It is a marginally humorous story so tell it I shall.
Was twelve years old and attending this Marin County elementary school with all of these annoying kids who were for the most part all from rich families (not that that is a sin, just providing background). This was sixth grade.
At least three-quarters of the boys were infatuated with a girl from the eighth grade. She came from a wealthy family as did most kids at that school and hers was one of the many longstanding Italian families who had immigrated to Marin County dating back to the nineteenth century. To be sure, she was pretty.
Every time our class was, as a group, assigned to write poetry, and read it aloud, myriad classmates who otherwise had no use for me one way or the other took note of my propensity to write something that was at least not altogether embarrassing in its awfulness. Haha.
Before long several different boys were asking me on advice on how to approach this ostensibly unattainable "older girl" for whom so many pined. Becoming the pseudo-Cyrano de Bergerac of "junior high" became my calling for several weeks, feeding these boys words with which they could perhaps melt this idolized girl's heart of ice.
One day as this was occurring, a boy gave me the girl's phone number. Every kid's number was all-too-easily discovered by anyone at the school as they were posted in some ridiculous yearbook every year, and every classroom had a yearbook tied to a wall with string.
Which meant that this boy, and his legion of spoiled friends, also had my number. A party line was established one late afternoon. These boys were all terrified of calling this girl up. So, as they were all listening, I did the honors. Being as respectful as possible I told her mother, who had answered, that it was lovely and fine to speak to her, and that I had to speak to her eldest daughter about a school-related matter.
And so the girl and I spoke for a good fifteen minutes as ten boys from my own class listened in. I came up with some ridiculous dialogue to say, all of which amounted to nothing, like a long-gestating David Mamet conversation.
The next day at school she approached me during lunchtime and said that it was wonderful to speak with me. Her many girlfriends giggled along with her and presumably spoke of me while every boy glared at me, their envy readily evident.
The next week I found myself in a disagreement with another boy in class. He had stolen the chair in which I always sat in the back, which was specially padded. I say "stolen" loosely but it was nevertheless annoying. "You stole [the girl]!" he snarled at me. :lmao Bewildered by his jealousy I yanked the chair out from under him, resulting in both of us being sent to the principal's office. I took my acoustic guitar with me and strummed it in the principal's office as a ways of displaying my insouciance. It was enough to get me detention.
Because of serving detention, however, I was leaving the school at the same time as "the girl" was, for she had some after-school obligation at the school that day. She confronted me over the allegation which had spread that it was I who was behind all of the words spouted by one boy after another toward her. This was the penultimate day before the Christmas break. She asked me, "Do you want to see a movie together during Christmas vacation?" I said that I went to films all the time and would not object to her presence; she liked that diffidence.
And so it was that she and I saw Titanic a few days after it opened at the largest cinema in Marin County. She had simply walked from her home which was not far away in Corte Madera; going back we both took the bus. She held my hand and thanked me for being a gentleman "beyond your years."
Several weeks later the boys called me up. In-between talking about Stone Cold Steve Austin and DX and the New World Order these boys wanted me to call "the girl" back up, and so I did. The girl and I spoke for a few moments, but before long her father grabbed the phone. He asked for my name, which I gave him, and he said, "Mr. [Row] I would most appreciate you never, ever calling my daughter again. Ever, ever again." Recognizing her father's rightful place in this drama I conceded that he was within his parental rights.
And so that was that. Though the girl was successful in dragging me to the one dance I ever attended at that school later in the spring, that was effectively the story.
In a way one could argue it was not so much a "real date" as it was a preordained coming-of-age melodrama. The girl was pretty, yes, but I was one of the few boys who did not lust after her. And while jealousy bubbled up like a long-forgotten corpse in murky San Francisco Bay waters from several of my classmates, ultimately the experience provided most of them with the once-incongruous opportunity to almost deify me, especially once they heard the girl say, "I had a wonderful time seeing Titanic with you." Holding her hand on the bus and dancing with her months later, at which time I apologized to her for the duplicitousness involved in my breaching of her orbit, were interesting experiences, though. After playing Stanley Kowalski in a school play two years later she came into the backstage area and gave me a hug--all in one motion, before I knew what was happening, having just reached the area in which I was planning to sit for a few minutes to rest--having heard of it, in spite of moving on to a fancy high school far away. That was quite cool of her. Hope she is having a fine life for herself these days.