I met Jen for the first time on one of those crisply-cool autumn days when the shadows are sharp and long and the breeze smells like fallen leaves. Her eyes were dark and her hair was darker. She was not very tall, but she was slender. Her legs had a slight bow, which I thought was very cute.

Jen was the one who noticed me first. It was on the first day of our Grade Twelve French class. I was shy, and stuck in the back of the class all by myself, like the last lonely pickle in a jar. She appeared in front of me without me noticing. I was involved in one of my absent daydreams when I noticed a female abdomen blocking my view of nothing. I looked up and was surprised to find a delicate smile staring at me. Two hands, raised up to the level of her breasts, were gently waving.

"Hi there," she said quietly. I watched her lips move and quiver, and I saw them so intently that I almost neglected my manners.

"Hi," was the best I managed, stricken as I was with nervousness just by looking at her. She began to tell me something. I can't remember what it was, because at the time I was overly concerned about a bead of sweat that was nervously trekking its way down the left side of my head.

The classroom had a southern exposure and mid-morning sunbeams illuminated one half of Jen. It was during this bath of light that I noticed the darkness of her eyes. They did not reflect the light. She seemed to have no iris, but instead, one giant pupil.

I am portraying myself as all thumbs, and this is accurate because I did nothing right. That Jen talked to me, and liked me, was entirely due to her own personality. Not because of my lack of self-confidence. I think that I told her my name, and perhaps what neighbourhood I was from. I think that I smiled vacantly from time to time during our conversation. It was not much of a conversation on my part.

She said something to me as French class ended. I don't know what it was because I was just slobbering and nodding like a puppy. Then she walked out, leaving me sitting at my desk all confused. After regaining my senses, I left the classroom and visited my locker. From within it I got my lunch and my hardcover Huckleberry Finn. I slid down my closed locker door and took up my usual position sitting on the hallway floor, scrunched up against the locker.

I was reading, enveloped in Huck's fictional world, and finding myself getting all emotional about the part where Jim recalls how his daughter went deaf. It was then that I was interrupted; jarred from my private literary crisis by a pair of slightly bowed feminine legs. Once again I looked up, a little in awe, and saw Jen looking down at me.

"Can I sit with you?" she asked me from her somewhat elevated position.

I opened my mouth to say yes, but the word barely squeaked out. My voice cracked horribly, and so I nodded eagerly. She sat close to me and I could smell her: some gentle scent, like lavender. Jen opened her mouth to speak. I looked at her lips. Those lips! How I admired her lips, of all things to admire.

"How are you?" she asked.

"I'm okay," I replied. "I'm just reading." I held up the book so that she could peruse the cover.

"I been there before," she said, reciting the last words of the story.

"What?" I asked, too busy admiring her to catch what she said.

"Huck's last words, at the end of the book."

I looked at my hard Huckleberry Finn in my hand, and back at her smoldering eyes, and lurched out, "Oh, right!" To drive the point home, I added, "Yeah!" Then, to complement this display of intelligence and wit, I stared at her some more.

"So," she said, becoming awkward about my clumsiness, "What's up?"

"Nothing much," I replied. I risked a quick side-glance down at my pants, to check if anything really was up.

Our daily interactions went on like this for some time. For most of the year, in fact. Me, with my nervous inattentiveness, and she with her eyes and other particulars that kept me spellbound. Together we made an awkward and most unlikely duo. Students walking in the halls often looked at the two of us. If they were in groups they would chatter and comment amongst themselves. At first I had believed that they were insulting us and making fun of us. Now I consider that the unwelcome attention of other boys was based on jealousy, and that the piercing gaze of various female eyes was the result of confusion and curiosity.

Oh, had I been then the man that I am today, I would have more notches on my belt by now. But had I been the man that I am today, I would not have experienced and learned, nor would I have been given any latitude to grow.

Jen consistently drew me in closer over time and I became more comfortable and happy in her company. We began to go out to the local restaurants for lunch. The vendors at the local pizza joint got used to our daily presence. I found a type of rare affection and friendship that I had never known before, and have not known since. Other than Bradbury and I, which was just as meaningful, but different.

It so happened that during one of those pizza dates, Jen and I got to discussing the outdoors and the provincial parks of northern Ontario. She had been to Algonquin during the previous summer. She told me about the beauty of nature, about the fresh air and clean water, and about the Tom Thomson memorial on Canoe Lake.

We made plans to go in the first week of July. Jen made the reservations. She even had her own transportation. Jen seemed so much more mature and capable than I. I felt embarrassed by her adultness when she showed up at my apartment with her car.

The car was a ten-year old Nissan Micra, a real mini-car with a roof as thin as foil. Its non-reflective grey paint made it the perfect student car. A York University sticker would have been perfect on the rear window. I was standing on my balcony when she arrived and I waved at her when she got out of the car. I said goodbye to my mother and ran downstairs as fast as I could.

