Her name was Rebecca Anne Courtney and I had lusted after her since the seventh grade, but while I might have told myself that I would kill to have her I knew in my heart that it would never happen. The simple truth of the matter was that Becky couldn’t stand me. Because of mutual friends she tolerated me, but I never knew why she didn’t like me.

At first I thought that it might be that she didn’t know me all that well so naturally I tried to rectify that. Whenever I saw her I would approach her and say hi, but even though she would acknowledge me she would turn away from me or just walk away.

Over the years of the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh grades I must have asked her out fifty times and she wouldn’t even give me the time of day. By the twelfth she was gong steady with Frank Devin so I couldn’t ask her out any more.

I never expected to see Becky again after graduation so I was surprised to see her at freshman indoctrination on the first day of school at State since I’d heard that she was going to some college back east somewhere.

By then I’d gotten Becky out of my system so I didn’t even bother to say hi when I saw her. The Fates or whatever Gods there be must love to fuck with me because they saw to it that Becky would always be around me. It turned out that we were both Business Management majors and as a result we were going to have many shared classes.

Did I still lust after Rebecca Anne? Of course I did, but I had learned from our past so I did my best to ignore her. It wasn’t easy and in some cases it was difficult as hell. It seemed like one out of every four college classes would end up having group projects and the instructors in those classes usually set up the groups by alphabet. Since Courtney and Connors where close it meant that we were thrown together a lot. Luckily for me when the group decided who did what for their part of the project I didn’t get teamed up with Becky. I’m not sure that I could have handled that.

One thing I did notice that when the groups were together working on the projects Becky always seemed to be looking at me whenever I glanced her way. I had no clue as to what was up with that.

I managed to get through freshman year without making a fool of myself and I looked forward to the summer break.

Have I mentioned that the Fates and Gods love to fuck with me? My family owns their own business and I have worked there part time ever since my thirteenth birthday. Summer is our busiest time of the year and dad always hires extra help for the season.

It was the week after classes were over and I had just gotten to work. Dad paged me to come to his office and when I got there I found Rebecca Anne Courtney sitting there. As soon as I was in the door he said:

“Good news and bad news Harry. The bad is that Charlie had a family emergency and had to fly home to Maine. He expects to be gone for a month or two. The good news is that instead of working for Charlie this summer you are going to be the temporary manager of Shipping and Receiving. Shouldn’t be a problem for you have worked there full time for two of the last three summers and part time since you were fourteen.”

He nodded toward Becky and said “I need to introduce you to Rebecca. I’ve hired her to take your spot while you play manager.”

“I already know Miss Courtney.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. Not at I already knew Becky, but at the Miss Courtney instead of Rebecca or Becky. He didn’t say anything about it then, but I knew he was going to want to know what the deal was before the day was over. All he said was:

“Take Rebecca and show her around the place; make sure she knows where everything is and then get to work.”

I spent twenty minutes showing Becky around the facility. I showed her where both of the women’s restrooms were, where the break room and vending machines were. I introduced her to Marla and Ashley in Purchasing, Janice in Accounting and Alice in Quality Control. I took her to Shipping and Receiving and introduced her to Tom and Jerry who were the others that worked in S&R. I explained what we did and what she would be doing. When I was done I asked:

“Do you have any questions?”

She did have one and it pretty much stunned me.

“Why don’t you like me?”

The question caught me flatfooted and it took me a couple of seconds to get around to answering it. I remembered something one of my English teachers once told me.

“When confused about something ask questions.”

“What makes you think I don’t lie you?”

“You know me and you know I prefer being called Becky so what is with his Miss Courtney shit? And when we are in shared classes you are cold and distant where I’m concerned.”

I took the coward’s way out.

“That is a personal matter Miss Courtney and has no pace here at work. Perhaps someday when we are off the clock we can discuss the matter, but for now we need to get busy on the Hamilton order. We need to have it ready when UPS gets here around one.”

