Bobby Ray
Its been a long, long time since I’ve written about my first boyfriend.
His name was Bobby Ray and we were in 8th grade. He was the best looking boy in our class, possibly the entire school.
He had these hazel eyes that twinkled with flecks of gold like God dusted them himself. Then there was his hair. Chocolately brown velvet ringlets. You could run your fingers through it all day long and just not think of another thing other than how truly wonderful the world is.
We were friends first. It started with me helping with his English homework. In return he taught me how to drive a stick shift in the farm truck (his family were big tobacco farmers). He took me four wheeling. I drank my first beer with him. He was the first person that ever told me I was beautiful (other than my parents cause they don’t count).
We embarked together on that terribly akward, sweaty, spotty weirdness that is being a teenagers. We would talk for hours on the phone and would steal little kisses at football matches or in the backseat of his sister’s car on the way home from football/cheerleading practice.
He was also my first French kiss.
It happended outside the school dining room in Poedunk. It was the big Christmas dance and my Daddy was due to pick me up quite soon. Bobby walked me outside after this excruciating slow dance to a Chicago song.
He smelt of Polo Ralph Lauren (the one in the green bottle from yep, 1984) and his leather bomber jacket. His faded Levis hung low on his hips.
Our shoulders were leaning on the brick of the dining hall and we were looking at each other for a what seemed like a long time. He finally leaned in to kiss me, but he took my face in his hands. His hands felt so warm and strong, like he was cradling my face, protecting me from this new place he was taking me, this place we were going together.
And at first it was just his amazing full wide lips and then oh God I didn’t know if I should open my mouth, or run back inside the dining hall, or open my mouth or run, or open my mouth, or run….God only knows how we got through those next two seconds, maybe we did because being good friends we were so comfortable with each other or maybe we were just born good kissers or both.
That kiss was so good, so good that in the 8th grade, the only thing you can compare it to is all the things, moments, smells, tastes that have made you happy up to that point in your life.
Your first ever sip of lemony lemonade, ice cubes tinkling in the glass.
The feel crisp clean white lined pages of fresh notebooks and sharp pencils.
The smell of Coppertone sun tan lotion.
Perfectly picked peaches baked into a summer juicy cobbler with Cool Whip on top.
Realising you were riding your bicycle without training wheels.
Cold, squishy mud between your toes in the lake swimming in August.
That first French kiss with Bobby, every happy, good, right moment of my life was right there.
It’s the kind of moment that makes you believe anything is possible. That the world is full of things you haven’t done yet and places you haven’t been yet.
And I guess why I am writing about Bobby Ray is because someone kissed me the other night and it wasn’t The Man.
To be continued ….
Ms. Magnolia
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