Last summer I wrote the first 17 chapters of my blog. A couple of those chapters dealt with Bethani, my first serious girlfriend. Since I’m plumbing the depths of my memory and I’m doing the writing, the stories are told from my perspective.

But over the winter, going through some notes and letters I’d saved but forgotten, I found a note from Bethani that sheds some light on our teenage romance from her perspective.

So throughout this chapter of the blog, I am going to go back and forth between Bethani and me, with what Bethani wrote in bold. As far as the audio goes, I don’t have a lot of range and I certainly can’t recreate the sound of a 16-year-old girl. But I will try to read her part with the energy with which she wrote it.

Look Creep,

Shut up and read this because I’m sick of talking to you while you act like such a cool head. I’m going to scribble until I’m blue and you’re going to read, no questions asked.

The note is from November, 1967. Definitely not a love note. Bethani and I had been dating for six months at the time. I’m 16. So is Bethani but she has the maturity and focus of a grad student.

OK, so you decided not to go with me and to hack with the guys. Groovy. That’s great because I need time to do other things, too. Besides, theoretically we can still feel the same, maybe more, if we see less and enjoy more. It’s a good idea and I like it. BUT, it’s produced a bunch of problems that have got to be solved, no matter how long you try to avoid the issue with phone calls to your friends and football meetings.

We’re going to solve it now.

It was just three months after my brother died. I had blocked out most of the pain of his death and his absence by focusing on my social life. I had a job, my own car, I was on the football team and I had a pretty girl friend who was also the smartest kid in the school.

At 16, I didn’t have any experience expressing romantic feelings. Up until then, I’d hung out with the guys. Together we played football and baseball and rode bikes. We went to downtown Hartford on Saturday mornings to buy records and then rode the bus home to listen to them.

With our new music providing the soundtrack, we discussed the merits of the bands, baseball and the girls in our classes. Feelings were not something we expressed toward one another unless it was to laugh at a sarcastic putdown or take a swing at someone when that putdown struck a little too close to home.

You’ve changed a lot. You used to act appreciative of the fact that you even had me, but now you’ve got this stinky idea in your head that it’s prep to act like you could care less. Well, the one reason you are so sure that I dig your bod is because I let you know it. Why shouldn’t I? It would be pretty sad if I couldn’t. But you do the exact opposite.

We had started dating in May, just as the school year was ending. During the summer, we had full-time jobs at businesses a block apart in the Center, the hub of our sleepy suburb. Any free time we had, we spent together. We went to a lot of movies, to dances at the high school auditorium and to the beach on days off. For the most part, we were in our own little world.

But then school began again and our social sphere got bigger and more complicated.

This “I could give a damn” attitude is driving me up a wall and I’m not going to tolerate it much longer. I admit I was wrong by accusing you of trying to impress your friends. I only wish you could be as considerate to my face as you say you are behind my back.

She hadn’t been wrong. I had been trying to impress my friends. Car, job, sports, girlfriend. I figured I had it all. The problem was, I had begun to take the girlfriend for granted. But Bethani refused to be lumped in with the inanimate passions of my life. She wanted at least equal attention.

When we were in study hall, I didn’t study. I just stared at her.

“Stop staring at me,” she’d whisper.

“I can’t,” I said.

I know you still care, whether you choose to show it or not. But don’t you see that care and consideration are one in the same? You act like you don’t like me to my face … “Maybe I’ll see you this weekend, if you’re lucky.” Or “Maybe I’ll take you here or there…”

After football practice, I’d wait for her in my car outside the library and then drive her home. She spent more time in the library after school than I did at practice and she got much better results. And I’d call her almost every night at 9 and we’d talk for about ten minutes.

I was thrilled to be with Bethani, but being in a relationship was new and it was hard work. Hanging with my friends, something I’d done for years, was fun and natural.

My friends had encouraged me, or rather dared me, to go out with Bethani. But, then they were resentful of the time I spent with her. I didn’t want the guys to think I had abandoned them for a girl. So I tried to balance my social life … by acting like none of it really mattered. 

You must care a lot! (sarcasm, Creep). Judging by the way you talk, you could give a hot damn. I realize you’re trying to be cool and funny, but you make no effort to show that you actually do care.

When she had confronted me about this in person a few weeks before, I knew she was right. But this was my first relationship. I didn’t know how to react. So I lied. I acted deeply wounded that she would accuse me of such a thing.

I consider you first, whether my plans include you or not. And you jolly-well had better do the same or I’m going to have to leave you, that’s all.

I’d miss you like hell and I don’t want to, but I am not a piece of dust that you can brush around and I’ve got too much pride to take this garbage you call “caring deeply” any longer.

