The fall after that

    I wasn’t sure if it was her, not at first. With everything going on that summer- the “terror alert” mostly, but work and family things, also- the last thing I expected was to be starring across an airport lounge at the first girl I’d ever loved.

    It was an important time in my life, you see. After spending my entire “work life,” carelessly strolling along from paycheck to paycheck, I had found myself face to face with what might turn out to be a career. It had taken some effort on my part to even consider the prospect important, but on the other side of thirty, the ghost of my future looked big and empty, and all the years I’d left behind had stacked up at my back, pushing me forward into the abyss.

    The job in question (the one that had brought me to Logan Airport over a Memorial Day weekend when the crazy bastards in the middle-east, and the even crazier bastards in Washington were promising us all, it’s gonna happen!) had begun as a temp-gig, filing invoices in a warehouse that catered to smaller companies: places that had enough business to stay in the black, but not enough to have a warehouse of their own. The job had actually begun in the warehouse itself, but in less than a week I proved to be completely inept in that environment, and out of the kindness of someone’s heart, they decided to give me a chance in client services, rather than send me packing.

    I would like to tell you that I discovered my true calling and impressed everyone in the office; it would make for a better story. But the truth is that I was the very definition of sufficient. I did well enough to stay. That is the best that can be said.. For the next year I strolled on, standing out in little more than my attendance and only that because so many of my colleagues were lacking in that regard, themselves.

    My new department was populated by salesman. They were tasked with convincing those small companies to warehouse with us. They were all Alpha types, fantasy football leagues and golf on the weekends. These were confident men, and some of them had once been confidence men. They held to the notion it was their very confidence that made them effective salesman. They’re not wrong. Having never been a conventional, football and beer kinda guy, my new colleagues and I had little with which to build a rapport. In time, most of them came to regard me with a passing distaste. If my place in there had been dependent on the favor of my coworkers, I might never have found myself at Logan airport, waiting for a plane that would carry me to the doorstep of my professional future, and staring across the terminal at that lovely specter from my past. But I had one thing going for me at work; the clients liked me.

    More and more often it happened that the clients would ask that I be the one to handle the issues they were having. In our communication (mostly email, or over the phone,) we developed a rapport that was far more friendly than what they had with my coworkers. If I had to guess the reason behind their favor, I assume they found it refreshing to deal with someone who wasn’t a high-pressure salesman, aggressive and assumptive, and looking to close them. It was because of this, my manager decided to bring me to Oregon, and find out if I could help the company acquire a potential client.

    So you see, I thought there were far more important matters at hand, and I couldn’t imagine how teenage love- puppy love could come knocking when such mature matters were at hand. So when I saw her (my eyes first drawn in that direction by a rack of tabloids, their cover’s screaming phrases like, “NSA WARNS: THREAT IMMINENT,” and “EMERGENCY RESPONDERS REMAIN VIGILANT,”) my mind dismissed the possibility. The concepts didn’t want to fit together. But as I watched her idly flip through a magazine, her beautiful face somehow managing to look bored and perfectly content at the same time, I had to give in and accept the fact it was her, sitting by herself and threatening to make me reconsider the value of what waited in Oregon, and beyond.

    It’s funny; for all the importance I assigned my “career,” we never got the client, and I left the company shortly after. But on that account, I never lost any sleep. After all, something much worse happened at the airport that day.

    I want to say that the she had been the one who got away. It would be close, but since I’ve told the truth so far, I don’t intend to stop now. She wasn’t the one who got away; I never had her. Not exactly, anyway

We really only met once.

    It was at a concert in Madison Square Garden. She was thirteen and I was less than two years older. She stood out in a pair of shiny, black Doc Marten’s and a fashionably simple blue dress. In a sea of moody teenagers (every one draped in defiance, and angst, and black band tees,) she stood, glowing and chatting with her girlfriend. She was in the crowd, but not of it. That one look at her redefined my understanding of nonconformity, forever. When she looked at me (not once, but twice!) I considered for the first time, the possibility that I held any interest for the fairer sex.

    Without the aid of her girlfriend, we might never have spoken, but the other girl found the prospect of matchmaking amusing; people bet less carefully when their own heart isn’t the currency. But I’m grateful for her whims, they led to an agreement to “hang out” together for the rest of the show. And even though “hanging out” meant little more than a series of awkward silences within each others vicinity, it was a landmark in my youth.

    I came to learn that she was from Canada (which seemed wonderfully exotic at the time) and had come to New York by way of Niagara Falls to visit extended family. She and her friend had snuck out of their hotel to take the train into the city, and since they were on a roll, snuck into the concert to boot. After the show ended and we prepared to part ways (a sudden and terrible development,) we traded emails and hugged. It was a clumsy, awkward embrace but the rest of that night (and a fair count of other nights, truth be told,) still live in its shadow.

Though I never again saw her in person (with the exception of that sad day at the airport, of course,) she was there every day for the next year and a half. We wrote each other every day, trading stories and songs and teenage philosophy. Soon we started talking on the phone and I cannot describe how terrible and sweet those awkward silences were. Mixed tapes? Do you even need to ask?

    Eventually we had an argument, about what I cannot recall. I wrote to tell her I was sorry and replaced the word “sincerely” with the word “love,” at the end of the letter, and it was decided. I made her a chat room, naming it after a famous theater she never stopped talking about, and she would mail me letters that were more like homework packets, if there was ever a class on affection.

    But I moved around a lot, between my father in New York and the rest of my family in Maine. It became harder to stay in touch. Life grew, sometimes in its demanding and sometimes in its allure; which somehow magnified the distance between us. Not trying to stay in touch became easier, which only now occurs to me as my first experience with betrayal; after all, I was growing up.

    And then one day it was a year later, and we didn’t know each other. It was over a decade later when I found myself working in an office with the shadow of what might be the rest of my life, out where the sun sets, passed Oregon. I’d come to the airport to see about that future and found it all blurred up with the past.

    I watched her from across the terminal, wondering where she was going, knowing it would be far, and completely oblivious to how little time there was left.

    The question of her destination was answered by a calm female voice over the intercom, perfectly professional and perfectly empty: “Flight82 to Winnipeg, now boarding at gate five.”

    I watched her rise, stashing her magazine in a smart black carry-on, and decided I would say hello when she came my way. We could trade emails again. But of course, I never got the chance.

    Gate five was at the other side of the terminal; she turned around, walked away, and I never saw her again.

    Though Boston was spared that day, the tabloid doomsayers are always right eventually, you don't need me to tell you that. The world is full of angry people ready to fulfill all the cruelest prophecies; sometimes cruelty has no say in it at all. But to one degree or another, sad things happen every day.

    When kids fall in love it is often dismissed, and it is often said teenagers don't know what it is. I think that is foolish notion, in its own right. They just have an easier time getting there.

    But I honestly can’t say how resilient that emotion is. For any of us.

    When I was fifteen, I told a girl that I loved her. We set a date and made a plan to meet at the top of the Empire State building, so we could find each other again if we ever lost touch. But for the life of me, I cannot remember the date, and think that is part of it. Sometimes it’s time, and sometimes it is circumstance that works against us. But in the end, does it even make a difference?

    Missing pieces are missing pieces.