Two years into Sarah’s reign as my girlfriend, I became entangled with Molly J. I worked as a lifeguard for three summers, age 19-21, at a local private swim club. A dangerous place for a barely out of his teens young man. Surrounded by scores of younger girls in bathing suits swimming and sunning away the days, I had little mental space to recall Sarah. She was gone much of the summer of ’68 at Martha’s Vineyard with her family. We communicated by letter, lots of letters.
Three weeks into that first summer, I was standing by the entrance station, on a 15 minute break, chatting with several of the other guards. Looking up, I saw a deeply tanned brunette, wet hair, streaming down her shoulders and resting on the narrow straps of her racing suit. Tall, nearly my height, she the sloping shoulders and lithe build of a powerful swimmer. As she talked with her friends, I became convinced she was sneaking glances at me.
I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I nudged the swim coach next to me, and asked, “Who’s that over there? The one in the Pepsi Marlins suit…”
Mike gave the crowd of girls a considered glance, and said, “Oh, that’s Molly J. She tore up the league last year in 11-12, and is gonna do the same thing this year.”
My feverish thoughts ground to a halt. She’s thirteen?
I did not want other people – I did not want myself – to think that I had any interest further than “guy trying to keep the pool safe”; “guy trying to be friendly to all the paying customers”; “assistant swim coach interested in his team members.” But her magic attraction persisted. I could not shake it, and could not keep it secret from Sarah. Whether that contributed to our dissolution I do not know.
I stayed connected to Molly for a long time, and that is worth a story by itself. Just not here, not now. I can report that she appeared in two of my dreams several days apart. My cryptic notes of those visitations follow:
MJ Dream 12-18-23: I’m visiting something like Disneyland, or a sophisticated fair. Hoping to see MJ, but she kept her own counsel. As I exited, down a wide spiral ramp with lots of people, (maybe a double helix structure?), I saw her on the other side. I called her over, and asked her if I could hug her, as it had been decades since we’d seen each other. The hug was deep on my part, but perfunctory on hers. Nonetheless, she stayed with me, smiling and talking. She was SO MJ in her openness, humor and attention. Her face was made-up, with bright dark red lipstick and a bit of blush around her eyes. Hair not quite to her shoulders, clean, dark, highlighted and bouncy. We exited into downtown Cincinnati, where I told her we didn’t have far to go. She wore a midi skit, stockings sparkling around her calves. Excited about our walk and where we were, she quickly moved away and into a powerful front flip, layout position, with arms and legs following each other in a pinwheel effect.She moved up a hill was covered with blackberries, only a narrow path through them. I could see her legs as she tumbled away from me. She got stuck in the blackberries, her hair, her clothes, her stockings. She freed herself, with no injuries except to the stockings (which went from sexy sheer to fishnet during the process, gettin a few snags). Then as we walked further on in some debris, she hopped on a skateboard and executed several graceful athletic moves as I drifted away.
12-20-23 dream. MJ reappears, this time walking with me in a downtown @ night. I tried another hug, this time fuller, and averted my eyes afterwards. I thought that was it, we were never going to see each other again. Started walking away. She pulled me back, gave me a full on lips kiss, smiled, and left. That woke me up.