Salty Vanilla.

There’s people that say that salt and chocolate go together.

I guess that’s true, but it’s not really my kind of thing anyways. No I’ve always had a thing for vanilla.

And that’s why I’m here waiting…I’m out of my tree, scared and happy and nervous. If you’d ask anyone who knows me they’d be surprised I’m this edgy but honestly I don’t think that anyone really knew me.

Not like they did.

It was my last year of high-school and I was excited. Heck I wasn’t excited like this was finally my year but I was excited because this was the year that I’d worked so hard to get to and it’d get me out of Nelson and hopefully out of Wyoming.

Don’t get me wrong I sort of didn’t hate my hometown or the state that I had grown up in but I wasn’t a farm boy I was a town kid. I wasn’t an athlete so there was no praise there or shelter form the people that “mattered” back then.

Thank god we really didn’t have social networking and texting back then. Our generation of self importants was bad enough as they were. Not like I was one of their victims no I was just the average guy really.

And hey my name’s even Joe.

No this was the year I’d get a scholarship from all my hard work and I like a lot of kids would go to school somewhere else and I’d get out of Hicksville. Oh and by that I meant out of Nelson, it’s just that it is kind of a real hick town.

But things changed that summer….changed me forever really.

I had managed to get a job on at Peterson lake, now the popular kids got the life guard jobs and the shiny stuff but I had still go on and was the guy you’d see picking up the garbage, mowing the lawns and doing all the Scut work and the landscaping. I wasn’t shining out there in the sun all buff or curvy and making sure everyone knew how much better I was than everyone else I was the guy you ignored in the background.

The lake was a good place to work though. Not a lot of boss contact, they always like to hang and be the cool college guy among the hot people of the high schools and still keep their popularity.

Doesn’t really bother me that much, that guy’s still there more than likely or doing something else like it but what do you expect from the guys that peaked in high school and couldn’t hack being an adult.

You have these guys…y’know the guy who went to university to take gym. The guy that couldn’t cut it and partied and came home with a year or two under his belt before he flunked and still tries to fit into his varsity jacket.

Anyway sorry just remembering which they don’t really tell you starts to kick in around your thirties and you’re looking at the real world like it’s now and the good old days.

And the best of those days was when I met Polly.

Yeah I know Polly…it’s just one of those names right. Well it fit the girl I had met that summer and I’d fallen in love with and truthfully had been in love with ever since, even all the way through my first marriage.

………………………………………I was in the back part of the park and it was a nice quiet spot. The park’s main camping area had this long strip of land that jutted out into the lake and it made the area really nice for camping because you pretty much had a water view wherever you went. It was a hot day and I was cleaning up some of the spruce cones and the pine cones off the ground. The management liked it that way since there was less underfoot.

Busy work more or less, that and cleaning out the trash bins. That’s a big enough draw in itself and that’s what I was doing when I saw Polly.

She was sticking out really one because she was wearing a hoody in July and it was one of those ones with the Union Jack on it. And she was getting yelled at by some of the local kids, yeah those popular retards I had just told you about. They were shouting after her.

“Oi!”
“Bloody Hell!”
“Wot I say wot?”

All in these bad Americans trying to sound British accents and she was crying. And she let out a sob as the local popular girls started chanting “Scary spice!” Over and over.

She let out a cry and her foot caught a root of one of the spruce trees and I’m still not sure how I got there in time but she cried out in shock and pain and I had just got there as she was falling.

I caught her and she actually screamed and started kicking and punching at me and she was skinny really skinny but you know what? When a bony girl hits you it stings.

“Fuck off! let me go!” she’s yelling at me and she might as well had her eyes shut for all the tears that were there.

“I’m fending some of them off and I catch her wrists. “Hey!” I shout at her. The a bit calmer. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She looked at me like she realized I’m not them and she stares at me. And me…I found myself looking at the cutest girl I’d ever seen. Not beautiful like you’d think of those magazine teen girls but cute. Light brown shoulder length hair all messed up and in her face which was sexy sort of…? Polly had these big brown eyes that sucked you right into them too and this cute nose and a few freckles in just the right places.

Hrmph…no wonder the local Bi***h’s were being just that. She had that sweet and cute girl next door thing in spades ad in her being from out of town and England even. Yeah there were more than enough of the local girls that would wreck her or try to before she ever made friends.

(Sniffle) “Oh…”

I smiled at her. “Okay…breathe.” I let go of her wrists and she smiled at me. She beamed…I never got that saying until that day but when she smiled at me she seemed to light up and it wasn’t one of those kitteny sexy smiles but this open full of heart kind of smile.

It’s the smile that made me a man.

Honestly…

When you have a girl or a woman smile at you and you feel something in your heart before in your pants then that’s about the time you’re actually being a man.