The look she gave me told me that she was definitely going to follow through on it. Fortunately there was a lot to do and so I turned over to Jerry to show her the ropes. As Jerry led her away I wondered about what in the hell just happened. The girl had ignored me for the better part of six years and suddenly wants to know why I don’t like her? It made no sense to me. She did her best to discourage me for all those years and now she wants to know why I am ignoring her? I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and got to work.

Just after lunch I had to stop in at the purchasing office to talk with Ashley about when I could expect to see the banding material we needed. She told me it was supposed to arrive the next day and then she asked me how I had managed to get my girlfriend a job.

“She’s not my girlfriend and I didn’t even know she was working here until I got here this morning.”

“She’s not your girlfriend?”

“Hell no Ash; she doesn’t even like me.”

“Bullshit Harry. If she isn’t your girlfriend she wants to be.”

“Yeah! Right!”

“I could tell just by watching the way she looked at you Harry. She wants to be your girl.”

I laughed at that and got back to Shipping and Receiving.

The next two days went by with very little interaction between Becky and me. There is a diner just down the street from the plant and on the third day I was in there having lunch when Becky came in, saw me and then came over to my table and sat don opposite me.

“We aren’t at work now Harold and we are off the clock. So tell me why the Miss Courtney crap and why don’t you like me?”

“Let me turn it back on you. Why would you expect me to like you given the way you have behaved towards me since the seventh grade? Why would you expect me to like you after, the more often than not, rude way you responded whenever I asked you for a date? You mentioned cold and distant the other day? Think back on it Miss Courtney; was not cold and distant the way you behaved towards me all through school? Why, after the way you treated me from the day we first met would you expect me to be warm and friendly? I do not dislike you Miss Courtney, but due to past experiences I am indifferent where you are concerned.”

I could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t used to being talked to that way and she didn’t like it. But she had asked and I had answered. She gave me a look that I couldn’t decipher and got up and left without a word.

The rest of the week went by and while we were thrown together a lot we rarely spoke to each other. Most of the talking was done by me as I told her what I needed her to do or explained to her how to do it.

Saturday afternoon I went to the country club where my family had a membership so I could swim laps in the pool. Becky’s family also belonged and I’d seen her there several times over the years and as luck would have it she happened to be there that day.

She was with two of her girlfriends, both of whom I’d known in high school, and I did have to admit seeing the three of them in their bikinis had an effect on me. At one point I saw the three of them looking at me while Becky was saying something to them and they were smiling and nodding their heads in the affirmative so naturally I wondered what was being said. I’d never know unless I asked and that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen.

The club dining room had an excellent half pound ground round so I stopped in and ordered one. I was sitting at the table waiting on my order when Sarah Wilcox and Carol Perry came in, saw me and came over and sat down with me. No “May we join you” they just pulled out chairs and sat down. The two were the two I had seen talking to Becky out by the pool. Sarah led off with:

“What’s up Harry? How have you been?”

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen you” Carol said.

I knew right away that something was up. I’d known both since the third grade and while we had always been friendly towards each other they had never just walked up to me and said Hi. Add that to the fact they had been talking to Becky while looking at me and smiling and it all seemed to say “Danger Harry Conners, danger.”

I replied “Been busy with classes and now that summer is here dad has me working full time.”

“You and Pauline still a thing?”

“Haven’t heard from her since she went back east to go to school.”

“Doing anything tonight” Sarah asked.

“Nothing planned. Why?”

“There is a party I want to go to, but I need a date. If I go without a guy I’ll be hit on all night long.”

Again I heard the warning “Danger Harry, Danger.”

I’d never dated Sarah before. I’d asked her out a couple of times, but always got turned down and now here she was asking me? Yes indeed Harry, this is a setup of some sort. I didn’t have anything planned and curiosity had grabbed hold of me so I said:

“I think I’d like that.”

