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Lucy van Pelt walked into Schroeder’s life the way she lived; loud, brash, and unashamed. He never knew where her infatuation with him began–at least, not until years later, when she confided the reason on a sweet summer evening, a moment so fragile, so delicate, that even thinking about it in retrospect made Schroeder nervous, like he might think too hard and it would shatter. But that is not where the story starts, so that is not where it will begin.
Schroeder and Lucy had a rather complicated relationship. Not quite a love triangle, but almost. Lucy loved Schroeder, and Schroeder loved his piano. As a self-proclaimed young musical prodigy, he did not have time for frivolities like love or girls, the former of which was overrated and the latter of which was known to harbor cooties.
Unfortunately for Schroeder’s rationale, Lucy van Pelt simply did not care.
She would invade his room, lie on his piano, and talk ceaselessly about marriage, or sauce pans, or frying coffee, whatever that meant. He ignored her, usually. He was good at that. Some days they talked about Beethoven. Those were pleasant moments, so long as Lucy didn’t talk nonsense. Schroeder did not care about who had their picture on bubblegum cards. He could not muster the energy. Besides, it wasn’t an accurate measurement of greatness. Schroeder was fairly sure they didn’t even have bubblegum cards in Austria.
Occasionally, he’d look at Lucy and get an odd sort of feeling in his chest, not entirely unpleasant. He did not know what it meant, so he buried himself back in his music.
One day, Lucy asked what he’d do if she moved away, and if he would miss her smiling face.
“I could stand it.”
“Sure you could. But would you miss my smiling face?”
He didn’t answer.
The next day, Schroeder saw a big truck driving away. He asked Charlie Brown about it, who said, “That’s a moving van. Linus and Lucy are moving away.”
He had been stunned. Schroeder hadn’t expected Lucy to actually move away. He returned to his piano, but the zest of it had vanished. He struggled to find heart in his music, soul in the notes. It was as if the pit in his stomach swallowed up his musical talent–although surely that wasn’t how it worked.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Lucy’s face popped up in the window. “Surprise!” She yelled. “Did you miss me and my smiling face?”
“Maybe.” Lucy’s following squeal was nearly deafening, and she shot over his piano to give him a kiss on the cheek. He allowed it. Cooties be damned, he missed his friend.
Middle school started, and with it the barrage of awkward changes that come with puberty. Lucy was different. She still came over every day to listen to Schroeder’s playing, but she was either more quiet than normal or incessantly crabby.
Schroeder didn’t really notice the change in Lucy until one day she had gotten into it with Charlie Brown. Well, really she got into it with herself; Charlie simply happened to be in the crossfire.
Lucy had asked Charlie if he thought she was the prettiest girl in the world.
“Sure,” Charlie had said.
Lucy then lost it. “You hesitated! What, do you think I’m ugly or something? You must think I’m hideous!”
She stormed off. Charlie blinked. “Good grief,” he muttered.
For some reason, Schroeder chose to go after her. He didn’t know why; it just felt right. He was glad he did too. Lucy was a good distance away in a small grove of trees. She was sitting on a log, shoulders heaving. Schroeder was surprised to hear sobs as he sat next to her.
Lucy’s head jerked up. She stared at him with something like confusion.
Schroeder cleared his throat. “Are you, um, okay?”
He would have expected her to yell, or run away again, or for her to deny crying and claim she was just peachy even though it was clearly untrue. He did not expect her to drop her head back in her hands, sobbing anew.
Schroeder, like many boys, had no idea hat to do with a crying girl. He offered a few gentle pats on the head.
Soon enough, Lucy’s sobs died off and Schroeder tried again.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked at him slack-jawed. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Charlie Brown thinks I’m ugly, and so do you!” Her shoulders shook again, preparing for another barrage of tears.
“Woah,” Schroeder said. “I don’t think you’re ugly. When did I ever say that?”
Lucy scowled. “You think it. Don’t you? Apparently everyone does!”
