Some fiction

Ralph was a terribly handsome man. Terrible, as in too handsome for anyone's good, let alone his own. He was engaged once to a not-pretty girl called Marnie. No one quite understood the pairing and it was rumored Marnie invented the whole proposal. She went around town blathering on and on about Ralph's proposal, and he being too terribly handsome was too terribly embarrassed to deny it. Truth be told, Marnie had gotten herself in some trouble with the younger Johnson boy and in a panic tried to make herself appear respectable. The younger Johnson boy threw himself a party as a new father, unaware of Marnie's recent imagined engagement. When Ralph discovered Marnie's secret, he promptly severed their make-believe ties.

Marnie disappeared for several months as broken-hearted girls are wont to do and returned near a year later with a bouncing baby boy and a ring the size of Texas from the older Johnson boy. Ralph tried to be friendly with Marnie and her fiancee but she wanted no parts of him or his terrible handsomeness. As for the rest of us, the more Ralph we could lay claim to the better.

"Ralph squeezed my elbow."

"Ralph told me I had delicate wrists."

"Ralph offered me his handkerchief."

Ralph this. Ralph that. We were all so in awe of Ralph that we practically ran like the devil away from him or giggled so uncontrollably in his presence that he thought he had developed a speech impediment.

That's how we drove him into the arms of that foreign language instructor. Ralph took up Italian language lessons as an attempt to correct his imagined speech impediment. The very idea of Ralph wooing us in Italian was about enough aural stimulation a teenage girl could take.

"Parliamo Italiano?" we heard him practice with her.

"Sbagliato, Rafaele. Parrr-li-amo. Bene."

We shuddered ever time she dared to make Ralph a foreigner.

"Mi chiamo Rafaele. Piacere." he practiced.

"Bravo, caro." she exclaimed, kissing him on each cheek, really kissing him with both lips.

Soon they were exchanging kisses on the boca and braccio and naso and orrecheti. All over their faccios.

"Povere, Rafaele," we whimpered.

We had to wrestle Ralph away from her mesmerizing linguini, and rapido.