Sarah smiled at Carol and said “You snooze you lose.”

“What does that mean” I asked,

“Carol was going to ask you but I beat her to it.”

That’s when I knew for absolutely certain I was being setup. It wasn’t common knowledge, but I knew that Carol batted for the other team and no way was she going to ask a guy to be her date. We set a time for me to pick Sarah up and the girls got up and left just as my ground round arrived. As I sat there and ate I tried to figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

I picked Sarah up at seven and she told me the party was at Marlene Cantril’s place. Marlene was another girl I had known since grade school and we had dated a couple of times, but we hadn’t clicked. We’d stayed friends, but not really close friends and I hadn’t seen her in almost a year.

Marlene answered the door when we rang the bell and while she smiled and said “Nice to see you again Harry” I could tell she was quite surprised to see me with Sarah. She welcomed us and walked us through the house and out onto the patio. She pointed out the alcoholic and nonalcoholic punch bowls. She showed us where the beer keg was and the left to answer the doorbell.

We were not the first arrivals and we got our drinks. It was a large patio and all of the patio furniture had been moved out onto the grass so the patio could be used as a dance floor. Several couples were already dancing to the music provided by a portable CD player. Sarah and I set our drinks on one of the tables and joined the people on the dance floor and for the next thirty minutes or so we danced and mingled with the others at the party. We were dancing when I saw Becky come out of the house with Marlene. Becky saw us, said something to Marlene and then headed straight towards me and Sarah. She tapped Sarah on the shoulder and asked:

“Mind if I cut in?”

“Not at all” Sarah said and moved away. Becky took her place, smiled at me and said:

“Hi Harry.”

I think I surprised her when I said “Why?”

She frowned and said “Why what?”

“Why did you get Sarah to try to get me here tonight?”

The frown went away and her facial expression turned serious.

“I didn’t think we were THAT transparent. I needed to get you in a place where we could sit down and talk without any pressure on us and I very much doubted that if I’d asked you straight out you would have agreed to it. I thought if I ‘accidentally’ bumped into you in a social setting I could make it happen.”

“You certainly aroused my curiosity so let’s go sit down and you can have at it.”

“Let me get something to drink first.”

We left the floor and she led me over to the alcoholic punch bowl where she filled up a red Solo cup and then we went over and sat down on a couple of chairs that were out on the grass. Once seated she said:

“After our why don’t you like me talk the other day I started thinking back on our past history. I hadn’t thought on how you had taken my behavior at the time. The truth of the matter is that you scared me.”

“Me? Scaring you? Why in God’s name would you have thought that?”

“Just the way you were always looking at me, always being near whenever I looked around. What I was seeing was what I thought was the behavior of a stalker.”

“Me? A stalker?”

“Let me finish please. I don’t think you ever knew my sister Abby. She is six years older than me and she graduated before we ever started high school. She went off to State to get a degree in Information Technology. There was a guy there who kept asking her for a date and she didn’t like him and kept saying no to him. He did just what I saw you doing. Always looking at her and always being around her. In other words he was stalking her. One night at a party he grabbed her, pulled her into a room, locked the door and was in the process of tearing her clothes off of her. Some people heard her cries and kicked in the door and pulled him off of her. Later, when she told my parents what happened she described what had led up to the attack. That is what was in my mind when you came along.”

“If you would have let me I would have shown you I wasn’t that kind of guy.”

“I couldn’t. When you first asked me out I had a huge crush on Danny Freeman and I was trying to get him to notice me. If I had gone out with anyone else he would have seen it and stayed away from me so the first couple of times I said no to you it wasn’t because I didn’t like you. By the time I was over Danny I knew of what happened with Abby and I saw in your behavior exactly what she described as the behavior of her attacker.