Then she brushes some hair out of her eyes with her hands halfway in the sleeves of her hoody and she does that lady like thing where she composes her arms and she takes a deep breath.

Then she goes to take a step and she cries out and I catch her again.

“Dammit my ankle I think that I twisted it.”

“More than likely that’d have been an inspired fall.”

“That wasn’t my fault, I’m from England you know our foliage is a lot more mannerly than here.”

“Okay…” I turned to the tree root where she tripped and cupped an ear. “It say’s it was just standing here minding its own business when you came running through.”

She looked at me and I looked at her and we started laughing and she finished laughing with a series of ows.

“I’ll take you home where are you camped.”

“Our caravan is over near the end there.” She pointed and it took me a minute to realize that caravan is what they call RV’s. Other than that she speaks normally. “Just give me a few minutes okay?”

“Certainly (Winced.) you’ve already been really nice….?”

“Joe, Joe Masters.”

“Polly, Polly Jones.”

We shook hands and smiled at each other a bit. Looking back it was the first real eye contact I’d ever had with a girl.

“I’ll be right back.”

I jogged off and went to get the mule, it’s like a work version of a golf cart really and I had the rakes and the bags of trash in the box in the back. “Hi…uhm here I’ll…”

Polly got in smiling carefully using the bars on the mule to side into the passenger seat. “Thanks, I think I just sprained it. It’s not broken I know that.”

“Doctor Jones is it?”

“Broke that shin playing rugby when I was ten.”

“Ouch…”

“Well and truly ouch, but this still really hurts.”

“It’ll just be a few minutes.”

“No…it’s…I don’t want to go back looking like this.”

“Like…you were crying?’

“Yeah my Da’s a bit defensive.”

“You’re hurt though.”

“You still have your work to do right?”

“Yeah but this won’t take me that far out of my way.”

“How about I stay here and keep you company? I could put my foot up while you were doing whatever it is you need to do?”

I looked at her and she really had that pleading look. I knew a few fathers that might act like she was saying and make her stick close to them until she was better and god forbid if they’d found out she was being bullied.

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

“Yes okay.”

We spent the afternoon together with me doing my rounds and like I said just keeping the place clean, switching out the trash and keeping things that might be underfoot from being underfoot.

And we talked…we actually didn’t have a lot in common. I had only the vaguest hints of the music she was talking about and I wasn’t a fan of Boy George or George Michaels and though I like Cindi Lauper I wasn’t going to admit it being a guy. We even got into an argument over who was better AC/DC or Nazareth as a band….

I introduced her to her first listens of Meatloaf and ZZtop.

And we talked TV and Movies and I was lost in the woods when it came to her TV shows and she had told me that most of her friends thought the way that people acted on All in The family and the Dukes of Hazzard was a pretty close look at us Americans.

Polly was my first on so many levels, before I’d never talked to a girl one on one this long and been friends…I liked her intensely from the first moment we met.

She even drove the Mule which got us talking about how they drove over there…and cabbies in London and double decker busses and traffic which led to the trains and the underground…I was kind of fascinated by the fact she took a subway to her school everyday. It was so much bigger than the life I’d known.

By the end of the day I let her drive back to her campsite which was nice…we provide power, water, and there’s a place to empty the tanks up by the campground office but the Jones had really settled things out. The picnic table had a plastic store bought table cloth on it, they had a BBQ set up and there was folding lawn chairs around and I could smell the hints of citronella in the air and something I’d never smelled before. (Eucalyptus.)

Her mother was a good looking woman and came over as she saw me helping Polly get out of the Mule.

“Goodness what happened!? Are you alright!?” she seemed really worried and so did her father who gave me a look from the picnic table where he was chopping things up…he had a big cleaver too.

“I’m okay, I’m okay I wasn’t watching where I was going and I tripped is all.” Polly was giving me this please don’t tell look.

“That’s good and swollen when’d you do it.” Her mom asked her.

“A few hours ago.”

“And he didn’t bring you home directly?” That was he father looking at me as he smashed a clove of garlic hard with the flat of the cleaver.

“Daddy! Behave dammit. I asked Joe if I could hang around while he finished his work. I knew that you’d flip out and be all like over protective and stuff.”

“Polly, it’s just I worry about you…you’re the only daughter I have.”

She looked at him and there were tears and stuff. There was something going on but I figured it wasn’t my business. Her mother looked at me. “You’ll stay for supper?”

“I really should get the Mule back ma’am before the boss gets mad about it being out after closing.”

“That’s too far to walk back from here Russ, take the car and follow him and drive him back.”

“Ma’am you don’t need to do that it’s no trouble.”

“You heard the boy Sally, he’ll be back it’s no trouble.”

She did her hands on her hips thing and womanly glare and Polly looked like she was going to get mad too and they were about to say something for sure when Russ…Mr. Jones set down the stuff he was making and said.

