Heart's first capture

Storybooks, regardless of genre, always held a mystical power over my imagination with their twists, turns and mostly unpredictable endings. I would sometimes read the short descriptive storylines on the back cover and take the story into another direction within the dimensions of my own mind. It was easy to say that our class’ weekly trip to the small, jammed-packed library was second best to recess, well to a bookworm at least.
My love for detective mysteries and “true” stories of haunted houses and locations may have been the starting point of my giddiness and restlessness in the school library this one particular spring afternoon.
I roamed quietly, after several warnings from the old white librarian about my “outside voice” being misused, in a directionless zag up and down the isles of tall, wooden shelves of literature. While interweaving between rows, I noticed that a second class had joined ours inside of the room. A couple of kids which shared the route that I walked to Jackie Robinson Middle School were amongst the new group, and I knew right then that this was the 7th grade class. They were situated in a group of 4 round tables in the middle of the room and were engaged in some sort of group activity on the Dewey decimal system.
Being in the 8th grade and permissively able to wander around the library at will, induced a sympathetic pause when I saw how much work they were doing in comparison to what I was certainly not doing.
From the midst of the 20 or so tightly grouped youngsters came a chuckle. It seemed more like a song or a call for dinner when it’s the first meal of the day than a meaningless, halfhearted attempt at a laugh.
My ears commanded my eyes to search. They did. I found her. I tripped and fell.
Collective laughter ushered in embarrassment and a burgundy blush, but my rapid heartbeat was detonated by the owner of that angelic giggle. As I tried to push myself from the carpet in a Pee Wee Hermanish “I meant to do that” fashion, some of the boys continued to laugh and point jokes at the clumsy eight grader, while the girls at the tables squirmed away with playful shrieks; all except for the angel.
She was thin with smooth skin that had a dark shine to it that resembled black licorice. The snow white K Swiss on her small feet contrasted fantastically with her long, black legs that protruded from her jean skirt and stretched and crossed under the table. Her young, budding breast called my attention more when I spotted the rainbow letters arranged as “Toya” ironed onto the front of her pink tee shirt.
“Did you see my pencil?” I managed to muster through a mind of confusion and excitement.
“You didn’t have one”, she replied with the grin of confidence of one who has avoided a familiar trap, “You can have one of these, they’re free.”
She quickly sorted through a small cigar box of pencils that appeared to be cut in half because they all were sharpened to points but none had erasers.
“ I can’t write with these, they don’t have erasers.” I lied. Truthfully, these were the ones I used most often because I usually came to class without supplies and they were provided by the library to fill out book checkout slips.
“Do you make that many mistakes? Here, you can have mine. I want it back though.” She chided.
She extended me her hand, in it a rainbow pencil stamped “Toya” in gold lettering. I promised myself then never to return it.
We met after school that day so that I could return what neither I wanted to give back nor she wanted to receive from me. Since I walked home and her parents picked her up, we were dismissed together as “walkers” and were allowed to venture off towards the corner of the block where the school sat. We joked as she exposed my plot to overtake her attention for what seemed like hours until her parents pulled to the curb in their red Plymouth Aries. She pranced to the vehicle like a true princess. They greeted her as royalty. Her father, a dark man with a thick mustache who sat behind the wheel, glanced over her shoulder as Toya leaned inside of the passenger window hugging her mother.
My ears darted to my faded jeans, then down to my worn-down $20 sneakers.
“Could I really like this girl? What’s more, could she really like somebody like me?” Doubt and insecurity began to cloud my thoughts and the lingering flame that had been ignited within me.” She’s got a daddy too, I wonder if he’s mean.”
I wasn’t familiar with having a live-in father. It was almost considered foreign or exotic to have two parents (who actually liked each other nonetheless) in a household in my neighborhood, church and school. From this I knew there was something special about her that I wanted to be a part of.
Instead of joining her belongings, which she tossed into the car through the back window, Toya turned on her heels and began to walk my way.
“Would you like a ride home?” she asked excitedly.
“Who me?” I asked in a confused amazement.
She smiled.
I glanced passed her to her father once more. He sat motionless, hand on steering wheel, staring forward into the after school traffic. I noticed her mother, just as dark as the father but with cheeks that bore a rosy tint, smiling at me in a gentle, motherly manner. Comfort overtook me right then.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”
Toya grabbed me by my wrist and led me into three years of pure bliss.