’ guys there at Princeton, then, yes, they should win the regional and have a good shot in Columbus at the State.”
“Well, we’re thinking we’d like to help them out somehow. For starters, I’m on the Features’ staff at the Chatterbox, and I can get a good article published in it next week, talking about their upcoming meets.”
“That’d be great. I expect you’ll want to see them in action? There’s the Public High School League round robin at Hughes this weekend.”
Hughes High School was literally right down the street from me, less than two miles away. Lizzie could come over, ostensibly to study, and maybe we could get a ride from my big sister, who was home for winter break.
So five days later on Saturday morning there we were. I’d told Miss Foley we wanted to be incognito, sort of like a restaurant critic, so they wouldn’t feel any performance anxiety. I’d never seen a debate tournament before. Apparently, it was a lot more than just arguing back and forth. There was a whole slew of thespian categories, kids individually giving performances, or expounding extemporaneously on topics announced just before their speech. But we were there to see Beto and Mike.
Bobby Buchannon. was the Big Man On Campus that year. He lived just behind me, one street south, His father was Speaker of the State Senate. He was president of the Student Council, captain of the swimming team, and a National Merit Finalist. Smart, good-looking, and popular to boot. Everybody loved Beto.
But it was Michael I was there for. Mike, the boy in my French class, the one whose hands entranced me. We tucked ourselves into the back of the room, hiding behind the judges and coaches, who filled the front row. Mike went first, giving a tightly spaced ten minute argument in favor of controlling nuclear weapons through a treaty among the five major powers. He had it memorized and well-rehearsed; it seemed that every hand gesture, hesitation and side-step was planned in advance for maximum effect.
Three things struck me about that performance. First, his voice. In French class, as he struggled with diphthongs, that had seemed a little reedy, even cracking now and then as befitted a late-blooming teen-ager. On stage though, he held his audience with a deep-throated baritone, smooth and confident. Second, his clothes. He and Beto made quite the dapper pair, with their sports coats and neatly pressed slacks. Beto’s were slightly ragged corduroy, while Mike had a smooth blue wool coat and pants to match. Each wore starched white button down shirts. Most striking were their ties. The British Invasion had unleashed a Beau Brummell aesthetic, evidenced by their freely flapping paisleys. Mike’s was a darker blue than his coat, with those eye-catching ameboid shapes widely spaced. Their opponents looked like ragged street waifs in comparison. Michael was walking back and forth in between stopping and looking directly at the judges when he wanted to emphasize a point. He seemed to keep returning to the lectern sitting by itself in the middle of the classroom desk. Every now and then, he pulled a little note card off it, snapping the 4 x 6 smartly or tapping it gently as he built the argument. Then, when his ten minutes had ended, he surprised me by folding up the slanted top of the lectern, and closing the contraption with a flourish, using a small handle which screwed the whole thing shut, and then served as the grip he used to pick it up and carry it back to his seat. Wow, I thought, those other guys don’t have anything cool like that.
Ten minutes later, after the first negative speaker gave his response to Mike’s dissertation, Beto got up as the “second affirmative”. He saw me, and gave his twinkly-eyed smile, kind of an Elvis thing with just the right side of his mouth going up. I panicked, met his eyes, shook my head, and put a finger to my mouth, miming “Shhh.” He gave a slight nod like he understood, and then proceeded to totally bury the other side’s rebuttals, using more 4×6 cards filled with quotes from newspapers and magazines to buttress his assertions. There was another half hour to go, but it was obvious the other team was over-matched, so Lizzie and I started exchanging notes.
“Did you see those ties?”
“And the box. I love it!”
“They are polished!”
We sat quietly while the head judge gave the critique and final score, Avondale in a rout. There would be one more round in the morning, and another after lunch. After everyone had filed out, we headed down the hall to watch some of the other AHS debaters, so I could actually write in good conscience a summary piece for the school paper. But I couldn’t get Michael Harrison out of my mind. At first glance, he seemed a bit of a nebbish. But watching him command that first affirmative slot, hearing his voice, seeing that tie, and being amazed at the home-made lectern box, I noticed a subtle feeling somewhere just below my ribs. Almost like being in a scary movie. I knew I had to find a way into that hidden core of Michael.
Mid-afternoon, after our team had walked off the stage with the first place trophy, Mike headed directly to his car for the drive home. Beto came back to us and said, “Hi, guys, what’s up?”
I volunteered, “I’m writing a story about you for next week’s Chatterbox. So we needed to see for ourselves, not just rely on Miss Foley’s report. Impressive…You and Mike know your stuff.”
“Yeah, he’s a lot smarter than he looks, isn’t he?”
Lizzie piped up as I vainly tried to shush her, “Janie wants to know how to get him to pay attention to her.”
