On our first night in the new house in Quartermaster, I played out the next day at the bus stop in my mind. We’d moved across the street from the unrequited love of my life, John B., and I delusionally believed that bus stop would be the thing that would finally bring us together.
By the time we moved to the Quartermaster House, I’d loved John B. for over two years, which is an eternity when you’re ten, especially if you’ve only been looking for love since you were five. I believed fate had brought John B. to my class in third grade, the same year that the principal had tried to get me to skip, the same year that I’d lost most of my daytime hours with my best friend Crystal to another classroom.
In the nearly three years before we became neighbors in Quartermaster, I had tried everything I could think of to convince John B. to love me back. In third grade, during the first year of my crush, Crystal and I had rallied other little girls to help.
“Okay people! Today’s the day John B. is gonna realize he loves me!!” I’d shout as girls started congregating near the hopscotch area at the beginning of recess.
“Listen up everybody we need your attention because this is gonna be good and you’re gonna wanna be a part of it!” Crystal would yell excitedly. “Now we’re gonna take over the soccer field and write Krisa plus John B. equals love, so start grabbing some sticks ladies.”
“And it’s gotta be big enough so an airplane can see it!” I said at least ten times that year, my voice high pitched and squeaking with the excitement, convinced that the next time we messed up the boys’ recess game to write my gargantuan love note, it might get on the news and make me famous, and then John B. would love me back of course.
That year we had what was called the Third Grade Program, a tradition during our final year at Burton Elementary School, an epic multi-hour musical and dance performance which I absolutely dreaded. I refused to volunteer for any dances, and I even gave up the chance to be a cheerleader in "Fifty Nifty," although somewhat accidentally. All of the girls wanted to be in Fifty Nifty, and of course Crystal was one of the first girls who got a spot. One day while I was whispering and giggling during a rehearsal, I was stunned into silence when one of the teachers looked straight at me and asked, “Krisa, would you like to be a cheerleader in Fifty Nifty?”
Willow, one of my classmates who had kind of taken Crystal’s place during classroom hours nudged me with her elbow and said, “Tell her only if I can do it too! Tell her only if I can do it too!”
“Um, I only want to do it if Willow can do it too,” I said, hesitantly, looking at Crystal and wanting to be up there in the center of the classroom by her side.
“Well, we only have one spot left,” the teacher said, smiling sweetly. “Would you like it, Krisa?”
“Tell her not unless I can do it too!” Willow said again, clutching onto my arm and scowling at me threateningly.
“Well, like I said, I only want to do it if Willow can do it too.”
“Are you sure, Krisa?” the teacher asked again.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “No thanks.”
Then Willow started jumping up and down, yelling, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”
And can you believe that teacher gave her the part? Off Willow strutted right up to my spot, right next to Crystal. I was horrified! As I watched her batting her eyelashes at Crystal, I laughed despite my clenched fists that were punching Willow in the face in my mind. Willow was blonde and not even half as cute as Crystal, and she was making a fool of herself looking desperate. I knew Crystal would never fall for that crap.
After losing my chance at a spot in Fifty Nifty, which I never for a second believed I was cute or coordinated enough for anyway, I knew I was going to be forced into at least two more dances. I was already stuck doing the hula, and I refused to do any small group or solo songs. As the remaining options dwindled, I was pretty scared of getting stuck doing something really embarrassing, like prancing around with a top hat and a cane. So when Mrs. Frohning said that “Can’t Smile Without You,” a couples dance, was going to be girls’ choice, I immediately jumped up on my chair and shot my hand in the air.
“Well, Krisa,” Mrs. Frohning laughed, “you aren’t usually this enthusiastic to volunteer.”
“I want to dance in Can’t Smile Without You with John B!” I said, triumphantly looking down at him as he shook his head like, “Oh God No!” and laid it down on his folded arms on his desk.
During the performance, for which John B. and I had spent many glorious hours practicing hand in hand, I decided it was time to make a big move. My giant soccer field signs hadn’t worked and the school year was ending in a few days, so I knew it might be my last shot until fourth grade when we would start all over again as the underdogs at the upper elementary school, Vashon Elementary. So I started pushing John B. towards the piano, taking larger steps than I was supposed to, using all of my strength to push him backwards.
“What the heck are you doing?” he whispered, his eyebrows shooting upward in alarm, his little muscles working hard against me to keep us in position.
Right then I leaned in and started kissing his face. He dodged left and right as I landed my lips on his cheek, his nose, and I think at least once on his lips. I had set my hopes on him staying within my grasp throughout the assault since all of the parents and teachers were in the audience, supposedly enjoying the show, and I figured John wouldn’t want to disappoint his mom by running away mid-dance.
The memory of those kisses filled my journal throughout the summer, and in fourth grade I moved on to a new strategy. I started giving John B. my snacks and lunch money in an attempt to bribe him to love me back. After convincing my mom that I loved school lunch now, I’d usually hand over my Fruit by the Foot that was meant to be for snack time, as well as my two dollars and change that was supposed to buy me a Sloppy Joe or a Taco Salad or whatever was on the menu that day.
By the time we moved across the street from John B. in fifth grade, I was really feeling desperate. That was the year he had started calling me Dog, and that was the year I paid my newest classroom best friend, Noella, four dollars for each picture of John B. she’d take with her new camera. After over a year of near starvation at school, all I had to show for it was two pictures of the back of John B.’s head, three blurry ones of him running or playing soccer, and one of the side of his face that I kissed every night before putting it under my pillow.
John B. didn’t believe me when I ran up to him while he was playing tetherball at recess and told him I was going to be his neighbor. He laughed nervously, but insisted it was just another one of my tricks. Then one day there I was at the bus stop, standing by the six foot tall grey monument on the tiny grass island in the middle of the three way intersection, smirking at him and doing a little dance as he walked down the hill from his giant blue house towards me.
“Told you!” I said triumphantly, as he shook his head just like he had when I'd jumped up on my chair back in third grade and begged Mrs. Frohning to let me dance with him. As one day followed another, I started going to the bus stop earlier and earlier, usually walking up the hill to leave love notes or flowers I’d picked that morning in his mail box. Although I was usually shy about singing, I’d start belting out Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do, I do it for you!” at the top of my lungs when I saw him pop out of the end of his driveway and start making his way down the hill. The poor guy had probably thought he was rid of me when my family had disappeared for three weeks earlier that school year, but I was back baby, and I was on him in full force.
“Do you think maybe you could cool it a bit with John B.?” my mom asked one afternoon when I opened the front door into the Quartermaster House kitchen. “It’s embarrassing when I see his mom at the grocery store and I know that she’s looking at me like my kid is harassing her kid.”
I rolled my eyes and went straight to my room to type out my journal on my Apple computer, the kind that still had green text on a black screen, including a rant about the absurdity of her request. Who the heck was my mom to talk about being embarrassed? When I was in fourth grade she’d purposely slammed her Subaru into her boyfriend Jim’s Suburban in the Thriftway parking lot uptown in the middle of the day with me in the car. I’d noticed the mom of a girl in my class staring when Jim walked out of the store laughing, his huge rig basically unscathed.