Christmas Crush
A story
Why do we remember insignificant details from years ago, while we cannot remember that famous actor’s name in the movie we’re watching? My sister still surprises me by recounting things she claims I did or said when we were children, while I have absolutely no recollection of it. Memory seems to have a kind of autonomy. It confers significance through its recollections and renders its forgettings trivial.
We’re familiar with the “Proust Effect” named for the phenomenon of childhood memories being triggered by the aroma or taste of freshly baked madeleine cakes characterized in Marcel Proust’s fiction. Many of us experience this phenomenon at Christmastime when all sorts of sights, sounds, and smells seem to call forth images and feelings that otherwise lie dormant the rest of the year. It’s Christmastime as I write this and, as usual, I find my mind wandering to my twelfth Christmastime.
That was the year I was part of Miss Elizabeth Fries’s seventh grade science class. Miss Fries pronounced freeze. I have few memories of that time and place, but a few stand out to me. Someone had informed me that Deborah Harris, a classmate, had a crush on me. I wasn’t interested. To deflect her affections, I think I said something unflattering about her chest. Completely undeserved. Also, completely out of character for me. I was otherwise a quiet and rather shy kid, uncertain about how to navigate the social world. My preoccupations were surfing and football.
I had a crush, too. Perhaps my regrettable insult to Deborah Harris had something to do with the crush I had on our teacher, Miss Fries. Maybe I didn’t want Deborah’s crush on me to diminish, to dilute, the crush I had on Miss Fries. I recall telling no one, until now, that I had a crush on Miss Fries. Something or someone drew me to her. I already had a celebrity crush on Sally Field who had a brief run on a TV sitcom, “Gidget,” in the mid-sixties. She fascinated me. For a time, she was the ideal model of a woman for me. Other than being cute, I don’t know why. Maybe it was the surfing on that show? I had just become interested in surfing. But she was a distant celebrity, an abstraction. Miss Fries looked remarkably like Sally Field. Did Miss Fries wear braces? I can’t remember. Like Sally Field she was probably in her early twenties then and every bit as cute. But she was real, not a TV character. I would show up to school every day and sit in the same room with this real person, but oddly I can’t recall any interactions we might have had there. But there are two out-of-classroom encounters I do recall.
One day I stayed late for band practice after which I commenced my longish walk home, weighed down by books and trumpet. As usual, I was preoccupied with the struggle to not drop things and to get home before I had to pee. But this day was unusually eventful. A car pulled over next to me. A 1965 Corvette Stingray, convertible, black. Probably the coolest car in the world. I knew no one with such a car. I saw it only in magazines. The driver leaned over the passenger seat and beckoned me over. Holy cow! It was Miss Fries. She has a Corvette? Of course. What else would the coolest woman in the world be driving? And if I ever needed proof of the existence of God, it was this. I was so overwhelmed with her preternaturally cute Gidget-face smiling through her braces, I’m not sure I actually heard her offer me a ride home. I swooned into the passenger seat, fumbling with my books and trumpet case, with as much suave as my twelve-year-old idiocy could muster. Me in a Corvette with Miss Fries sitting on her brown leather passenger seat. In my world, this was as likely as me surfing with Salley Field. I can’t remember any words said between us during that ten- or fifteen-minute ride. I’m sure I exuded my usual awkward twelve-year-old silence. No matter. I was in shock, total blissful shock.
I told no one about this. I’m not sure why. Revealing my secret might somehow spoil things. I did think about it though. I plotted about engineering more encounters. Could I find out where Miss Fries lived? I could knock on her door one day and offer to rake the leaves in her yard, to shovel the snow in her driveway. I could spend summers mowing her lawn while she lounged in the yard tanning, offering me iced tea. I would be her buddy, her pet.
One day, with the fall semester ending, while in Miss Fries’s seventh-grade science class, there was an explosion. No chemicals were involved. No malfunctioning Bunsen burner. Just words. Miss Fries announced that she was leaving Roosevelt Junior High School, leaving the state in fact. This was the last day I would ever see her? What? It was my head, not the classroom, that was exploding.
So what could I do? I used my Christmastime break to think it over. Again, I plotted. This time I took action. I found what I believed to be Miss Fries’s address in the phone book. I don’t know where this compulsion came from, but I needed to say goodbye in person. It was Christmastime. That would be my excuse. I would bring her a gift. Well, maybe not a gift. I had no money. I could take one of the Christmas cards my mother bought by the box load. I would write something special. Nothing about love, of course. I knew nothing about that. I was a stupid twelve-year-old boy who liked cars, and surfing, and Gidget, and football.
So that’s what I did. I can’t recall what I actually wrote on the card, if anything. I wrote Miss Fries on the envelope. I put it in my pocket and rode over to the address I researched. It was a couple of miles from my house in an unfamiliar neighborhood. It was easy to find as I had already completed two or three practice runs scoping out the place. Truthfully, my previous trips were not practice. They were cowardly, failed attempts at delivery. But soon enough I found the courage, parked my bike out front of the house decked out with all the Christmas fixings, and pressed the front doorbell button.
I heard the bell ring on the other side of the door. Then footsteps. Could have been my heart beating. An older woman, older than my mom opened the door. Is Miss Fries here? I had practiced this line. As if I were her grandson, she ushered me into the living room and suggested I have seat by the Christmas tree. I will get Elizabeth, she said and wondered whether I would like a hot chocolate. Does she do this every day? Have other boys been here? As she left the room, Miss Fries came in, smiling, looked me in the eye and said hello and that it what a nice surprise. I pulled the wrinkled envelope out of my pocket and reached it over to her. She opened it, read it, and smiled again. The older woman returned, announcing, I’m Elizabeth’s mother, cradling in front of me plate full of just-baked Christmas cookies. I took one.
Miss Fries explained that she would soon marry her fiancé and move to Colorado? Fiancé? Colorado? Did she ski? Here he is, she said. A large figure blocking the sunlight from the window behind him appeared with a mug of hot chocolate in his hand. He advanced out of the shadow. A giant. Adonis, I think. He placed the mug on the coffee table in front of me saying, I made you this. I love hot chocolate. Miss Fries announced, this is my fiancé, Fran Lynch. Fran, Mr. Lynch, Adonis offered me his giant boxing glove hand. Twelve-year-old boys are not used to shaking hands. I offered mine in the most awkward way possible and clasped. I suffered no injuries. Miss Fries told me that Fran, Mr. Lynch, Adonis, just got signed to play football for the Denver Broncos. What? How many times in a season can Miss Fries make my head explode? Miss Fries is marrying a professional football player and moving to Aurora, Colorado. I was crushed. Only for a moment, though. This guy made me a hot chocolate and shook my hand. Holy Christmas!
I didn’t stay long. I don’t remember any other words being said. But I recall feeling the simple good will of this family as I rode my bike home. That feeling stuck with me for some time. And my memory became more about hanging out with an NFL player than about a crush I had on my teacher, even if she looked like Sally Field. I never communicated with these people again. A year passed, and I walked in on my father watching a football game. It was Christmastime. The Jets were playing the Broncos. I had to see whether Fran, Mr. Lynch, Adonis was playing. Sure enough, before long, the announcer said that ball was handed off to number 23, Fran Lynch. I felt connected to something. I don’t know what, exactly. I never talked about it to anyone.
I’ve been going through these recollections for about sixty years now. Every Christmastime I think of Miss Fries. Every time I see the Denver Broncos on TV I think of Fran Lynch.
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