Leanne-
Dropping the kids off at school this morning. I always try to do this on my days off. Take the younger three to the elementary/middle school then take my oldest to the high school. So during the drive from the ES/MS to the high school my oldest and I get to talking about her “culinary arts” class. I told her that in my day we called it home ec. She said that her class made a really good taco salad the other day. I said the only thing that I can remember making in my home ec class was a microwaved scrambled egg with pepper, salt and ketchup. And the home ec teacher didn’t even teach me how to do that, it was this junior Leanne. So then, after I drop my oldest off, I get to thinking about Leanne.
She was two years older than me in school. So when she was a Jr I was a Freshman, somehow we ended up in that home ec class together. I didn’t really know her, but I knew her. I went to a small school and she was very pretty, so I of course knew who she was but we had never really talked. I’ll be honest I had never had a microwaved scrambled egg before. My mom would never microwave an egg. Just wouldn’t have done it. Leanne had learned how on her own because her mom and dad were both mid-level healthcare providers and, in a small town, they were heavily utilized. So Leanne was on her own at home a lot. So she had learned how to do these things out of necessity. Anyway… the egg sucked until she put ketchup and pepper on it, then kind of mixed it up into this lumpy egg paste. Looked terrible but it was really good for a freshman boy who was starving all the time.
The summer after my freshman year the hospital was looking to hire a few high school kids to do maintenance and yard work around the hospital and the assisted living/nursing home. Kind of spruce the place up over the summer. Leanne and I were two of those kids, so I really got to know her. Even went to her house a few times for lunch (not eggs, she could cook other things ;). Her bedroom was in the basement and she had the coolest band posters I had ever seen. I had really gotten into Nirvana the summer before this and was absolutely fascinated with Kurt Cobain. She had Nirvana posters, nine inch nails, Natural Born Killers, squirrel nut zippers. I mean just really cool shit all over her room. And she wasn’t faking, she was sincere. She almost seemed embarrassed that I had seen her inner lair. She was a super, super cool chick.
Anyway…after this I don’t really have any memories of Leanne. She started dating this really cool buddy of mine that I would eventually be with as he died (but that is another long story). She graduated and left town. Eventually we met up a few times in Denver when we were both living around there. Mostly going to bars or getting shitfaced. She had a daughter (not with my really cool buddy) so she didn’t go all that hard, but she always hung out with those of us who did and would be our DD and cool shit like that. And then a few years after I moved out of Colorado, a buddy of mine told me she had passed away suddenly. Which was really crazy now that I reflect on it. She was really young, I think her daughter might have been 14 or 15. I had heard drugs, but also heard that was total bullshit. To be honest, I didn’t go to her funeral. I really hate funerals, I am not even going to attend my own.
Ok, one more Leanne memory. A mutual friend of ours was getting married. I was not even 21, but the wedding was in my hometown and people tended to look the other way when local kids wanted to drink. Just how it was, no one really gave a shit so I ran up a huge tab on my buddies dad’s credit card. He later made me pay him back by doing concrete work on his farm for an entire day. So he got his money out of me. Anyway…Leanne was there with her parents and daughter and I was shitfaced and I kept offering her money to buy diapers for her daughter. I wanted to help, but I came across as really self righteous and a total asshole. She was getting really annoyed with me and so were her parents as I waved cash in front of her face telling her that she needed it. Like a total asshole.
I don’t remember how the situation eventually ended, or the night in general. I woke up the next morning in my childhood bedroom, still fully clothed, with no idea how or why. And my dad asking me if I wanted some scrambled eggs. I think that was the last time I saw Leanne. So she died thinking I was an asshole. Or maybe she had moved on and didn’t hold it against me. More likely, she wasn’t thinking about me at all.
