Bobs, Part 3c

It's a mystery to me how junior high school kids could know so much about a boy I didn't know well yet. What I knew is what I have already written, and I believe he and I thought he was my boyfriend. But know stuff they did. And there was talk.

I was never in on the talk, because I did not gather with the talkers. But word would always get to me. Someone would make sure of that.

The talk was that Bob Small already had a girlfriend, Paula Knudsen, who was about a year older than I and who also attended John Adams Junior High. I have to say that news shocked me. He certainly didn't act like he had another girlfriend. Talk also was that Paula Knudsen would "go all the way," however they might know such a thing. I probably had a hard time believing it, because I knew her. But I did begin to look at her more purposefully, trying to see that in her, I suppose.

Soon there was other talk: Because Bob was paying attention to me, because he came after school to meet me, not her, I was somehow to blame. That is, some people might have said he was two-timing Paula, but most, and especially Paula, would hate me for it and accuse me of taking him away from her. A terrible thing, apparently.

But if I took him away from her I had little to do with it. Our meeting was just as I have described it, and I never asked for any attention or affection from him.

Poor me. Innocent. And naive.

I don't know how long it took me to--what--come to my senses? Realize that a 13-year-old Mormon girl has no business keeping steady company with an older, "experienced" boy? Allow the talk and disapproval of others to influence me? Be fearful of that moment by the garage? Maybe all of the above.

Maybe Bob would one day want from me what people said he got from Paula. I'll never know. But I do know that he never even came close to suggesting it.

I also know that it had nothing to do with my mother, because I never mentioned Bob to her, and if she had ever looked out of her kitchen window and seen us holding hands by the garage, she would have been out there in a flash. I think. And my dad? Never would I mention it to him. Actually, I never had personal conversations with either of my parents. That would be another story.

I guess I just decided I wanted nothing to do with the whole thing. So I stopped seeing Bob. I don't know what I told him, but I believe I hurt his feelings. Then he stopped coming to the dances; he stopped walking me home. No use now to talk about what might have been. That's the way it was. Just over.