I had seen Robin before, but just from a distance at keg parties in the woods or very briefly coming out of a Quikie Mart. Our respective teen clans didn’t cross much, but I knew of her. Finally, at one time at our hangout she was all of five feet from me. She turned to look directly at me, as she could feel me staring at her. In three seconds she made her decision which was “No” and turned back to her girlfriends to continue talking.
Robin was a cheerleader at Shea High School and moved through the various teen hangouts, cliques in Pawtucket like a Hollywood star being seen in in all the right places. Being that popular required of her to at least put in a showing at the more cooler hangouts on Saturday nights. Pasquale’s lot is a hundred yards from McCoy stadium and was one of those spots. It’s a dusty dirt lot wedged between trucking companies. That’s how ritzy it was. I and a few friends were hanging out there as the One Way in Slater Park was finally busted, being the Open Fair of Illicit Drugs that it was for so long. Our Slater Park friends scattered to various other lots, corners or fields to do what we teens did best, which was to waste time.
I looked at Robin because I could see, even in the darkness, her form, her facial profile and a waterfall of dark brunette hair and it hit me how pretty she was. That hair was accented by a long, purple Glo Stick she had bent into a headband for her hair, pulling it back but leaving a healthy amount of bangs to spill across her forehead. The Glow stick thingy cast a faint purple light that sheened off that black hair of hers. It was reminiscent of a dark-light poster you’d see from the 70s.
She was one of those girls who was born pretty. Everything she was was symmetrical, proportionate and in place and had eyes that were round, big and inviting. Years later I saw a picture of her when she was six. She was a cutie then and probably could have done local TV commercials for toy stores or say kid’s clothes. She probably learned early on she was destined for a top slot as as everyone commented on her positively. You girls learn earlier and quicker than the boys.
I probably was obvious as hell when I stood there staring at her. I myself could feel it. There’s a disarming hypnotic feeling a guy can get while watching a pretty girl. I tried to describe that feeling to some other women I knew at times and failed. You gotta be a guy to know it. I’ll try again. Think of the feeling of “Oh...Wow” when you see something unexpected. It’s a feeling of astonishment and being dumbfounded at the same time, plus that testosterone that makes you zero in on details in seconds. When she turned to me, I knew I had that silly boy grin on my face, my head probably a bit askance and my posture too relaxed and motionless.
I felt disarmed, entranced, a loss for words and my reaction was just plain gawking. I run the risk of being accused of the “male gaze,” but every guy is guilty of doing this, and rather innocently too. There is no political sub-routine running hoping to pay her and all women 30% less for the same job guys do.
I suspect she sized me up like this. “Who’s looking at me? Hmmm...not six feet yet, not particularly buff, kinda skinny really...is wearing an army field jacket...knows too many of the punks from Slater Park as they all wear those field coats, wearing Timberland hunting boots..yep, definitely that crowd from Slater...working class background...No...not date-able.” As in “No means or future to own a home on the Bristol shoreline.”
She recognized my look of affection for what it was and quickly sought to end any hopes of mine that this would progress another second. So she spun around back to her friends, quickly severing her eye contact with me and shutting me down. I felt a bit miffed. It was a silent rejection. Oh well, that feeling will fade away in 10 minutes.
But I continued to sneak glimpses of her w/o getting caught doing so. It’s a pleasing feeling to watch a fetching girl. To translate to you women, think of the first really nice day in June and how you feel. You are savoring that all is well with the world.
**
Robin had married a sort of HS football star in her mid 20s. The wedding photo, which I saw in the paper, oozed “They’re the perfect couple! Look how beautiful they are!” You see those kind of pics on Facebook now. Where the couple or family, are all dressed in a matching white combination with pastels, and are set against an incredibly clean and organized background that speaks of...”Normalcy, Hope, Paid Bills and A Promotion Set to Happen Soon.” Nowhere is there a hint of any kind of perilous mental illness or secret drinking.
Well, as I heard it, Robin’s marriage lasted six years when she discovered her best friend, also married, was schuttping her FootBall husband.
I suspect boredom got ahold of the husband who wanted something other than sameness. This happens to wives as well. I have heard from numerous women this: “I love him, but I am not in love with him (anymore).” Time passes, things change and repetition slyly creates a rut without you noticing it, till you do a year and a half later when you’re deep in it.
