Betrayal!

His name was Marlon. In sixth grade, he had that most glamorous of descriptors: he was new. At that age, if you were new and didn't look like a troll, it was instant popularity. To add to this newness, he had an additional trifecta of Cute. One, he was shy. Sixth grade girls go wild for shy. This was the same shy that made me like George the best out of all the Beatles, before puberty set in and I was all about John's rebelliousness. Two, he had moved from Chicago. The big city of all our midwestern dreams. And three, he had (brace yourself) a red leather jacket like Michael Jackson wore in the "Beat It" video. Oh yessss. The zippers. He had all the zippers! Really, need I say more?

He was in the class across the hall from me. Honestly, he was way out of my league. Who was I to go after Marlon? But I did. I used the tried and true method of telling all of my friends, especially the big-mouth ones, that I liked him. This method is like putting a message in a bottle and sending it out to sea. You don't have to really do anything more than say what you want and hope that it comes back to you. Kind of like "The Secret" but less freakishly weird. It helps if you give this bottle to a bossy messenger who will transport it directly to its destination and knock your beloved over the noggin with it.

Soon, via messenger, Marlon was my boyfriend. My friends had told him that I liked him, and he had told them that he liked me, and, through a somewhat lengthy arbitration, we ended up agreeing to Go Together. Marlon and me. Going Together. And I hadn't ever needed to even talk to him. How easy was that?

Marlon and I had quite the relationship. We never spoke. Ever. We never wrote each other notes. We wouldn't even make eye contact. No matter. We were Going Together, a matched set, and the fact that he knew it, I knew it, and everyone else knew it was enough for all of us. Every once in a while, Marlon would come over to my lunch table and sit next to me and eat his sandwich. Silently. I would continue to talk to my friends, as if he wasn't there. It was a beautiful arrangement. We even attended the sixth grade dance at the same time, and there was never any expectation that we would dance together, because, yikes, that would mean we would have to touch each other. (As a side note, I have to say that Marlon was also a wicked breakdancer, and when he did The Worm in the middle of that dance, I fell even more deeply in sixth grade love with him).

In the spring, all the sixth-graders in our school got to go to this nature camp for a weekend. In our factory, cement-encrusted town, this was the school's way of making sure that we all understood that there were actual trees in the world. One weekend for trees, and a lake, and even a horse or two! To us, it was like friggin' Grizzly Adams. I was so excited. Until I found out, through the sixth-grade messenger service, that Marlon couldn't go. His parents didn't give their permission. My dreams of not-talking to Marlon for an entire weekend were shot. Damn.

I went to the nature camp weekend anyway, and had a great time. I sang camp songs, saw camp fires for the first time, and I played basketball on the little blacktop court, just to remind me of home. And when I got back, I looked for Marlon in the hall before school.

When Marlon saw me walking down the hall, he actually looked at me. Full in the face. Stared, in fact. His face was cold. My friends came running up to me. "Marlon wants to break up with you," they said, sad but excited by this new drama. They regaled me with a story about how Marlon had heard from Mike (another boy in my class) that Mike had managed to hold hands with me at nature camp. I was shocked. I hadn't held hands with anyone! Lies, all lies!

This was the point at which I actually marched up to Marlon, ready to defend my hand-holding virginity. But he wouldn't listen. He just walked away from me, every time I tried to explain. And just like that, it was over. Betrayed by Mike. Spurned by Marlon. Unjustly accused.

The next month, Marlon moved back to Chicago, taking all of his zippers with him. I never saw him again. I probably live on in his memory as a brazen hussy who spread her hand-holding promiscuity all over nature camp. That still kind of bugs me.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl