Darling we, found love, right now

And of course there was Kyle Montgomery, the best-looking boy in our grade. All the girls like Kyle Montgomery. Even the teachers like Kyle. Us girls pretend-swoon when we see him in the hallways. The one time he caught my best friend Elaine Kim and me doing it, he winked at us, and then he turned bright red. We like Kyle because he’s out of our league; he’s out of everybody’s league. Plus he’s fun to giggle about. I don’t know of any girl who wouldn’t die for a chance to walk down the hallway with Kyle Montgomery.
Kyle Montgomery is tall, and he has nice eyes. You know the kind of eyes that always look like they’re smiling? Well, Kyle has them, and he really does smile an awful lot. His jeans always fit just right, and he is the best basketball player our school has ever seen. So like I said, everyone likes Kyle, and I did my fair share of liking him too a few years back.
But this is different; this is Tony. This is Tony Perry who knows my favorite ice cream flavor (Rocky Road) and how I like my pizza (extra cheese, pineapple, and mushroom); Tony who pulls splinters out of my feet when I go barefoot in the summer; Tony who helped me bury my gerbil, Benny, when he died. This is Tony who was sitting next to me on the bus that time I threw up in third grade. He didn’t even say a word when some splashed on him; he just wiped it off and asked me if I was okay.
One of the things I like best about Tony is his family. The Perrys are the kind of family you only see on black-and-white reruns late at night. At Christmastime, Mrs. Perry makes cinnamon cookies out of piecrust and real whipped cream to put on top, and Mr. Perry used to take Tony and Celia and me sledding at Clementon Park. (This was before Celia decided she was too grown up to have fun.) Mrs. Perry always says that she wishes she had a daughter just like me, and that my mother is the luckiest woman alive for having two lovely daughters. Mrs. Perry thinks I am lovely. When we were little, I secretly wanted the Perrys to adopt me, but now that I’m older, I suppose I would settle for being their cherished daughter-in-law.

Notes