The Harpist

Summer 1984. Sixteen years old. Nashville, Tennessee. Cracker Barrel parking lot in Music Valley.

I was a "host" at the music theme park Opryland USA, which is a polite way of identifying the person who walks around with a short-broom and dustpan. One sweltering day I worked the Doo-Wah-Diddy-City section of the park, which was themed after the 1950s. I took my fifteen minute break in the small, hippie colors painted room between the train tracks and the Rock n' Roller Coaster.

The breakroom was empty except for the droning air-conditioner, along with a Coke can dispenser and a vending machine that offered knock-off candies and nuts. I don't know why but I remember those vending machines at parks in the Volunteer State. I never craved Hydrox cookies or unsalted sunflower seeds but there must have been a market for it.

Every twenty-seven seconds the walls rattled as each new loaded coaster zoomed down and banked the tracks or a mighty locomotive rumbled by. Like most things, after a while you no longer feel it. I once lived on the highest hill next to the airport, and same thing. I didn't hear them enter.(either)

When I walked to a table, I heard the voice of a teenage girl say, "gotta go" and scramble out. I looked up from my company newsletter and beheld an angelic face, sandy blond hair, blue-eyed girl seated at the table next to mine. And she was alone.

"Whew!" thought I while remaining silent.

"Hi."

I smirked a reply, "Hi."

Five second pause.

She batted her eye lashes, uttering a luxurious tone, "Hello."

Big smile, rich timbre "Good afternoon."

She pointed to the back of her neck. "Did you know that there is a particular vertebrae on the neck that is an evolutionary marker demonstrating that man evolved from wolves?"

I shook my head. "No."

"It's true." She flipped her hair up. "Try it."

"Ok." I stood behind her and placed a finger on her neck.

"A little lower. Lower. Just to the left."

I complied.

Suddenly she spun around and tried to bite my finger. "Woof!"

I had a hearty laugh and was instantly smitten.

"I'm Cheryl. I work in the shops."

"I'm Jason. Sweeper... I mean host."

She glanced to a wall clock. "Nice talking to you."

"Um... Maybe I'll see you around."

"I'd like that."

A coy exchange of smiles and she bounced out the door; her ponytail pendulum keeping time.

Going back to work no longer felt like a $3 per hour avenue by which to buy a car but an enchanting opportunity to see her.

Over the next couple of weeks we met regularly for breaks and talked on the phone daily. Cheryl was a consummate flirt- a harpist expertly plucking each string of my heart.

She lived a few miles north of me and was in the same grade at Hendersonville High School. During one such call I asked her to have dinner with me after work.

Without hesitation she sparked "Yes."

Following a strident standing sink bath, and a change from my sweaty uniform to fresh civilian clothes, I was ready in my faded Levi's, an ironically named muscle shirt featuring four words in Japanese and gray loafers, I waited beneath the employee canopy between the costuming dressing rooms anticipating her arrival.

Another teen girl came out first. "She'll be out in a minute."

I nodded my appreciation.

Then came her royal presentation. She radiated wearing her loose and luxurious hair down, hoop earrings, a blouse emblazoned with the symbol from the album cover for "Toto IV", jelly bracelets, pink high-heeled sneakers and a bold mini-skirt.

Ba-dum-ba!

We chatted all the way across the parking lot to my bugger-green 1978 Dodge Colt. Yes, I opened the door for her- I was raised in the South. Upon parking at Cracker Barrel I paused and uttered a borrowed comedic line from the movie "Annie Hall."

"This is our first date. I want to kiss you and that is all I'll focus on throughout dinner."

She guffawed, "I'll be wondering the same thing."

"So let's have our first kiss now so we can both relax."

"Jason Goldtrap you are just too much."

We leaned in- a three second smack. This was my first kiss.

"Sparkle-sparkle, jubilee! All the world's a stage!" I can still taste that red apple flavored lipstick.

Confetti. Fireworks. Thunderbolts. Oh, what a kiss! I would ride a bicycle uphill in the rain to repeat that one moment even once more.

It was the highlight of my adolescence. We held hands the rest of the evening as our table burst with rapturous laughter. We sang the wordless aria of young love in perfect harmony. I kissed her once more at her doorstep and floated back home.

We went out a few more times but Cheryl returned to an old boyfriend and we parted as friends not sweethearts. Fair thee well.

Romance is a rocket lit by innocence, arching through the atmosphere ready to jettison empty expectations, embracing the final frontier, flinging the coils of gravity to a sustained weightlessness of wonder. In every voyage there is mystery and progress. This is why we sing, dance, write and recite. It excites our better nature. Let love rule! Friends, let love rule.