The Adventures of Young Elizabeth and Rollo, the Wondercat* (*Who thought he was a dog?)

by Les Cohen

Episode 12:

  After School Rain

  A few minutes later, and I was back. Rollo was right where I left him. “Darla,” one of my housemates, “is ordering Italian from ‘Joe’s’ so I got us some lasagna, some garlic bread – and I’m going to breathe all over you – and a cannoli for dessert. ..How’s that?”

  “Mk.”

  “Okay. So Italian isn’t your favorite. I’ve got a special dinner for you in the closet.”

  “Murk?”

  “You wait. We’ll eat together when the delivery guy gets here. ..Darla got the mail on the way in and LOOK HERE! There’s a letter for me. ..I love getting letters, especially..” I stopped for a moment to rub my finger over the handwritten address and then stare at the simple cursive “B.” in the upper left corner where the return address belonged. Inside there were four typed pages folded in thirds. I took them out and then ran my thumb against the creases so the pages would lie flat.

  Leaning back in my chair, I took the pages in my left hand, closed the lid of my lap top and pushed it aside, and then dragged Rollo to the front edge of my desk, laying my hand on his upper back. I played with his fur while I started to read.

  “Hi.” One word, one simple word and I “bliggled” – my scientific term for blushing and giggling at the same time. “He’s sooo romantic.” Rollo lifted his head off my desk and looked at me as if I was nuts. “Hey. Give me a break. I was talking about the whole letter thing. Besides, did I laugh when you walked off our stoop into the bushes when that calico ran across the yard? No. No I didn’t.” Rollo put his head down and I kept reading and rubbing his fur.

  I’ll start over… “Hi. I know it’s no special occasion or anything, but I thought you might appreciate how I remember the first time I realized I was crazy about you. You being a writer, what better way to let you know than to write a story. I hope you like it. I’m not much of a writer, certainly not like you, but sometimes it really is the thought that counts. –B. ..Oh, P.S., I’ve written it in the third person, like I was someone else telling it.”

  “Rollo? Isn’t this amazing. He wrote me.. Rollo?” He opened one eye, barely, to be nice, but I don’t think he was paying attention. ..I liked reading the stuff I read out loud, sometimes with different voices for different characters. It makes the stories, especially the dialogue, seem more real.

  It was the spring of her fifteenth year. Elizabeth was tall, thin, but not overly so, and pretty in a fresh, unkempt way, her short blonde hair looking like she never did more to dry it off than riding on her bike the less than a mile she lived from school. She could have walked, and usually did in the winter months, but liked having her bike there in case she wanted to go downtown after classes. She’d stop by her father’s office sometimes, at the top of Main St. just off the circle, leave her bike there, and walk to the campus of the local college where she’d camp out under a tree, watch the students, dream of going to college herself someday and write in the spiral notebook she always kept in her backpack.

  Her smile was contagious but, most of all, it was the light in her eyes that made boys desperate to talk to her, and made it hard for Bobby, as extremely bright as he was, ..

  “Hah! ..You know, he’s really pretty good at this.”

  …to concentrate when she talked. Just hearing her say “Hey” in the hallway pretty much blew anything else he might have been thinking about for the next 20 minutes or so. What he didn’t know was that he had the same effect on her.

  “Yeah,” I sighed, remembering how I would wait by my locker, sometimes five, ten minutes for him to come up the stairs and start walking down the hallway to our first period class. ..Back to the story. I’m interrupting too much.

  They had grown up together and gone to the same schools, which wasn’t hard to do in the small town where they lived, on the river, just off the bay. They’d always been friendly toward each other, but lately, in their sophomore year of high school, there was something else going on, a nervousness that made them both comfortable and uneasy, at the same time, whenever they were together. Bobby was cute, “so cute” according to the girls who would talk about him after he walked by, smiling whenever he said “Hey” even to girls he didn’t know, flirting without meaning to, his dark brown hair forever falling across his forehead into his eyes, followed immediately by a reflex combing it back with the fingers of his left hand.

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. If I’d been drinking something, it would have dribbled out my nose. He was so playing with me. Bobby was cute alright, “so cute,” but he never knew it. Still doesn’t. ..Rollo looked up. “Okay, I’ll stop interrupting. I promise. ..He’s so cute. ..Bobby. I was talking about Bobby.”

  “Murrr?”

  “You too, babe. You too.”

  She was running late that particular day, but not by much, having stopped for an unexpected conversation with someone on her way out of the front of the old building that used to be the high school before they built the new one. She had hoped to beat the rain you could smell coming, in the clouds that were beginning to win their argument with the sunlight behind them. The weatherman had predicted afternoon rain, so she’d brought a plastic cover for her backpack, just in case. Picking up the pace, she hustled down the path that led to the bike rack on the side of the school where they all had to park.

  It was sprinkling by the time she turned the corner, not so badly that she’d need to call her mother for a ride, but too much to be riding on the streets that might be slippery. It wasn’t far to her house, but she didn’t want to leave her bike there overnight and not be able to ride it to school in the morning. She’d walk it home if the streets seemed too slick to be riding, although there’d be no real traffic for her to worry about, she could still fall.

  “Hey, Bobby.” She was surprised, pleasantly, to see him leaning up against the empty section of the rack next to her familiar red three speed, waiting for her in the rain, no less.

  “Hi,” he started to explain, reading the question on Elizabeth’s face. “I thought I’d walk you home.”

  “Sure,” she responded, having not the least idea why he’d want to do that, but too pleased that he did to question him about it. She’d find out soon enough. Her house was nowhere near where he lived which was basically in the other direction. Clearly, he had something in mind.

