“Hi, Lottie. I almost couldn’t find you. Hope you didn’t have to wait too long. Professor Freud is very long winded.”
It was Rachel. Grateful to see her kind face, I started to explain the Olivia debacle but stopped; afraid I’d burst into tears. Instead I asked the obvious.
“Do you really have a psychology professor named Freud?”
“That’s not his real name,” Rachel laughed. “It’s really Dr. Freedman. But he’s obsessed with Freud, same beard and glasses. He’s such a Freud wannabe the nickname just stuck. Behind his back, of course. I’ll just die if I ever see him smoking a cigar.” She laughed really hard on that. I didn’t get it. Must be one of those psychology major things. But, I laughed along because I didn’t want Rachel to know I didn’t get it.
“I really need to stop doing that, renaming people that is. It’s kind of an OKMU unwritten tradition. Maybe every college does it. Don’t know. Never went anywhere else. Do they do that at OU?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, the important thing is to never mix the alter ego name up with the real one. Fortunately, I’ve never done that. Hate to be the fool who did.”
“Yep, me too,” I hastily agreed. “That would be the ultimate embarrassment and an automatic ticket to an F in any class.”
“Speaking of names...” I said thinking there was one real name in particular I wanted to learn and any insights into his alter, inner or super ego would be just fine with me. Hopefully, Rachel could tell me it if I pointed out the gorgeous guy to her. I tried using a spoon as a mirror to look behind me, but all I saw was an upside-down distorted view of what might possibly be people or aliens from Pluto, the non-planet. Next, I tried unsuccessfully to discreetly turn around to see Him, but by the time I had drummed up enough courage to completely turn around and really look, He was gone. Perhaps that was for the best. It hadn’t been the luckiest day of my life and I simply couldn’t handle any more rejection.
-5-
Oh Crap!
School started much the same as any other year at Hogwarts. Oh, sorry wrong story. Anyway, my classes did start rather unspectacularly. My professors seemed nice enough. It was a pleasant change to be taught by people with actual doctorates rather than graduate students, but it was also more challenging. My fellow students were accommodating and friendly. However the same question arose with everyone I met—why had I switched schools? As always I gave vague answers about wanting some change in my life. But is change always for the good, or had I made these drastic decisions to simply end up right back at the same crossroads as before?
After all the obligatory dorm meetings, advisory meetings and final registration, I was off to my first class at my new school and my new beginning. Transferring to a church sponsored school required that I take a couple of Bible classes. I thought that would be so easy. Hey, I went to Sunday school as a child. I could quote a few Bible verses. “Jesus wept. John 11:35.” I was quite the theologian.
When I received my syllabus for Old Testament, I rapidly found out this wasn’t Vacation Bible School—no crafts, no Kool-Aid, no recess. He wanted us to read books—big honking books—and write papers—enormous, indexed, cross-referenced papers—and take exams, the massive essay types. Dr. Pharisee (Okay that wasn’t his real name. But I had latched on to the OKMU nicknaming idea and it really did fit him better than Phillips) took his class seriously. A little too seriously. Like we had no other classes to prepare for in our lives. Like we had no lives.
I sat down in the back. It was obvious those were the coveted seats as the entire front two rows were vacant except for some over eager, overachiever, Hermione Granger types. The pathetic guy on my right looked like he had slept in his clothes, and not for just one day, but the whole week. He must not have gotten the memo that saggy pants were so 2008, because he was the typical suburban teenager gangsta wanna be. On my left was Susie Sorority. I’m all for clean cut and preppy, but she was the poster child for bring back the eighties.
There I sat, a junior in a sea of freshmen, getting preached at like I had never had a college class in my life. My attitude was slowly corroding. It was time to relax and remind myself this was a freshman class, thus, it would make sense for the Prof. to treat us like freshmen. Breath in. Breath out. Mistake. Something smelled awful. What could that horrible stench be?
