“You feeling okay? Is there a reason why you’re standing in the middle of your room holding your phone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other?” asked Rachel.
“You look really flushed,” observed Kyra.
“Oo baby! You heard from Al Dansby! Didn’t you!” bubbled Stina.
I didn’t trust my voice. I just held the note up for them to see. Olivia took it and began to read it out loud.
Lottie,
I enjoyed our duet last night and hope that we can do it again, soon.
“Whoa momma! ‘Our duet.’ What is that code for?” asked Kaylee.
“How poetic,” said Kyra. “Our duet. So much nicer than say, ‘Hey it was great hooking up with you.’”
“Keep reading,” demanded Stina.
I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, as I didn’t have your phone number or email address. Then I remembered there was this archaic form of communication called a letter. Rather inefficient, but better than smoke signals.
“Why didn’t you give him your phone number?” Kyra asked. Four sets of eyes turned to look at Olivia. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about Miss Blow Chunks’ timely arrival.”
“Keep reading!” demanded Stina again. She was losing her patience.
As I don’t have your number to call you, could you call me if you’d like to go out. If you don’t call I’ll understand.
There was a collective sigh in the room. Rachel expressed the unanimous thought. “How romantic. There’s just something about a handwritten note. So old worldly.”
“So sweet,” said Stina.
“So a week old,” said Olivia. “Why have you been carrying this around for eight days and not telling us?”
“I just got it! Well, I mean I just got it out of my mailbox. I never check my mailbox. Who uses a mailbox? But there’s no point in it now. I saw him giving Trampy Taylor a rose days ago. He’s already over me and on to the next.” I just wanted to cry. My mail retrieval incompetence had made me miss the romance of a lifetime.
Kyra and Kaylee locked eyes. “We need to go check our mail,” they said in unison and fled the room.
Olivia read through the note again. “So Lottie. What are you going to do?”
“Obviously by not responding for more than a week, he’s thinking you don’t like him, but that he could move on to another girl so fast. . . not possible,” hypothesized Rachel.
“Oh, he probably feels stupid now for writing it. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t come to eat. Afraid he might run into you,” said Stina with sympathy for the note writer.
“Think, women. What is Lottie’s best plan?” General Olivia took charge. I had never seen her in a leadership position before. But as matters went, Olivia was our resident expert on the male species.
Stina held up her hand. “She has to call him as quickly as possible.”
“There’s no point in it. You all aren’t listening. He’s moved on to Skank Woman,” I moaned.
“Definitely she has to contact him,” agreed Rachel with Stina totally ignoring my comments. “But what does she say? She has to explain why she hasn’t called.”
“That’s crucial,” agreed Stina.
Slapping a pencil down like a riding crop Olivia added, “Yes, but she doesn’t want to look all needy, whiny. Somehow, in very few words she has to give him the message that she got the note and would like to pursue the relationship.”
“But he’s dating Taylor now! I saw it with my own two eyes. Why can’t you all get that this train has left the station and I missed it!” No one was listening to me.
My cozy little dorm room had turned into the command center of a war bunker. I thought that I was beginning to hyperventilate. Olivia handed me an old McDonald’s bag. “Breath into this,” she said. “You can’t call him wheezing like that. He’d think you were an obscene phone caller.
“Now ladies let’s get a plan and get it into action fast,” Olivia continued.
Kasha came running into the room. “The rose wasn’t for Taylor. I saw him there the other day with it when I was working the front desk. She did come by and say something about thank you for the flower. But he just laughed and said not this time. He waited around about an hour and then threw it in the trash and left. I didn’t know who he was waiting for and he never said.”
Then Kasha got an intrigued look on her face. “How did you know about the rose, Lottie? I never saw you come through.”
I was busted. And stupid. If I hadn’t used that stupid eraser he would have given me the rose and we’d be on our way to happily-ever-after. Instead it was in the trash, just like our future.
“Rumors,” I stammered. “Gossip and rumors. You hear everything that happens in this building.”
An hour later I was putting the plan into action. The general agreement was that a text message would be the safest. I could simply say,
Sorry to not be in touch sooner. Your note was waylaid and I just got it. Call me when you have time. If you’ve changed your mind, I’ll understand.
The only flaw was it then left me waiting for him to call—or not call. I guess it was only fair, as I had made him wait for more than a full week to hear from me. My biggest fear was that in those eight days he had changed his mind. That might explain why he had been locked in an embrace with Taylor behind the fine arts building. He had found someone else to play a duet with that was more prestissimo.
I had to retype the message three times before I had everything spelled right. I hit send. We all stared at my cell. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Two hours later. Still waiting.
Stina sat on her bed doing some weird complicated math problems—one reason why I was an English major. Only basic math required. I sat on my bed staring at Madame Bovary. Was I just being a foolish romantic like Ms. B.? Living my life thinking that the love stories in real life could ever compare to those in novels? Would I just live my whole life hoping for a happy ending that wasn’t coming?
“Lighten up there Lottie,” said Stina. Was she now able to read my mind? “The look on your face is tragic. Give the guy some time to call back.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about him,” I lied. “I was just reading about poor Emma Bovary and her devastating affairs.”
