Noreen, Part I

I never had a 'cootie' phase. Sure, I pretended to hate girls to save face now and again, but I had already worked it out: I had seen enough TV to know that older boys not only liked girls, they went insane coo-coo for them. Grown men too seemed to think that women were pretty neat as they were all married to one--at least the adult men I knew and observed. It wasn't rocket science, there was clearly no future to this cootie thing.

I mean, hello, THE WORLD MUST BE PEOPLED!

So I skipped the messy business of hating girls and went straight to even messier business of loving them.

I had my first crush in first grade. Becky Herschel (not her real name) stood before our class as the 'new girl'. I was instantly infatuated with her.

I know what your thinking: everyone digs the new girl, but check it out; six years later, my heart was still all a-flutter for Becky and I finally managed to ask if she'd “go with me” as we called it. She said yes and my friend, Oliver Mansfield stole her away a week later. I dried my tears and at someone's stupid suggestion (Oliver's no doubt), I 'went out' with her twin sister (no joke). I quickly learned that twins aren't always as nice and sweet as their sister. Especially when said twin realizes she's the back-up plan.

Yes, I idealized romance from and early age sure enough, made some painfully awkward pursuits and got my heart slammed in the door a few times for it, but that didn't keep me from getting completely swept off my feet on a regular basis.

It did, however, keep me from talking to very many of them.

In Junior High this was easy enough to overcome. It was the wonderful world of note passing. I handed one to Annette Turner (her real name) and managed to charm her on paper, and on paper she told me “yes”. Later that same day in a school assembly, after counting down from from ten about twenty times, I reached out and held her hand. I had finally found 'love' but like a dog with a Cadillac I had no idea what to do with a girl once I had caught one.

A week later, her last note to me was concise and effective: “Fuck off!” was all it said.

All my youthful crushes: the girl in third grade who insisted I put my arm around her during a movie in third grade, the “I'll show you mine if you show me yours” girl who then broke my heart by playing strip poker with Scott Hammond. The girl I saw smile in a crowd and promptly disappeared forever.

Jody Foster, Tatum O'Neal...

None of them could have prepared me for Noreen.

I was walking down a hall in college and she walked by. She was extremely pretty—she looked like a combination of Drew Barrymore and Meg Ryan—but that's a small part of the equation for me.

Again not a real big deal to me but I would be remiss in mentioning that she also had a great body. She didn't dress either to show it off or to hide it. There it was... or wasn't. It was no big deal to her.  

Above all she had, I don't know how to describe it, a certain... quality. There was something, an essence, beyond what I could see in just a girl walking by that I was attracted to like nothing I'd every experienced.

I knew, that I knew, that I knew... that I was complete toast.

I spent the next two months torturing my roommates: talking about Noreen and doing little else. Noreen, Noreen Noreen. Even her name (not really Noreen) was the most beautiful name I'd ever heard. When I wasn't glorifying her, I agonized aloud about how on Earth I was going to manage to talk this amazing woman.

Late one Friday night, I had been in the school's recording studio alone working on a project. The halls were empty and quiet when I made my way out. I heard someone playing a harmonica echoing in an unseen corridor.

Must be Ken, I thought. One of the other music majors had recently purchased a harmonica.

“Hey Ken. Man, you could use some lessons!”

The playing stopped but I heard no response. I few seconds later I heard the harp start up again.

No wise cracks; that ain't Ken.

I picked up my bass case and started down the hall. I rounded the corner to the exit. I was shocked and delighted beyond belief to see Noreen, my dream girl, sitting on one of the benches playing rudimentary attempts at a melody on a harmonica.

She stopped, blushed and laughed a little when she saw me. The obvious subject on the table was music, one of the few things I was confident in; no one else was around; she was smiling. She wasn't going to get much more approachable than this.

I put the bass down and found the courage to speak.

“You play the harp, how cool!”

“Not really, I just mess around.”

“Did you have a class?”

“No, I do a work/study, I'm a janitor.”

I talked to her for a few minutes and was on my way. I could feel the make-a-fool-of-yourself timer ticking down to zero. I quit while I was ahead.

I left on top of the world. How cool! Not only was she the cutest girl I'd ever seen, she was unique and awesome just like I sensed that she'd be. She didn't mind doing a little work apparently and she wasn't rich and spoiled.

Most of all, I was happy thatI had actually talked to her! I felt like I was on the other side of the mountain looking at a brand new view. It hadn't been one of those awkward conversations I usually had with girls either. In fact, she seemed to be pretty friendly. It almost felt like... flirting!

