Running Barefoot (22 page)

My piano playing ability made band a nobrainer, and I was first chair trumpet player in the high school band. We didn’t have orchestra at the school, so when I joined the band in seventh grade, I’d wanted to learn play a more classical instrument, like the clarinet, until Tara told me that trumpet players made the best kissers. I figured someone as awkward as I was needed all the help I could get, and I’d played the trumpet ever since. Tara played the flute, quite badly, but the competition wasn’t fierce in a small school, and she managed to keep
her chair. She might have played better had she just stopped talking! The huge pink bubble she was always blowing didn’t help much either. Mr. Hackett, our band teacher, had forbidden gum in band, but Tara was constantly cleaning cherry Hubba Bubba out of her mouthpiece.

Tara had been telling me all about “that cute Kasey Judd” all summer long. She’d said his dad had had all the boys in the weight room getting them ready for football season. Tara had been up at the football field during several practices with binoculars to check out their new muscles.

We started band practice two weeks before school started to get ready for the upcoming football season. Practice was ridiculously early because it was “Hell Week” for the football team, which meant two-a-days. The band practiced early to allow members of the football team, who were also members of the band, to make it to morning football practice. At a small school it isn’t unusual for a jock to be in the band or sing in the chorus, or to be in the school play. In my opinion, that is the best thing about going to a small school; less competition sometimes means more opportunity.

So I dragged in to that first practice with my curly blonde hair in a sloppy ponytail, wearing an old pair of cut-off jeans, a ratty Survivor t-shirt, and flip flops, only to discover my chair was occupied. I sighed. When would Kasey Judd ever learn? I looked, and then I stared. Kasey Judd had grown up. His shoulders were broad, his legs long and
stretched out in front of him. No more glasses, no more braces. His hair was curly, like my own, but where mine was a light wheat blonde just like my dad’s (and his dad’s, and his dad’s), Kasey’s was dark brown and was now cut short to tame the once unruly mop.

I sat down next to him and shyly said “That’s my seat.” I hoped the freckles I always got across my nose in the summertime weren’t too noticeable, and I cursed myself for not
at least
applying mascara to my happily long, but sadly very blonde, eyelashes. I’d started wearing my contacts on a more regular basis, and was thankful that I’d taken the time to put them in that morning, saving myself from total ugliness. He looked at me with a little grin and a quirked eyebrow and said “We’ll see.”

His eyes were a hazel green, and his smile curled up at the ends. Dimples creased his suntanned cheeks. I almost fell right off my chair. I had never had a physical reaction to a smile before, but I felt Kasey’s grin deep down in my gut like a sucker punch, and I was a goner. Over the moon, gone. He challenged me for first chair in the trumpet section that day, and for the first time in umpteen years, won, though I challenged him the following week and never let him have it back.

Two weeks later, we shared our first kiss under the stars at Burraston’s Pond - and despite our inexperience, it was not an awkward meeting of lips and teeth. That kiss was as natural as a prayer at bedtime - simple and sweet and sustaining. I fell so
hard I saw stars, and the funny thing is, I naively thought that that was just how falling in love was for everyone. We became inseparable from then on; to the point that our names became an extension of the other. Kaseynjosie. You couldn’t say one without the other. It was all so easy with him - easy to love him, easy to be loved.

I had people in my life who loved me... and was not necessarily lacking in love. What I craved was their awareness. Awareness of me. I could sit quietly in my chair and read the night away, never demanding attention, never seeking it. I could sit behind the piano and play and have people appreciate the beautiful music, and never take notice of the one who played it. I was a steady, quiet, presence in the lives of those around me. But sometimes in my reading I would discover new insights, or have seemingly profound thoughts that would change my way of thinking. I would be hungry to share my inspiration with someone, so I would try to share my epiphanies with my dad or my brothers. They would remain politely quiet for a few seconds and then become distracted by something more interesting or urgent than my newly acquired knowledge, leaving me to talk to myself. I usually just stopped talking when I could see they really weren’t interested or listening - and they never protested or urged me to continue.

If I tried to philosophize with Tara she would stare at me blankly for a few minutes and then slowly cross her eyes and say “Your losin’ me Jos!”
I would laugh because I knew it was true, and I would tuck my thoughts away for another audience. My Aunt Louise was too literal, too real, too down to earth, to enjoy the profundity of the universe and warned me away whenever I “started getting deep.” Sonja had filled that void in many ways, but her own insights were so precious to me that when I was with her, I found myself more interested in listening and soaking up her wisdom than talking myself.

When Kasey became part of my life, he had seemed to enjoy letting me elucidate on any subject that had sparked my interest. He would quietly listen and look at me now and again. Often he would agree with whatever I said and hug me, saying “You are so smart, Josie.” He never had much to offer in the way of deeper discussion, but I so appreciated his interest in what I had to say, that I didn’t much care. I had needed someone to listen to me and to seek out my opinions. I had needed someone to value me, give credence to my thoughts, to be awed by my abilities, and there was nobody more aware of a pretty teenage girl than an infatuated teenage boy. It had felt new and wonderful, and his attention had kept me on a constant, heady high that was completely foreign to me.

I had felt God’s power and presence in beautiful music, I had been taught principles of goodness from classic literature, and had always felt certain both were blessings from a loving Father in
Heaven. I was just as certain that God had given me Kasey to assuage my deep-rooted loneliness, the loneliness that even music, words, and the love of my family had not been able to extinguish. I thought Kasey was God’s atonement for taking my mother.

