Crush

(My friend, Laurie and I are meeting once a week to share our writing. We've been giving ourselves assignments. For this assignment, we're taking on the topic as presented in the Sun Magazine's Readers Write section. The topic is Crushes...this then is my first draft...we'll see where it goes.)

I'd had crushes before -- Carol Burnett, Barbara Stanwyck, Billie Jean King, Joan Baez -- but my first close proximity crush is someone I cannot name though everyone who knows me can name her.

She was older, as all really good crushes should be, and she was a she, which says a whole lot about me at a very young age. I was 14, to be exact, and she was my teacher. She was hired after the teacher she replaced was "demoted" for having an affair with one of her female students. There's a whole story in that scandal, but in the mid-1970s no one talked about the mess an affair between a female teacher and female student might cause. They just demoted the teacher and let the student graduate without stirring the mess any further.

So in stepped the "new teacher" and I immediately lost myself. She was strong, she was funny, she was beautiful, and she cared about all of us -- the gang of girls who were athletic outcasts, pre-Title IX tomboys who wore overalls and Converse sneakers while every other girl wore mini-skirts and platform shoes.

I'll admit it -- I was obsessed with this teacher. I got to school early just to help her set up for the day. I stayed late and played every sport that she coached. I even came to school on Saturdays when she organized basketball games and open gyms. But what I remember the most about my obsession was riding my bike behind her car after school trying desperately to keep up so I could find out where she lived.

Though I was a strong athlete, it was nearly impossible to maintain the pace I needed to catch up to her silver Toyota. So each day, I'd follow her as far as I could, then the next day, ride to the place where I'd lost her the day before and continue the chase. It took almost two weeks, but eventually, after pedaling up the largest hill in town and along the busiest street, I saw her pull into a wooded driveway and I knew, I'd achieved my goal.

Of course, my troubles only began. Now what? I remember thinking to myself. So I know where she lives. What good does it serve me? What I was really asking, though I had no idea until I was 19 years old was what am I doing and what does it say about me?

I pondered my next move for days. While I no longer saw the benefit of following her home, I switched to hanging around the busy street by her driveway every chance I got in hopes that, while driving in or out, she'd spot me, pull over, and carry on a conversation that might end up with her asking me to stop by for a visit. So, after school and on weekends, I hopped on my bike, rode to the street in front of her driveway and pedaled back and forth. I spent hours there just waiting for her to approach in her car, but to no avail.

Until one day, months after my pedaling vigil, she drove down the street headed to her driveway and she saw me. She approached slowly, waving and smiling from the driver's side. I thought I was going to bust open. My legs, now strong from all the bicycle riding, turned soft and weak, and I pulled to the side of her car only to realize someone else was in the passenger seat -- a woman I'd never seen before.

That was over 35 years ago. The woman in the passenger seat of the car is now married to my former teacher and they are both retired and living in Canada. We are and have been good friends for years. On my bookshelf sits a copy of A Rubyfruit Jungle, my graduation gift from my then teacher and now friend. We laugh about all the ironies of those days -- that the school had demoted a lesbian and unknowingly hired one to take her place; that those weekend open gyms were a way for her lesbian friends to get together and hang out for the weekends; that almost all of the students who attended those impromptu basketball games are now lesbians themselves, me included. We laugh about the Anita Bryant fears that lesbians were out "recruiting" young women when, unknowingly, that's exactly what was happening.

But we never talk about my crush. She had to know. I was so obvious and even to this day, the sound of her voice on the phone brings a twittering smile to my face. It's no longer a crush. That ended years ago. Now it's admiration and a kind of love that's born from someone who was both role model and friend. Someone who knew how to lead by example, but never cross the line of inappropriateness. She was my real life Barbara Stanwyck -- strong, beautiful, and tough -- someone who gave me confidence by simply being present in my day to day life. She was my daily Carol Burnett -- funny, lively, and inspiring. She was, and still is, my Billie Jean King -- true to herself and a champion to a generation of women.

I keep waiting for her to say something about my embarrassing behavior, but I doubt she ever will. In a sense, I'm still pedaling along the street of this truth waiting for her acknowledge my crush, but she is still too kind to point out my teenage flaws. And in the end, it makes me admire her all the more.