Missing Pieces of My Forever-Heart

by Janet Grosshandler

  I left behind the “old” Cath- the rebel, the different marcher, the one who wanted to go west when I was told to go east.

  I discovered, somewhat embarrassingly, that I wanted to fit in, to conform with the notion of what an OLOS female student was.

  I came to love the uniforms we had to wear, navy blue blazers over navy blue tapered A-line skirts. Light blue tailored blouses, navy knee socks and loafer shoes became my entre’ into a world where I could fit in and not feel like I always was out of step with the others.

  Not only did I fall in first-love with Jame, I fell in love with Sister Margarita and her art classes! I swooned over the smell of oil paint, getting my fingers sooty from the charcoal pencils and creating visually wonderful things out of my mind. I amazed myself at how much I loved it.

  And words! I fell in love with words: speaking them, writing them, twisting them around in Debate Club and ARGUING! Yes, did I love arguing points in history class with Mr. Retter that it is just a perspective and not the truth that we read in history books. Prove your point to me, Mr. Retter, sir!

  Poor sweet, quiet Sister Bridgette, my religion teacher. She fended off my barrage of “sacrilegious” questions like why should we really believe Mary themotherofgod went up into heaven, body and all? That’s scientifically impossible, right? She compassioned me with her love and taught me that faith and hope are things that cannot be scientifically proven either. Bless her.

  So ninth grade was a revelation of “me.” I peeled off the layers I had built up to protect myself from the criticism and ridicule of my “old” life and blossomed into Cath, the artist, newspaper reporter, ninth grade debate captain and girlfriend of Jame, the greatest boy in our freshmen class.

  I even tried not to live in Pleasantville anymore. Every Friday, I’d bring extra clothes with me to school and spent the weekends with Maddie and her family- three sisters who got along like they were all twins. The “only child” in me transformed into “another Gromley girl” and I pretended I really was.

  Mom and Dad were really understanding about all this. I think they were relieved to see me so happy after such a miserable seventh and eighth grades. I was a new person in their eyes and felt so reborn!

  Maddie and I worked out a secret system of communicating in the strict halls of OLOS. We had “The Notebook,” an identical spiral binder to our academic notebooks, but this one was for our eyes only. Portraying ourselves as the super-studious students we really weren’t, Maddie and I perfected our “paying total attention, Sister” faces as we secretly wrote notes to each other instead of copying down the Latin declension of amo, amas, amat.

  I’d pass The Notebook to her in the hall, getting it back after English class with Maddie’s latest news in it. Our only sorrow that year was that we were not in any classes together, something we planned to correct in tenth grade.

  My notes to Maddie were full of Jame, Jame, Jame. He smiled at me as we passed in the hall. Jame called me last night and we talked for an hour! I think I’m going to love Jame forever and ever, amen.

  Then there was THE NIGHT! It was the end of the basketball season, a freshmen playoff tournament at the regional athletic center. This was a super big deal. OLOS got there by scratching and clawing our way to the finals against Christian Brothers Prep, the all-boys snooty school and our major rival.

  Jame played point guard, the player on the floor who called the plays and ran the team. My heart burst with pride (being his girlfriend I had that privilege) as he took our team to a tie score with 4 seconds left.

  Then he was fouled! The OLOS side of the bleachers erupted with screams! We were seconds away from claiming the crown and Jame was on the foul line. He threw a quick glance around, locked his eyes with mine and gave a quick smile. My heart was thrilled because I just knew he was going to make this shot and he was making it for me! (I know, I know- maybe I was too full of it- love that is.)

  Jame calmly tossed in a swish and OLOS was ahead by one point! 3…2…1 the clock ran out on the CBP losers and we spilled onto the court celebrating our victory!

  I couldn’t find Jame in the chaos so I ran back to the bleachers and hopped up onto the third row. Scanning frantically through the crowd, I finally spotted him at the same second he saw me. I watched him push his way past everyone, rush over to me and sweep me up in a big hug. (The priests and sisters usually frowned at this, but since we just beat the pants off CBP, everyone was happy!)

  Jame swung me around and plopped me back on my feet as he leaned down to yell in my ear. “I want to go steady with you!”

  I thought I hadn’t heard him right and screamed back, “You what?”

  “Will you go steady with me, Cath? I love you!”

  Maybe it was the adrenaline high of the game that made those words come out of his mouth, but I wasn’t letting him take them back. “Yes, yes I want to go steady with you! I love you too!”

  He gave me a friendship ring that I wore on a chain around my neck proclaiming that Jame and I were “steadies.”

  That night I vowed to love Jame Patterson forever and ever.

  Chapter 7

  The sobs were choking me. I couldn’t breathe.

  How could he do this to me? I felt so blindsided and raging mad!

  How dare he talk about the ONE THING I vowed never ever to talk about again. It was in the past. It WAS the past.

  I don’t know how much time went by before I could stand up again, but I walked upstairs in my zombie state and fell into bed.