Among my peers, I was considered quaint and old-fashioned, but Kasey never seemed to mind. He too was a believer in the principles taught by simple, God fearing, and hardworking parents. We had both been schooled in faith, in a belief in God and family responsibility. We understood what was expected of us and wanted to make our parent’s proud. I’m sure during those two years our parent’s worried that we were too close. And we were too close . . . but they never tried to keep us apart. There is an intensity to young love that is hard to deny, but we managed to hang on to our virtue and keep our hands to ourselves for the most part. We were planning to be married, ending the torture, as soon as we graduated. Kasey had asked me to marry him on Christmas Eve, placing a little tiny diamond on my finger. Our parents shrugged helplessly and gave us their blessing. My dad looked at me with tears in his eyes and said “Josie, are you sure, honey?” I remember looking back at him in amazement thinking “What a silly question!” . . .

I’d responded with a laugh and a fierce hug. I’d never doubted it for a moment. Not one frisson of doubt. My dad had squeezed me back and kissed the top of my head.

“Okay, honey, okay ...”

Before falling in love with Kasey, I had assumed I would go to college and get a degree in music with a minor in English Lit, and play piano professionally, making a living doing the thing I loved most. After Kasey, I wasn’t quite as desperate for that dream. It wasn’t that I had lost my ambition, but I couldn’t imagine any of those things giving me more joy than just being near Kasey and making a life with him. I had received a music scholarship to any school of my choice, and Kasey had a football scholarship to Brigham Young University. I figured I could teach piano lessons and make good money doing it; every Mormon kid takes piano lessons at some point in their childhood. I would get a little car so I could make house calls, which busy moms loved, and I could help support Kasey and myself while we both went to school. When we graduated, he would teach school and coach football just like his dad, and I would play piano professionally and compose, and we would be together forever. We had it all planned out.

Kasey was like air to me. No matter how much time we spent together, it was never enough. He didn’t share my love of literature or my obsession with classical music, but he wasn’t threatened by it either. Kasey was probably the kind of man many women could happily love and be loved by. He laughed easily and liked to tease, but never at the expense of someone’s feelings. He could be fiesty and competitive, but was quick to
forgive and ask forgiveness. Unlike me, he never felt awkward giving and receiving affection; he hugged his dad, kissed his mom, and said I love you without me saying it first. He always made me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was a very good son. He would have been a good man, a good husband, and a good father. He was the sun in my universe from our very first kiss.

Kasey asked me out of the blue one time if I’d ever been in love before. We were curled up on the big coach in his parent’s living room on a Saturday evening - homemade caramel popcorn between us, a couple of cold cokes on little coasters on the coffee table in front of us. Things were being blown up and decimated on the big television screen and all was right with the world.

I laughed lightly, surprised at his question, and instantly replied “No!” as I grabbed his hand. He’d responded in kind and let the subject drop, almost if he’d expected my answer and mentally moved on before I’d even spoken. I sat in silence for a minute, holding his hand between mine, studying his palm, tracing his lifeline, and wondering what had inspired his question.

“Why?” I asked, suddenly unable to contain my curiosity.

Kasey glanced over at me distractedly, “Why what?”

“Why did you ask me if I’d ever been in love?” I prodded.

Kasey shrugged one shoulder, turning his attention back to the screen. “I don’t know, I’ve just been thinking........ You may not have noticed me until last year, but I noticed you a long time ago.”

“Huh?”

Kasey sighed and picked up the remote, pausing the movie, making the guy who was being hurled through the air pause in mid-flight. He looked at me then, his eyes running over my face.

“Josie, you are beautiful, and you have been beautiful your whole life.” I warmed at the praise and found myself smiling sheepishly, embarrassed but pleased. “The nice thing about you,” he continued, “is you don’t seem to know it. When we were in junior high, my friends and I would talk about you. Some of the guys thought that you were stuck up because you were so quiet and you weren’t interested in any of us.” My eyebrows shot up, and it was Kasey’s turn to be slightly embarrassed.

“Well, you were so much more mature than everyone else, practically from a different planet. You were nice enough, but you were really distant, kind of like you were just putting in your time, you know? A few of the guys thought maybe you had an older boyfriend or something.” Kasey searched
my eyes, like he was gauging the effect his words would have - maybe wondering if I would volunteer that I had, indeed, had a secret boyfriend no one knew about.

“You were taller than all of us and looked a lot older, and you were definitely smarter. I knew better though. I knew you were just really shy, not stuck up. You probably don’t remember, but in 7th grade science you sat right next to me. You were very sweet - never snotty or full of yourself. I looked forward to that class every day. That was when I decided, someday, you were gonna be my girlfriend. I’ve liked other girls, but I always waited for you.”

I leaned over and gently pressed my lips to his, and the conversation was suspended as he kissed me back. His mom’s voice from the kitchen brought us tumbling back to reality, and we pulled apart and resumed a safer proximity. Kasey hit ‘play’ on the remote and the unfortunate victim finished his trajectory into the side of an apartment building. Kasey slung his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned against him, pulling my feet in fuzzy pink socks up under me.

I’d spent the rest of that evening in contemplation, feeling almost guilty. I’d been glad for the Schwarzenegger video Kasey had picked to watch; it had allowed my mind to wander as he enjoyed the destruction on screen. It had been a while since I had actively thought of Samuel. He still tiptoed through my thoughts every now and
then - when the twin towers and the pentagon had been hit, I wondered where he was, and if he would be one of the Marine’s on the front lines in the war in Afghanistan. I had even watched the news coverage with his face in my mind. But I had not physically missed him, not really, not for a long time. After all, I hadn’t seen him in more than two years.