I’m (not) wild about Harry and Harry’s wild about me…

I’m (not) wild about Harry and Harry’s wild about me…

          It was the early 1960’s and I was still in my teens. I was cute, red curly hair, orange freckles, green eyes. Not fat, about 5”4’.  I had a zest for life and a good sense of humor. I was a good student.  I was a virgin and alas would remain in that state until marriage. Otherwise I would have been dead! Ask my father!

          My family and I were summering in Monticello, “the mountains”, in the Catskills as we did every year since I was two. We left the hot crowded city and moved into a bungalow, the whole family. Our fathers would return to work in the city, come up by “hack” on weekends. Our moms busied themselves with us, with mahjong and maybe a little affair with a lifeguard. We kids looked for new adventures and new friends, and as teenagers, romance. 

          Babette’s Country Club was the choice that summer that I met Harry. He was visiting his aunt, next door, and he like all the guys was on the prowl. It was definitely a jungle out there. 

          Harry was cute, dark curly hair, a good build, short but not shorter than me. I would not have looked at him, maybe over him, if he were. He was Jewish from somewhere in Brooklyn. I was Jewish from somewhere in the Bronx. But Harry was more Jewish. He looked Jewish, funny, and he sounded Jewish. And he was like Jewish my parents would like, smart and heading to MIT to study engineering. He was available. And I sort of liked him. During those few weeks he was there, were the date times- drive-in movies, walks near lakes, hanging out at bon fires and the swimming pool, writing to my girlfriends about him, and heading to the hotel next door, Washington Mansion, to dance to whatever band was playing. It was fun. 

          At the end of his visit, Harry left to go home to his life in Brooklyn, professing his never ending love for me and promising to write letters until the end of time. That did not happen, the end of time, I mean. But he did write those love letters. And many of them. And I wrote back for a time, too.  But after a while, fickle growing up me was into other things, and some not too Jewish things and Harry was, well, just too Jewish and serious. There were miles to go and many other “boys”to make promises to.

          And so it went. Life. Years went by. One year, I remember bumping into him in a Philadelphia museum at the model of the great heart. Mine was already taken by a husband and two children. I liked the idea that his heart might be still be beating for me. But we, me and Harry, did not meet again until just a few years ago. I think he thought more about me than I did him, or so I want to believe.

          One day in the age of computers I got a note from him. He’d been in a writing class and had written about me as I am now writing about him, and the class suggested he look for me. Not hard to find each other. I still lived a mile from where I grew up; my parents still lived in the same place. I was re-discovered. A different me. A grown up me.  

          I still had one picture in my treasure box of me and Harry, hugging at the pool. Funny I had my hair in rollers.  I copied it and sent it to him. I still had a dozen letters he had written me way back when. I copied them and sent them too. He sent me a truth I sort of knew. I had broken his heart. But we had moved on. He in spite of me had married (someone not Jewish) and had kids and was a successful Engineer with a house in Florida and one in Maine, or maybe it was New Hampshire. We chatted on and off on e- mail, both of us actually having and liking the lives we had made and the people we had become. I told him I’d enjoy seeing him and if he came near NYC, we might meet. He didn’t think his wife would appreciate it. I wouldn’t have a problem with meeting her.

          One winter, just a few winters ago, my husband and I decided for our February holiday to drive down to Florida, bird watching and visiting along the way. Maybe even stopping at Disney. He didn’t live far from our route, somewhere in Orlando, I recalled and so I suggested we meet, suggested the 4 of us meet. And we did. In some restaurant. I think he and I were a little nervous; after all almost ½ a century had passed us by. My red curls were gray curls; my freckles, age spots; my green eyes were covered with glasses. I still had my spunk.

          We had no problem recognizing each other. He hadn’t grown; I had shrunk a bit. More of an equal footing. And at this point in my life, I was a little more Jewish and I’m not sure if he was. But it did not matter. We were who we were. We shared adventures and stories about our children. We talked travel. We talked politics. He recalled more about my family than I did his. We couldn’t really have talked about who we once were and whether our break-up was repairable; it didn’t matter. I think though that Harry was still wild about me. Do I flatter myself?  I was wild about him now in a funny way that allowed me to just for a minute to remember how it felt to be so young and desirable. What kind of life would I have had had I let it happen? Life is like that. We really don’t get the second chance, a rewrite except in a writing class or a novel. 

          Harry and I stay in touch. We play Words with Friends on our i-phones. We comment a bit about the state of affairs today as we are quarantined. We might never meet again, but then, it’s not for me to say…