My poor roommates had to endure even more of my obsession after that, I probably never shut up. The next step, naturally, was to ask her out. I had a few more conversations with her here and there. After a couple weeks and a lot of egging-on from my roommates, I summoned the minerals to do the deed.

There was some sort of music event happening at school. I knew she loved music. I approached her and asked her if she wanted to go to it... “you know, with me.”

As I walked away from our conversation it was as if I had just come to.

What just happened?

I thought back.

She hadn't said no, but she didn't say yes. She wasn't busy and yet...

What the heck-N-blazes just happened?

Noreen had somehow just applied the full-Nelson of boy-girl relations: “the friend block” and she did it with uncommon mastery. Every person who has ever engaged the dreaded friend block must have felt a disturbance in the force at that moment, for their master had just created art.

She hadn't even use the word “friend”.

I didn't even know whether to feel defeated or not. I didn't have a date but she also left me with the distinctly vague impression that she was interested in me... somehow.

Had I been someone with a solid self-esteem at that point, I simply would have moved on. I was not that guy, not yet, and so I made that classic, nearly-irrecoverable blunder, I fell into the 'friend trap'.

Yay, we're friends! Just what I needed!

As I got to know her, she, at every turn, confirmed to me that she was completely awesome. She was a conservation major, which I thought was really cool. She was on the woodsman team in an event that involved throwing a double bladed ax at a target. Again, awesome and yet she was completely feminine. She was carefree and easy going. She had a way of looking great without putting much effort into it. She had a great sense of humor and an healthy appreciation for the absurd. She had, what a good friend and I would refer to for years as “that Noreen quality”. She became a litmus test for all other women.

I operated under the delusion that if I simply hung out and proved what a good friend I could be she would eventually figure out that she loved me... and then we'd start making out.

Then one day, just before Christmas break. I walked into the library and saw her sitting in the periodicals section. I approached to say hi, but as I rounded the corner I could see that she was talking to a guy I had seen around the conservation department. I had no sooner put on the brakes when he leaned forward and gave her a long kiss.

Ouch!

I felt something inside of me break, like in an action movie when someone lands on a sky light and cracks form and travel rapidly through the glass. I hadn't fallen through yet but it was just a matter of time.

How the hell did that happen? Wasn't it obvious that I liked her. I was first in line. That dude can't possibly feel the way I do about Noreen. Besides, I swear, thought he was gay.

Annette Turner's "fuck off" note had been devastating to my tender junior high heart but that seemed just a planet in the galaxy of hurt I felt when I saw that kiss.

I knew how stupid it was, how I had set myself up, but at the time there was nothing but pain and depression. It wasn't going away anytime soon.

My poor, poor roommates.

I became a bitter and angry person, often strung out on chocolate. Seriously, I carried the stuff with me all the time after that. I think I even told her I was taking it for 'medicinal purposes'. 

As I was leaving school one day, Noreen was starting her janitor shift. She said a friendly 'hello' and attempted to start one of our enjoyable conversations. I curtly told her I had to go wait for my ride and walked away. She told me later that she stomped around and cursing me for hours after that while she mopped and vacuumed.

Of course, being Mr. passive aggressive, I never told her why I was mad, I just went about the business of becoming an asshole.

Somehow, Noreen and I remained friends. I started to see as a friend and not the bull's eye of a romantic target. I gradually became less of a dick. Still, it was a friendship of semi insulting jokes and sarcasm, especially on my part. It was the only way I could handle it.

I couldn't see it at the time, but her dating 'numb nuts' was a weight off my shoulders. Now I didn't have spend my time wondering about the mixed signals I was getting. I had my answer, It hurt like hell, but I had it.

I was now free to go and fail with other women.

I remember one day I was leaving school and Noreen was out in front sitting on a bench. I lived with my roommates in a vacation home on the lake about three miles from campus.

“My friend Liz is going to pick me up in a minute, do you want a ride?” Noreen said.

“Nah, I'll walk.”

Little did I know it, but that decision changed everything... That and the fact that I was wearing red sweat pants that made an impression that I never would have suspected.

I have since learned much about the psychology of women and the psychology of Noreen in particular. Noreen was basically a cat. In fact the more I got to know Noreen, the better the cat analogy fit in every respect.

You could have a fistful of catnip but if you come at a cat with it, they will invariably back away. Yet if you take, say, a piece of moldy lettuce, tie it to a string, and pull it around a corner, they will come charging at it the moment it disappears.