  Chapter 8

  31 years ago - Our Lady

  of Sorrows High School

  Tragedy struck in June at the end of ninth grade. Maddie’s parents were sending her off to a six-week sleep away camp three states away from me!

  I was inconsolable. School was ending in two days. The best year of my life was coming to a close and I had this foreboding feeling that terrible things were unfolding.

  Strike one: Maddie was leaving me for six weeks. Gone would be our daily Notebook exchanges, lunchtime catch-ups and weekends-as-sisters.

  Strike two: My mother got me a job as a maid at a Pleasantville motel. (“It’ll be good for you! Your first job! You’ll make money to spend on whatever you want!) I was to be stuck each and every day in yucky Pleasantville, changing sheets and cleaning toilets for the stupid visitors to our crummy town.

  Strike three: Jame broke up with me.

  I could tell by the look in his eyes that this ‘talk” he asked for after school wasn’t going to be good. He walked me over to the baseball dugout; one of our favorite make-out places, but I didn’t feel that same happy anticipation. In fact, it felt like a funeral.

  “Cath, my parents want me to break up with you for the summer. You’ll be in Pleasantville working and I have to go to all these basketball camps and we’ll never get to see each other,” he said fast without even taking a breath.

  “What? What do you mean?” I sputtered, my heart starting to crack into pieces.

  “My Dad wants me to concentrate on basketball this summer, and he says that I haven’t been doing that. So I have to break up with you.”

  “But why?” I cried, not even realizing he had already told me why twice.

  “I just have to, Cath. Sorry.” Jame at least looked a little upset.

  “So what about after the summer, when we come back to school?” I was grasping at any hope now. This couldn’t be the end of Jame and me. It couldn’t!

  “Well, we’ll see in the fall, OK? I gotta go now. My Dad’s picking me up to go get new sneakers and a ball for camp. You can keep the ring. Have a good summer, Cath.”

  And the love-of-my-ninth-grade got up and walked away.

  That day I vowed to hate Jame Patterson forever and ever.

  Chapter 9

  It was no use. Jame had gone and done it. He exploded the neat little package of a life I had built. I had my wonderful compartmentalized routines and habits that did not include a heartbreaking ex-boyfriend and a secret from my past
.

  The bed felt lumpy and hot all night, so I finally got up at 4AM, trudged down to the kitchen and made a huge pot of stand-your-hair-up coffee.

  I would not think about Jame being here in my house last night. I would not think about how STUPID I feel that I thought he was going to come through with an apology and maybe even a hint that we might get back together again.

  I did lose my mind with that idea. How could I? This guy put himself ahead of anyone else, left me high and dry and took off for Texas. Had my loneliness totally petrified my brain?

  Hey baby, (I wrote in a text to my younger daughter)

  Your mama’s up way too early and was thinking of you. Hope your lit professor liked that paper you did on Shakespeare’s themes. You need help with anything else? I did good in college too! Call me later. Luv, Mom

  This is what I’ll do. I’ll connect with my daughters today. They are what matters. They are my life. They are my heart and soul. Not anyone or anything else. That’s how I’ve survived the worst. That’s how I will continue to survive.

  Maybe I’ll go for a long run to clear my head and find ME again amid all the crazy chatter from my past that is flooding my brain. I HAVE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!

  Chapter 10

  30 years ago - Summer From Hell

  The summer from hell did not fly by. It dragged unmercifully. I cleaned rooms at a local hotel our neighbor owned (You’ll have a great time!) and worked with a very old Polish woman with no front teeth.

  “It’s your turn to wacuum,” Lena would tell me in every room. I lugged the heavy vacuum around, carried piles of smelly laundry up and down stairs, scrubbed other people’s dirty vacation rooms and cried about Jame every night.

  Maddie got way too many letters from me at her sleep-away camp. All of them wrinkled from my tears and filled with my pain.

  Maddie,

  I’m dying. I’m dying in this horrible town with these horrible people and my horrible job. Can you pretend you’re sick and come home sometime soon? I need you here! I’m dying.

  Love. Me

  But Maddie didn’t come home and save me. I made it through those dark summer days all by my miserable, lonesome self.

  The only bright spot on the horizon was going back to school. It couldn’t come fast enough.

  September 4th finally came and I jumped on that bus so fast taking me back to my beloved OLOS and tenth grade. I was a sophomore- that’s sort of like an upperclassman but not really. At least I wasn’t a scaredy cat freshman anymore.

  I was more mature. I had all summer to grow up and change my pain and sadness from Jame’s break-up into a raging I’ll-get-even-with-him attitude.

  THIS WAS GOING TO BE THE YEAR I WOULD SHOW JAME PATTERSON THAT HE WAS DIRT.

  My tenth grade was my wild-girl year. I still hung out with Maddie, but now I was the leader with the crazy ideas and she followed me around. I threw myself at the junior boys telling them, “No, I broke up with Jame in June so I could have a fun summer!” And they believed me.