  And walk they did, down and about the innocent streets of the neighborhood that surrounded their school, in the oddly bright sunshine of a light rain. Elizabeth carrying her backpack, Bobby doing the same over just the one shoulder, pushing Elizabeth’s bike for her while they talked and laughed about nothing in particular.

  “Hey, Mrs. Hutchins!” Elizabeth shouted, laughing with Bobby as the rain on her face fell into her mouth, her tongue reaching out to grab a few drops on its own. A few blocks later, Elizabeth had taken charge of the bike, pedaling wobbly circles around Bobby who was walking in the middle of the street, avoiding the surface puddles the rain was still forming. It was her friend, Eleanor’s mother stopping until they were out of the way, before turning into the Hutchin’s driveway. Mrs. Hutchins waved back with the fingers of her right hand still on the steering wheel, smiling while she remembered what it had been like when she was that young.

  “Tell Eleanor we said, ‘Hey’,” we shouted at her so she could hear us through the rolled up windows of her car.

  “Sure thing,” and she waved back at us.

  The half an hour or so it took to get to Elizabeth’s house on the corner went quickly. They were both getting soaked, but neither one of them cared. Her house almost in sight just a block away, Bobby purposely slowed the pace of their walk, Elizabeth hopping down to walk her bike the rest of the way. Worried that he was running out of time, Bobby finally got up the nerve, it wasn’t easy, to get to the reason he wanted to talk to her.

  “You know, next Friday’s the “Better Luck Next Year” dance.”

  “Yeah,” sh
e looked up and at him, and then away so as not to make Bobby any more nervous than he already was.

  “..It’s our last one, our last dance before high school.”

  She looked up again, smiling at him, but didn’t say anything this time. Not at first, but then he was quiet, busy thinking way too hard about what he would say next.

  “I was wondering..,” he started to say, but didn’t finish before she interrupted.

  “Linda’s… You know Linda, right?”

  “Sure. We have Spanish together,” he answered, relieved to have a moment to calm down before asking her out.

  “Well, Linda’s having a party for some of her friends Saturday. I’m going and she told me I could bring someone.”

  “Actually, I… I told Susanne I’d stop by her place.” And then seeing just the hint of disappointment around Elizabeth’s mouth, to make sure there was no confusion, “It’s not really a date, you know. I think she just needed a few extra bodies.” No response from Elizabeth, so he kept talking, “…Something about too many girls coming, not enough guys.”

  “Yeah,” Elizabeth forced a smile, “I hate it when that happens.” But she knew better. Susanne had been talking about Bobby for a month.

  “I don’t suppose you’d have time to…”

  “No. No, I can’t. Eleanor and I promised Linda we’d help her out. “It’s at her grandparents house on the water. Her brother’s home from college. He makes spending money as a DJ, and promised to give her a freebee on their patio.”

  “Should be nice.” Only a couple of houses to go. He was running out of time. “Look,” he blurted out louder than he’d expected, both of them laughing at the rain he spit in her direction. “Look, uh, I was hoping you’d go to the dance with me.”

  Stopping at the end of the driveway where her mother had left the garage door up for her, Elizabeth turned her bike to face Bobby, just now realizing what she’d done. “Bobby, I… I just told Rick.. He came up to me on my way out after chemistry. I just told Rick I’d go with him. That’s why I was late getting to my bike, he stopped me on my way through the lobby.”

  “Great,” he replied quickly, trying to cover his disappointment. “Rick’s a good guy,” a comment he immediately regretted.

  But she didn’t stop explaining. “Besides, don’t you work for your father on Fridays?” In fact he did, at least three afternoons a week, helping his father with his carpentry business – finishing people’s basements, remodeling jobs, that kind of thing. Bobby was good with his hands, and he was saving for a car, nothing new or too spectacular, just something he could drive next year when he got his license in the fall.

  “I do, usually, but he was going to give me the afternoon off.”

  And for a moment it seemed as if neither of them had anything to say.

  “Well, thanks for walking me home,” she told him, with a smile that was meant to make him feel better.

  “Yeah,” he recovered well, smiling back at her, instinctively brushing his wet hair back, off his forehead. “I’ll see tomorrow.”

  Disappointed, they started to go their separate ways, Elizabeth up their driveway, Bobby, pulling his jacket up around his neck, starting to walk away. It was still raining, but not hard.

  “Hey,” Elizabeth turned to shout at him, just as she was at their garage. Bobby turned his head to look over his shoulder, both his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  “About the dance, how ‘bout a rain check?” she smiled knowing there was no way he could say, “No.”

  He laughed. “That’s funny,” Spring rain dripping off his face, but then he stopped smiling and told her, “Sure. We’ll check out the rain together as soon as we can.”

  And then I took pity on him, standing there soaking wet. “Com’on. It’s still raining. My mom will give you a ride.”

  Inside the garage, putting her bike up against the wall on her father’s side, “You know,” she turned to face him, the two of them standing only a few inches apart, “El and I are going to spend Saturday hanging out around the dock. Maybe you’ll be there.”

  “Great.” All signs of disappointment were suddenly gone from his face. “I’ll see what I can do. ..Maybe we can meet for lunch?” He smiled back at her, and Elizabeth returned the favor, water still dripping off her face, and from her short blonde hair. It wasn’t a date, not exactly, but it was something, and she liked the feeling of looking forward to it.

  “And ever since then,” the handwritten words said at the bottom of the page, “I’ve been crazy about you. Never since then have I been able to get your smile and rain drenched hair out of my head. ..See you later. –Bobby”

  I sat there for a moment, staring at what Bobby had written. “Crazy about you too,” I whispered. ..And then the doorbell rang and Darla’s shouting blew it for me.

  “It’s the delivery guy from Joe’s. I’m in the bathroom! Can you get it?!”

  * * *