My First Kiss

It wasn’t my first peck on the lips (that was during a John Patrick Shanley scene for drama class). Nor was it the first Spin The Bottle make-out session (thank you Hebrew School!). This was the first kiss. You know the one I’m talking about—where time stands still, the earth stops spinning on its axis and the angels in your head cry out, “Hallelujah!” even though you have no idea what you’re doing and you inevitably use way too much tongue.

It was the summer before sophomore year, on a campground somewhere in Utah. She was a Jersey girl, but to protect the innocent, let’s keep names out of it.

We found each other on a charter bus in the southwest United States. It was me, her, Scott, and about 40 other teens whose parents had signed them up for this traveling summer camp called a Teen Tour. We stayed at college dorms and campsites on the way to some of the biggest tourist attractions in California, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Scott and I flew out to meet the group in San Francisco, the starting point of our three-week journey.

I noticed her immediately. She was fair-skinned with dark brown hair, the kind of girl whose pale cheeks turned pink when the wind blew cold. I remember she looked best right when she woke up. One morning, I watched her come out of her tent at our campsite in Lake Tahoe. She was draped in sweaters, her arms folded across her chest as she shivered from the chill. It was the first time I was overcome with this urge to want to kiss somebody…and it was immediately replaced with the horrifying realization that I’ll never have a chance with this girl.

You see, up until that point, some of the more influential gossipers in junior high had branded me as a dork. And I couldn’t really argue; the evidence against me was stacked too high. I was the piano-playing, Broadway-singing, boisterous prepubescent nerd whose round features begot an athletic disability unseen by anyone else on the basketball court. During little league scrimmages, I silently prayed to get picked on the team that wore shirts—not skins—because let’s face it: no one wants to pass the ball to the slow kid with glasses and bitch tits.

It was a predicament. I had zero confidence around girls, yet I badly wanted to profess my love to the prettiest, most popular girl on this summer excursion. Luckily, this Teen Tour provided a unique opportunity. Sure, back in junior high bullies would routinely shout “Hey pianist!” (as in, “Hey, PENIS-t!”) as I walked down the halls. But here, nobody knew who I was. I could leave my dork ways behind and become someone new, someone bold, someone cool.

It took the entire three weeks to build up the nerve to tell her how I felt. Finally, three days before the trip was over, I found myself standing next to her while waiting in line for ice cream at the Bryce Canyon Visitor’s Center. No one else was around, and I knew it was my only chance. So I took a deep breath, and with the most romantic Shakespearean prose I could muster, I tapped her on the shoulder and uttered:

“I uh…really like you.”

Three terrible, interminable seconds of silence.

Then: “Um, David, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Ok, so it didn’t go exactly as I planned. But rather than pester her (or worse, follow her into the bathroom), I kept my distance, put a smile on my face, sat a few rows back from her on the bus and pretended that I wasn’t fazed. Later that night, as we were sitting around the campfire, she leaned over and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. We left the group and strolled over to the tents by the lake. As we walked towards the water, I could hear the distant crackle of roasting marshmallows over the constant chatter of my own teeth either from the nerves, the cold, or both.

I apologized for putting her on the spot earlier that day. She said it was okay. She said she actually kind of liked me too. I felt this surge of confidence sweep through me, so I turned to her and said, “I really want to kiss you right now.” And right there, by the lake, under the stars and the shining moonlight, I had my first kiss.

Things were never the same after that summer. I grew a couple of inches, got contacts instead of glasses, cut my hair, and stopped wearing criminally short shorts. I walked a bit taller, smiled a little broader. By the time I was a sophomore, getting the big part in the spring musical and playing the hell out of a classical tune wasn’t so uncool anymore. But most importantly, I didn’t care what anyone else thought about me. I never felt like a dork again, because I had my first kiss.