The Story

The Story

“Whatcha doing there?” a voice came over my shoulder making me jump a mile. I whipped around and there stood Dan Banks.

A thousand thoughts went through my head in a flash, including, of course, that I’d had a crush on Dan Banks since second grade and in the nine years since, he had never seemed to know I was alive.

“Do you always sneak up on people?” was what came out of my mouth.

“Sneak? I was about as loud as a heard of cattle. That’s what made me wonder what you were so interested in that you didn’t seem to even know I was there” he’d said.

“I was concentrating,” I said, lamely.

“On what?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Well, I don’t want to be rude, but did you happen to know you’re standing in my Uncle Randel’s driveway?”

I didn’t. “I’m sorry, I’ll go.” I started to leave.

“Hold on, I didn’t say you had to go! I just wanted to know what was so interesting in Uncle Randel’s driveway. I never found it interesting before I saw you in it.”

I think I turned bright red. Then he suddenly was concerned with my health.

“Are you alright? Here sit down!” He walked me over to the low stone wall at the side. “You’re Cathy Bates, right? I’ve seen you around.”

He knew my name! Then I got really getting woozy, he actually called his Aunt Silvia outside! I wondered if you could actually die of embarrassment, feeling unfortunate that it did not seem to be happening.

“That’s how you met Dad?”

“Yup, I was looking for fool’s gold stones in his Uncle Randel’s driveway.”

“So that’s why you always say you were looking for gold but you found Dad instead?”

“Yup.”

“Now that’s really funny.”