The Boy in the Red Jacket

The spotlights roamed over the stage in the auditorium, finally settling on the young trumpet player, a faired hair and good looking young man with a shining golden horn and a red jacket. He was playing an old Harry James tune and though I was only fifteen, I fell in love in an instant, along with half the other girls in my high school class. With no warning, the morning assembly had turned to magic.

I never knew his name, never got to speak to him, never saw him again, but for a few brief moments in the darkness, I was lost. I can still see him with the gleaming trumpet pouring out the solo of high, pure, clear notes in "You Made Me Love You" and I imagined that he might even look like Harry James, elegant and well dressed with a come hither smile and a trim mustache. He was only a boy in a red jacket but to my high school eyes and heart, he was stardom and style, seduction and fantasy, a dream come to life. For weeks if not months, I would close my eyes at night and picture him standing in the spotlight on the auditorium stage, a romantic lead in the play in my mind.

I fall in love at the drop of a hat.