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I don’t know what developmental psychologists would say is the normal age for little girls to start developing attractions, but I know that by first grade, if not sooner, I was fully capable of such a feat. I may not have known the implications behind these feelings, but they were identifiably amorous or romantic in nature. Actually, even those aren’t the right words because it’s not as if I knew what sex was at the time, nor did I have any concept of the meaning of romance, which to my elementary mind, was about as esoteric and useless as it is to most adults. There was just something about the way I perceived and interacted with certain boys that set them apart from others. Put differently, I didn’t think they had cooties, but if they did, I had no qualms about catching them.
One such fortunate fellow was William Koenig, whose appearance was as charmingly German as his name. He had blond, thistle-like hair that sprouted straight up from his head like the wildflower itself, presumably impervious to even the most copious amounts of water or hair gel and resistant to the coarsest of boar-bristle brushes. His face had the seemingly unlikely quality of being cherub-y and Neanderthal at the same time, for his brow was protruding, especially for a young boy, but was balanced by gentler features, like his cheeks (which are dimpled in my mind).
Throughout kindergarten and most of first grade, I didn’t believe William wanted anything to do with me, since I was a shy, boyish-looking teacher’s pet who tended to blend into the walls during class time and the chain-link fence during recess. He was as much of a jock as a six- or seven-year-old can be and probably spent most of his recess time playing kickball and throwing rocks. In the classroom, I imagine he was none too bright, for which the only evidence I possess (aside from his Cro-Magnon brow) is the fact that he blatantly used me for answers on math quizzes. I put up with it for quite some time, despite that he was pushy and unsubtle (“Hey, let me cheat off you,” he would say) because it flattered me to receive any attention whatsoever from him, especially the kind that would indicate I was smarter.
However, one day I was feeling particularly saucy, and, like usual, consented to his entitled request to exploit my intellect, but instead of diligently cranking out flawless arithmetic, I penciled in wrong answers for every problem. Like a fool, William fastidiously copied them down, without so much as a feigned pause for the appearance of thoughtfulness, and turned his quiz in to Mrs. Morrison’s tray. I then erased my incriminating answers and filled in the correct ones, post-haste, giving him a quick glance of smugness, before submitting my own quiz. Where most boys would have written me off like the wily Benedict Arnold I was (rightly or not), I think using such trickery to defend my honor earned me points in William’s book. Things changed after that. For one, he never demanded to cheat off me again, and for two, he invited me to marry him.
Now don’t get too riled up, it was all part of a new coed trend at recess to enact a mock-wedding between a boy and a girl whom the whole class knew to be crushing on one another. Up until this point, I had only assumed the pathetic roles of congregant and presider, due to the fact that none of the boys openly admitted to liking me and instead doubled or tripled up on my more popular and feminine-looking friends. But finally it was my turn! Nervously tucking my hand into William’s hooked arm, we glided down the blacktop to our classmate’s rudimentary rendition of “Here Comes the Bride” (they at least had the reverence to omit “all fat and wide”). I put on my best bride face, which was likely very sad and unconvincing—growing up being mistaken for a boy causes one to forget how to be girlish—and said my “I do’s.”
When the bell rang, I should have been a very happy schoolgirl indeed, but there was one problem. Now that I had gotten the guy, I didn’t want him anymore. Oh yes, I was blooming into a fickle pickle already, and the thrill of the chase had dissipated. But all hope was not lost because it was the officiator of my phony nuptials who had captured my heart that day. He spun out his contrived vows with such sophisticated pomp that I knew he was something special. He may not have been the sporty show-off that William was, but Johnny Brown was quite literally the boy next door that earned my affections for the rest of first grade and well into second…
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