Parts of the following story were originally written the day after the event took place in July 1983, when I was 22 years old. Its updating at this time was inspired by a diary I read a while back. I don't know why that story inspired me to publish this one, because they are not really all that much alike. But that's OK.
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After four days of hard work building a swimming pool in Rapid City, SD (trying to dig a big hole in solid Black Hills rock with a shovel, or so it seemed to me), I was in a hurry to get home to western Nebraska for an extended Fourth-of-July week-end. As I was leaving headquarters, my employer handed me my paycheck. I decided to stop at my employer's bank to cash it while I was leaving town. By doing so at that particular bank, I figured they couldn't refuse me (I imagined the exchange going something like this: "Do you have an account here, sir?" -- "No, I don't, but my employer sure does." -- "Well, that's good enough for us.").
As I drove to the bank, I remembered that I had still not cashed my previous paycheck either (hard to do when working ten or more hours a day, six days a week). I wasn't so sure they would cash that check, though, because it had been made out on an account from a bank in central South Dakota (where my employer's main headquarters was located, and where I had been living most of that summer).
Several times during the drive to the bank, I almost changed my mind and didn't stop because I didn't want to put up with any possible hassle. But I stopped anyway. Soon, I was standing in a very busy bank trying to decide which teller's line looked the shortest. As I did this, I also looked at each of the tellers to see which one was the most attractive (yeah, yeah, I know, shallow), and I also read each of their name plates. I didn't really get a chance to determine which one was the most attractive because the line at the teller's window nearest to the front door had grown much shorter than the others in a shorter space of time. I was fine with that, because that teller had sort of caught my eye anyway. So I got in that line to wait.
As I slowly approached the window, I looked at the teller and seriously thought to myself, “I should know her.”
The problem is: I have played that "game" with lots of strangers in the crowd over the years. It had become such a routine that I didn't put too much stock in seeing yet "another familiar face." Besides, her familiarity was just “too far gone” for me to try to remember where I might have seen her before, or even if I had seen her before. Her name plate read “Becky,” but that didn't ring any conscious bells.
When I finally arrived at the window, I asked her if she could cash my payroll check since it had been made out through her bank. She asked me if the company I worked for was a local business.
I said, "Yes, it is."
She then instructed me to endorse the check. Before doing so, I also showed her the check that had been made out through the bank in Pierre, South Dakota (pronounced "peer"), and asked her if she could cash it also.
She answered me with a somewhat unusual emphasis in her voice while I endorsed the first check: “Yes, I’m from Pierre."
I simply assumed that was her way of telling me that she had heard of the bank in question. I smiled and continued endorsing my checks; but in that moment certain subconscious thoughts and intuitions entered my mind. They never had a chance to materialize fully, though, because in that same instant, as I was still endorsing, she continued, “You probably won’t remember me, but --”
And in that very instant, all the clues came together, and I did remember. I said with barely subdued excitement, “Oh, I sure do.”
We had been classmates in Pierre in third grade, THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER! And we had not seen each other since then! In fact, she had been (at least in my very young mind) something resembling my first girl friend. If not that, then she was definitely my first close female friend.
All I could say to her was, “How? I don’t believe it! How could you ever have recognized me?!”
“I recognized you when you walked in.”
I pointed at her nameplate and said, “The second you said that to me, your name -- and Pierre -- flashed through my mind, and I knew.” Then, after a couple of seconds, I added with a smile, “I went with you to your house once, and we played dolls. Didn’t we?” I could almost feel the customers in line behind me smiling.
She smiled at the memory too and nodded her head in affirmation.
From then on, all I could keep saying was, “I don’t believe it!”
I also told her, “People say I don’t even look like I did when I was a senior in high school, and that was only four years ago.”
She said simply and with such a quiet confidence, “I recognized you.”
She then asked what I’d done after third grade. I answered her in one or two sentences because I felt I couldn’t chit chat too much with a long line of people waiting behind me (I was also nervous talking about personal things in front of her bosses in a busy bank). I told her that my family had moved to a small town fifty miles southeast of Pierre in the summer after my third-grade year, and that I had attended fourth through ninth grades there -- then Nebraska. She told me she had moved to Washington state after third grade (I never did think to ask what she was doing back in South Dakota).
I continued repeating how unbelievable it was that she had recognized me.
She kept insisting that I come back and visit her.
I told her that I would definitely do that. And I meant it.
After she had cashed my checks, I left because the bank had been so busy at that moment (par for the course, and very annoying). I had really wanted to stay and visit with her some more, but I had been very nervous in front of all those people. I also felt it would be presumptuous of me to hang around waiting for her to go on break (in my nervous state, it didn't occur to me to ask her). I also didn’t know what her bosses would think of such fraternizing during working hours, so I reluctantly left.
I felt terrible during the long drive to my home in Nebraska. I kept thinking how I might have handled the situation better if only I had not been so flustered and caught off guard (normally, I am the person who recognizes "long-lost" people first). I also knew that I would not be returning to Rapid City in the near future, as my work would require me to return to my home in the central part of the state (three and a half hours east of Rapid City). That meant I would not get a chance to see her in the near future.
The thing that bothered me the most was the fact that I had not thought to see if she was wearing a wedding ring (I didn't want to be "fraternizing" with a married woman, or getting my hopes up if she was married). Nearly as disappointing was the fact that I had forgotten what she looked like as soon as I left the bank. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember her face.
Sadly, a year would pass before I had a chance to return to Rapid City (doing the same construction work). We were there for a week or two, but, due to our very long work days, I never had an opportunity to return to the bank (and my bosses would never have allowed me time off during working hours). Therefore, my only opportunity came the day after my last day with the swimming-pool company (as I was preparing to return to college after a two-year break). While on my way out of town, I stopped in the bank to see if Becky still worked there. I was very nervous. The teller with whom I spoke said that she would not be in to work for several more hours. I couldn’t wait that long, so, with great reluctance, I departed for Nebraska. A few days later, I enrolled in college. One year later at that college, I met a certain Iranian woman, and my world was turned upside down forevermore. All thoughts of old classmates from grade school were erased from my mind for quite some time. I will always regret that.
Final note: It didn't occur to me until just now, as I rewrite this for Blogger, that I probably gave Becky the wrong impression when I said I was working for a local company. She must have thought I was actually living in Rapid City; therefore, when I never returned to visit her, she must have thought I didn't mean any of the things I had said.
Darn it.