A lump formed in Schroeder’s throat. Somehow, he managed to say, “I think you’re the prettiest girl in the world.”
Her face softened as she turned to him. “You really mean that?”
“‘Course I do.” She attacked him in a hug, her arms shooting around his neck. Schroeder stiffened, and slowly moved his arms around Lucy’s frame. He decided that it was not entirely unpleasant, despite the odd feeling in his chest.
They stayed like that for a few minutes before detangling from each other. Lucy made him promise not to tell anyone she was crying.
“What do you mean?” He said lightly. “I’ve never seen you cry.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, laughing a little. Normally, he would’ve shrugged her off or scooted away, but in that moment it was almost nice.
“You know, it’s really funny,” Lucy said suddenly. “I started liking you when we were kids for such a dumb reason.”
“What was it?”
“Well, it was right after you got that damn piano. And you were playing–and I was there, of course I was, and I asked what you were playing.” She turned to look at him, her deep blue eyes dancing with amusement. “And you said The Nutcracker Suite. And I thought you called me sweet.”
“Maybe you are,” Schroeder said without thinking. He immediately regretted when Lucy practically shrieked with joy.
“You think so?!”
“Well, maybe not when you do that. But sure, sometimes. Like when you got me a gift for Beethoven’s birthday.”
They laughed, and reminisced about their youth while they were still in it.
As time moves, so do lives. And unfortunately, Schroeder and Lucy’s lives happened to move apart.
It was nearing the end of summer, and the freshman year of high school was about to start. Schroeder had long ago upgraded to a real piano, and he played every day still. Music lessons occupied his summer, although Lucy did not. His friend had gone on a summer trip somewhere in Florida or South Carolina or something like that.
She would return later that day. Not that Schroeder was counting or anything. He just missed his friend.
When there was a knock at his front door, he almost jumped with excitement, although he would never admit it. When he opened the door, he was disappointed to see Charlie Brown, not his Lucy. He didn’t let it show.
“Hey Charlie Brown.”
“Hey Schroeder. We’re gonna play a baseball game at the park later–for old times’ sake. You should come.”
“Maybe,” Schroeder said noncommittally.
Charlie Brown shrugged. “Lucy and Linus should be back by then. I think they’ll come.”
“Maybe,” he repeated. He knew his answer after hearing that, though. “See ya later, Charlie Brown.”
“See ya, Schroeder.”
A few hours later, Schroeder had dug his old catcher’s equipment out and headed to the field where they had played baseball since they were little kids. When he got there, almost everyone was ready, but Lucy and Linus weren’t there yet. Not that he was paying attention.
Schroeder put his gear on among the chit-chat of his friends. They were talking about school starting soon, girls, sports, and whatnot. He listened with one ear.
Right before they were about to start, two kids came down the hill. Lucy and Linus.
There were cheers of excitement, and everyone ran over to greet them. Everyone except Schroeder; he hung back a little, waiting for them to come closer. When he saw Lucy, his heart did a weird little thing in his chest. He ignored it.
She seemed to have simultaneously changed beyond recognition and stayed exactly the same. Her dark curls tied back in pigtails were the same, the arrogant bob of her head was the same, her loud, brash attitude was the same. But there was an air to her that had not been there before, more mature. Like a girl finally growing into a woman.
When she approached him, he smiled against his will. An odd little pit of excitement formed in his stomach.
"Who are you?” She asked.
As quick as that, the pit of excitement turned sour. He blinked. She didn’t recognize him? Didn’t remember him? The boy she had spent her entire life before obsessing over?
He swallowed and somehow managed to speak past the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. “I’m the catcher.”
“Oh, right. Well, hello!” She skipped off to do something or talk to someone, but Schroeder didn’t pay any mind. He felt like his world was upside down, and everything he had thought true, and right, and correct was a lie.
Absence can make the heart grow fonder, or away. Schroeder watched Lucy from a distance, that pesky lump still in his throat and that stubborn pit still in his stomach. He would not admit it–he had no one to admit it to–but he had grown accustomed to that face.