Ice and Stars

There’s not a lot I remember, growing up in Vermont. It was all so long ago. I can vaguely call up pictures in my mind, of the deep purple hills at twilight, the explosive colors in autumn, the fields looking like a tired cloud had settled down to rest on them, blanketing the countryside in white.

If you asked me what first came to mind, thinking way back all those years to ninth grade in Morrisville, I would have one thing to say.

Andrea May Bullock.

To the other boys in my class, she was just another girl from out of state; wavy blonde hair, a few freckles, blue eyes. But to me, her hair looked like pure spun gold done up into dainty pigtails, reflecting the light radiating from her skin. I can still see her face, glancing up at me from her desk in homeroom A, giving me that full-hearted smile I grew to love, so much like a hovering butterfly that I never had the courage to reach out and touch . . .


“Hey, Ben, you see her?”

“Who?”

The bell sounded rudely over the buzzing chatter of Morrisville High. We swarmed inside.

“The new girl,” said Ryan. “Bullock’s her name. Sam says she’s from Pennsylvania.”

“Oh? What’s she like?”

Ryan shrugged. “Nothing special. You know Sam; if she were, he’d be trying to nab her outside her locker already, trying to get her out to a movie or something.”

Every year, Sam Marcus would try to get a girlfriend within the first week of school. He usually pulled it on a newcomer, who didn’t already know his routine.

         I first saw her at lunch the next day. Across from us, all sitting at the school newspaper team’s table, I noticed an unfamiliar blonde head nodding and giggling to what plump Jenny Smith was saying. Ryan was right, there was nothing that special about her; she wasn’t a California surfer babe, she wasn’t a rockstar or a model or anything like that. She certainly looked like a country freshman from the outskirts of Pennsylvania. But when she turned around, looking for a clock on the wall, and caught my eye, I think my heart just sprouted wings and soared right out of my chest. Nothing I could do or say about it.

I myself wasn’t much to look at, to be honest. I recall staring at my untidy brown hair and slightly pitted skin in the mirror, wondering how Andrea saw me. Over the next few months, though, it became harder to see my own gawky reflection past her image in my mind. It was like someone had engraved her face into my brain, and glued the image over my eyelids. Every waking moment I saw her, every dream was full of that smile, that face, those eyes. We were in Algebra II together, and I had to admit after a while that sitting right next to her or behind her was definitely NOT a good way to improve my focus.

The first time she talked to me was on November 18th. The exact year escapes me, but I remember everything else clear and sharp as broken glass. I was staring out the window, trying to pretend her honeyed braids weren’t swinging back and forth in front of me as she whizzed through her math sheet, but every movement insisted on cramming itself into my brain to be acknowledged. Suddenly, the whizzing stopped. She paused for a brief moment, contemplating the paper on her desk. Then she turned around to face me.

“It’s…Ben, right? Ben Wedeen?”

“Yeah…that’s right,” I managed. “Andrea…Bullock?” Her name. It gave me butterflies.

“Can you tell me how to do this one,” she whispered, so as not to attract the attention of the vigilant, horn-rimmed glasses-wearing teacher. She swept over to my desk with breathtaking grace and pointed to problem 14.

“Oh…yeah…um…it’s easy…” (When you’re not next to me,) I added mentally. I think I must’ve got by with a plausible explanation, because she understood it.

“Wow, that is easy,” she breathed. “I’m just dumb sometimes.”

I started to contradict her on that, but her smile knocked me absolutely senseless. Then she was back at her own desk, her pencil scratching away, clutched between her delicate fingers.

         She smiled. She dazzled. Her eyes bored holes in my soul, and her laughter healed them. For four years her movements plagued me. For four years my heart still refused to return to me, it still resided with Her. Andrea May Bullock. She was there, every day of my existence, walking, talking, breathing, singing even. And yet we hardly ever spoke. But when we passed in the hallways at school, or saw each other on the street, she never failed to stun me with a smile of recognition.

         On the day of graduation, I bought her a rose. Yellow, her favorite color. Hoping to find her at her locker I strolled down to her homeroom after the ceremony, but she was nowhere to be seen. Her close friend Peggy told me she had left. With a heavy sigh, I thanked Peggy and turned to go, but then there she was, turning the corner, her eyes widening when she saw me with a rose in my hand.

“Ben! Is that…for me?”

“Of course,” I said, my features hitching into a goofily involuntary grin. I held it out to her. She did not take it.

Instead, her arms flew out wide like a bird taking flight and suddenly my nose was in her tumbling golden tresses.

“You are so sweet,” she exclaimed.

Her scent was like summer flowers floating on a warm breeze, or like new buds peeking out in the early spring through the crisp, fragrant air. It pulled me invitingly closer, like I had never been close to anyone else. She held me at arms length, her eyes shining like stars frozen in blue ice. Her smile was as dazzling as always, only more so, if that is at all possible. I wanted to cling to her tightly, because a twinge in my gut made me feel like this was my only chance. Her brilliant eyes moved in closer. I could feel her aromatic breath on my lips.

“Andrea, honey, we’ve got to go. Dad’s waiting.”

A cold emptiness seemed to seep through my open arms as Andrea left them. My skin called feebly for her breath to return.

“We’ll keep in touch, yeah?” she said, taking the rose gently from my hands.

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you so much for the rose,” she added. Her eyes glistened, as if the ice holding the stars was beginning to melt with the June heat. “It means so much to me.”


         Three days after graduation, I heard the news on the radio.

Andrea May Bullock was dead.

She had been driving home from a celebration party in Greensboro, and the car went over a ridge into Caspian Lake, drunk driver and all. Neither of their bodies were ever recovered.



From that day on, my life has slipped into a sort of numbness. My heart, with all its emotions and feelings has come crashing to a rest, never to return from the bottom of that lake, as icy-blue as her eyes, still clinging to a fragment of the stars that had me captivated eighty years ago. Perhaps someday, very soon, I will join them…