“Right well then we should get going Joseph we don’t want to keep the ladies waiting and all of that.”

They had a rental car there a sort of metallic grasshopper green gremlin and I’d never seen a man get ready and leave that fast from two women. I remember thinking my own father would have gave him points for that and oddly…Russ reminded me a bit of Andy Capp.

I dropped off the Mule and I took advantage of the showers there to get the lake off of you to get cleaned up. I always took shower stuff and a change of clothes to be reasonably clean after work in case there was something going on to do down town.

He drove me back and I had supper with Polly and her folks. It was the best BBQ I’ve ever had up until that point really they did burgers and chicken and I’ve never had a burger as good. It sounds gross somewhat if you’ve never had it but they had like ground beef but from the butcher shop and just the beef but instead of beef fat they had salted pork fat in it like the stuff we put into baked beans here and…liver..just a bit of beef liver in the mix while it was ground and the way that liver cooks acts like egg in it like a beefy binder and it wasn’t a lot but it added a completely different richness to it and with this mayonnaise with capers in it and chopped beets then these cooked down onions with HP sauce and some freshly sliced tomatoes it was really good.

There was a good salad to go with everything and Polly’s folks went inside to watch a movie on laser disc she made iced cream for dessert.

“Hey that’s cool; I’ve never seen anyone with an electric ice cream maker before.”

She smiled and was whipping together a lot of egg yolks and sugar together and stuff. “That’s my da he’s kind of crazy for gadgets of all kinds.”

“Like the laser disc thing.”

“Yes and the juicer we’ve got and a bunch of other things.”

“Best we have home is a beta-max player….what are you doing?” I asked as she took out this stringy looking black root and she split it with a knife and scraped out this black tarry looking stuff.

“What? You’ve never seen vanilla before?”

“That’s vanilla?”

“Vanilla bean.”

“Then…no.”

Polly offered it to me so I could smell it and it smelled very much like the best vanilla in the world to me. We just had the extract in my house and I’d never been a baker or a cook then.

“Mmmm…wow, so vanilla ice cream?”

“No, it’s actually vanilla custard ice cream.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I’ve had vanilla ice cream here and it’s like vanilla milk that been frozen. You’ll like this you’ll taste the eggs and the cream and the flavors a lot more.”

“Sounds like a lot of work for just ice cream.”

“Frozen custard that you very much and it is a bit more work but you’re worth it.”

“I’m worth it?”

“I don’t meet nice fellows everyday you know, it’s a thank you Joe my day likely would’ve been a whole lot worse if not for you.”

I blushed pretty hard at that. “Thanks.”

Polly blushed too and she added something called golden syrup as she was blending in the cream and then poured it all into the ice cream maker.

It was neat to watch and it sort of kept us from the awkward silences of our teenaged years. She served it up in bowls to her parents who were watching Jaws and she served ours up with those old fashioned waffle cones and she took out this container called fleur de sels?

“Salt?”

“Just a little, trust me.”

She took them out and these fleurs de sel are like these delicate sea salt crystals and she turn our cones in her hand and just sprinkled some here and there really carefully and passed me mine and she had hers and smiled.

I’ll never forget the effect but the fact that this, this is where I fell in love with her looking back. The frozen custard was eggy but in that good dessert custard way…but made into an iced cream and I could even taste the vanilla and this caramel something from the syrup she’d used and then there was this odd little crunch from the salt crystals and the salty hits you first, then the frozen custard melts carrying the bulk of it away but there’s just enough salt that it effects all those other flavors.

The first time we had them we each had a cone.

Every other cone that summer we shared.

Yeah, it didn’t take long before we started to see each other every day. Then spending my days off together and dating, not just dating but going steady really fast.

I know too fast.

Probably but I was falling for her head over heels and reaming about her every night ever since I’d met Polly and she changed everything.

I bought my first car with her at a used car lot a 1971 Vega and it ran like crap but I had a car. And I drove us around everywhere seeing things in my own backyard as it were that I never went to before or thought was special.

We necked a lot at the drive in.

Star wars you remember Star wars when it first came out? Polly and I went three times to see it and we still never actually ended up seeing it.

We were in love…

We were in love to the point Polly was seriously looking at getting a student visa here and not for college. She wanted to stay and go through my last year of school and graduate with me and actually have a high school sweetheart.

Then it happened.

The biggest, stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life.

We’d been to the summer fair and time was winding down and we were trying desperately to be happy.

Her father had said no to her staying here and so we were now looking down the barrel of a long distance relationship. Hell I was looking at a desperate straight through drive to Las Vegas so we could elope…

We’d parked after the fair in the parking lot at the office for the camp ground and we were getting into it really into it and I’d made it to first base before and she was flat as could be…it was still first base…and that night…I needed her so badly…and I was too stupid to stop, too selfish to stop and wasn’t taking the hints when she was brushing my hand away.

