First Kiss by Nancy O'Conner

First Kiss

by

Nancy O'Connor©

I was fifteen that summer of 1962. Life was filled with friends and slumber parties and swim practices, and yes, boys. I’d had lots of crushes and admired boys from a distance, but I hadn’t yet had a “real” boyfriend or a “real” kiss. I’d been practicing, though, kissing the bathroom mirror and the backs of my fingers, so when the time came I wouldn’t make a complete fool of myself.

Then John Lenker came along. He was a popular Redlands boy who decided to become a “ringer” on the Yucaipa swim team that summer. He was a terrific swimmer, but it seemed he liked the idea of being a big fish in the small pond Yucaipa’s team had to offer. At sixteen, he was an older man, and gorgeous. He was powerfully-built and darkly-tanned, with a buzz cut so short his black hair just made a shadow across his scalp. The haircut made him swim faster, he said. And he had big dark eyes and lashes so long it was criminal they didn’t belong to a girl.

With his winning personality, he quickly charmed his way into the Howe family. My brother was the swim coach and bent over backwards to welcome this accomplished swimmer to his team. I would like to think being the coach’s sister had nothing to do with John’s interest in me, but I was soon crazy about him. At swim meets, I even held his retainer for him while he swam his races—wrapped in the corner of his towel, of course. And since John rode his Vespa scooter from Redlands to practice every afternoon, it became a regular routine for him to stop on his way home at our house on the boulevard to have dinner. He still holds the Howe family record for taco consumption—twelve in one sitting.

One night after dinner, John and I lingered on the patio, while the rest of the family went inside to watch television. Dad had made vanilla ice cream, and John had done his part turning the crank when the going got tough. Mom brought us bowls of ice cream topped with strawberries from the garden. When we finished off our dessert, things got quiet between us, and the tension grew. He made his move, and it was even better than I had imagined it would be. Sweet, lingering, and strawberry-flavored, the memory of John’s kiss has remained, sort of like his taco-eating record, as a defining moment of that summer.