I looked over at Miss Preppy. Yup, her petite, pert nose was upturned also. Like a gross, invisible, but would be green if seen, fog, the smell was working its way across the classroom. The professor preached on, but everyone could tell it was taking all his years of experience to not shout out, “Who stinks?”
Poor slept-in-his-clothes guy. I knew it had to be him. Didn’t he know to shower once in awhile, even if momma wasn’t there to tell him to? Pitiable guy, everyone’s first impression of him would always be the loser that stunk up the Old Testament class. And he had the nerve to be looking at me like I stank. In fact everyone was starting to look my way. Actually it didn’t really smell like B.O. More like dog poop.
Oh crap! It was me. I looked down at my shoe. Right there on the side of my new silver glitter Toms was a blob of brown, gooey, stinking dog S***! I grabbed my books and fled the room. Outside the door I jerked off the shoe and threw it into the first trashcan I saw. Limping, I fled the building for the sanctuary of my dorm. I’ve no idea why I kept the one shoe on. I don’t know if I thought I’d find a half off sale on Toms that literally meant half as in one shoe, or if it just seemed to save a tiny portion of my dignity to wear at least the one shoe.
I went trudging back toward my dorm, when who should appear walking my way but the hunky him from the granny-panty-fiasco and the cafeteria-seat-rejection-scene. Was I only destined to meet him when I was in the middle of some humiliating situation? Well, not that time. I maneuvered to hide behind some hideously ugly statue of a benevolent donor to OKMU. It was a very close call, but he didn’t see me. The last thing I wanted was to meet the man of my dreams while one-shoed and then feel obligated to confess why. And confess I would do. Because for some unknown reason whenever there was something in my head that my mind wanted no one to know my tongue would always rat me out and spill every detail.
The coast was clear. I had saved myself one tiny shred of pride on an otherwise total humiliation day. Sure the one shoe gig had worked for Cinderella but her glass slipper hadn’t been covered in caca.
Change the one shoed-ness to barefooted; as I looked down to realize I had stepped in more excrement with my remaining shoe. New rule for my new life at OKMU, always look where stepping. Throwing my second shoe away in another nearby garbage can, I finished my barefoot walk to the dorm mentally juggling my days schedule to figure out when I could go see my advisor about dropping my Old Testament class. There was no way in Hell or Heaven that I was going back to that class as the dog-poop-shoe girl.
-6-
Oops, I Did It Again
Clean shoes, necessitated changing my entire outfit so I still matched. Which then required a slight tweaking of my hair to accentuate the wardrobe change. New purse and good to go. In the midst of it all, I had to stop and read five text messages from my mom talking about everything from did I have enough money in my checking account to was the cafeteria food okay. When I was younger I would have seen the texts as nagging or manipulative, but an older and wiser Lottie, I knew them for what they really were: little, tiny, repetitive reminders that she loved me. I knew that she knew nothing of the dog-poop-shoe incident, but my mom could always sense when I needed reminding that I am loved. An hour later and my confidence quasi-restored, I set off for the class I had looked forward to more than any other.
My Advanced Nineteenth Century Women’s Novel class looked very promising. I loved everything about the women novelists this class was to cover, from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley to the Brontë sisters. They were my heroes. Their centuries old stories, simple and pure, still spoke to the hearts of my generation.
That was my secret ambition. T
o write simple but profound stories that made people think beyond the boundaries of their ordinary lives. It was such a lofty unreachable dream that there were only two people I had ever shared it with: my mother, who encouraged it, and my former professor, who ridiculed my work as sappy and sentimental. The worst was when he had used the C word on my writing—cliché. That was the day I knew beyond all doubt that if I ever taught English I would never crush someone’s dream as lightly as if I were telling her she had a piece of broccoli stuck in her teeth. It was also the day I tucked my writing dreams away, doubting I would ever be good enough.
Instead, I studied other people’s books. Read their thoughts. Lived their dreams, spending many days with Jane Austen, and I must confess a few too many nights with Mr. Darcy.