"Ready?" she asked when I stopped in front of her, panting.

"Yes," I said.

"Well let's go," she said. She took my backpack off my shoulder and threw it in the back of the car. I got into that little aluminum death-trap and looked at her eagerly.

The trip took us up Highway Eleven for just a little over three hours. We drove straight on until we reached Huntsville, a town famous for its annual bathtub river race. And so we arrived at Algonquin in one piece.

So here we were at Algonquin. The idea is to pay to park your car for a week in parking lot and then run around in the bush like a madman. It is interesting to note that Detroit involves parking for a week, or busing or whatever, and running around the pavement like a madman. I have yet to decide whether I would prefer to submit myself to the hazards of the inner city's criminals, or to the dangers of the bear and bull-moose.

In Algonquin the morning sun paints its beams across the red sky without opposition from skyscrapers. The Loon can be heard instead of car horns. The Great Blue Heron, in place of pigeons, can be found grazing on the shore for worms. Any woman can allow herself the liberty to be herself, rather than to pave herself over with makeup.

Jen was sitting by the fire, in the golden morning sun, seemingly ruffled up like a contentedly warm cat. She appeared to me as something newly revealed. She had pulled her hair back behind her ears. I admired the beauty of those soft ears. The darkness of Jen's wavy hair contrasted itself against her pale skin. Her hair seemed to have a life of its own, and bounced around under its own power. Her dark, giant pupils had in them a black reflection of our surroundings. They seemed to have waves in them, as if they were made of water. I was surprised when I noticed that the sun was drawing patterns on her curved nose. And I saw bits of sun-rays that had made it through the trees and were playing games across her forehead. Even her shadow was animated, and it must have got up on its slightly bowed shadow-legs and hugged me, because I felt so satisfied and beautiful to be with her.

"Good morning," she said quietly.

I smiled at Jen. I took a breath of the clean Algonquin air, savouring it in a way unlike I'd ever had with the stale air of the city.

"Good morning," I said.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked. She was looking over my shoulder at the lake and the sunrise.

I felt like I understood her more profoundly than before.

"Yes, it is."

I looked at her adoringly.

"I'm so glad we got to come out here together," Jen said.

"So am I."

I stared deeply into her eyes.

"It's just so beautiful here. It's pure, and untouched by pollution," Jen said. She looked at the landscape that surrounded us.

And I, still looking at her eyes, agreed with her that it was pure and was untouched. And in my ignoble way, I wondered if she was untouched. And I wondered if I would touch her, no matter how nervous my touch might be.

The temperature had gone down after a few days. I remember sitting by the fire one evening while the sun was still up. A cool breeze passed over us. It felt refreshing after spending several hot and muggy days in the wilderness. Some squirrels rustled about curiously a few feet away from us. Some little red bugs – maybe ants, or tiny beetles, I wasn't sure – crawled in the dirt at our feet and always seemed to threaten to creep inside our shoes. Bees and flies buzzed around, and my allergies made me itchy.

I remember sitting there among the little red bugs and the bees and the flies. I remember scratching my itchy arms and thinking to myself: man am I lucky to be here with her.

On the sixth day we were on the final stretch of our canoe voyage. I had no doubts about of my appreciation for the beauty of the place, although it was tinted gray by a bit of anxiety. We were about to traverse the biggest lake by canoe. We had slept late that day, because we had been up late talking the previous night. It was afternoon by the time we left. The clouds were hung low and dark in the sky. If we were cautious we would have waited on land in case of a storm. But we were ignorant about the wilderness, and so we struck out on the open lake just as the sky turned nearly black.

We were about halfway across the lake – which was two or three kilometers wide from one shore to the other – when the waves really picked up. I was sitting at the front of the canoe, and Jen was acting as the rudder and the break at the rear. We turned the canoe into the waves while keeping as close to the proper course as possible. It began to rain lightly. The waves began to toss up over the bow of the canoe. Sometimes we would crest over the top of a wave; I would get doused as we crashed back down to the bottom. Jen didn't get hit by as much water, but she was still wet enough.

It went on like this for a few hours. Jen would alternate paddling with bailing. If it were not for the bailing, we might have taken on too much water and sank to the bottom, never to be seen again. Lightning flashed across the sky just as we made it to our destination. The clouds let loose a torrential downpour. We dragged the canoe up onto the land and turned it over. We assembled our tent in the rain, then brought some snacks and clothes into the tent.

Both of us were soaked through, so we changed our clothes as quickly as possible, there in the tent, in front of each other. We were slightly drier in our 'dry' new clothes, but we were still wet because our packs had soaked right through. Even our sleeping bags were wet. We both shivered ferociously as we laid there in our sleeping bags, with the dim light of a butane lantern our only source of heat.