The divorce was slightly ugly, with Robin taking the role of the faithful but underhandedly discarded wife. She reveled in victim status for the longest time I hear. The sting of that faded with time but never left her entirely. Everything was supposed to be “Happily Ever After” and jasmine. I suspect she believed in the Princess Fairy Tale they tell all little girls and Robin had actually attained it, only to see that story change on her and turn ugly. This wasn’t supposed to happen to pretty girls who won.
**
Let’s jump ahead about 41 years and to Gregg’s restaurant/bar, on 44 in East Providence, June 2024.
**
I rarely drink now as simple beer can have me begging for a bed so I can go to sleep. It’s turned into a sleeping aid for me. But hey, I’m old now and I can fall asleep just about anywhere and at anytime. Leaning my head back on the headrest of my car seat works wonders in time travel. I swear I just want to nod for five minutes after I pull into my driveway and then when I wake up, mouth open and drooling, forty minutes have passed by.
But there are times I want a beer and a burger/fries NOT made by me so I go out and keep the Trazodone/beer effects to a minimum. One beer and that’s it.
I was sitting at the bar in Gregg’s, chomping away when Robin and two of her friends come in an made a beeline to the bar. She sits one seat away from me and the girls start banging down their Margaritas, laughing about their liquid lunches. Robin has no idea who I am though, but I recognized those eyes and that hair.
They are talking of people I sort of know and I finally insert myself into their conversations by saying, “Do you know So n So? You do? What ever happened to him?”
Robin gets curious and asks my name and when I tell her, she thinks for a few seconds and admits she doesn’t remember me. I tell her it’s of no consequence because the two of us roamed in different but occasionally over lapping social circles. But this time around, we two are having the conversation which eventually cuts out her friends.
Then this transformation occurred. She had moved her seat to the empty one next to me, faced me and I was drilled with direct eye contact the whole time we were talking. She flipped that ponytail of hers, her hair seeming far too dark as I remember it (hair dye and well covered roots) and she’s quite open and happy to chat with me, with the pony tail swinging which I quickly notice when it does.
Then that three second long touch on my right forearm as she kept speaking to me.
Yep, I had thought so, you’re hitting on me.
I sat there and thought this: “Now, after all these years...now the cheerleader is interested in me….But I see she’s now a 58 year old divorcee who has put on an extra 40lbs, with crow’s feet and sun damaged skin. Your thighs look wider than mine and you’re not the girl I remembered from so long ago at Pasquales. Plus, your flirtation is a bit too vigorous, like a car smashing into a wall. Too bad you didn’t come on to me like this 41 years ago.”
“Desperation” I thought next.
Now before you women freak and scream “superficiality!” Don’t forget I’m now 60 and just as ugly as age will make me. I have a nice pasta belly, white hair, wrinkles, the beginnings of a turkey neck and I can’t cum like I did when I was 19. Yeah, I just said that, but I’m old and don’t care anymore. What reputation do I have to protect? HA!
OK girls, we equal now? Being old and slowly falling apart? I admit it.
To be fair, she knew how old she was, was probably lonely and realizes how troublesome it is to find a mate at this age. And her looks, which once were hot, have long since left her. She long ago had entered that state older women call “being invisible.” it explained the too dark dye job and the tight jeans meant for a women younger than her, trying to stave off invisibility as well as she could.
I did what I could to not respond to her interest as nonchalantly as possible. I let any enthusiasm for me die on the vine of it’s own accord. Why? I just wasn’t interested and no spark had formed in me.
I finished up my lunch, paid the bill and stood up to leave when I said to her, “Robin, you don’t remember but in July 1983, I first met you at Pasquales lot.” She perked up a bit as she was trying to remember. I walked away but stopped and looked back at her again, feeling a boyish smile spread across my face, remembering that night in ‘83. She responded with a similar one. I lingered a bit looking at her and that old wonderment was rising in me again and I saw her responding to my bygone memory of awe.
Validation. It spread across her face. She wasn’t 58 at that moment anymore. For several seconds, she was a 17 again, with a purple Glo Stick in her hair, when everything in her life was just right.