“Yeah, right,” Stina snorted. “He’ll call.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Any guy who would actually go to the bother to write you a note will call. Think about it. That note was a lot of work. First he had to find paper and pen. And a real envelope. Who has an envelope available? He probably had to make a special trip to Wal-Mart just for supplies to write to you.”
Stina logic made me smile. She was right. A note was much more work than a text message. So why didn’t he call?
“Should I call him again?”
“You haven’t called him have you? I thought we agreed on texting?”
There I had done it again. Confused the two realities. “I meant text him again.” There quick save.
“Wait.”
“Wait,” I repeated.
“Wait,” we both said in unison.
By eleven o’clock I had given up. Despair was taking over. I might as well go to bed and dream of an Al Dansby that I would never have. I was brushing my teeth with my phone next to me on the bathroom counter. Yes, hope springs eternal. It started to ring. I went to grab for it with a mouth full of toothpaste. Spa-lop my phone took a dive into the toilet. Had the diamond earring episode not taught me anything about leaving things on the counter next to the toilet?
“Oh my fig newton!” Stina screamed from the doorway. “That could have been him!” And it will be I thought. I ran from the room, snatched my purse from the floor and started digging. “What are you doing? Do you have an extension in your purse?’ Stina asked utterly confused.
Finally, I found my trusty eraser. My bosom friend. My help for all happiness. I might have swung it around a little harder than need be, but it worked.
I was back on my bed reading. It was 10:55. I
thought about brushing my teeth, but I’d put that off for just a moment. Precisely at eleven o’clock my phone began to ring. Stina was bouncing on her bed—two thumbs up.
“Hello,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Lottie are you alright?” asked my mom. “Your voice sounds scratchy.”
-32-
A Watched Phone Never Rings
There was a lot of time to think the next week, as I sure wasn’t spending it on the phone. He didn’t call. Looking back, I started to realize how many chances I’d had to get to know Al Dansby, but for my fear of ever looking foolish I had changed time and missed opportunities. And I was still doing it. I saw him three more times on campus, but dodged him with my mini time machine. I just couldn’t face him knowing he knew that I had texted him and he hadn’t texted me back. I felt so sixth grade.
It had been a full two weeks since my enchanted evening when Olivia, Stina and Rachel came into my room all dressed in black like burglars.
“Hey, I know tuition is high, but I didn’t know that y’all had taken on an illegal profession to make ends meet,” I said looking at them bewildered.
“We’ve been on a reconnaissance mission. We’re ninja spies,” announced Stina, pulling some leaves from her hair and then striking her best ninja pose.
“What?”
Olivia pulled out her iPhone. “We’ve decided something had to be done about this Dansby business. You’re obviously not getting over him.”
“That’s for sure,” said Stina.
Rachel added her clinical diagnosis. “You have been extremely despondent lately.”
I didn’t think I had been that bad. In fact I had been making a special point of not sighing loudly and only sniffled in the shower.
Stina added, “We decided to do an intervention.”
“What?” That was all my poor befuddled brain could come up with.
“We have been monitoring Al Dansby’s movements for the past two days,” said Stina. I felt like I was watching a very low budget Mission Impossible.
“Point one—we found out,” said Olivia reading from her iPhone screen. “He does not live on campus. Thus, the reason for not seeing him in the cafeteria. We did observe that he eats there on Wednesdays, due to a schedule conflict that keeps him from being able to leave campus for lunch.”
“I found that out from La—ah. She works the lunch shift at the cafeteria this semester. I also found out he favors mystery meat over salads, but likes tacos best,” Stina said so proud of her super sleuth abilities.
“He owns a condo,” said Rachel not to be outdone. “Did you get that? Owns a condo four blocks away. I Googled to find that.”
“Ladies, this is almost scary. Doesn’t this count as stalking? Isn’t that illegal?” I asked trying my best to sound like I objected, but really hoped that they had found out why he hadn’t called.
“Not if he doesn’t notice,” said Olivia back in General mode. “Currently he is in the play that starts in four weeks, so every evening this week he has been at play practice.”
Stina held up her hand to speak. “He’s playing Lt. Cable. I snuck in to watch the practice. He sure can sing.”
Olivia consulted her IPhone again. “Here’s the most important info we’ve uncovered so far. He broke his cell phone.”
“Yeah, we got that from Butch,” chimed in Stina.
“Butch thought it was so funny. Al told him he had been carrying his phone everywhere because he was expecting an important call,” Rachel was saying, when Stina interrupted, “That would be your call! He was waiting for your call!”
“But,” Rachel resumed telling the story, “he went to grab for a call and dropped it in the toilet!”
“Just like someone did my diamond earrings,” said Olivia through gritted teeth.
Rachel held her hands up as the peacemaker, “Let it go Olivia. We got them out. Fortunately there was no pee in the toilet so they were just fine after we sanitized them.
“Back to the matter at hand. Al told Butch who told Stina and me that Al is from California and his phone was on a plan from there so he had to get his dad to get him a new phone and his dad was out of the country for work and once he got ahold of him getting a new one seemed to deal with something to do with overnight shipping and losing all his phone numbers and text messages.”
