When I was inside and she had turned toward the light I could see her
better. The teeth had been fixed. Her face was fuller. She was still
a colorless woman with heavy glasses, but now there was a pride about
her, a confidence that had been lacking in the picture I had seen.
Another child sat on a small tricycle and gave me a wide-eyed stare.
Both children looked very much like her. Mrs. Rorick did not ask me to
sit down.
"How well did you know Timmy, Mrs. Rorick?"
"I don't think he ever knew I was alive."
"In camp, before he died, he mentioned a Cindy. Could you have been the
one?"
"I certainly doubt that."
It confused me. I said, "When I mentioned him you asked me to come in.
I thought--"
She smiled. "I guess I'll have to tell you. I had the most fantastic
and awful crush on him. For years and years. It was pathetic. Whenever
we were in the same class I used to stare at him all the time. I wrote
letters to him and tore them up. I sent him unsigned cards at Easter
and Valentine Day and Christmas and on his birthday. I knew when his
birthday was because once a girl I knew went to a party at his house.
It was really awful. It gave me a lot of miserable years. Now it seems
funny. But it wasn't funny then. It started in the sixth or seventh
grade. He was two grades ahead. It lasted until he graduated from high
school. He had a red knit cap he wore in winter. I stole it from the
cloakroom. I slept with it under my pillow for months and months. Isn't
that ridiculous?"