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First Love by Linda Bleser
In exactly one minute and forty-two seconds Paul Simon would finish listing all the ways there were to leave your lover, and Jenna would send another song over the airwaves. She tapped her pencil on the console. It was quiet at the radio station tonight, which always made the time drag, especially when she was working the evening shift.
She glanced at the clock. Nine o’clock. Only one more hour, then she could go home, clean up the kitchen, throw in a load of laundry, pack tomorrow’s school lunches, and then drop into bed, ready to start the whole routine all over again in the morning. When had her life become so predictable?
When the phone line flashed, Jenna welcomed the diversion. “This is WKIS, your request line. Can I help you?”
The voice on the other end of the line was young, male, and nervous. “Hi. Um, I’d like to request a song?”
“Okay, what would you like to hear tonight?”
“Um. Could you play First Love?”
Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. First Love. Just hearing the song title made her heart flutter and sent her on a long, cool slide back to memories of her youth.
“Hello?”
Jenna forced her attention back to the caller. “I’m here. Who would you like to send this request to?”
“I’d like to dedicate it to Tiffany. That’s my girl. Um, from Chuck.”
Jenna could almost hear the blush in his voice. She smiled and scribbled the names on a note pad. “Okay Chuck. Your request will be coming up in the next hour. And remember to keep listening to WKIS, the station that gives you all the music you want to hear...with a kiss.” She tapped the control board, sending a long, wet “kiss” over the airwaves, then hung up the phone.
The caller had sounded so young. It made her ache for those long-ago days of innocence. She hoped Tiffany enjoyed it while she could, before the reality of everyday life dimmed the heady rush of first love.
Paul Simon finished his litany, and Jenna went to a commercial and bumper-to-bumper CD’s. She stood and stretched the kinks from her back, then turned to the record library and found First Love.
Just holding the record in her hand made her feel like a teenager again, alive with romantic innocence and the thrill of young love. She switched on the microphone.
“Here’s an old favorite going out to Tiffany from Chuck, and anyone else out there who has ever experienced the sweetness of first love.”
When the familiar song began, Jenna closed her eyes and drifted back on a wave of memories. Memories of her first love-sweet, sexy Danny with his golden, wind-swept hair and teenage Adonis face. First Love had been “their” song, and the wistful melody carried her back in time as if it were only yesterday. Back to those fluttery days when she couldn’t take her eyes off his face. Danny and first love. It all seemed so long ago.
So long since she had felt flirty and romantic, caught in a heart-pounding, pulse-racing love affair, when every day was a new adventure and Danny’s face was the center of her universe. So, so long ago.
Jenna pulled her hair up into a high ponytail and stared at her reflection in the window. Not bad for thirty-five, she thought. No wrinkles yet and she’d kept her figure. Fifteen years of being a wife and mother had taken a little of the spring out of her step, but she wasn’t even halfway up the hill, let alone over it. Lately her schedule was filled with laundry and Little League. Could the days of romantic innocence really be that far behind her?
She swirled to the sweet melody, dancing with an imaginary lover who only had eyes for her. She remembered the way Danny had looked at her back then, as if she were the only woman in the entire world. How long had it been since someone had looked at her that way? As she swayed, the weight of drudgery and day-to-day routine slipped from her shoulders. Tonight there was only music and moonlight...and memories of her first love.
She shook herself back to reality. That kind of breath-taking infatuation was for the young, not an old married woman. She was light years away from the sweaty palms, flushed cheeks and racing pulse of first love. Besides, it was impossible to maintain that level of romantic ecstasy. Wasn’t it?
Jenna realized that the song was coming to an end. Like all good things, it was over too soon, leaving nothing but longing behind. She rushed back to the console and keyed the mic just in time to avoid sending dead air over the radio.
“That was First Love and this is WKIS-FM. It’s request night, so if you want to dedicate a song to that special someone in your life, give us a call here at WKIS, the station that brings you all the songs you want to hear-with a kiss.”
She cued up another song and hoped no one listening had detected the trembling in her voice. The memories were so strong, so real, but a lifetime away.
There were more requests and the rest of her shift passed quickly. Still, she couldn’t get that haunting tune of first love out of her head. Memories crowded the room with her. She felt caught between the past and present, torn between innocent dreams and the reality of day-to-day routine. She wouldn’t trade one for the other, but couldn’t help the wave of nostalgia over the past. When it was finally time to leave, she almost expected to see Danny at the wheel of his ‘67 red and white Pontiac waiting to take her home. But no, her old station wagon stood at the curb.
She sighed, then jumped at an unexpected voice behind her.
“Hi there, gorgeous.”
Jenna caught her breath and turned at the familiar voice. “Danny!” She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was almost as if her thoughts had conjured him from thin air.
Her heart raced and she was suddenly seventeen again. She looked into his eyes, still a soft, velvety blue. The years had been kind to him. His face was more mature, with crinkly smile lines at the corners of his eyes that only added character to his face. It was a face she still loved after all these years.
Her voice caught in her throat. “What are you doing here?”
He handed her a single rose. “I was listening tonight. I heard you play our song and couldn’t get you out of my mind.” His lips turned up in that familiar crooked grin, making her heart flutter like that of a teenager all over again.
“But...”
“Shhh,” he touched the tip of his finger to her quivering lips. “When was the last time we were alone together? Just the two of us?”
“But, Dan. What about the kids?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “They’re sound asleep. I got Susie next door to babysit.” He stopped her before she could argue. “It’s been too long since I took my first love on a date-someplace where a clown doesn’t deliver the pizza and the hamburgers don’t come with prizes.”
Jenna put her hand in his and felt that old, familiar tingle. She stared into his eyes and the answer she’d been searching for was right there. This is where first love goes. If you’re lucky the spark feeds a flame and it turns into a lifetime of warmth and dependability, the depth of everlasting love.
She stared deeply into Dan’s eyes. Maybe time had softened that first rush of excitement, but their love had deepened and grown stronger over the years. First love. The words of their song danced through Jenna’s head as her husband, her first and only love, took her in his arms for a long, passionate kiss.
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