Her name was Kelli Saunders. She was my brother Steve's girlfriend and she was about to give me my very first legit kiss. I was fourteen. Steve was twenty-one. He and his best friend, Steve Rozelle(from as far back as I can remember, virtually all my brother's best friends were named Steve - Steve Hall, Steve Bedrosian, Steve Rozelle, etc....) were in the house listening to Cheech and Chong and smoking Acapulco Gold. I was sitting in Steve Rozelle's Saab, talking on the CB radio. Kelli had gotten bored and came to join me. She was seventeen with smiling eyes and smelled like fresh rain. I was off balance and nervous in the presence of girls, especially pretty ones and Kelli was a pretty one. She smiled at me and was flirting but I didn't know how to recognize it - the upward glance through a curtain of fine chestnut hair she let fall over one eye, just so. Mm. The hair that just barely touched her bare shoulders. I wanted to be that hair but she was my brother's girlfriend and he would surely kill me if he could read my thoughts and wasn't under the influence of such a peaceful drug.
She asked me about the CB and I started to explain the " 10-code" to her. While I explained, she reached around me and started turning the knob that reclined my seat. I was explaining that "10-36" was the code for "What time is it?" Her hair brushed past my face and I forgot what "10-9" meant (repeat last transmission). She laughed and caressed my face with her hand. I thought my heart would leave my chest. She had reclined my seat all the way, but I sat up. She got behind me and sat on the headrest and gently lay my head between her legs and began massaging my temples.
"Reeeeeeeeeeeeelax," she breathed.
I did.
I closed my eyes. I looked up at her smiling down at me looking up at her, upside-down. She leaned over, her hair a canopy encircling my face. Soft lips touched mine. Upside-down. Strange and wonderful. I really did not expect the tongue. No one told me shit about that. I barely parted my lips and a river of excitement and joy flowed into me and it has never left.
I saw her, years later. She looked the same. I had to tell her who I was. It took her a minute and she remembered. Barely. Michael McDonald was so right.
"She had a place in his life. He never made her think twice."