Olivia was back in charge. “So you see, he never got your message.”
We all sat there for a solid two minutes no one saying a word. Three hopeful faces stared at me. Finally I spoke as if in a trance. “He never got my message.”
“Nope, never,” they all three said with Stina nodding like some crazy bobble head doll in the back of a car going down a dirt road.
I had been such an idiot with that stupid eraser. If I hadn’t made sure that he didn’t see me all this time, he could have told me all this himself, without the Get Smart crew having to go into action.
“General Corazon, Sir.” I saluted and asked, “What is our plan of attack?
-33-
You Say Stalking,
I say Conveniently Located
Deodorant ads lie. It did not turn up a degree when my pits—and the rest of me—were totally stressing as I tried to get up the nerve to enter the theater door. I would have turned around ten different times and left if three ninja stalkers hadn’t been hiding in the bushes forcing me to proceed. Five times I contemplated using my fickle eraser. But the track record so far on my trusty friend wasn’t so perfect. Yes, sometimes it had gotten me out of extremely humiliating situations. But, it had also allowed me to miss so many opportunities to get to know Al Dansby and who knows what else.
Two deep breaths, and no do-overs. I was off to see this encounter through whether it worked out for a happily-ever-after or just the crushing end to a dream that was just beginning.
Okay, maybe three deep breaths. Four. Oh, I was getting lightheaded. I heard a rustling from the bush patrol. “Get in there now,” came the order from Commander Corazon.
I made my way to lurking in the empty dark back row of the theater. There were a few actors still on stage, but practice seemed to be over.
“Who’s up for the Coffee Corner?” came a voice from backstage.
Different replies of “I can’t. Got to go study.” and “Sure wait for me.” came from different areas of the stage.
“How about you, Taylor?” asked Butch as he walked on stage.
Taylor looked around expectantly until her vision locked on a lone figure sitting at the rehearsal piano on the far apron of the stage. “Are you going, Al?” she asked in her disgustingly purry voice walking over to him and ruffling his amazing hair. My knees turned to Jello. My heart felt like I was running a marathon and green, jealousy steam was coming out of my ears. How was I going to rectify the cell phone/text message debacle if he went to coffee with her? Was I right after all? Had he not called because he had already moved on?
“Not tonight,” came the melodious voice of my quest.
In your face, Taylor of the long perfect legs. He doesn’t want to go out with you. I was practically doing the happy dance in the back of the theater.
“I have a paper to write. Give me a rain check, okay?” the beautiful voice continued. My happy dance wasn’t quite as perky anymore.
A war was going on inside my poor cranium as Taylor left the stage with the rest of the cast and crew through the backdoor. He had just said he had a paper to do. He had asked my archrival for a rain check. Did anyone really say rain check? And how could he make it sound so sexy to say such an antiquated phrase? Analyzing every detail of the past two and a half minutes, trying desperately to decide whether to go forward with our plan of attack or call a strategic retreat, I heard someone near the doorway clearing her throat. “If you don’t get your skinny butt up there right now and talk to him, I’m gonna come in there and grab your boney hand and drag you up there myself,” came La—ah’s forceful whisper through the door. The ninjas must have called for reinforcements.
> During all the various and drastically different conversations that had been taking place, Al had sat alone at the rehearsal piano, randomly playing bits and pieces of different tunes.
Four steps down. I hesitated. I had never realized what a huge auditorium it was. I was groping for the handrail, trying not to miss a step in the dimly lit room. The only lights on in the vast room were a few working lights on the stage. I heard La—ah clear her throat again. I took five more steps. I felt like I was playing some eccentric form of Mother May I, hoping for a yes you may, not a go back to the beginning. More throat clearing. It was starting to sound like a tuberculosis ward in the hallway. I had to speed things up.
Al began a new tune. One that gave me hope. He had very slowly morphed into “Maybe,” from Annie. Maybe he hadn’t given up on me. Maybe he still thought of me. Or maybe it was just a very catchy tune that got stuck in your head and wouldn’t go away. I was hoping for option one or two. It gave me the courage to make it to the apron of the stage.
That’s when I tripped over someone’s book bag in the floor of the first row and whacked my head against the edge of the stage.
-34-
How Romantic, Just Me &Al
And Stina, Rachel, Olivia, and La—ah
“Lottie, are you okay?” said an angelic voice. Had I died and gone to heaven? Or had I just knocked myself out being the klutz queen of OkMU?
Option B, of course.
“Stina, call 911,” came the command from the General.
“She’s coming around,” said Al. “Lottie, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
“The Godmother’s outside. We should take her to the hospital,” came Rachel’s decisive voice.
All I could see was Al Dansby’s face, actually three of them, staring down at me. Bliss. All three Als looked so concerned. How nice. My brain wasn’t working. I kept trying to say I was fine. Instead, I just kept looking at Al. He was down to two faces. Finally there was only one.
“Hospital. Now,” decided Al.
“Looks like she tripped over some moron’s bag,” said La—ah.
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