Friday nights were nights to hang out with the guys. Saturday nights were usually date nights and often movie nights. It sometimes became routine, but every once in awhile, a must-see movie was released that elevated the movie date into an event. The Graduate, with its Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, was an event.

Bethani and I had plans to go together on a Saturday night. However, on the Friday night before, my best friend Bob, insisted we go see it rather doing our usual thing, watching the Friday Night fights on TV, especially if Mohammed Ali was fighting or shooting hoops in his driveway.  

I told Bob no. Even though I couldn’t wait to see the movie. Still, it was like tempting a kid with the chance to see his presents before Christmas Day. I protested a while, but Bob was able to wear me down in about 10 minutes. “She’ll never know,” he lied, not even convincingly.  I told myself that it didn’t really matter if I saw it first with Bob and then with her.

I kept repeating that thought as if I was seeking absolution by repeating “Hail Marys” ahead of time before committing an egregious sin.

I understand that you have a great time with the boys and want to spend a lot of time with them. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a good time and that I’m off the list completely. Quite the contrary. You ought to appreciate a little more the value of someone’s affections which far surpass those of any campaneros tuyos.

At 16, Bethani could express indignation in two languages.

I went to the movie the next night with Bethani. But as we settled into our seats, I let it slip I had seen it the night before. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep that a secret. She didn’t take the news well. It was as if I had cheated on her. Her lips were pursed into a thin line of anger throughout the movie. And they were still pursed later, in the darkened auxillary parking lot at Fern Park.

Where we talked. Or, she talked and I listened.

So before you trample something you can’t replace into the mud, you ought to realize what you’ve got as far as a girl goes and realize you won’t have her if you don’t show a little carino.

Don’t get sarcastic and say, “What do you want me to do, fall all over you when I see you?” Not at all. But my concern for you is an accumulation of 6 months that have meant more to me than you can imagine. Not everyone can care about you that way, so think before you get too sure of yourself, buddy.

On Sunday afternoons, we’d hold hands and slowly walk through the expanse of deeply green grass of Fern Park, looking for a secluded spot to spread a blanket. Or we’d pretend we were in our own mansion in a grove of towering pines at The Resevoir. Sundays were my only days off and the only time she would take off. Partly, I think, because the library was closed.

Stop acting like such a hot rooster and look at things the way they really are. Act like “Alsa” – a person with feelings instead of “cool.” That’s what I found in you that I liked so much. You weren’t just another guy trying to put down a girl if she really cared. You were able to feel and appreciate the good things that come from a close relationship … from life.

The weather on those fall, New England afternoons set the mood. The sun was still powerful enough to shine through the trees and warm the air. As it started to set, and the day and our time together started to fade, the air turned chilly. The color of the light and the leaves began to change. I remember wanting hold on to the last few moments of those days. To freeze them. To not to let time take another step. To not have Sunday turn into Monday.

You weren’t just a shallow “guy.” You were too good for them. Yes, I’ve cried my eyes out lately, but not because I was losing my little “Alsa.” It’s because it’s a heart break to see all the virtues that made you so wonderful and everything we had so wonderful deteriorating beneath your “cool.”

We had a soundtrack.

Groovin’ by the Young Rascals. Sunday Will Never be the Same by Spanky and Our Gang.  I Think We’re Alone Now by Tommy James and The Shondells.

Every time we were together and we heard one of them, we’d reach for each other’s hand.

It’s what this attitude does to you, more than me that has me so upset. Please cut it out right now and I’ll know I didn’t blow half a year on a fake. That would break my heart – to find out that you were a fake.

If that were the case, I’d be glad to leave you … sad to have once again found out that I’ve got to look again and find the guy who can love life, love people, hate people, yet be considerate of loves and hates all at once.

When I said we were perfect for each other, I meant that I had found in you the person that didn’t try to impress the world; that was honest with himself and everyone else. Was I wrong?

            X          X          X          X          X          X          X          X          X          X

I hope to God this is the last time I have to ask.

If we’d been living in a Disney princess fairy tale, it would have been the last time she had to ask and we’d have ridden off into the sunset, been married for 80 years and died an hour apart in our matching wheelchairs while holding hands.

My mind would sometimes race ahead and I’d feel trapped, even by the best version of that future.

Bethani’s note offered an important relationship lesson. Don’t take your partner for granted. It’s a lesson I have had to relearn several times over the years.  

Her note did get me to focus on our relationship, though only briefly. We stayed together for another month or so, but we were teenagers, living unscripted lives. I was a bit too immature at that point to be the boyfriend she wanted. So we broke up shortly after New Year’s Eve.

Until the ski trip.

You can find that story on the blog in Chapter 15: Cold and Calculated.

Next week, we’re moving forward to Chapter 21: Checking Out More Than Books