And that’s when I got a handful of something that wasn’t on a girl.

She had yanked away and was in tears staring at me leaning all the way away from me pressed to the passenger side door.

“YOU’RE A GUY!!?”

(Sniffle sob cry.) “No!”

“You’ve got a dick!”

“I’m not a guy!”

“You’re not a girl!”

I was angry, beyond angry I was pissed and every thing I’d ever dreamed about for us and our future was going up in flames.

“I AM!” she sob yelled at me. “I was just born in the wrong body!”

“Fucking bullshit you’re a fucking pervert! A cocksucking fagot!”

“Fuck you Joe! Fuck you! You have no idea what I feel!”

“Feel! Feel! I fucking loved you! I fell in love with you Polly…oh ha, ha, ha; I get it now its fucking Paul isn’t it?”

“I love you too dammit!”

“Bullshit!” I raged and I swung…I did and I just…just stopped myself…though stopping myself from hitting her…him…well now her definitely in my mind…stopping tore my heart the rest of the way apart…that and the way Polly recoiled covering and looking back she’d been beaten before…but that’s from looking back then it just added to the sick hurt that I was drowning in.

She was looking at me scared and hurt and like I was breaking her heart…she flinched badly when I leaned across and opened and shoved my car door open.

“Get out.”

“Joe…”

“Get the fuck out Paul!”

Polly got up and she was crying and holding herself and I sped out of there foot to the floor and letting the speed of the car close the door.

It was the last time I’d ever seen Polly.

I drove all that night. I found the town bootlegger and bought a fifth of Jack Daniels and got shit faced and drove all night. I know drinking and driving is stupid it’s always been stupid and so was waking up in front of the Naval recruiting office the next day and signing on to join the marines.

I was lucky that I didn’t get killed the way that I’d planned to when I enlisted. Though Lebanon almost did the trick. It’s where I met Janice though my first wife a good four years after Polly…and countless drunken leaves and who knows how many girls of the night too…how I was clean and disease free was a miracle really.

Janice and I had three kids…in a hurry and we were good for the first four years of our marriage and yet it sort of became obvious that as much as I loved her and the kids I wasn’t in love with her and she left and took the kids and moved to California.

Me I moved home.

And I started a landscaping company with a lot of help from my parents since alimony and child support wasn’t crippling me but it made saving up a lot harder.

Then dad had a heart attack…he had two before while I was away and we’d been lucky but he’d never listen. He was cutting wood right from the pile of logs in the yard to get ready for winter and by the time mom had gone out to find out why the chain saw had stopped it had hit him.

We were all just waiting when one of the RN’s came to me. “Mr. Masters? There’s a phone call for you.”

She led me to the family room where there was a spare phone and she talked into it and got the call forwarded to this phone.

I took the phone. “Hello?”

“Joe?”

I didn’t recognize the voice, it was soft and there was just something warm there to it but as soon as I heard the accent…I knew really only one girl that was from the UK and that was… “Polly?”

“Yes…I hope its okay that I called?”

“Uhm, well my Dad’s not well…”

“I know…he took another heart attack.”

“Another…? How’d you know?”

“Your Mum, she called me.”

“Mom…?”

“I…I wrote Joe, I wrote and I wanted to apologize for lying to you…I had fallen head over heels for you Joe and I was too young and too scared to tell you the truth. I didn’t even want to face the truth then.”

“I never got the letter.”

“Letters…I…I wrote for about a year. Then I got one from your Mum that you’d never come home that night and she didn’t know where you were at. All she knew was we’d broken up…but we’ve stayed close…”

“I joined the marines…I never even talked to my family until I came home with my ex-wife.”

“I’m sorry Joe; I never meant to hurt you like that.” I could hear her sniffling over the phone.

“No, I was a jackass I shouldn’t have done that at all…honestly Polly I just should’ve have believed in you from the start.”

(Sniffle-sob.) “Really?”

(My own sniffle-smiley-sob.) “Yeah…really.”

“Are you crying Joe?”

(Sniffle.) “Yeah…I miss you Polly.”

She’s crying too. “You do!?”

“Yeah…Dammit… (Ugly grown man sniffle.)…I never…never stopped being in love with you…”

There’s crying some hard crying on the other end of the line and sniffles and I’m smiling because…because I can hear her trying to breathe.

“Joe…?”

“Can I come home…?” God…oh god her voice is so tiny and hopeful and scared and sad all at the same time and my heart is just screaming at me to just say it…just man up and say it because she just called you home you jackass.

“….yes…”

………………………………………And that’s where I’m at…sitting here at the arrival gate at the airport waiting for the first and only girl I ever loved who kissed me all that summer with the taste of salt and vanilla on her lips.