(The following is a TRUE story. I hope it won't frighten anybuddy. )

GETTING EVEN

… a True Story of Revenge

by me,

Mary

When I was a senior at St. Brendan’s all-girl Catholic High School in Brooklyn, I got an after-school part-time job at Oppenheim Collins department store.

Since I had no experience, I was hired as a stock girl. Though I worked in the basement of the store, the atmosphere was pleasant, the job was easy, and my co-workers were genuinely nice people. Our responsibility was to unload each new arrival of cartons containing clothes for sale, iron any that needed to be touched up, hang them on wheeled racks and ticket them. Then the men would take turns delivering them by freight elevator to their appropriate departments on the upper sales floors.

One day we were joined by an “older man” … a freshman from St John’s University. I was immediately smitten. I remember going home that night and telling my mother about this cute guy who had just been hired.

Since wearing makeup was strictly taboo for a Brendanite, and since I had zero sense of style, I was pretty much a plain Jane. Certainly not a creature who might induce a college freshman to swoon. 

But he and I really got along well; we became great pals. We would often take breaks together, sometimes with other co-workers, and we'd spend our time talking and joking in the lounge. I secretly adored him, and I was glad he liked to spend time with me, even if he did consider me just a nice kid.

 Then prom time at St. Brendan’s came around.

One of the drawbacks of an all-girl’s high school is that if you wanted to go to your prom, you had to ask a guy. I, of course, asked my secret crush.

He turned me down.

He said he was going steady with a girl named Annie and it wouldn't be right for him to take me to a prom. My crush had crushed me. I never did go to my prom … for me, it was either him or nobody.

Eventually we both left Oppenheim Collins and we lost touch.

A few years later I got a job working at Simplicity Patterns in New York City as a technical illustrator. I had always loved to draw and to sew, and my current goal was to become a fashion illustrator. I had also learned to wear makeup and had acquired a pretty fair sense of style.

One day I decided to go to a nearby department store on my lunch hour to pick up a present for a friend. As I entered B. Altman’s and was heading for the escalator, I spotted a familiar figure over at the silverware counter.

It was none other than my crush … only he was even more adorable than I remembered. At first I was gripped by a sudden paroxysm of shyness, but then I mustered some courage and walked over to his counter and said something like “Hi … remember me?”

His look of astonishment, once he did finally recognize me, gave me a lift. I like to think he might have been a bit floored by how much I had evolved since our days at OC.

We laughed and exchanged a few pleasantries, and before I left, he asked for my phone number. Somewhere in our conversation I gleaned he was no longer seeing Annie.

We soon started dating.

And that’s when I finally got even with him for not taking me to my Senior prom.

I married him.