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Romance # 6

I fell in love the summer I graduated high school and became an adult. Our parents and teachers released my classmates and me at the football stadium; we wore white caps and gowns as a thousand blue balloons floated skyward and doves flew from a cage. For my eighteenth birthday, I got a job working in the Sears credit department in the basement of the mall. Andy was one of the people that showed me around and taught me what to do, and I thought he was cute. He was in college and I could tell he had been working there for a long time, and the supervisor liked him. We had laughs, talked about school, and he bought me a root beer. I'd never been on a date before, so I asked my friend Barbara if the root beer counted. She said no.

Two weeks after I started working there, it was time for my family vacation. I told my supervisor I needed the next week off and she told me that new people don't get a vacation. So I quit that very day and never got to talk to Andy. After I left, I forgot about the job but I couldn't stop thinking about him.

I told myself that I was in love with him, every day, until it was true. I dreamed of him until I could see his face without closing my eyes. I replayed the movie of our conversations in my mind until I knew every detail of him. Soon I realized something. He was perfect. I wondered if he might call. I knew a lot about him, but I don't think he knew very much about me. That was the problem, he never knew me, and I could fix that. If I could talk to him again, tell him fascinating stories about myself, he would love me back.

I drove around town for weeks, on the lookout everywhere I went for his red Toyota, the color of a heart on fire. I watched for his car while driving around on city streets. My head turned to check every red car I passed and I couldn't stop peering into parking lots of fast-food restaurants and gas stations. One day, I spotted his red coupe while cruising through the parking lot of his college. Another day, I saw it in the parking lot by the door that led to the basement office of the Sears credit department.

I kept a small calendar in my purse, the kind they give away for free at Hallmark. I made a small "s" in the square on each day that I saw his car parked at school and a small "w" when it was parked at work. After two weeks, I knew his work schedule. When I got another job, I made my days off the same as his. I sat in my car and watched him go into work in the afternoon and I came back again at closing

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