High School Heartache - Part 7

Tom

It was the summer of 1990 and I found myself in summer school due to a lackluster performance in freshman English. I was so delighted to arrive that first day and see this adorable blond slacker named Tom. To say that he was laid-back would be such an enormous understatement. Tom was simply cruising through life until he could get the heck outta dodge. And bless him, he was willing to indulge the starry-eyed giddy behavior of a younger classmate.

After a couple of weeks in summer school, I somehow managed to convince Tom that giving me a ride home on his motorcycle was a really good idea. He reluctantly agreed and I hopped on the bike without a care in the world. That is, until we pulled up to my grandparent's house and my grandmother saw me hopping off the motorcycle. I sat for the next hour while being lectured on the multitude of reasons that my behavior was unacceptable and told that I had better just put this guy out of my mind. He wasn't going to be rid of me that easily!

I spent the rest of that summer school fawning all over poor Tom and he was very nice to me. I think he may have had a younger sister that he hoped would be treated equally as nice by one her first crushes. Anyhow, I was about to put Tom's nice-ness to the test!

This particular summer brought the wonderful Jimmy Buffett to town for an outdoor concert. Of course, my overbearing father insisted on accompanying me to the event, but I found ample opportunities to sneak away and hang out with my friends. We danced, we sang, & we had a GREAT time despite the mudpools created by the excessive rain earlier in the day. I'll never forget that concert. However, the rest of that evening gets a little murky. Here's what I can remember.

I think my BFF was supposed to be spending the night at my house and we were NOTORIOUS for sneaking out of my parents home and wreaking havoc all over town. Ok, maybe not havoc, but having a darn good time. We, at some point, decided that we wanted to go visit our friend Mo and had no transportation or licenses for that matter. So, Tom arrived with his chariot to cart our sad sacks to our destination. He was nice enough to drop us off at the front gate of this estate and ask if we were ok and then he took off. Big mistake.

Mo was living with her mom at her mom's boyfriend's house mansion. This guy was at least 70 years old at the time and he was rather, shall we say, portly. His name was Bob, but we called his Blob. What can I say, we were name callers at 15 yrs old. Anyway, we arrived at Blob's estate a bit after midnight and then tried to figure out how we were going to get into his house to see Mo without ending up in juvenile detention waking the neighborhood. We made it inside and then attempted to climb the enormous staircase to Mo's room. Suffice it to say, I fell up the stairs and it's a really old house, so my crash was amplified exponentially. I swear my heart stopped before I realized we had better haul tail up to Mo's room and fast! We made it, only to discover that Mo wasn't home! (Editor's note: I was a hell-raiser as a teen and did a lot of stupid things, for which I'm sure I will be paid back for ten-fold by my 2 daughters.)

So, since this was before every teen had a cell phone and we certainly had no idea where she could be, we started panicking to figure out how we were going to get home. And yes, I did think of calling Tom, but I didn't call him. That would have been mortifying. We ended up calling a taxi and having to pay a lot of money for this shady character to drive us home at 3am. You would think that we would have learned our lesson about sneaking out, but alas, not quite. A couple of weeks after that little excursion, we were busted big time for sneaking out and seriously didn't think I would live to see my 16th bday. I'll tell that story some other time.

Anyhow, Tom & I wrapped up summer school and he did noticeably avoid me in class after the midnight drop-off at Mo's house, so I'm sure my "little sister cute-factor" had worn off by that point. After he graduated high school, I'm not sure what happened to him. Knowing him, he probably packed a bag, hopped on his motorcycle and is probably beach bumming somewhere. I'm sure he's probably still coasting through life.

So, my sophomore year in high school was kind of a dry spell. I had a couple of crushes that never really panned out into anything and I casually dated a couple of guys, but nothing really worth noting here. However, the summer of 1991 was a whole different story. That summer began a real turning point in my life and there was 1 guy behind it all. His name was Eric and he broke my heart big time. I must preface this by saying that this story is a really hard one for me to tell, but this series of entries has become cathartic for me, so I'm not backing down from the task. Just know that it will be a multi-parter for sure and the first one won't be for a few days. I really need time to gather my thoughts. Ok, wow, after that build-up, I had better craft some Pulitzer winning material!

In the meantime, I have an update on Lee & Purple Paisley guy that I'll share with you tomorrow. So, stay tuned...