February 2022 | Smitten

If I see the phrase "smitten with the mitten" one more time I'm gonna grimace a good one. I tell ya, I'm shaking the slush of this sloshy little state off my feet and I'm gonna see the world.

Tory and James carefully wound their way through rows of gravestones. Tory carried a shovel and shears while James pushed a wheelbarrow full of mulch over the lush grass. The morning dew kissed their ankles and lied about the impending heat of the day. It was their first shift on the earlier schedule, which lent a festive atmosphere as the sun crept skyward.

James set the wheelbarrow to rest along a grove of pines. “Let’s start here.” Tory began to prune overgrown branches. One of the trees had nearly enveloped a headstone, and after freeing it he read the epitaph out loud: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

James was spreading mulch around the base of the tree. “What do you think God’s going to say to you when you die?”

Tory took a step back to examine his work. “I think he's going to say, why did you mock Jeremy Riemer in the fifth grade?”

James spread a layer of the fragrant wet mulch. “Why did you mock Jeremy Riemer in the fifth grade?"

“A bunch of kids from our class were at this birthday party, and Jeremy was always a bit on the outside. Didn’t pick up on social cues. I treated him nice though, and he just lights up, starts clinging to me.” 

“I can see where this is going.” James grunted as he thrust the shovel back into the heap of mulch. The sun continued to rise, and he already felt the first beads of sweat.

Tory continued. “Everyone's parents start coming to pick them up, and Jeremy runs to tell his mom what a great time he had. Specifically, how much fun he’d had with me.” Tory paused and absentmindedly snapped the shears at nothing. “And you could tell she was just so excited to see he'd made a friend. She asks, did you get his phone number? And he ran back to ask me, in front of everyone.” Tory struggled with one of the larger branches. “And I said, ‘What, you wanna date me?’ And that made everyone laugh but him. I can remember his mom sweeping him out of the room quickly, holding his hand back to the car.”

James coughed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Well, everyone makes mistakes.”

“Oh, it was quite intentional.” They worked quietly for a moment as the dew burned away.

“I really wanted a skateboard when I was a kid,” James said. “Apparently my mom asked around a lot, even went into a local shop where she was probably a little intimidated.” James laughed to himself. “But she talked to those punks and got me one. A really good board.”

Tory was shaking his head. “I can see where this is going.”

“But when I unwrapped it, without missing a beat I said, 'I hate the design.' The skulls are so cheesy, I wanted a red one, whatever. And you could see all the joy just drain from her face.” James had stopped shoveling and was gesturing with his hands. “Like, you didn't realize how her eyes had been sparkling until they weren’t anymore. And she let me go exchange it right away, but I remember how all the excitement and anticipation froze into something stoic. She had that look the rest of the day.”

The heat was already scorching. Tory stopped clipping and stepped into the shade. “Yeah, God's going to have some questions about that one for sure," he said. Sweat dripped from James' brow but he kept digging.

“Then again," said Tory, "God’s omniscient and he made you, so I guess he made you do it.”

“I think he's still going to ask me about it.”

“Still, I’d try to turn the tables on him. But I doubt I’ll have the pleasure.”

“No?” asked James.

“I don’t think anyone’s been watching over me. Or my mom, for that matter.”

James leaned on his shovel, musing. “It’s okay. Maybe the universe made you without a will, and we’re both off the hook.”

The sun was already higher than either of them expected. Tory started on another tree and James moved the wheelbarrow. After another stretch of quiet work, Tory said: “Sometimes I still wish someone would ask me about it.”

I saw it all from my counselor's perch. Her half-suppressed smiles when he complimented her, the way her face flushed whenever they made physical contact, how her eyes darted to him repeatedly whenever he was in the room… Candace had spent the summer falling in love with Ian. 

It must have been easy for her to ignore the fact that he had a girlfriend. This Sarah girl might as well have lived on another planet while Candace and Ian worked closely together as teen-crew members, spending day after long day laughing and joking in each other’s company for the first five weeks of summer. But Senior High week rolled around and I watched Candace’s fictional world in which Ian was possibly interested in her come crashing down as Sarah entered in as a camper. 

Candace stabbed jealous stares at the couple, sometimes awkwardly inserting herself into their conversations, sometimes hanging back and failing to get their attention in other ways. She was frustrated, angsty, tumultuous–a stormy, suppressed version of herself–and I wondered what would become of it if she never admitted this obvious unrequited crush. 

Then it all came to a head on a muggy day in late July. It was raining slightly during the flag football game and Sarah slipped, clutching her ankle and crying. Ian ran to her, scooped her up, and swiftly brought her to the rec hall while they waited for the nurse. 

Candace ran into the woods.

By the time I found her she was sobbing on a log. 

“Tough week?”

She cried harder. 

I hardly had to pry, only had to mention his name before she started pouring out her heart to me. 

“He’s just so nice, I’ve never met anyone like that. And he has the greatest smile, and I think he’s funny, and I like that he laughs at my jokes… The way he just ran right to Sarah when she got hurt, like she mattered most to him... He wouldn’t have done that if it was me. No one would have. I would have just stayed on the ground alone. Crying until I DIED.”

This may have been taking it a bit far, but underneath the melodrama was a familiar story. Someone you meet makes you feel like no one else has before, and you doubt whether anyone else in the entire world could ever give you that sort of stomach-dropping, heart-stopping, breath-taking swoop of a feeling. This person’s attention is precious enough to spend hours contriving how to get just a minute of it to yourself. Thinking about them is inescapable because they’ve invaded every corner of your mind and every thought seems to lead back to them. It’s impossible to imagine life without them, and even more impossible to stop yourself from imagining all your life with them.

The memory of my first heartbreak drove empathy into this moment. I too had held on to hope for more than a friendship for a painfully long time. The pain was a sweet sort of pain–a longing unfulfilled that simultaneously made my heart very full and rather sick. Yes, I could relate. Until she said,

“This is why I pretend to be a cat.”

“...Because of Ian?” I needed clarification. 

Of course I had noticed this bizarre tendency of hers. Candace had a headband with cat ears as well as a velvet tail that hooked on with a device like a belt that she had been prancing around in all summer. She also had a rather vexing habit of hissing or yelping an angry meow while swiping her hands like claws when reacting to grievances. I had dismissed these customs as childish ploys for attention, but now the psychological interest drove me to take mental notes of her explanation. 

“Cats don’t have to deal with this stuff. They don’t have feelings. They don’t have boyfriends and girlfriends and they just get to explore and take naps and play and do whatever they want.”

The weight of her feelings was constricting Candace’s world. She longed for an escape to a simpler existence–one with no complicated layers of friendships, romance, and rejection. This desire for freedom was turning her into a cat/human-teenager hybrid that even if I didn’t quite relate to, I could on some level understand.

If I were a kitten,

I’d never be smitten,

Except maybe by my toys or my bed

I’d wander all day

And no one could say

I had any sorrow or toil in my head

But could it be true

That me and you

Could get into this animal state?

If we pretend

Then we might transcend

And live purely from what is innate