“Looking back I can see that it was unfair to you, but in my defense I was a young inexperienced girl. When I stared going steady with Frank you stopped doing all the things that I thought of as stalking and I realized that I had been wrong about you. I thought about coming to you and apologizing for my behavior, but by then you were going steady with Pauline and I decided to just let it go. I was going to go back east to college and I never expected to see you again, but things didn’t work out and I ended up staying here for school. So here we are.”

“Well I’m happy to know that you no longer think I’m some weirdo and in light of your confession I can relax my stance and start calling you Becky instead of Miss Courtney. If you will excuse me I need to go find my date and see to it that she has a good time.”

I got up and left her there with a shocked expression on her face. I don’t know what she expected after telling me her story, but I doubt that indifference was on the list.

I found Sarah talking to Randy Combs and Rick Moore and I walked up to them. I received a “What are you doing here” look from Sarah and “Get lost” glances from Randy and Rick, but I ignored them and offered my arm to Sarah as I said:

“Our dance was interrupted. Let’s finish it.”

It was obvious she wasn’t interested in spending time with me. She did her job and got me to where Becky could get to me so her work was done right? I was supposed to be Becky’s problem now right? But she was my date and she couldn’t tell me to buzz off without causing a scene and she didn’t dare do that at Marlene’s party or she would be on Marlene’s shit list so she smiled at me and said:

“Let’s do it.”

“Who did you have set up to take you home tonight” I asked as we danced.

I could see that she was going to tell a lie, but then something in her face changed and she said “Randy.”

“Well I don’t want to ruin your evening so when we finish this dance I’ll take off.”

“Why are you going to take off? The plan was that you would be with Becky.”

“Six years of being cold, distant and dismissive are just supposed to vanish after a ten minute talk? We will probably get along a little better at work and maybe after classes start back up, but that is all that happened.”

The music stopped and I thanked her for the dance and started walking her back to where Randy was talking with Rick and Chuck Burns.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you back to Randy and then leaving.”

She grabbed my arm and stopped me saying “Oh no you don’t. The rules are you dance with who brung you and you leave with who brung you. You are stuck with me until you take me home.”

“This from the girl who had already set up Randy to take you home?”

“The thing with rules is that there are always exceptions.”

She pulled me back out onto the dance floor and when I had her in my arms and we were moving around the floor she asked:

“Why haven’t we ever gotten together Harry?”

“Only you can answer that Sarah. I asked you out enough times, but you always turned me down.”

“I must have had a good reason at the time, although I can’t remember what it might have been now. I’ll have to think back on it and see if I can narrow it down. My problem right now is that I think I would like to correct the mistake, but I know that Becky is trying hard to get you and she is my friend. I don’t want to lose her by poaching on what she wants.”

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why she would want to get me as you put it. She spent from the seventh grade until graduation giving me the cold shoulder. I just can’t see her doing a hundred and eighty turn all of a sudden.”

“All I know is that she pushed me to get you here and she said if things went the way she wanted she would be leaving with you.”

“And her interest in me piqued your curiosity and now you are interested?

“Guilty as charged.”

I laughed and said “Don’t sweat it sweetie, good old Harry is loving the attention.”

As we danced I saw Becky watching us and I couldn’t tell from her expression what she might be thinking. After a bit I saw that she had gotten out on the dance floor with Bill Croft, but I still saw her looking my way every time I glance her way.

Towards midnight the party began to peter out so I took Sarah by the hand and went to find Marlene and say our goodbyes. Once in the car I asked Sarah if she would like to stop somewhere for coffee or a bite to eat and she said yes so I drove over to the Village in on Sixth. Over coffee and pie I asked her if our hanging together for the evening was going to hurt her relationship with Randy and she said no.

“We date occasionally, but there is nothing going on between us. We are pretty much each other’s fallback position whenever we need a date for something.”

“How is it going to affect your relationship with Becky?”

“It shouldn’t. I don’t know why it would. You were my date and she can’t be pissed at me because you didn’t go along with her program.”

“That’s tonight, but what about you going out with me after tonight?”

