A Childhood Bond That Recalls a Sweet Boy’s Smile

The Boston Globe

I don’t know if, when you’re in second grade, you can actually want to be someone else, erase who you are and become that other. Maybe what’s truer is that you want to stay who you are, but embellish yourself somehow, like store-wrapped chicken pounded and garnished, chicken still, but fancy now, dressed up as chicken piccata.

Rosemary Jablonski was my chicken piccata. I met her in February of second grade. I was the new kid in class. My parents had walked me to Miss Nagel’s room; Miss Nagel had walked me to my desk. I was in my seat and trying not to cry. But I did. And Janet Butler told. And everyone turned to look at me.

I met Rosemary’s eyes then, blue/green eyes that didn’t seem surprised by my tears, just curious. Even as Miss Nagel rushed to my side, I thought, I want to be that girl’s friend.

So I imitated her. She was smart and knew all the answers to Miss Nagel’s questions, so I worked to be smart. She wore crinolines and skirts, so I wore crinolines and skirts. She pronounced her ‘ing’s and her r’s, so I started pronouncing my ‘ing’s and my r’s.

She knew every Christmas carol, so I learned Christmas carols.

She drew small circles on top her her i’s, so I drew small circles on top of my i’s.

She loved cats. So I loved cats.

My mother used to say, “If Rosemary jumped off the top of the Empire State Building, would you jump off, too?”

“Of course not,” I always answered. But the truth is I would have.

In seventh grade, after four years of being together school days, vacation days, summer days, every day, school separated us. I was sent 10 miles away to a parish parochial school while Rose went to Randolph Junior High. From Monday to Friday, we existed on separate planets. But on weekends we were back in the same orbit, doing all the things we always did. Nothing had changed, we told each other.

But, really, everything had.

The first time she mentioned Val Pochay, I thought she was making him up. The name was fancy, like Fabian Forte, a made-up name for sure. But, no, Val Pochay was a real boy, she said. And Val was his real name. He went to her school. He was a year older and she liked him.

I met him one Saturday afternoon at Regina Kalitsis’s. She was another new friend of Rosemary’s. Regina Kalitsis. Val Pochay. All of Rosemary’s friends had movie star names.

I don’t remember much about that day. It was warm and sunny. Regina was nice. Val Pochay was cute. We ran barefoot. Playing tag? Through some sprinklers? I don’t remember.

What I know is that Val Pochay became legend that day. Why? Because he was a cute boy with thick, dark hair that reminded us (Rosemary) of Elvis? Because we talked about him nonstop on our long walk home? (And then later on the phone for months and months.) Because he was Rosemary’s first crush? Or because he was the last obsession the both of us shared?

You go to a different school from your best friend and it changes things. I tried to have a crush on Val Pochay. I pretended to. I listened to Rosemary’s stories. I sighed in all the right places.

But I had my own crush and my own other life, 10 miles away.

Val Pochay died this month. I learned this on Facebook. He was married for 48 years. He had children. He had grandchildren. He served in Vietnam. He lived a full, long life since that Saturday afternoon we met.

I look at the picture on his memory page. And I see, in his shy smile and in his crinkled eyes, the boy he used to be. A kind boy who put up with two giggling 12-year-olds a half a century ago. A boy by whom all other boys were measured, by Rosemary — and because I wanted to be Rosemary — by me, for a long, long time.