I don’t remember the first time I met her. It very likely could have been at the age of seven or eight, on a soccer field with orange rinds in our mouths, as we gently slapped hands after a game. Or perhaps in the super market as I attempted to drag my mother down the cookie aisle as she quietly followed hers past, with but a glance for the unruly boy. Or maybe it really was on that first day of junior high school, in Mr. Sowden’s class, both of us nervous and jittery from all of the new faces. At least by then, by that day. I don’t remember.
I do remember her though. She was quiet, with white blond hair. A face among hundreds, never more than a friend of a friend. She says she had a crush on me then. She says she hated me then. I say she was a seed planted.
I do remember her, but only in wisps. A flash of hair here, a quiet smile there. Small fleeting moments until she surfaces again in my memories of high school. In Mr. Lachman’s freshman economics class. In the back row, with Brian Fitzpatrick and I. We were rowdy, as always. She was quiet, still. It didn’t matter; we made her part of our group in that class, our heads huddled together. She did all the heavy lifting. She would smile and duck her head whenever we called her “Liz Babe,” which we did all the time. I remember shouting it to her across the crowded hallways, down crooked stairwells. I can see her head turning, and her smiling back at me.
Then she’s blurry again, gone from my memories, but still there in the yearbooks. She snaps back into focus, for good this time, as the best friend of my best friend. The three of us hiding out in bedrooms, spending all night on the phone, conspiring, consoling, laughing. But she was still just the friend of a friend.
Then, one day, I’m a sixteen year old boy walking down the hallway and I see a sixteen year old girl putting her backpack in her locker. It must have been early in our Junior year, but I don’t know for sure. The locker is a top locker, and the hook in the locker is at the top and she is trying to hang the bag on the hook. Or maybe the bag is too big and she’s trying to cram it in. Frankly I don’t know, because all I saw was sixteen year old legs. I still see those legs. Flexed, taut, pushing. And my brain asked, “who is that?” It was the final piece, that moment. A face, an acquaintance, a casual friend, a good friend, a pair of legs, a beautiful face, a beautiful girl, a love.
I don’t remember our first kiss. Was it in my mother’s old 320i? On the bus of a band trip? Stolen at school? The band trip I think. But it doesn’t really matter, because I kissed her whenever I could. All the time. We were inseparable. At school, where we were notorious among the staff. At my house on the couch watching MST3K, where she was given the name “La Liz” by my mother who secretly hoped we would get married and go to college together. Because she’s a romantic and I think we reminded her of she and my father, in some ways.
But it didn’t turn out that way. For reasons unknown, I broke her heart. And we went off to our famous schools apart. She to Smith. I to Columbia. Where things became more complicated. Where I sank to new lows. She left Smith before the year was out. I stayed at Columbia. That was the worst time for us. While she bounced around schools and boys, and I was bounced around by school and girls. We said nothing to each other.
Then, less than a year later, her voice was back on the phone. We talked about relationships. Hers. She asked me for advice. “Because you’re always good at giving advice.” I don’t remember what I said. But I remember how easy it was to talk to her. I remember remembering how much I loved her. I remember realizing that she was what I wanted in a person. In a life.
I don’t remember when I decided to propose. I do remember that I spent every moment of the summer of 1996 with her. That I made it clear I wanted her back. I remember that she was coy. Or cautious. Then it’s July 6th, and I’m with her, alone, in a strange house. And I’m handing her cards, one by one, with quotes from Winnie-the-Pooh. Quotes about friendship. Quotes about togetherness. I remember handing her this card:
Now when I look at that card, it reminds me how incredibly young I was then. How much I believed in love. It was a young man’s move, and it shows. But, it was the best card I have ever played.
I try not to remember how long it took her to say yes. But it couldn’t have been more than six or eight weeks.
And I remember this, the moment I first saw her in her wedding dress. The joy in my chest. The warmth of her forehead on mine. Eleven years ago today. Thirteen since I asked her to marry me. Seventeen since I fell in love with her. Twenty-one years since I met her. I still believe in love.
Happy anniversary, love. Lizzie. La Liz. Liz Babe. Elizabeth.
