2011-10-22 - 12:18 a.m.

We had no girls soccer team when I was in high school, and so it happened that the prettiest, coolest girl in our school played soccer with us. She was tall, but not too tall, with long, curly, dark-brown hair. She had naturally deeply tanned skin. Everyone loved her. I certainly did.

A few years before the football players voted her homecoming queen, she invited me over to her house. Though I longed for more, we were only just friends. She was destined for blindingly handsome and smart investment bankers in New York, and I was bound for the skinny, halting intensity that I've always done. Her older brother, the coolest guy in school, the senior class president but a kind of sarcastic rebel nonetheless, had somehow gotten an advance copy of Pearl Jam's second album, Vs. In their little house's living room, I found the girl, her brother, and her brother's best friend, a short, round angry little guy who called me "Slim" as if he didn't know my name, though I knew he did. When I walked in, the girl looked up at me and said, "We've been waiting for you."

Her brother hit the button and the first song, called "Go," exploded from the huge speakers. We all smiled. The brother and his friend discussed guitars and chords. The girl caught my eye and said, "Good, huh?" And I just nodded. The second song roared all the way through and then the third song, "Daughter" came on. It would be the album's hit single, but we didn't know that yet. It opened with that charging acoustic guitar and then the voice came in and when I looked up, everyone was smiling, and the girl was close enough that I could feel the heat from her leg on my leg and that was the first time maybe I ever fell in love.

previous - next