Waltz of Her Life

That left Lauren on her own to ponder her life while the budding trees and sprouting grass dotted the scenery outside the window. In high school she'd had only one real boyfriend: Tom. He was a tall and skinny dark-haired guy with braces, who liked to impersonate movie stars he liked, such as Clint Eastwood and Al Pacino. She'd met him at the roller skating rink during her sophomore year and he'd taught her how to follow him, in skate dance routines, where he would whirl her around and she would skate backwards. At first it had terrified her but he held her with such strength and confidence her fears melted away.

A few times they'd also gone to the cinema together, with Tom's parents or her mother dropping them off or picking them up. One time they sneaked into an 'R' rated movie, "Magnum Force," with Clint Eastwood playing Dirty Harry. They'd giggled all the way through the movie, with its cussing, violent images and nudity they weren't supposed to see yet.

Unfortunately, they soon acted out a scene from another movie Linda had seen.

At the end of sophomore year, Tom took her skating the way he often did, but he seemed glum, downcast. When they sat down at the snack bar, he broke the news to her. "My father got a transfer. They want him to be a vice president at the home office, in Philadelphia. We're going to move there in July." When the reality sunk in, Linda started to cry, the way Susan did in the movie "Jeremy." In that movie, Susan had to move away from Jeremy After Linda saw Tom for the last time, as he lowered down into the family station wagon parked behind a giant moving van, she cried for two days after.

Though she still went skating every Friday night and skated couples with many different boys, she went through her junior and senior years without another boyfriend. When prom time came, no one asked her. Lauren pointed out that girls outnumbered boys at her school almost three to two and that she just hadn't tried hard enough to be noticed. It was probably true. And pimply-faced Lester Mahaffey from her Physiology class had acted like he was going to ask her, but his adam's apple bulged out and he stammered out something about fixing the centrifuge for their next experiment. He was probably afraid she was going to turn him down.

And no matter what Lauren said, she still felt fat, especially around that time of the month. Older sisters of her friends had warned about the "Freshman 15," referring to the number of pounds some girls gained from eating the starchy, greasy dorm cafeteria food. Her mother said "Just eat lots of salads and drink lots of water. Stay away from soda." Oh well, she thought, it did work, sort of. Instead of fifteen pounds, she only gained five.