My dark Semitic face doesn’t blush easily, but I could feel the space just below my neck warming up. Luckily, I always kept the top button of my shirts closed, and I hoped no one saw. I noticed a wet feeling under my arms.
Beto gave another one of his impish half-smiles, and offered, “Why don’t I drive you home, we can talk about that.” He casually put his arm around me. I turned around, nodded at Lizzie to follow, and gave her the facial equivalent of a shoulder shrug.
We lived in Clifton. This was an inner-city enclave near the University, hard by the art museum, filled with churches, cemeteries, and forested parks. The upper crust lived there. As he backed out of the parking lot, looking sideways at us in the back seat, he said, “Here’s what you gotta know about Mike: it takes a long time for him to let people in. But once he does, he’s totally comfortable, and cool, and funny. As well as being the smartest guy I know. Smart meaning he can take an idea, see right through to its center, then talk about it in a way that’s easy to understand.”
Lizzie piped up, “Does he ever go out on dates? Talk about girls?”
I glared at her.
Beto let out with a single chortle. “Not as far as I can tell. He sure doesn’t talk about it if he does, not like other guys do, you know?”
Well, that was encouraging. At least the part about his analytic brain. He might be a tough nut to crack, but worth the effort. Beto dropped us off, and Lizzie and I went into the kitchen, to help Mom get the Saturday night dinner ready.
On the counter was a geode someone had bought on a trip to the Southwest. While Lizzie chopped vegetables, and Mom shredded potatoes and onions for the latkes, I picked up the heavy grey rock, turned it over, and stared into the interior for a long time. The outer shell was encrusted, almost like it was layered with barnacles. Next was a white seam, looking as soft as snow, glittering in the afternoon light. Finally, pale blue crystals jutting all over the hollow core, pure and luminescent. At once, I knew the way into Michael Harrison’s secret center.
“Lizzie! We could be their timekeepers!” My mother, deep into chicken fat, couldn’t hide her interest, though her eyes never left the stove. I turned to her. “Mom, where’s that bolt of paisley fabric Linda had to make her prom dress last year?” Linda, the clown, thought it would be funny to go to a dance in a hand-made outfit all covered with funny blotches. She was puzzling over the sewing machine one day when Mom ended that potential fiasco, and hauled her immediately to Pogue’s department store for a proper prom formal.
“Sweetie, I think it’s there in the den, behind your father’s chair, still all folded up…Say! I bet that’s where my pinking shears went. If you find them, let me know. What do you want it for, anyway?”
“Bobby asked me to the prom, and I want to make a dress he’ll be proud to show off.” Mom knew this was totally a joke; Beto and Bev Page, the coolest girl in our class, had been pinned for months now. But at least it made her forget to ask what I really wanted it for.
**********
Next Tuesday, we showed up at Miss Foley’s apartment, just after debate practice had started. “There’s a couple of girls who’ve got something they want to ask you,” she announced, turning around to face the guys as we shadowed behind her. Miss Foley, while a stickler in class, had a very informal attitude with the debate team. She half-smiled as she went on. “Is that OK?”
“Who?” Mike asked.
“Let’s see, Lizabeth Upton and Janie Stein,” she responded.
Mike stood there slack-jawed, face totally blank. Beto was right, he was a very slow starter when it came to anything or anyone new. I don’t remember which of us spoke first; Lizzie and I were joined at the hip in my little project.
“We noticed you guys have been doing so well at the regional and state meets last year and now. But nobody pays any attention. So we think you need cheerleaders. This is Walnut Hills; we shouldn’t just be paying attention to the football team.”
“So we want to be your cheerleaders.”
“What, like pom-poms and chants? That won’t go over very well during a debate,” Beto noted, somewhat sardonically.
“No, we’ve got another idea. We’ve seen a couple of debates…You guys have to hold up those time cards for each other, when you should be thinking about what you’re going to say next round.” It was true. Each speaker had 10 minutes to first present arguments; then, 5 minutes for rebuttal. Going over the limit incurred a severe penalty from the judges, so instead of just guessing, the guys timed each other with cards they flipped over, counting the minutes down by 1, until the final 30 seconds, when another card flashed up.
“We could be your timekeepers,” I said. I was using what I thought were my best physical features. I ran my left hand through my thick (but slightly frizzy) black hair, cut in bangs above the eyes, flowing down past my shoulders, held back with a paisley headband. True, my head is a bit large for my body, but I used every bit of that face to smile. Dark eyes, dark brows, with a voice and diction beyond my years. I was determined to seem oh so sure of myself.
“We made these cards to use.” We brought them out, fanning a set each in front of us. They were white thick paperboard, the numbers hand cut with pinking shears from paisley fabric.