Women didn’t starve themselves in the name of beauty back them. Gibson bullied me and ran off before I could gain my vengeance. I was an emotional child. I cried out of frustration for not getting him back after grade three ball games. Miss Cromer, the grade four teacher, who was in charge of sports, hugged the tears away. And so began my second crush.
Miss Cromer would be my grade 4 teacher the next year, for half a term. We got home one afternoon and found our worldly possessions packed in Glen’s Removal boxes.
“We are moving to Harare” they said, unconcerned about the friends we would lose, the crush I would be separated from. I phoned my best friend, Russell to tell him I wouldn’t be in school tomorrow.
“Why?” He asked plaintively.
“We are moving to Salisbury” I said.
He sounded sad.
Miss Carlisle taught our grade 5 class. She was my 3rd crush. Chengetai and I were her favourites. “Amai vako”, your mother, my classmates called her.
Miss Carlisle of long brown hair did not know that I was cheating on her. Under the lid of my desk was a page pulled out of the television magazine. On that page was a picture of the Bionic Woman, Lindsay Wagner, her lips whitish from wear. I kissed this picture daily. Once a week Lindsay came alive on our black and white Philips TV set, throwing bad guys with just one arm, as if they were rag dolls, her long legs running in slow motion inside bell bottom jeans, her blonde hair flying behind her like golden sails.
The Bruce McDonald directed Samson is currently on repeat on DSTV, filmed in 2018. A much, much older Lindsay Wagner plays the mother of the knuckleheaded Samson. Time has ruined the beautiful face on which my 11 year old lips once feasted.
Like R Kelly, I wish I could turn back the hands of time.
Sigh…
