I watched the breeze gently moving her hair, and I knew that it was no time to
pretend I was something that I actually wasn’t.
“Well,” I said seriously, “you know it’s love when all you want to do is spend time
with the other person, and you sort of know that the other person feels the same way.”
Jamie thought about my answer before smiling faintly.
“I see,” she said softly. I waited for her to add something else, but she didn’t, and I
came to another sudden realization.
Jamie may not have been all that experienced with boys, but to tell you the truth, she
was playing me like a harp.
During the next two days, for instance, she wore her hair in a bun again.
On New Year’s Eve I took Jamie out to dinner. It was the very first real date she’d
ever been on, and we went to a small waterfront restaurant in MoreheadCity, a place
called Flauvin’s. Flauvin’s was the kind of restaurant with tablecloths and candles and five
different pieces of silverware per setting. The waiters wore black and white, like butlers,
and when you looked out the giant windows that completely lined the wall, you could
watch moonlight reflecting off the slowly moving water.
There was a pianist and a singer, too, not every night or even every weekend, but on
holidays when they thought the place would be full. I had to make reservations, and the
first time I called they said they were filled, but I had my mom call them, and the next
thing you knew, something had opened up. I guess the owner needed a favor from my
father or something, or maybe he just didn’t want to make him angry, knowing that my
grandfather was still alive and all.
It was actually my mom’s idea to take Jamie out someplace special. A couple of days
before, on one of those days Jamie was wearing her hair in a bun, I talked to my mom
about the things I was going through.
“She’s all I think about, Mom,” I confessed. “I mean, I know she likes me, but I don’t
know if she feels the same way that I do.”
“Does she mean that much to you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“Well, what have you tried so far?”
“What do you mean?”
My mom smiled. “I mean that young girls, even Jamie, like to be made to feel
special.”
I thought about that for a moment, a little confused. Wasn’t that what I was trying to
do?
“Well, I’ve been going to her house every day to visit,” I said.
My mom put her hand on my knee. Even though she wasn’t a g reat homemaker and