The Kimberly Factor

When I was a teen, I had a fairly eclectic taste in music: rock ‘n roll (though it was very different from today’s pop music), string orchestra, brass band, jazz. So it wasn’t unusual that I bought a vinyl LP containing piano jazz music. My favorite tune on the record, and the only one I still recall the name of, was a mellow little song titled Kimberly.

There was a time when I wrote a lot of short stories. I wrote all through my middle and high school years, both in school and at home. Several of my stories featured a female character named Kim. I didn’t know anyone named Kimberly, I just liked the name.

Years later, I spent many hours hanging out at a bar in Roanoke, Virginia. One of my favorite people on the wait-staff was a bartender named Kimberly. She was about 35 when I met her. She had entered the Army when she was 17. When I met her she was studying biology at a nearby university. She was smart, pretty, and confident. She had many of the qualities of my fictional Kimberly. Or vice versa, perhaps.

I moved from Roanoke to another city. As I was moving into my house, a single woman with a young son was moving into the house across the street from mine. Her name was Kimberly. In the house next door to mine was a woman with two children; the woman’s name was Kimberly. In the house across the street from mine, next to single Kimberly’s house, there lived a married couple; the woman’s name was Kimberly.

I began eating lunch at a restaurant in my new hometown. There was a bartender working there who was attractive, smart, and confident. I liked her immediately.  One day I asked her name. You know where this is going, don’t you? Yeah. Kimberly. We became friends. At least, it seemed that way to me.

I no longer eat at that restaurant. Kimberly no longer works there. But Kimberly and I are still friends. Kind of.  She’s a Facebook friend now. She doesn’t return phone calls or reply to text messages or respond to Facebook messages. But, she does call me from time to time to say hello. Now that I think about it, I’m sure she called me at least once. Maybe twice, though I’m less sure of that.