I was eight and he was ten. It was summer vacation on a yearly trip my family took to a resort in Indiana about an hour and a half away from our home outside of Chicago. It was a highly anticipated event for my brother and I. We saved our money all year for it to buy souvenirs and to play the games of chance on the boardwalk.

He was my brother’s vacation friend. I was the third wheel always with the two boys. I am sure I cramped their style and I am sure too, it bothered my brother to have his little sister batting cow eyes at his summer friend. But my eight year old little girl self seemed to be unable to hide them and unable to stop my hero worship of this strange different boy who was older and always nice to me. He didn’t treat me like a kid sister like all of my brother’s other friends had always done. He still treated me like a girl even though I could climb a tree way higher than he could.

We were all too young to swim in the lake. (I eyed that lake constantly with dreams of swimming there like the teenagers in their pretty bikinis and big boobs) Instead, we had to content ourselves with the resort’s pool. I thought it was a wonderful pool and I swam like a fish, out swimming my brother and his friend though he did fairly well with keeping up with me.

My brother got bored and went off by himself, but I, and Mr. Young Merman decided we would continue to swim. I had the thought in my head that summer that I could turn into a mermaid if I only had enough time in the water. We had discussed how “merpeople” could talk to each other when they spent the majority of their time underwater. We did an experiment. We would see if we could hold a conversation underwater without drowning.

I remember it so clearly, as clearly as the ice blue water, the blinding sun shining down on us and the smell of suntan lotion coating the air. Us, swimming in the deep end, under the water as “merpeople”, his sun bleached hair and his bright eyes open and smiling as bubbles escaped his lips.

He said, “You’re pretty.”

I tried to say, “What?” water choked me and I shot to the surface. He popped up behind me.

“Are you okay?”

I rubbed my eyes, “Did you just tell me I was pretty?”

His freckles stood out on his wildly blushing face. But he was brave, “Yes. I said that. You’re pretty.”

I took his hand and pulled him under the water with me. I managed a few words as the mermaid I wished I could be, “Say it again.”

And he did. His face got closer to mine as we held hands and he kissed me under the water with the bubbles swirling between us.

I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and again popped to the surface. He followed behind me. “Wow.” was all I managed and we continued on swimming.

In all the summers after that, I don’t remember him ever kissing me again. He did hold my hand though when we would swing on the giant swing that overlooked the lake. We wrote letters to each other for years. The last I received was the summer of seventh grade. I don’t remember what we wrote about. I can’t even remember what we even talked about one magical week each summer of our childhoods. I only know that he was my first kiss, my first true kiss and I never forgot him.

It’s funny what importance first kisses take on. It seems that just about everyone can remember theirs and the name of the person who they shared it with. It may be that it is the awaking of what it feels like to like someone who likes you, or the first time you realize that there is more in the world than you had ever imagined. Most of us can look back on that kiss and recall it fondly and with sweetness. It was all so easy then, so simple. It was before games and rules and over analyzing and second guessing. It was just being who you were and someone liking who you were and kissing you to prove it.

I have thought of him often over the years and wondered if his life turned out well. I wonder too, if he has thought of me and if he realizes how he made the little girl I was feel as if she really did have the powerful magic mermaids do.


Monika M. Basile