The class looked promising as I entered. No one seemed to recognize me as the dog-poop-shoe-girl. At the state university a small class still had fifty people in it, but here less than ten. All women, except for one token guy. I sat in the chair next to him.
“Butch,” he said.
“Huh?” was my eloquent reply. Was he commenting on my appearance? I thought my replacement outfit looked simple yet stylish in an unpretentious way.
He laughed. “My name’s Butch.”
Life is always full of ironies. Had his parents hoped that by calling him a tough guy macho name he would follow suit? Hadn’t worked. Butch was slim, small boned, very metro and I didn’t even need to turn my gaydar on to know which way his screen door swung.
“Lottie,” I finally said.
“Are you new here? I don’t remember you from any other class.”
I confessed that I was a transfer.
“You’ll enjoy Dr. Jekyll.”
“Oh, snap! Am I in the wrong class?” I jumped up gathering my books to leave before everyone realized I was the goof in the wrong room.
“No, you’re fine, Lottie,” Butch laughed. “That’s just our affectionate nickname for Dr. Jamison.”
“Oh, my friend told me the nickname traditions here,” I said trying to be all in the know of the OKMU heritage. “But why Jekyll?”
“You’ll understand after a few weeks with the menopausal woman and her mood swings. If you can learn to watch for the transformation signs you’ll love her class. Just need to be prepared for the evil side to come out when least expected.”
I was about to ask Butch what sign to look for when the professor started the class by calling the roll.
As long as I’ve been in school I’ve always dreaded that first roll call of any class. I’m naturally a little shy and hate having any attention thrown my way when in a large group. To top that off my actual name isn’t Lottie. No I’m not in the witness protection program. I simply have a mother who tends to think outside the box, sometimes even outside the entire packing crate. My real name is Charlotte. Like Charlotte Brontë. Alas, I am not her namesake. I had thought most of my life that I was named after Crazy Aunt Charlotte and wondered what horrible thing I had done in the womb to deserve such retribution. When I was twelve I asked my mom why she had named me after the looniest person in the family. She had stared at me blankly.
“You were named after one of my all time heroes—Lottie Moon. A heroic woman missionary to China who gave her life trying to help the people there,” she finally said. “Not a relative.”
I was even more confused. “Why didn’t you name me Lottie then?”
“Lottie is a nickname for Charlotte,” she replied like it was common knowledge like the missionary herself, when neither was. It never made sense to me. If they wanted to call me Lottie, why not just put Lottie on the birth certificate? From kindergarten on I had to endure the yearly ritual of the roll call: the calling of Charlotte Lambert, the clarification that I go by Lottie and the confused look on my teacher’s face.
However, my Nineteenth Century Women Novelist class was the exception. Dr. Jamison began class like all the educators of my past. I waited nervously for her to reach the L’s so that I could as quickly and succinctly as possible explain my name. This time, however, Charlotte into Lottie was merely a footnote on the page of interesting names.
“La-uh-ah Brown?” Dr. Jamison stumbled over a name with a very confused look on her face.
“Dr. Jamison, it isn’t La-uh. It’s La Dash ah. Just like it’s spelled, L, A, a dash mark, A, H. La Dash Ah.”
I laughed so loudly I snorted. “She’s got to be pulling Dr. Jekyll’s leg,” I whispered to Butch forgetting that this was no huge state school class, but a very intimate setting. An intimate setting where everyone could hear my comments. I could feel Butch’s body language as he physically tried to distance himself from me as much as possible by shifting in his desk. In our short acquaintance we hadn’t bonded enough for him to be willing to go down with my ship. At that point I did wish that I could have sunk and escaped the laser rays that two sets of very angry eyes focused in on me.
“My mother was a creative speller. She liked to think outside the alphabet, ” said La-ah with pride as she turned from giving me the evil eye. And a second murderous look La-ah Brown sent my way told me, with no creative spelling required, that she did not like to be ridiculed. Great, my first class and my lack of an internal filter system and a big, spontaneous mouth had gotten me my first enemy. Make that two.
