crushed

1. I had a crush on S., a woman I worked with. She had a boyfriend. One summer night I drove across the Bay Bridge, parked in her neighborhood, and strolled through the rose-scented night along her block. The building she lived in abutted the sidewalk, with a garage on the first floor, and the living room on the second. The lights were on in the living room, and the windows were open. Evidently she was having a party--I could identify the voices of some of her girlfriends from work, though I was too low to see anyone, and they of course couldn't see me down there in the dark. As I stopped to listen, they started to talk about me. One of her friends told S. that I was attracted to her, to which S. responded with a snort of derision.

2. I had a crush on J., a schoolmate of my two younger sisters in a little hippy-run 'alternative' junior high school. J. had long blond hair and a cute overbite. I was in public high school, and never had much of a chance to talk to J. Twenty years later, I was living in a small town about 350 miles from the city where I had grown up. One day in the supermarket I saw J. She was with her husband and six or seven kids, all of whom had blond hair and cute overbites.

3. In college, I worked part-time in the "children's room" of a science museum. During each shift, there were two workers, and the person who usually worked with me was a girl named L. I liked L., but wasn't physically attracted to her. She was, as I thought then, plumpish, and had acne. I think she had a crush on me, though. Ten years later, I attended a dance recital in which my youngest sister was performing. I wasn't very close to my youngest sister, and didn't know her friends. At the end of the show, my sister introduced me to her closest girlfriend, who had also been in the audience. It was, of course, L., who had turned into one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.