Delayed Response

Frank Schmidt was the first boy who ever loved me. We were in third grade and I was clueless. It all started when he dropped a note for my friend Becca that read, “Will you be my sweatheart?” Becca couldn’t get past his sweat. He and I ended up in the same advanced reading group that year. Back in those days you knew which reading group you were in. Mrs. S. went group by group to help us choose group names for the year. This took place in front of the entire class. Each group member was encouraged to suggest a name for their group. Being a girlie girl at the time I suggested “The Little Puppies”. Everyone in the entire room laughed at me. Everyone except Frank. We all voted secret ballot style. When the votes were tallied “The Little Puppies” had received one vote. It wasn’t mine. It was Frank’s. Apparently Frank was into me. But I, as mentioned, I was clueless.

Our front doorbell rang one evening during Christmas vacation. When I opened the door, Frank and his mother were standing there. Frank held a beautifully wrapped box. My mom came into the hall from the family room where she had been watching a movie. I was confused. Why was Frank holding a present? He handed it to me. I took it and looked up, still confused. “Open it,” he said. My mother and his stayed silent. His in an encouraging way, mine in what looked like a condescending manner. I pulled the ribbon and started to unwrap the paper. Inside was a box from the kind of toy one wouldn’t usually buy (at that time anyway) for a third-grade girl. “Ignore the box,” Frank said. I opened it up and reached inside and pulled out a small stuffed dog. It was adorable. I smiled. Frank looked as if he were expecting more. I wasn’t sure what was happening. My mother stayed awkwardly and superiorly silent. I looked up at Frank with a confused but friendly expression. His mother said, “Merry Christmas. We better be going,” and guided Frank out the door. My mother said nothing and went back to her movie. I had no idea what had just happened.

Years later, before we moved on to junior high and after I had started the elementary school version of dating bad boy Kurt Girardi, Frank moved away because his mother, a widow, married Dale, the blind piano tuner who lived on the next street over from me. Dale was Mormon so they moved to Utah. Frank’s family came back to the neighborhood to visit during the summer after sixth grade. I saw him at the ice cream truck one warm soft night. He had always been smart, sweet, and cute but had morphed into a stone cold fox. I sighed and went back to pining over Johnny Yemens.

Fast forward 57 years from that long ago Christmas to last week when I was in the shower washing my hair and an epiphany fell on my head along with the shower spray as I remembered Frank’s gift. “Oh my god, it was a ‘little puppy’!”

Cinse Bonino
2023