Like Wheat

I was in a corner. There were too many of them around me. I didn't even have one girl by my side to help me fend off the wolves that were closing in. By wolves, I mean teenage girls. But even though I was outnumbered, I was cool. I was way cooler than they had any concept and there were reasons why I was not generally bullied by girls. It didn't matter that they were all years older than me, or that there were so many of them, or even that one of them hated me so much it was palpable. I could manage her. She was my cousin.

My girl cousins were hilarious, especially the ones from my small town. I could spot one of them a mile away as we all had the same problem and possibly the same flirting style. We were all boy-crazy lunatics. Every one of my girl relatives on that one side of the family tree, including me, needed to be choke-chained in the backyard until we were nineteen. Then, our parents could scout for husbands for us. We weren’t very choosy. We just liked men and this way everyone, including us, could be spared the embarrassment of us flirting in public in our teens. Seriously, it doesn't seem like a reasonable solution until you see the nature of the problem. Our parents arranging marriages for us would have worked... theoretically.

Anyway, a rumor had surfaced that I liked one of my older cousin's 'potential boyfriends' and it was making a mess. Honestly, I hadn't heard from this guy in months.

I shook my hair and said, “I don't know what you're talking about. I have a crush on Nathaniel Richardson. Do you know him? He lives in Stirling.”

“But he's three years older than you!” one of them exclaimed.

“I know, but I can't help it. Have you seen him?” I fanned my face with my hand.

Okay, I admit it. My excuse was a total lie. Here's what I knew about Nathaniel Richardson. He was a friend of my older sister, and she had introduced him to me a few months before. He was a nice guy and he always took a minute to dance with me at the dances. Aside from that, I didn't know if I liked him or not, just that he was totally out of my league. If a rumor that I liked him made its way back to his ears, nothing would happen. He would smile and think, “That's adorable. Of course, she likes me. Poor kid. She never had a chance.”

The wolf pack promptly dispersed since the threat had dissipated.

A few years before, when I was in seventh grade, I pulled the same trick, with marvelous results. I was at a sleepover party where they asked me if I had a crush on anybody. I had a crush on a guy in my grade, but everyone had known about that for years and since I had so much to do with him on a daily basis, I didn't feel like having the same old news blabbed to him again. So, I said I had a crush on a guy in ninth grade. On Monday, I heard the story had been retold and it would undoubtedly make it to the ears of the guy in ninth grade. I was fine. I had said his name because he was a really good person and I figured he’d be complimented, but do nothing. However, as far as I know, I was the only seventh-grader to be asked for a slow dance by a ninth-grader at a junior high school dance.

I figured the same thing would happen with Nathaniel Richardson. He'd think I was cute and ask me to dance, which he was doing anyway. I used his name because I was happy I had his attention because I was young and new to the youth dances at my church. It was outrageous to claim that I liked him when I was in grade eight and he was in grade eleven, but I had made outrageous claims before.

Then, suddenly, it wasn't exactly an outrageous claim.

I don't think the shift in my feelings had anything to do with the girls who blabbed. They were supposed to blab, and I don't think Nathaniel did anything different either. It was just that I started to want more than just a dance. In the world of church dances, you didn't get to go on dates until you were sixteen and I was fourteen at the time, so he wasn't going to ask me on a date and I hated being too young to date.

But then I started thinking. And as my mind started ticking and whirring, I realized that he wanted to be with a particular kind of girl. He wanted a girl who was like wheat because he was like wheat. Someone who was fair in coloring. Someone with straight lines who grew straight up. Someone who feeds others because she's wholesome. Someone who loves the truth and not nonsense.

I am only those things in the broadest sense possible. I wouldn't like to cheat myself by acting like I have none of those qualities, but I have vibrant, contrasting coloring. I have what I like to refer to as an exaggerated feminine figure, meaning I have a body shape that has more in common with cartoons of women rather than actual women. I make chocolate and cookies and feed them to you like they're medicine, and I love nonsense. Have I mentioned my morbid streak? At that age, it was probably my dominant characteristic. I wasn’t wholesome.

The realization that I was not what a latter-day saint boy wanted and that my brand of adorable-but-will-kill-you-a-little-bit was not good enough, really hurt my feelings. Because it was true. I was unwholesome.

There's this Mormon Ad that is a picture of a vase with flowers in it. It's a bunch of red roses with a single daisy in the middle and of course, the daisy shines out like a beacon of light amidst the garish roses. The title reads, “Be your own kind of beautiful.”

I was left wondering, what does that poster mean if you are a red rosebud? What does it mean if you're something darker? Are you still allowed to be 'Be your own kind of beautiful'? What if your stem is midnight and your blossom is pitch and everyone who touches you learns to stop loving daisies? And what if you are so tempting that you make a man who is wheat question everything he is?

I gave up on Nathaniel and dated other boys instead. As far as I know, he stayed white as wheat.