First Kiss

            I met Tom, the boy I had my first kiss with, at the lake when I was on vacation when I was twelve years old.  My parents, my sister and I were there that summer.  We go on vacation every year, but this was the first time that we had stayed at this cabin, and we had just met a bunch of new people that were staying at the ones near ours. We had spent a number of days skipping rocks at the shore.  I had just learned how to skip rocks: you take a stone with a smooth bottom and throw it in such a way that the rock skims the surface. This lake had crystal clear water.  Even in the middle of the lake you could see straight to the bottom, if you looked past the strands of seaweed that swayed with the tide. Tom’s sister usually hung out with us, too.  Her name was Sandra.  Sandra was two years older than Tom and I.  I used to steal Keebler Elf chocolate chip cookies for us, from my parents’ cabin, so that we could eat them on the dock.  These type of chocolate chips I always associate with this vacation, because they are the kind that my mother would buy at the Kroger’s near that cabin.  We don’t have a Kroger’s near our home, so to me, it is kind of an extraneous store.  I would sneak into the cupboard while my parents were outside on the porch in the sweltering heat, barbequing, and rummage through all of the groceries that my mother had bought at the Kroger’s.  I’d scurry across the dirt and pebble strewn path, over the backyard of the cabin, and find my new friends and my sister waiting for me on the dock that hovered over the lake.  The dock was made of splintered wood that was comfortable to sit on because it didn’t conduct any heat.  We’d sit on the dock and eat the cookies, with our feet swinging like pendulums over the swaying waves.  Some days it was really windy, and some days the calm brought a sense of peace to our lingering afternoons. 

            One day my sister had gone to the Kroger’s with my mother, and Sandra was out canoeing.  We had just eaten a dinner of microwaved hot dogs with potato chips and sliced watermelon.  My mom said she felt silly using a microwave instead of the grill that the cabin provided, but she was in a crunch for time, as the Kroger’s was closing early for the Fourth of July.  Tom and I were alone on the dock.  I took in the boyishness of Tom’s curly brown hair and his twisted smile.  He stood a couple of inches taller than me, but those inches made him feel a dozen feet taller.  We didn’t sit that day on the dock, we just stood, like statues.  The gleam in his eyes and the way he put his hands in his pockets brought a sense of awkwardness mixed with intimacy into our situation.  His shoelaces were untied.  I told him so, and he said he didn’t care.  He wore a flannel shirt that was brown and green.  The collar wasn’t folded properly, so I fixed it for him.  I had seen my mother fold my father’s collar so many times, and I had always wanted to do it myself to a boy.  The material of his shirt was soft and thin.  As I fixed his shirt, I looked into his eyes.  Our gaze was inches apart.  I’ll never forget his reaction: he stood still for a moment, and then broke out into laughter.  The waves lapped against the shore with a sense of persistence.  Some seagulls spread their wings above us, and their cawing sound was the only thing that broke the silence, a silence that lasted for just the right amount of time.

            Tom broke our gaze and looked out to the lake.  His brown eyes matched the color of the seaweed of the lake.  I wanted to say something to break the silence, but at that moment our proximity brought me total comfort and I didn’t want to ruin it, so I remained silent.  I felt like the situation was something out of a book, or a movie.  The tone was so perfect, and I didn’t know what would come next but everything was happening so fast even though nothing was really happening at all.  We stayed silent for a moment until Tom looked at me and grabbed my hand.  Both of our hands formed a tight fist.  His hand was warm, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of the heat, but because of something inside of him that made him feel so alive that his blood was pumping harder, and his heart was beating faster, as was mine.  He tugged me towards land, so suddenly that I almost fell in the water.  After I gained my balance, we shuffled our way towards my parents’ cabin and into my room.  We kicked off our shoes so that we were able to skid across the hardwood and fall into a heap on the floor.   A beam of light that shone from the window hit the full-length mirror that covered the closet.  I stood up and motioned for Tom to follow me.  He placed one hand on the floor and stood up, gaining his balance.  I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself, fixing my hair and straightening my shirt.  Tom stood next to me.  I reached out to the cool glass of the mirror to where the reflection of Tom’s heart was. 

Suddenly we heard deafening cracking sounds coming from the outside.  Tom and I turned around towards the window in unison to see explosions of red and blue streaking across the sky. 

“Happy fourth of July,” I said to Tom.

“Same to you,” Tom said.  “I couldn’t think of anyone better to spend it with.”