Linda was a beautiful girl since she was a child. Shiny brown skin, curly jet black hair and dark—almost black—eyes. Her voice was sweet and soft, as was her personality. She always smiled. Her disposition was not athletic, but if pushed she could outrun any of her girlfriends and throw rocks as far and accurately as her boy cousins. She was also quite intelligent. She read many books and was very articulate. All of this led her to have many friends. Everybody in the Southside knew and liked Linda.
And she was an orphan. Her mom gave her up to her sister when she married a man who was not Linda’s father. It was no trouble at all to her aunt, who had four girls of her own. Linda fit in perfectly in the brood, as her aunt had lost a child between her first two and last two girls. Linda was exactly the same age as her lost child, four and two years younger than her oldest two cousins respectively and two and four years older than her youngest two cousins respectively.
Her only flaw was that she couldn’t help that everybody liked her.
In elementary school, she would look at boys, and they would all think she favored them.
Same with girls. A brief smiled made them think she wanted to be their best friends.
The biggest trouble with all of this was that the people who fell under her enchantment often led them to brag to their friends. And this often caused competition and disappointment.
“Me catchó, Linda,” one boy would say.
“No. She catched me,” another boy would say.
“Then she must be moving on from you,” would be the reply.
“Me catchó, Linda” a girl would say.
“No, she’s my best friend,” another girl would say.
Linda was not oblivious to the strife that followed her. And it bothered her. For she didn’t know how or why it happened.
Boy got caught up in her mass enchantment when he asked her out to the prom.
When he picked her up at her house, her aunt’s husband took him aside.
“Don’t get in a fight. Come home right away if there’s any trouble,” he admonished Boy.
Boy wondered what this meant.
The prom went on without any problem, but Boy was on alert the entire time. Meanwhile, everybody came by their table so much that they didn’t get a chance to dance at all.
When he took her home, Linda looked at him bewildered. The critical moment of kissing goodnight was upon them. After a long silent pause, Linda reached over and gave Boy a quick light goodbye kiss.
“You catched me. But I didn’t catchar you,” she said and quickly got out of the car.
Boy didn’t understand. But he would remember and ponder the moment the rest of his life.
“Where would I be now if she had catchared me?” he often asked himself.