  I dated four different junior boys that year, drank beer and vodka and rum for the first time (and many times after), tried smoking some pot, sneaked cigarettes, and let one of those boys feel me up. I didn’t care what kind of reputation I was getting. I didn’t need Jame in my life. I had all these new boyfriends and all the fun I wanted.

  Chapter 11

  Usually running intervals sears my lungs, wears out my legs and depletes every ounce of energy in my body. Ten minutes slow warm-up, followed by 30 seconds of all out sprinting, then 90 seconds slow jog to recover. Then do it again. Ten of these intervals is way too much but I pushed myself to the brink.

  I felt insane and couldn’t find my Zen zone. My stomach was so churned up that I rushed over to the side of the boardwalk and puked over the railing onto the beach.

  I slogged through the sand to the ocean’s edge.

  “Why, why, why, God? I finally felt on an even keel. Haven’t I been through enough? WHY DID YOU SEND JAME BACK INTO MY LIFE AND WHY DID YOU MAKE ME SO STUPID ABOUT HIM?”

  Blaming God seemed an easy way out. I needed to pour my anguish somewhere and God always seemed to be able to handle it.

  But now I needed to get my life back under control. I could go visit my cousin in Florida and stay a few months until Jame left again. Or maybe this was the time to try out living in a cabin in the woods of Maine and write a novel. Desperately I searched my brain for every option to avoid ever seeing Jame Patterson again.

  Chapter 12

  29 Years Ago - Our Lady

  of Sorrows High School

  I crashed and burned at the end of tenth grade. The party girl life didn’t work out very well for me. Screaming fights with my parents about my running around, drinking, talking back just made my life even worse.

  Sister Margarita wisely nurtured my art talents as well as trying to lead me back to the safe and “good girl” path. She tenaciously hung in there with me as I carved a swath of destructive behaviors that school year.

  “Cath, we need to talk about what you’ve been doing to yourself.”

  “No we don’t, Sister. I’m fine. I’m having fun. My grades are good enough so what’s the big deal?” (Oh I was SO sure of myself that I didn’t acknowledge the love and concern in her eyes.)

  “Sit down, Cath!” I slumped quickly to the bench. She never talked to me like that before and my nun-obedience reaction kicked in.

  “Look at this!” Sister M pointed to my artwork strewn haphazardly on the art room counter.

  “Yeah, so…?” It looked fine to me.

  “See that oil painting on the right? And the water color next to it?”

  Was this a trick? Of course I saw them. They were right in front of me. My two best creations if I do say do myself.

  “Now look over there on the left side.”

  Okaaaay. These were a little messier, a little less detail, a lot more careless.

  Sister Margarita dramatically raised her arms high and said. “THAT’S the problem! LOOK AT YOUR WORK!”

  Now I was really confused. What did she want from me?

  “Stay there until you figure it out and then come tell me. And I have a solution for your problem.” She swished her black habit around and abruptly left the room.

  Yeesh, what was that all about? Think she’s going a little crazy now that it’s the end of the school year. Probably needs her summer vacation.

  I looked at my work. No big deal. I sat there for a long time in the hot, overly bright art studio and studied my pieces.

  Separating what I thought was my best art from my worst, I started to see a pattern. All the ones I put on the right side, the vibrant colors, the edgy designs, the joyous creative work was done in ninth grade. The dark, depressive, angry, sloppy work was from this year.

  Okay, the light bulb went off. As much as I hated to admit it, this was my life in front of me. Ninth grade was full of happiness, expansion, trying new things and loving life, while tenth grade was the opposite- not caring, raging, messy.

  All right, Sister M- you win. I got it.

  She was in her tiny, meticulously organized office grading our final artist reports.

  “You’re right, Sister. This year’s art work is a waste.”

  She looked at me doing her famous one-eyebrow raise. “And…?”

  “And I wasted a lot of my year. I know I was out of control.” And to my utter surprise and embarrassment, I started to cry.

  Out poured my story of Jame and me and the break up last year, about how I felt so sad and get-even raging mad.

  “So what kind of year did you give yourself, Cath?” Her open face and caring smile broke through that last chunk of wall I had built up.

  “Well, (hiccoughed, hiccoughed) I thought I had a fun, crazy, happy year, but I guess I really trashed everything. My parents hate me. Maddie isn’t even hanging around with me much. My only friends are the drunk junior boys.”

  It was pretty painful to see this ugly life
I had lived for these past ten months.

  Taking a big sigh, I felt a weight lift off me. I turned my tearstained face towards hers and waited.

  “So here’s a solution to turn your life and talents back in a positive direction. There’s a six-week session at the local community college for high school students in communication arts: three weeks learning journalism and writing skills and three weeks learning graphic and artistic design like photography for newspapers and magazines. I think it would be good for you to enroll in it.” Sister M waited expectantly.