When I was young and good-looking, I mean really young, like thirteen or fourteen, I mean really good-looking, like Leanne Simon definitely noticed me in the halls and in the cafeteria, even though she never said a word to me when I was young and good-looking and she was young and good-looking—in fact Leanne Simon was probably the best-looking girl in my grade, she was so pretty you just wanted to stare at her and look for the flaw in her perfection because there had to be a flaw but there was no flaw, and if she had wanted to be with me, like go out with me, which of course she didn’t, but just for the sake of argument, I wouldn’t even have known what to do with Leanne Simon, I mean I probably would have showed her my stamp collection and my coin collection and my runner-up tennis trophy, or maybe the nutcracker my parents brought home from Denmark with the intricately carved wooden handles, but I don’t think I would have touched her because when I was young and good-looking I was less interested in touching beauty than just staring at it and looking for the flaws and not finding any,
so I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to get in her pants because I didn’t know what was in her pants and didn’t want to know, I just wanted to be around her and in front of her and on every side of her especially her good side, so I probably would have showed her my record collection and maybe we would have sat on my bed together and listened to records and not even given a thought to what two young and good-looking people might do on a bed or in a bed, but I’d like to think that maybe I would have asked her to dance, which is one of the best ways to be around beauty and examine its perfection from all sides for the flaws that aren’t there, but chances are I wouldn’t have had the balls to ask her to dance as I sat there next to her on the bed listening to the music and fidgeting with the nutcracker in my hands after she’d held it in her hands and admired it and handed it back to me.

Paul Hostovsky has won a Pushcart Prize and two Best of the Net Awards. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. Website: paulhostovsky.com