She calmly suggested that maybe I was too upset to make the call right then. As I grabbed the phone and began to make the call, Linda put her hand on my shoulder and then gently on my wrist causing me to hang up the phone. She quickly invited me into the kitchen, where there was a phone on the wall near the door.
But here I was, panicked and breathlessly asking her if I could use her phone. A tall, skinny little geek with a perpetual hard-on, it was nowhere within the realm of possibility that I would ever find myself in her presence, speaking to her one on one.
She always dressed impeccably, though modestly, and her hair and makeup were never less than perfect. The only time I ever saw her was in the hallway at school, or occasionally she would make announcements to the student body on behalf of the Latin club or the honor society. She was much more reserved, having an aire that perhaps she had been to finishing school. As beautiful as she was, she was not one of the popular girls at school. She was about 5'8" with long, dark brown hair and a perfect hour-glass figure. As I ran across the expansive lawn, Linda stepped out of a side door. Panicked, I ran to a nearby house to ask for a phone. Driving too fast and focusing my attention on finding the best radio station, I slid off the narrow road just far enough to get stuck. I drove out to a country road that ran along a ridge overlooking our little town. Since I had just turned 16, I could take the car. My dad told me to go into the nearby woods after school on Monday and cut some pine boughs. By the end of the day on this particular Sunday our job was complete, except we needed some pine twigs to cover the ugly electrical boxes in the yard. Every December my dad and I would spend a Sunday building an elaborate Christmas display in front of our house.