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Amy Meissner lived in Northridge, California.  She was the daughter of a man who used to work with my father.  He and his wife eventually became good friends with my parents and they stayed in touch over the years, even after they moved out to the West Coast.  In the summer between my sophomore and junior year in High School, my mom told me Amy Meissner was coming out to visit. My brother had been friends with her sister so I knew of her. That summer, I had enrolled at a “computer camp” at the University of Pennsylvania, taking courses, learning about computers, trying to stay within my brother’s footsteps.  Anyway, for whatever the reason, Amy never made it East.  I don’t know what prompted me to do so but I wrote her a brief note, telling her that I had been looking forward to her visit and was disappointed that she wasn’t going to be able to make it.

To my shock, surprise and delight, one day, a letter showed up from Amy in answer to my message.  It came in a powder blue envelope with delicate, curly handwriting and it smelled!  It was perfume!  I had never experienced anything like that.  I tore open the envelope, read her response, which was balanced and apologetic but still, with the aroma of her perfume swirling around in my brain, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.

I wrote back to Amy after that first letter and she wrote back to me again!  I couldn’t believe it.  After that, we fell into a pattern.  I’d write to her, she would respond.  The letters went back and forth all during my junior year in High School.  It was kind of an ideal relationship.  I have always felt that my strongest and most attractive feature was my brain.  I don’t think I am ugly but it is my mind and my heart that I thought offered the most to potential mates.  My correspondence to Amy was a chance to prove this.  By writing rather than dating, our contact was between our thoughts and feelings.  I know that over the course of that year, she fell in love with my mind and my soul.  Of this, I have no doubt.

Each time I got a letter was a high point of my life.  I would read them over and over.  What I wouldn’t give to get (and sniff) just one more of those powder blue envelopes again. 

Once in a great while, with great preparation and advanced notice, my parents would let me call her.  This was in an age when Long Distance was spelled with capital letters; long before the advent of three cents a minute.  Our conversations were short but poignant and heartfelt.  They always ended too soon.  I was truly in love with this girl.  She was my soul mate!  I felt it and I know she felt it too.

Between my junior and senior year, the second half my “Computer Camp” was cancelled and I was left with not much to do other than work as a delivery boy at a drug store.  Word came to me that Amy Meissner had finally arranged to come east over a two-week period in July.  Joy!  I couldn’t wait.  The letters flew back and forth furiously.  Finally, one day, I was upstairs in my room when my mother called to me, “Lee, Amy’s here!”  I flew down the steps and took her in.  It was blinding.  She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen!  I hugged her and held her for what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than a second or two.  At last, the love of my life was here, she was real. 

We spent every waking moment together.  She was staying with some relatives in Yeadon and then with some relatives in North Philadelphia.  It didn’t matter.  No matter where she was, we figured out a way to be together or at least talking on the phone.  It was the happiest two weeks of my life.  I don’t remember making out with her or anything really physical.  I just remember the dazzling glow of her existence. 

Amy Meissner caused such a flood of hormones in my brain that when she was gone, I was physically ill.  I literally couldn’t be away from her for more than a few hours before I became nauseous.  The only thing that could beat back the feeling was a phone call or sleep.  It was identical to the withdrawal symptoms of a drug.  Hell, it is a drug and I was addicted.

All too soon, the two weeks were over and Amy Meissner returned to California.  It hurt so much.  My world had gone dark.  At least we had the familiar and comforting letters to get us through the next year.  I gave serious thought to attending college in California, just to be near her.  My parents sort of squashed that idea and I had to go along with it. They didn’t think going to a college just to be near a girl was the wisest choice.  They told me that California was just too far away.

I couldn’t live with the idea of not seeing her again.  After all, she was still my girlfriend!  I made it my goal to work and save up enough money to take a trip out to California during the summer before starting college in the fall.  I worked for Dina Green’s father the whole winter at his pharmacy.  Finally it was graduation and time to go!  My parents weren’t wild about the idea of me going by myself and the trip had to be in context of visiting relatives as well.  I arranged to have my best friend, Dave Medoff, accompany me and off we went.

When we finally arrived at her house, it was almost too much to take.  There she was, after so long!  We hugged and held each other again for what seemed to be an eternity.  What I didn’t realize that while my brain was apparently still pickled in GABA, hers was not.  Over the course of the next few days, she seemed to grow cooler and more distant.  She was spending more and more time with my friend and less and less with me. It was very depressing.  Finally, on our last evening there, Amy said she wanted to go to the movies with the two of us.  I pointed out that it was our last evening together and I wanted to stay at the house and just sit with her and talk.  She said, “Suit yourself” and went off to the movies with Dave.  I was utterly devastated.

I left her home the next day a broken soul.  I don’t know that I ever fully recovered.  I know that it ruined my relationship with Dave.  I really couldn’t forgive him for stealing my girlfriend when in reality; he was simply an innocent bystander.  While I corresponded with Amy a few times over the next year, the letters themselves became equally depressing.  She confirmed that she had lost feelings for me.  She confirmed that she feelings for Dave.  Later letters bubbled over about this boy or that.  It wasn’t pleasant.  We drifted apart.

In the powder room in the den in their house, my mom and dad had a collage of photos from their childhood through our childhood.  They put a picture of Amy Meissner just to the right of the sink.  For 30 years, whenever I used that powder room, a quick glance to the right always brought back her memory.  I could never escape it.

Looking back now, even though it ended horribly and depressed me for months, I wouldn’t have given it up for the world.  Even though Amy fell out of love with me, for a short time, she was in love with my mind.  The two weeks we spent together that first summer were the greatest two weeks of my life.  I don’t really know what happened to her, whether she ever got married.  Enough time has passed that I sure would like to see her again.