My red sweats must have had a similar effect as I walked away, for it was it that moment that Noreen had the epiphany that maybe she'd like to sink her claws into them.

One Saturday afternoon soon after that, I heard a knock at the door of the A-frame my roommates and I lived in. I was stunned to see Noreen and a friend of hers standing there. They were seeking refuge from some sort of gathering of dead heads at a nearby cottage.

I had already seen our VHS copy of “The Breakfast Club” about twenty times, but it was one of three movies we had and the one every guest picked to watch. I spent my time sneaking looks at Noreen to see if she was in-fact really sitting on my couch.

I didn't know what it meant. Numbnuts, her boyfriend, had transferred to a different school but as far as I knew they were still together. Now that I was somewhat wise to Noreen's odd behavior when it came to men and me in particular, I noticed that I was having better luck doing nothing that I had done trying my best to win her heart

I continued doing nothing.

We had turned a corner, Noreen and I. Now we seemed to have a real friendship; we enjoyed each other, we laughed, we hung out. One in a while I got a feeling that maybe she had an interest in me that went beyond friendship, but I took it day-by-day and enjoyed what we had. Her boyfriend returned at one point and she told me she had broken up with him.

We were spending more and more time together.

I was at a band practice with one of my roommates in Avon, NY. The drummer's dad came out to the garage. There's some girl on the phone for Joel.

That... almost... never happens.

Noreen somehow got the number of where I was and called to ask if I wanted to join her for a while on a camping trip she was on with some friends above Seneca Lake. It was fifty miles away.

“She's tracking you down now?” my roommate said. “Never thought I'd see the day.”

When I arrived at the end of her extensive directions, it was already dark. She was waiting for me at a small parking lot at the trail head.

It was starting to rain.

We walked a ways down the trail to where her friends were camped. I wasn't exactly thrilled when I realized among those camping was Norris Hennings who was dating a friend of Noreen's. I was kind of afraid of Norris and it seemed I wasn't the only one. It was his last night of freedom before reporting to serve a two year jail sentence—for what I didn't want to know.

It would take more than felons and rain to kill the buzz I had from being with Noreen and knowing she wanted my company.

Noreen and I hung out by the campfire and talked even though the rain was falling steadily. Everyone else had retreated to a tent.

One of us had the insane idea to go look for more firewood. The other had the crazy idea of following. Thunder and lightning struck simultaneously.

Close!

I instinctively grabbed for her. I'm not sure if I was trying to protect her, hide or cop a feel. She instinctively turned away. I didn't think much of it, mixed signals were something I had grown used to with Noreen.

When we got back to the camp site the rain was falling too hard to for even us. We resorted to going into the tent with the others. It would have been awkward with good friends in that small tent not to mention drunk Norris Hennings and his juvenile delinquent girlfriend.

“Have a drink,” Norris said offering me a bottle.

“No thanks, I don't drink.” I said.

“That's cool, have some water melon.”

I took some.

Everyone but Noreen laughed when they saw the look on my face. The watermelon was soaked with Vodka.

I loved being around Noreen, but not like this. I couldn't even talk to her in a small tent crammed with five or six people. I also had to work early in the morning. I was hoping for some sort of breakthrough with Noreen but it looked like it wasn't going to be tonight.

When I said I had to go, Noreen surprised me by volunteering, nay, insisting that she accompany me to the trail head in what was now pouring rain.

Outside my car, the laughter of our nervous jokes died away and we stood there for a moment not knowing what to say. I felt like I was in junior high again.

“I feel like I'm in junior high,” I said kicking at the mud.

“Yeah, me too,” Noreen laughed.

“I really like you you know. I have for a long time, ever since I first saw you.”

“I really like you a lot too.”

The rain was falling on us like a couple of idiots. We both laughed and continued to shuffle our feet.

It felt like a movie.

If it had been a movie, this is where the big kiss would happen... or at least where we try to kiss and get interrupted by a pterodactyl or something.

There was no kiss or pterodactyl. We just held each other for a while and got rained on. Then, I got in my car and drove home; soaking wet and on top of the moon like I had never known. I had rarely won anything in life but I had just won Noreen Hummel's heart.

Back at her campsite Noreen sat by the fire in the rain for hours. Her perplexed drunken friends laughed at her and tried to get her to come inside. But like me, she was too happy to care.

Noreen, Part II, next week.