My earliest romantic memory dates to the first grade. The class had gathered on the loop pile carpeting to watch The Red Balloon on a spring roller projection screen that had been pulled down like a window blind in front of the chalkboard. The new girl, Kenadi, was sitting beside me. She had Windex blue eyes and bobbed hair the color of a copper Crayola crayon and I remember she was wearing a mini Mod dress that looked like television off-air color bars. Every now and then she would lean over and, cupping her little hands around my ear, tell me silly secrets in steamy whispers as we sat there in the flickering dimness. I loved the way she smelled: the trace breath of God, like immaculate conception, still on her skin.
THE GIRL WITH THE BUGALOOS LUNCHBOX
