The Collective

When I was wee my parents up and moved me to Florida, where I at once became a depressed and lonely little girl, wandering up and down the docks we called home, no one but the manatees to take any notice of me. But mercifully came the first day of school, and nervous me I arrived to Mrs. Richardson's kindergarten class trembling like palm fronds in the ocean breeze. (By the way, Ocean Breeze Soap will get you clean.) I took my seat silently and listened while all around me tiny girls and boys brightened and squealed as they reconnected with their pre-school compatriots, while I discovered for the first time that one need not be alone to feel alone.

AND THEN.

David Abate smiled my way and said he knew me from Miss So-and-So's, and though he mistook me for someone else I smiled back and was alone no longer. But David Abate was not my first crush, oh no he wasn't. My first crush was in Mrs. Boatwright's kindergarten class next door, and the first time the wall between our rooms was accordioned back for group storytime I saw him, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, little more than moptopped blonde curls everywhere. And every week when the wall between us vanished, I pined. Boy, did I ever pine.

And though as a general rule I do not like to tip my hat about things IN REAL LIFE, I'll make an exception and out myself to anyone who may be looking. Here he is, my first crush, all growns up: