The Gods of Song and Poetry

Chapter 14 - Who Cares About The Toothpick?

"Hey! How was your weekend?" I asked Cindy as I dug my lunch out.

"Wonderful!" Something was up. She was smiling, blushing a little, and squirming in her seat. Cindy is the least 'silly' girl I know, so this was out of character. She smiled expectantly as she tucked her long, straight brown hair behind her ears.

"And...what made it wonderful?"

"Well, remember Kevin? The guy I met on my mission trip this summer?"

"Yeah," I said, drawing out the word.

"Well, he came up to visit us for Labor Day."

"Up from where?"

"Milwaukee. He goes to the Baptist College of Ministry in Menomonee Falls."

"Really? Hanging out with a college boy, huh?" l tried to sound impressed. "Go on."

"Don't make it sound like that! He's only two years older than I am."

"Oh. Yeah, two years is nothing."

"He said he wanted to see my family, but he spent the whole time talking to me." Cindy was beaming.

"Nice. So are we talking romance?"

"Well..." she paused. I think she was trying to draw out the suspense. "He's calling me his girlfriend now!"

"Wait, you spent one weekend talking, and now you're in a full blown relationship? Isn't that, I dunno, kind of fast?"

"Well, we spent two weeks getting to know each other on the mission trip, too," Cindy defended. "Plus," her look of scandalous gossip returned, "we kissed."

I was getting a kick out of this. We were both fairly innocent, but for different reasons. For Cindy, physical intimacy was a doorway to Hell. For me, there just wasn't much of an opportunity. Not that I saw Kelly as simply my first opportunity. Looking back at that night, I really did consider it a wonderful first kiss with a very nice, and very cute, girl.

"Cindy," I returned her scandalous look, "are we talking about your first kiss?"

"Yes," she admitted shyly.

"So, what's the next step? Send him some selfies in a skirt that shows ankle?"

"Stop it!" she laughed. "I'm not that bad. Besides, it seems I have you beat," she said with a teasing, friendly smugness. It was my turn to brag.

"Well..." I said, looking innocently at the ceiling. Cindy's face went from blushes and smiles to deadly serious.

"You kissed someone?" she said in a low voice. I nodded and tried to maintain a smile despite her reaction.

"A girl or a guy?" she interrogated.

"A girl," I said, shocked that she would even ask.

Cindy sat back in her chair and took a deep breath, not looking at me.

"What the Crunch, Cindy? You're acting like I just told you I have cancer."

"Analee...a girl? You haven't talked about liking girls for three years."

"There haven't been any girls to talk about. Did you think me liking girls would just...go away or something?"

"Well I thought if you still had...those thoughts, you would talk about them once in a while. I assumed you stopped having them."

"You didn't remind me you were straight every once in a while, was I supposed to assume you might have gone gay?"

"Don't be disgusting, Ani."