“Am I going to do that?”

“I don’t know, but I’m asking. Would you like to go to the VFW dance with me Friday?”

She was silent for several seconds as the ramifications of a yes rolled around in her head and then she said yes.

Sunday after church I worked in the house and yard doing some chores that mom wanted done. About four I was pulling weeds out of the front yard flower beds when my mom yelled at me that I had a phone call. It was Sarah.

“I have to cancel on our date for Friday. I just got off the phone with Becky. She wasn’t all that upset that last night didn’t go as planned, but she got positively pissed when I told her about Friday. I don’t want to lose one of my best friends over something that probably go anywhere,”

“I understand sweetie; maybe some other time.”

As I hung up the phone I couldn’t help but wonder about Becky and her actions. Why after years of snubbing me was she pushing? I could accept her reasons as she laid them out at Marlene’s party for her behavior in the past, but why the aggressive behavior now? It just did not make any sense to me. As I went through the rest of the day thoughts of Becky and her current behavior would come into my mind, bounce around for a bit, leave and then return later.

She was a girl used to having guys flock to her and I wasn’t so she had to pull me into her adoring crowd? She saw me as a challenge? She suddenly realized how charming and irresistible I was? Yeah, right, as if!

Monday morning I was sitting at the desk in S&R when Becky came in. I looked up from what I was doing and smiled as I said:

“Good morning Becky. Have a nice weekend?”

Since that was one hundred and eighty degrees from the way things had been it took her by surprise, but she made a quick recovery.

“It was okay. It didn’t go the way I wanted, but it was okay.”

Things were busy that day and while Becky and I were always around each other our only conversations were about business matters. Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much the same. Things took a turn about an hour after lunch break on Thursday. It was a slow day and I was sitting at the desk going through some shippers. Becky was sitting at the side table entering billing information into the computer when suddenly she spun around to face me and asked:

“Are you doing anything tomorrow night?”

That caught me by surprise and I looked at her with what was probably a WTF look on my face and answered “I beg your pardon?”

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I want to go to the VFW dance and I need a date. Since it looks like you are never going to ask me out I’m asking you.”

I wasn’t surprised by that. I was stunned! I didn’t know why. I probably shouldn’t have been considering the way she had behaved over the last week or so, but it still stunned me. I sat there looking at her with my mouth hanging open as my mind tried to process things.

“It isn’t all that difficult a question Harry. There are two one word answers to choose from? Yes or no.”

I finally shook the fog out of my head.

“I don’t think that it would be a good idea given our work relationship and all.”

“Oh get off it Harry. In a little over a month we will be out of here and back to school. Besides, our supervisor-subordinate doesn’t mean beans. You can’t show me any favoritism because you don’t have the authority to promote me or give me raises. I’m part time summer help Harry. So what’s it to be Harry? Yes or no?”

I have already mentioned that I’ve always had the hots for Becky right? I’ll grant that by the time I’d started college I’d already accepted that she was unobtainable, but here she was making the first move. As I sat there and looked at her there was a small war going on in my mind. On the one side the voice was saying “This is too good to be true Harry so it probably isn’t.” The other voice was saying “Go for it Harry; it is what you always wanted.” The first voice came back with “This won’t end well Harry.” The second voice said “She’s a lovely young lady Harry and she obviously wants to get to know you better. Come on Harry; what have you got to lose?”

Some other guy may have been able to look back on those years of longing and say “Fuck no!” I couldn’t do it.

“Yes.”

“Yes what Harry?”

“Yes I would like to take you to the VFW dance on Friday.”

When I picked Becky p on Friday I was reminded of why I had been hung up on her since the seventh grade. She was absolutely stunning in her little black dress and heels. I got a great shot of her sexy legs when I helped her into the truck and my pants were ready to burst by the time I got over to my side and got in. Once away from the curb Becky said:

“Still trying to get a handle on why?”