After joining La-ah in a maybe-looks-can’t-kill-but-don’t-expect-an-A-in-this-class look Dr. Jamison continued. “Well, La dash ah, that is an interesting use of punctuation to create words. Next Charlotte Lambert.”
“Here,” was all I squeaked out. For the next year I’d be Charlotte to Dr. Jamison as going by an alias would be safer than drawing any more attention to myself in Dr. Jekyll’s class that day.
-7-
Didn’t See That One Coming
Living in close confines with other women can be amazingly fun when sharing cookie dough, clothes and gossip. However at 8:30 on Saturday morning after a week of stress filled classes and major social screw-ups it could have some drawbacks. In one week I’d shown my granny panties to the world, stepped in dog poop, been humiliated in the cafeteria, called my professor an unflattering nickname and gotten myself on the bad side of a creative speller. I wanted to sleep.
Stina and I had stayed up past two the night before sharing life experience and laughter so all I wanted was topull the covers over my head and block out the world. Instead I heard what sounded like a muffled New Year’s Eve party taking place in the hallway outside my door.
There are a lot of morning people in this world. I’m not one of them. I hardly ever get angry. And even when I do I rarely say anything. But I was tired. I was stressed. And to top it off, it was my twentieth birthday and I was feeling a little homesick for my mom and our traditional homemade waffle birthday breakfast in bed. I wanted to sleep. Without thinking matters through, I flung my covers off and marched to door. Jerking it open I said through gritted teeth, “Could you please be quiet. Some of us are trying to sleep in here.”
It wasn’t one of my finest moments. There stood the K’s, the volleyball team and my three suitemates holding a cake.
A birthday cake.
A birthday cake with my name on it.
“Happy birthday,” squeaked one of the K’s as all the others stared like possums in the center of the road suddenly aware of the fate that was coming.
My birthday didn’t feel so happy. Instead I wanted to slam the door, sit down on the floor and cry. Obviously my new friends had gone to a great deal of planning and work to make my day special and I had ruined it before it ever started.
Then Stina began to giggle. Stina should have been registered with the Center for Disease Control because she was the most contagious giggler I had ever met. Soon everyone was laughing.
“Note to the group,” Olivia said, “Lottie Lambert is not a morning person. And she’s not aging all that well either.”
I must have said sorry a hundred times before the cake had been cut. And another hundred after.
�
�It’s no big deal,” Rachel kept reassuring me. “An 8:30 birthday party is rather lame. Sorry. It was the only time we could figure out when everybody would be here. The volleyball girls have to leave for a team outing the rest of the weekend and the K’s have dates tonight. So, birthday cake for breakfast seemed like a good idea when we were planning the surprise.”
“And we couldn’t not celebrate your twentieth birthday. You’re almost legal,” Stina added.
This brought all kinds of remembrances about everyone else’s birthdays as if they were in days of the ancient past.
Soon we were having cake and morning coffee. I opted for a Diet Dr. Pepper instead. Let me clarify instead of the coffee. I had my fair share of the cake.
With one last apology for shouting at them, I added, “Thanks so very much for remembering my birthday. I thought with being new and all no one would even know it was my birthday.”
“So why did you change schools?” asked a K.
She caught me with a mouth full of cake and I choked. For the first time ever I was glad to have something caught in my throat as it got me out of explaining what I wasn’t sure I could. That was until I feared that Rachel had decided to do an emergency tracheotomy with our cookie dough butcher knife. Fortunately, I quit coughing before she actually tried.
The volleyball girls began to make noises about having to go. I felt bad that they had gone to the trouble of helping to plan my surprise party and I was still thinking of them as an entity rather than individuals. Project for that week was to learn all their names.
“We want to give you our presents before we go,” said the short brunette one. I think her name was Pam. Or was it Paula. No, I think it was Pat. I was at least sure it started with a P.
“Brenna, that’s a great idea,” Rachel replied.
Yep, I had some name cramming to do.
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