Heart-Shaped Doughnut

A Valentine's Tale

Feb 12, 2025

Whenever I hear the opening strains of the Bee Gees’ How Deep is Your Love, that first swelling chorus of aahs, I’m transported back to 1984. As soon as Barry Gibb’s voice comes in, light and tender, singing, I know your eyes in the morning sun; I feel you touch me in the pouring rain, I’m pierced by an ache so deep I have to close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself to contain the flood of memories.

I met him at a party. I was a senior at Lawrence High School in Lawrence, Kansas. He was a Lawrence High graduate, now a sophomore at KU. I’d spotted him before at Off-the-Wall Hall, the club where my friends and I danced on weekends, but we’d never been introduced.

Now here he was at this party, leaning against the living room wall. The room was loud and smoky, filled with people laughing, drinking and dancing. He watched them, his arms crossed over his chest, an expression of mild disdain on his face. He had spiky brown hair and wore black and white checked tennis shoes. His vibe was James Dean, his face Rob Lowe. I’ll call him Dylan.

I’d always felt like a wannabe around the punk and new wave kids at school. I looked up to them, in awe of their brazen edginess. Though I considered myself a free spirit, I knew my rebelliousness was relatively tame. I loved my parents and got good grades. The only drug I’d ever tried was marijuana, and I’d barely done that. In the Land of the Cool, I was a cipher. Dylan, on the other hand, was king.

I sidled over to the wall, positioning myself a few feet away from him. I can’t remember which of us spoke first or what we said. Probably some derisive remark about the music or the way people were dancing. I remember him glancing at me sideways with a small, mocking smile, eyebrows raised, doling out a few syllables at a time, as I tried desperately to mimic his cool. Occasionally his smile deepened, and a dimple showed itself. When that smile broke through, I felt chosen, touched by grace. He was so beautiful I could hardly breathe.

Soon we were up in someone’s bedroom, making out. I was pressed against the wall, fully clothed, kissing in a way I’d never really enjoyed—the kind that’s all tongue, all the time, where you have to unsuction yourself to come up for air. Most of the boys I’d made out with in high school kissed that way, leaving me with a chapped face from all the saliva.

So while I didn’t enjoy the physical sensation of kissing Dylan, I loved the idea of it. We were still in this position when someone came upstairs and told me my dad was ready to go home.

Yes, it’s true. I’d come to this party with my dad, a radical professor much beloved by his students. The party was hosted by a graduate student activist who adored my dad and, like other students who were estranged from their families of origin for one reason or another, considered him a surrogate father. My friend Leslie had come along too, disappearing into another bedroom to make out with another college boy.

I flashed Dylan a sheepish grin and a quick wave and ran downstairs. We didn’t trade numbers, but we had friends in common. I felt sure I’d see him again.

All weekend I thought of nothing but him. The thought of his face breaking open with a rare, dimpled smile sent shudders through my body. I strategized with my friend Leslie on how I could endeavor to run into him, but within a few days, my craving had reached such a fever pitch I had to take immediate action.

The next day was Valentine’s Day. It took only a couple of phone calls to learn where his dorm room was.

When I got out of school on the day itself, I walked downtown to Joe’s Bakery, a legendary spot for townies and students alike, and bought a heart-shaped doughnut.

I then climbed the hill to the dorms. I arrived at his door, sweaty and out of breath, clutching my doughnut in a paper bag. I took the doughnut out of its bag and arranged it on a napkin.

I breathed deeply, trying to calm my heart, which ping-ponged crazily in my chest.

Carefully balancing the doughnut on my left palm, I knocked.

A moment later the door opened, and there he was in all his impossible coolness: slouchy jeans, t-shirt, bare feet, messy hair. After imagining him all weekend, the three-dimensional physicality of him, standing before me, dizzied me.

“Happy V-D,” I blurted, extending the doughnut.

He shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe what he saw.

“You brought me a doughnut?”

“Uh huh.”

He stared at me a moment, and then the sun broke through, and he smiled, that brilliant, transformative grin.

“You’re so corny.”

“Uh huh,” I said again, smiling back.

He opened the door wide and motioned me into the room with a gallant swish of his arm. I walked mutely forward.

He broke the doughnut and handed me half. I ate it slowly, its glazed sugar melting into nothing on my tongue.

He turned on the radio. How Deep is Your Love was playing.

“What’s this shit?” he said, reaching to change the station.

“I like that song.”

“You do?”

I nodded. “Uh huh.”

He grimaced. For a moment he seemed poised on the edge of a cutting remark. Then he shook his head, gave a What can you do? shrug, and broke out once more in that wide dimpled smile. He looked, for a second, like an adorable little boy.

He opened his arms, and I stepped into them. We swayed to the music, pressed together so tightly I could feel his heart knocking hard against my own. I felt a rush of joy such as I’d never known. A blissful, tingling heat moved through me from head to toe. I’d made a bold move, and it had worked. This mysterious, movie-star-gorgeous rebel was in my arms, and we were dancing.

After that day, we hung out for a few months, on and off. My goofiness quickly lost its hold on him, and his mockery, at first playful and sweet, took on a mean edge. I was a square and a goody-goody, hopelessly inexperienced in a myriad of ways. He grew increasingly rude and dismissive, slow to return calls and prone to last-minute cancellations. Eventually he stopped calling altogether. I wallowed in misery for months, simultaneously hating him and pining for him. For several years afterwards, I clung to a narrative in which the relationship, such as it was, had left me scarred.

But things change. Looking back, I can see that, as sophisticated as he appeared to me at the time, he too was shy and insecure, struggling to find his place in the world. Forty years after the events of this tale, my most vivid memories of Dylan are not of how he hurt me, but of how he dazzled me.

Now, when I hear the opening notes of How Deep Is Your Love and Barry Gibb begins to croon, I know your eyes in the morning sun, something vast opens up inside me. Heat rushes through, and I remember, all over again, the giddy revelation of that day: that if this could happen—me in the arms of this unspeakably beautiful boy—anything could happen. And I remember the pride I felt: I had done this. I had brought this miraculous moment into being. Since then, I’ve known truer love, deeper love, longer-lasting love, love that evolved into beautiful friendship, yet this is a memory I’ll carry to my grave. And all it took was a heart-shaped doughnut.

Heart-Shaped Doughnut

A Valentine's Tale

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