“It has crossed my mind a time or two.”

“It is pretty simple really. I want to find out what I missed by being such a bitch to you at school.”

“The truth is that you didn’t miss much. I was so ga-ga over you at the time I wasn’t thinking straight when you were around. I probably would have done something so incredibly stupid that you would have laughed at me and put me down. That would have hurt more than the indifference.”

“You were ga-ga over me? Past tense? Does that mean I’ve lost a step or two over the years?”

“The fact that you have managed to get us both in this truck together should answer that one for you.”

I had a great time at the dance. There were several people there that we knew including Sarah and Randy and we pushed a couple of tables together. Becky and I seemed to fit and we moved well together on the dance floor. At one time during a slow number she was in close and had her head on my shoulder and I was cursing the Gods for keeping it from happening sooner.

I did dance a few times with Sarah and a couple of other girls that I knew. During a waltz Sarah said:

“It looks like I missed my chance.”

I laughed at that. You had chances galore girl, but every time I asked you for a date you turned me down.”

“Yes I did because every time you asked me I was seeing someone else. You should have kept asking and sooner or later you would have caught me when I wasn’t with someone.”

“Damn! If I had only known.”

“It isn’t too late. If things don’t work out with Beck and you can always give me a call.”

“Yep. And be told sorry but I’m seeing someone right now.”

“If I am I’ll cut him loose rather than miss my chance with you.”

I was thinking “What the hell is with these girls all of a sudden. All of a sudden I’m the flavor of the month?”

“I know just what you are thinking Harry.”

“You couldn’t possibly.”

“Want to bet? You are wondering why, all of a sudden, girls are asking you out or are letting you know they are interested in you. Am I right?”

“Pretty much.”

“A couple of reasons Harry. One is that girls talk and Paulie gave you extremely high marks so now that she is gone others want to see what it is that she thought was so great. The other is simple human nature. Someone else wants it so naturally you do too.”

The song ended and Sarah pulled me towards our table before I could say anything to that. Her words came back to me a half hour later as I was dancing with Nancy Wilde.

“You seeing anyone now that Pauline is gone?”

“I’ve dated some, but I’m not seeing anyone in particular.”

“I know what it is like. Since Rory got that full ride at Florida State I’ve been at loose ends too.”

I’m not dense and I knew I’d just been given and invitation to call her. I was starting to wonder if Sarah wasn’t right on the money. I’d gone to the bathroom and on the way back to the table I was stopped by Rita Duhman.

“How have you been Harry? Haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

“Around Rita. Mostly working and going to school.”

“Pretty much the same for me. Rumor has it that you haven’t hooked up with anyone since Paulie left. You’ve got my number. Give me a call. Got to go” and she hurried into the women’s restroom.

My eyes followed her to the door and I was thinking about what Sarah had said. Gail was my first and for a while there I thought I had a great thing going. Until she told me that Eddie Catron had asked her for a date and she was going to go out with him. I was young and a bit stupid. She was fucking me and that meant we were forever right? I soon got over it and went the “She wants to date other guys? Well fuck her! I’ll show her! I’ll date other girls” route. So I did. I dated three or four others and tried to get in their pants with no success until I hooked up with Helen Geneva. We made ‘the beast with two backs’ until she pulled the same shit on me that Gail had.

Next was Pauline, but by the time I hooked up with her I’d come to realize that fucking didn’t mean you were forever. I knew Pauline and I wouldn’t last because I knew she was going to go back east for college and didn’t plan on coming home except for summer break and the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Then something happened that made me wonder if I wasn’t indeed dense. I’d just gotten back to my seat after walking Nancy back to hers. I sat down, picked up my drink (iced tea – I was driving) took a sip and as I was setting my glass down on the table Becky said:

“Am I going to have to fight to get out of here with you tonight?”

Not having a clue as to what she was talking about I just looked at her with a “What the hell are you babbling about” look on my face.