It was very dark. Droplets of water were penetrating the tent here and there. I complained about the cold as I shivered. Jen slowly crawled out of her sleeping bag and snuggled her way into mine, shivering all the while. We held each other face to face. It warmed up considerably inside the sleeping bag. I began to fall into a cold light sleep, but I was awakened by the feeling of something touching my lips.

I opened my eyes and I saw Jen's face very close to mine. I could see that her eyes were closed and her eyelids were fluttering lightly as she kissed me. The feeling of being kissed was unlike anything I had known before. Her lips were so soft. I felt myself melting deeper into her arms as she pressed gently against me. Her hands passed over my body. I was too scared to touch her myself. I was still shivering after a while; to this day I am not sure whether it was from the cold or from fright. Maybe she felt my shivers – nearly quivering really – because she wrapped me up with her arms and legs, held me tight, and pressed my cheek against hers.

In the morning we were both content and dry. The seventh day was restful. It only involved a quick canoe trip back to the Tom Thomson memorial, where we dropped off the canoe and got reacquainted with Jen's car.

We drove back down Highway Eleven. The traffic was thick with RVs and boats towed by trucks. Along the way we stopped at a restaurant called Weber's. The place was a big deal throughout Ontario for its barbequed burgers. It was so busy that there were five lines of customers, all of which started at the parking lot and ended somewhere inside. An employee, who looked completely stressed out, was standing on the roof and barking crowd-control orders through a megaphone. And the customers were progressing so slowly that you might say they were growing moss.

We didn't stay at Weber's. Instead we drove on for a few kilometers, and found a nice little place that was totally deserted. The food was good and the table service was courteous. If I could remember the name of the place, I would tell you. Weber's however is doomed to be swamped by the millions of people who read this. That shall be their punishment for making us go someplace else. Or maybe Weber's should get an award instead, because without them we wouldn't have found that pleasant, relaxing little diner.

We were both happy and our bellies were filled with food. We enjoyed the drive back to Toronto, even though our eyes stung and watered as we got swamped by the city's industrial air.

We got together almost daily after our return to Toronto. When we weren't together we would talk on the phone. When we weren't talking on the phone, I would think about her. I was happily infatuated with Jen.

Even during the summer we had lunch at the pizza joint, and it was there on one very hot day that we talked about 'life'. How does that phrase go... Life is hard, brutish and short? We were discussing things like that, in air-conditioned comfort....

"My goal is to be famous," Jen told me after gulping some Brio Chinnotto.

"Really," I asked, "Really?"

"I want to be famous. For something really cool," she said, smiling her quivering-lip smile. At about this time the Iranian guy who owned the pizza place hollered over at us.

"Hey boy!" he said, leaning over the counter and pointing his whole body in the direction of our table. When I realized he was talking to me, I looked away from Jen and met his gaze.

"You, good boy," said Mr. Pizza with a grin.

"Here," he said with excitement, reaching below the counter. I was a little worried about what he was reaching for, but when he brought his hands back up, he was holding two cans of Coke.

"Free Coke for you!" he said, yelling loudly.

I was surprised by the owner's sudden display of affection.

"Wow thanks!" I exclaimed after retrieving the gifts for our consumption.

"That was nice of him," said Jen. She smiled in his direction. "When I'm famous I'll give him a can of pop, and all of the cameramen for all the news stations will be filming it, and I'll be on the news, and they'll all say what a wonderful person I am for giving that man a can of pop, and it will all be on tape as proof for future generations to know just how generous I am!"

"I bet you'll be wearing expensive diamonds and stuff too."

"Of course, dear, I'll have a reputation to keep," Jen said. "It's the burden of the famous. We have to be role models for the poor and the unimportant!"

"Right."

"And it's so hard to have so much responsibility, but it's a burden that us famous people must carry without a fuss," Jen said while running her hands through her hair and preening herself in a sophisticated manner, "as a service to society, of course."

"Of course," I agreed, playfully. "Okay, what else do you want to do?" I asked.

"Other than being famous?" asked Jen with a shocked and horrified expression.

"Yeah."

"Oh." She leaned forward, and rested her face on her hands. I could see sparks flying between her ears as her mind worked away furiously. "I don't know," Jen said.

"Me neither," I said.

Some silence followed as we thought about the situation.

If Jen had a single problem at that time in her life, I guess it would have to be a lack of parental attention. Jen was left to make her own fun. And she did alright, although I am sure that during those boring times she could have used some parents to entertain her. Anyhow her parents were busy doing whatever it was that they did, and so they never helped her to channel her energy. As they say, idle hands are the devil's playpen. Or something like that.