The one that got away

Five hundred words. Five hundred steps. Five hundred pounds. Five hundred books.  This is how we measure things in life. Five hundred television channels and nothing to watch.  Five hundred hours that I will never get back. I’ve measured out my life in coffee spoons – thanks Prufrock.

Fifty years ago it was a dashing young man who stole my heart and broke me forever. Kevin took my breath away the first time I met him in the Brahma Room at St Bernard College. I had gone in with my then-roommate Janice as we felt our way around the new experience of college life.  He came over and introduced himself and I always suspected he was after blonde Janice but I was smitten and somewhat tongue-tied.  A brief flirtation followed and my heart sank every time he seemed to land on someone else’s arm. For me there was intense chemistry that is strong today and never duplicated in my complicated life since then. 

Spring that first year was glorious. I had moved on from Kevin to Benny the previous Autumn but a series of unfortunate events ended the relationship by New Years. But Spring was so fresh and clear in rural Alabama and suddenly Kevin and his friend Ron were sniffing around me and Mallie, my best friend at the time.  Mallie had a car, something fairly rare in those days, and impulsively the boys wanted to head south to Panama City for what they hoped would be a naughty weekend with two babes – insert laughter here – we were so naive.  We hit the road in Mallie’s Malibu, stopping for fried chicken to eat along the way. Sunroof open, chicken bones out the window, we couldn’t believe our luck as we headed down the highway.

We arrived in PC, as we liked to call it, sometime after lunch, and instead of heading to the cheap motel we had booked, we went straight to the beach. Ron and Kevin entertained us with their fake Spanish accents “Weech way to the beeech?” and were really just clowning around as lads do.  Mallie and I changed discreetly into our bikinis, locked the car with all of our stuff in it, and prepared to spend the afternoon sunning and swimming in the warm Gulf of Mexico waters.  We had both lived in the sunny South long enough to know the proper precautions but the boys had spent high school in Wiesbaden although they had Texas connections too.  All in all we should have known better what was to happen.

Ron insisted on taking care of the car keys. He and Kevin were no doubt making their big plans for what would happen that evening. Mallie and I were oblivious and spent most of our time on the beach just relaxing.  Kevin and Ron were trying to entertain us by performing what they called the snail in the water, no doubt thinking their suggestive actions which involved sticking their butts up above the water line would make us receptive to their plans.  Did I say we were so naive? Also, no alcohol was involved.  I didn’t drink and buying alcohol if you were under 21 could be difficult in those days anyway.  Late in the afternoon, we decided it was time to get dressed and find our motel but we had a small problem.  Everything was in the car and Ron who insisted he could be responsible, couldn’t find the keys.  We searched everywhere but they were not to be found. Everything was in the car, money, clothes, you name it.  We had left school without permission (you needed it in those days), didn’t have access to a phone, and had to think long and hard about what to do.  Meanwhile, the local television station had heard that there were early Spring Break students on the beach and sent a crew to cover us.  We called a locksmith who explained that if we could get the code for the keys he could cut us a new set otherwise we would have to break a window to get in the car.  Mallie didn’t have a spare set in the car but did have a plan.  Not wanting to alert her car-dealer father of our dilemma, we scrounged for some coins to place a collect call to the dealership in hopes of finding someone other than her father who could help.  A call had to be placed to the Country Club where the chief mechanic was playing golf as he was the only person Mallie trusted to not tell her father.  Several calls later we had a locksmith talking to the mechanic and presto new keys for the car.

What we hadn’t really noticed, however, was then we had been out in the sunniest part of the day with little protection and now were completely sunburned from head to toe.  We found our motel, took cold showers to relieve the pain, and severely disappointed the boys because we couldn’t be touched without screaming in pain.  Our trip was cut short and we slinked off back to Northern Alabama hoping no one would notice that we were gone overnight. More cold showers ensued but it was pretty clear that we had sun poisoning as we passed out in our dorm.  Our red bodies gave us away and in Monday morning’s history class, Father Pascal, who always thought Kevin and I were meant to be, made a comment about some people getting too much sun that weekend. 

Kevin drifted away until the last day of the term when I was going around collecting addresses to share so we could all write to each other over the summer. He told me that he had hoped there would be something more for us and a Polaroid captured the moment bookending my first year of college.