An Ocelot in an Underwear Drawer

Adrenaline surge to the gut!

There she is!

Cold needles shooting across my scalp. A strangely pleasant sick feeling all over. Catch your breath and look away, quick! Before she sees. Too late! She’s got me! Shot me, right through the eyes with her own big lovely brown weapons.

Her name was Chelea. Isn’t that a pretty name? She was working at the concessions counter, just outside the gym during a home basketball game. The concessions counter was in a wide indoor hall that connected the gymnasium to the cafeteria where our Friday night dance would begin shortly after the game.

The game had already started and my best bud Greg and I were late. The band played and the crowd cheered in the background, but it was only noise to me. I had just made eye contact with Chelea. She smiled at me and waved a dainty left-handed wave with her fingers, like she was playing a tiny piano up in the air. So cute!

Trying to be the very picture of cool, I gave her a slight head toss and a crooked half-smile and I immediately looked away, walking on by, toward the gym. "Just a normal Friday night, yes sir, all in a day’s work. No love-struck eleventh grade boy here! Just a devoted Panthers fan, on my way to watch my team play basketball." Not really. I couldn’t care less who won that game. I had something far more important on my mind.

“Tonight’s the night, Cwiffith,” Greg said as he elbowed me in the ribs. “Go buy a Hershey bar from her. And chat a little. You can do it, man! And later, you’ll ask her to dance. And then… you’ll ask her to dance again. And again. And, if it looks like it’s going okay, you’ll ask her out.”

“I know the plan, you jerk,” I said with a nervous grin. “I’m the one that came up with it, remember?”

“So, go! Buy the stupid candy bar, pinhead!” Greg was a good friend. The best I’ve ever had. We would have died for each other. In fact, there was a time or two that we almost did. But that’s another story. We’re talking about Chelea right now. Try to stay on the subject, will ya?

If only I’d taken his advice and bought the Hershey bar, right then. Things might have turned out differently. Instead, I stood still, just out of view of the concessions counter, silent and sullen; my nervous stomach held a family of wrestling field mice.

Greg looked me in the eye for a long moment. “Plan B?”

“Plan B,” I replied sadly, and I shook my head. Plan A had been a good plan, but it had to go. It seemed easy when we were talking about it beforehand, but, now that the moment had come; it was just too direct. Too terrifying. Being a naturally shy boy with an added girl-anxiety was a lot like starving to death in a sea of food. There were pretty girls everywhere at Snohomish High School, 1985, and I wanted so badly to have one. For years it had been this way, but I hadn’t taken the chance. I just couldn’t. Too scared. Too insecure. Too stupid.

But this time was going to be different! No backing down! This was Chelea, after all! Had I set my sights too high? Yeah, pretty much. Was I reaching for the impossible? Probably. This was not just any girl. Chelea was a queen, a star, a diamond. She was way too popular and I was way too not. Probably not the right girl for me to choose at this point in my life. Maybe I should have aimed a little lower, but, The Crush is a fickle thing, and it chooses whom it will. I had no control. Roll with The Crush, or be crushed by it.

No, she wasn’t perfect. What Chelea had was special. She was an amalgam of all-that-Chris-wants. She had the intangibles. She was pretty, athletic, and smart. She was sweet, she was funny, she was kind. And when she smiled she made the person she was talking to feel important. At least, she did for me. She was what I wanted. And tonight, I was going to try. Pass or fail – sink or swim – win or lose; this was the night. But it was going to have to be Plan B.