I went to the Moth StorySlam tonight. The theme was “Love Hurts.” I put my name in the hat but didn’t get picked. Here’s a longer version of the story I would have told. Happy Valentine’s Day!

I try not to believe in things like curses, or in choices that I made a long time ago making love hurt more, or making it harder to love, but tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I don’t have a date. And I didn’t have a date last year. Or the year before that. I realized this week that I’ve only had the same date for consecutive Valentine’s Days once. Every year before or since, it’s been a different date or no date. So maybe there is such a thing as a curse and a hard love. The good news is that curses can be broken and people can heal. Just ask the Red Sox or the Democrats. And I didn’t trade Babe Ruth or turn my back on my principles. But I did do something very bad. I was cruel to someone who loved me. And I did it repeatedly and in public. It was tonight –27 years ago tonight– when my heart first closed.

Aimee Anderson had transferred to our school at the start of the second semester of fourth grade. She took an immediate liking to me, which I found suspicious and puzzling. Not that I wasn’t awesome, but I didn’t know what to do with her attention and I felt this strange sense of pressure to reciprocate. I didn’t dislike her. I just would’ve liked her more if she would stop liking me so damn much. I wasn’t such a catch, really. I was a big nerd who was also hyperactive. I’d often have to stay after school and clean the erasers or write in longhand “I will not burp in class” 100 times, but Aimee would wait by the door until I was done. She’d walk me down the stairs and a few blocks out of her way until I was at my bus stop. I couldn’t stand it but I didn’t know how to tell her.

Valentine’s Day was approaching. I sensed Aimee was expecting something from me, some sign of mutual interest. I would have nothing of it. So the night before Valentine’s Day –February 13, 1980– I had to prepare. It was tradition in our school for all the kids in class to bring Valentine’s cards and candy for everyone else. My dad took me to the Walgreen’s (that bastion of romance) and I secured 30 cards and 30 miniature boxes of Necco Sweethearts Conversation Hearts –those fluorescent concrete-like candy bits imprinted with words of tenderness. I had to make sure that Aimee couldn’t possibly interpret this Valentine as anything more than obligatory, so I chose the most perfunctory card I could find. It essentially read on the outside, “It’s Valentine’s Day…” and on the inside, “It Sure Is.”

But the Conversation Hearts –these could be trouble. Rather than risk a wrong impression, I took action. I opened every one of the boxes and emptied them all on to the glass coffee table in our living room. It looked like a Care Bear had thrown up. I worked my way through the sea of pastels, ensuring all the hearts were turned message-side up. I read each heart and organized the messages into three piles: Too Mushy, Maybe Mushy, and Safe. Too Mushy: “Love You,” “Pick Me,” “Let’s Kiss.” Maybe Mushy: “For You,” “All Star,” “Awesome.” This left Safe: “Hi,” “OK” –and then mostly factory misprints: “I Lgrv,” “Keep Owr Tru,” and “Flept.”

The Safe pile was collected into a baggie, put in with the platonic card, sealed with a twist-tie, and labeled in black magic marker: AIMEE.

The rest were randomly mixed into other baggies for the other random children. I realize now that this means that some little boy probably got a romantic Valentine’s card from me along with a baggy filled with candy hearts that said nothing but “Lover Boy,” “Pick Me” and “Let’s Kiss.” But that’s another story.

I gave Aimee her special baggie, ignored her for another couple of weeks, and that’s the last I heard from her.

Until sixth grade.

It was Cupid or puberty –maybe both—that struck Aimee hard and fast two years after our first Valentine’s Day. She took a sudden interest in me again. I was even more of a nerd now, and should have been even more grateful to have a girl after me. But puberty was not kind to Aimee. Instead of developing breasts, her new fat tissue seemed to have gotten stuck under her chin and refused to budge the extra few inches downward. Meanwhile, she suddenly had, what they call in the South, Birthing Hips, but her feet were still those of a child’s, giving her the effect of haunches. Her face got rounder while her preppy nose continued to grow skyward. I didn’t know it then, but what she was, was porcine. So it’s not surprising when I needed an insult to drive her away, the first thing that popped into my head was “Go away– Piggy.”

I don’t know how, but it caught on. I was the least popular kid in school, yet I had somehow become a trendsetter. Almost overnight, across all grades, all cliques, all social classes… kids started calling Aimee “Piggy.” From the science lab to the kids smoking in the alley –I swear I even heard it from the teacher’s lounge—it was a sensation. Cartoons started showing up in bathroom stalls. Computer programmers named code Piggy 2.0. Bitchy girls would decline to buy a LeSportsac because, “That looks SO Piggy.”

Suffice to say, Aimee left me alone. Soon she left everyone alone.

But it got worse.

Once a year, all the sixth grade would come to school for Sleepover Night –we thought it was a chance to play Journey records and run amok in the school. Turns out after we were locked in, the staff separated the boys from the girls and showed us sex-ed films. They then kept us separated and under guard with the lights on all night.

For reasons I can imagine now, Aimee was late –the last to arrive. Attendance at Sleepover Night was mandatory and after roll was called, the whole class knew Aimee wasn’t there yet. Soon the chanting began…

PIGGY!
PIGGY!

It got louder and louder. I knew the familiar chant that was coming next.

A-I-M-E-E
That’s the way you spell PIGGY
A-I-M-E-E
That’s the way you spell PIGGY

The front door swung open and Aimee entered the lobby, greeted by the whole class in a united, pubescent frenzy.

PIGGY! PIGGY!
Go home, PIGGY!

At the time, it seemed HILARIOUS. Now it seems HORRIBLE. I think about it every Valentine’s Day and I always cringe. I’m horrified by what I might have done to her.

So tonight –27 years ago tonight—when I first decided to refuse Aimee’s love, when I sealed up my heart in that baggie, I wonder what I really gave away to her. I think that’s when the curse was cast.

I think tomorrow I may try to track her down, write her a letter. I don’t know what I’d say. I guess I’d apologize, try to somehow make things right. I’m not sure. It’s the kind of thing I would know how to do better if I were in a 12-step program or if my name were Earl. But I’ve got to do something.

Of course I have a fantasy where I do write a letter, and Aimee gets it and is magically healed. Then she writes back and I’m magically healed and the curse is lifted. We continue to correspond and then we meet and soon we start a most improbable love affair, filled with years of consecutive Valentine’s Days. And the best “How did you two meet?” story ever.

Maybe I’ll write that letter tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll have a date.

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