For JP, Who I Almost Forgot
The true story of a first kiss
At one a.m. my bedroom lit up like morning. It took me a moment to realize that it was because I’d left my phone facing the wrong direction. I groped for it with the intention of turning it over and going back to sleep, but my curiosity grabbed hold. What could be going on at this hour?
It was a message from a high school friend. “Not sure if you knew,” he wrote, “but JP passed a few days ago. Today was his burial.” Times being what they are, he signed off with the sad face emoji. Unsure of how to respond, I stared at my screen for a few moments. “Sending prayers up,” I finally typed. Sad face emoji.
The truth is that I hadn’t thought of JP in years, and I hadn’t seen him since just after my sixteenth birthday. Though we shared a handful of friends from when we were kids, I’d never seen him pop up on social media with a child on his shoulders or a woman in his arms. And so I’d forgotten all about him. This, on its own, tugged at me. There are lots of things worse than being forgotten, but not many things more sad than being forgotten.
I was twelve years old in 7th grade, and I was so, so homely. I was nearsighted, of course, and in 1978 cool glasses didn’t exist; only glasses that brought woe and despair to those who wore them. I also sported—for reasons that remain unclear—a short, misguided haircut. Still, the whiff of potential must have hovered about me because I was granted friendship access to the coolest group of fellow Filipino American kids at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School.
The girls had long, meticulously feathered hair and could already artfully apply their makeup (per my mother, I would not be allowed to do the same for another 3 years). They carried purses and smoked cigarettes and didn’t really ever do their homework. Every group needs its nerd sidekick; perhaps that was the logic behind bringing me on.
The boys, without exception, wore Dickies or Ben Davis work pants, often with an ironed white tee shirt (tucked), and 1) a Sir Jacket with their last name embroidered in gothic white lettering or 2) a Members Only. If wearing the latter, one side of the throat latch snap was left hanging down the middle of the back of the jacket. I don’t know why.
JP, for the record, had both the Sir Jacket and the Members Only.
Unlike the other boys he was more smiley, less snarly. He was handsome and a grade ahead of me and—because I had skipped a grade—two years older. I didn’t know what to make of his gentle attention because I didn’t know what could possibly have garnered it. I knew he wasn’t playing a joke, though; my gift for observation was already in overdrive, and I could see he was utterly without guile.
I’ve been trying for a few days now to recall anything—anything at all—that we said to each other during the many lunch periods we spent talking, but it’s like snatching at bubbles. I do know that I felt safe being myself, though. I didn’t have to downplay my interest in academics; sprinkle my speech with “hella,” “dang,” or “frickin”; or pretend to smoke.
It was nice.
I was surprised the first time he met me outside second period and walked me to third. And from third to lunch, and so on through the day. When he began carrying my books for me, as well, I finally understood: he liked me liked me. He was courtly, he was chivalrous.
JP, I now understand, was a 14-year-old gentleman.
He was also the only person in the group who knew I was a (quickly waning) member of the Daly City Crickets gymnastics team. He met me one day as I was walking to the community center for practice and, because I was early, we stopped and sat together, shivering in the Daly City fog, on a long concrete staircase. And that was where I—a four-eyed, short-haired, awkward 12-year-old—received my first kiss. It was quick and chaste, and we immediately popped up off the stairs and began to walk. He placed his arm around me, more to protect me from the cold than anything else, I think. Outside the gym he took off his Members Only and put it around my shoulders. He walked home in the cold, then, his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders scrunched up around his ears.
I think what was supposed to happen was this: I think I was supposed to wear his jacket to school the next day as a sort of visual representation of the new turn in our relationship.
What actually happened was this: I gave the jacket to one of my girlfriends and asked her to return it to him. Despite several attempts on his part, I never spoke to JP again. Not even when he approached me at the bowling alley where we habitually loitered and whispered, “Please? Please talk to me. Are you mad?” Not even then.
We went to separate high schools, but I saw him one more time. It was towards the end of my Junior year—his Senior year, then—and he arrived on our campus with a group of friends, many of whom knew members of my own large group. We mixed together easily, thirty kids or so, and quickly began signing each other’s yearbooks. JP’s eventually made its way around to me.
“You’re the nicest guy I’ve ever known,” I wrote. “I’m sorry.”
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Thanks for reading! My collection of short fiction, Benedicta Takes Wing, is forthcoming from Philippine American Literary House in October, 2017. Learn more here.
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