He seemed mesmerized with my boring life. “It must be great to have a brother and sisters. I’m an only child. I always wanted a brother.”
I opened up and confessed to him something I had never admitted before. “I have always said that it would be wonderful being an only child. Sometimes in really loud shouting matches with my sisters,” I laughed. “But deep down I don’t really mean it.” There I was saying out loud to a guy I barely knew what deep down in my heart I never had wanted to admit. For all my moaning and complaining about being the normal, un-special middle child, I really did like my brother and sisters. Some days I even loved them. “They are what make my family, my family. And Christmases and snow days and family vacations would be pretty dull without them.
“Now tell me about your family.” It was my turn to make demands.
“Not much to tell. There’s just me and my dad now.”
“Oh, divorced? That happens a lot.”
The look on his face was so sad. It must have been a really messy affair. I wished I hadn’t brought it up.
“No. Not a divorce,” he began. “My mother. She was so special. You’d have loved her. Everybody loved her. My dad always did. Still does.” He paused and took a deep breath. “She died when I was fifteen.” He stopped talking for a moment. Again, deep in thought. It seemed he was trying to decide if he should confide in me his deepest hurts or keep it simple. After a moment he looked me in the eyes and continued. “She had cancer. You always hear how awful it is to have someone you love die of cancer, but you don’t know until you’ve actually lived it. They don’t die all of sudden, but every day, a tiny bit, right before your eyes and you’re helpless to do anything about it. It’s like there is a murderer right there in the room and nobody can stop him. Everyone is powerless, helpless.” He stopped and took a drink of coffee. His hand was shaking ever so slightly. I sensed that he was telling me thoughts that he didn’t share often or with just anyone. My heart ached for him. “We all knew it was coming, yet we pretended—hoped—prayed she’d get well. Always knowing that she wouldn’t. She struggled so hard, kept taking all the drugs they gave. Sometimes it seemed that the cure made her sicker than the disease. My dad felt guilty for giving her medicine that didn’t seem to work. But what was the alternative? Just give up? She couldn’t eat or sleep. By the end she was so emaciated even her friends wouldn’t have recognized her. Except when she smiled. She had the most beautiful smile.”
“Is that where you got your smile?”
I was rewarded with a melancholy version of his glorious smile. “Yeah, everybody always says I look just like my dad. Except when I smile. Then I’m all my mother.”
We sat there for a moment in silence. Strangely it wasn’t awkward. Then he looked into my eyes and smiled. “You’ll love my dad. He’s special too.”
Not as special as his son, I wanted to say. But, I was trying to play it cool. Also, I was trying not to cry.
We spent the next two hours playing our version of twenty questions. The music montage of life. All the endearing smiles and laughs as some wonderfully syrupy romantic song played. I’ve always loved those in movies. But also wished that they would slow the happy times down and let me experience them. This time I did. I learned what his favorite song was.
“I just love that Michael Bublé song. ‘Just Haven’t Met You Yet.’ All last semester when I’d hear it, it would bizarrely click in my head like there was this someone special that I knew, even though I hadn’t met her. Or should I say you, yet.”
That comment totally made my heart race and my toes curl. But, there it was again. That tiny lingering fragments of feelings left from a do-over, of remembering a meeting that hadn’t happened in his reality. I also wondered, as I hadn’t really allowed myself to wonder before, if doing time over wasn’t hard on others. Did it leave them with confused, déjà vu feelings that could never be explained or resolved? I didn’t wonder for long as he was on to his next question.
“What is your favorite book? Writer? Movie?”
“That’s three questions.”
“I know. I thought I’d try putting them all together and hope I could get more than my twenty in.” Little did he know he could interrogate me until forever and I wouldn’t complain.
“Hmm, book? Anything by Jane Austen, of course. And Agatha Christie. But I’m also a Harry Potter freak. I almost went into depression when the last book came out and I knew there wouldn’t be any others.” Now to tell or not to tell? I also was obsessed with Twilight. But for some reason, guys didn’t want to hear about it.
Al took a sip of his coffee. I think he was on about his tenth cup. We had been there a while. In fact that pause made me look around and realize we were the only people still in the restaurant.
“I thought you would like Twilight. Most people who like Jane Austen do,” he said.
“Busted.”
Then he looked around the room like an undercover spy, making sure there were no bugs or surveillance cameras. “I’ll make a confession to you. But if you tell, I might have to kill you.”
Oh no. Here it came. The something bad. That’s how I’d felt since the breakfast in bed had arrived. This was all too good to be true. Any time he’d confess to some major obstacle that would doom our chances of being together forever.
Then he gave a very sheepish smile and said, “I’ve read them too. And I didn’t hate them. But, if you ever tell anyone, I’ll deny it.
“Now favorite movie,” he continued.
“That one’s easy. Anything with Alistair Dansberough in it. They’re always so good. Did you ever meet him in California?”
Suddenly, Al seemed to realize what I had known for awhile, but didn’t want to mention, the restaurant was empty. “We probably should go. I think they want to close up.
-38-
Some Things Are Worth Doing Over
“So Lottie Lambert, English major, I’ve had a perfectly enjoyable evening,” then Al corrected himself after looking at his watch, “night, or actually it is getting to be morning.”
“The best,” I gushed. I would never learn to play it cool, but for once I didn’t want to. I was having the best evening, night, well actually morning I had ever had and I hated for it to end.
There we stood at the front door of my dorm. Both of us not wanting the date to end, but knowing it would. Would he try to kiss me? Would I let him? Did I want him to? That question was easy, YES. But, would he think I was easy? I know that in movies now-a-days people sleep together after just meeting, often before they even exchange last names. That wasn’t my upbringing, not even my style. I was taught commitment and respecting myself. And my breath. I had just remembered that I hadn’t had any kind of mint or gum after dinner. Was I garlicky? I hoped I didn’t have broccoli in my front teeth. I was starting to panic. And just being silly, because I hadn’t even eaten broccoli or garlic. I was safe. Oh, but I did have black pepper. That could have been stuck right in my front tooth and I’d never have known. Was I going to hyperventilate? Oh crap and then he’d think I was jumping to the heavy breathing without even a kiss. Should I use my eraser and get us back to the restaurant so I could check my teeth in the restroom mirror?
“Lottie, are you okay?” He seemed to be asking me that question a lot. It was time to get a grip.
I nodded yes. And smiled. With my lips closed, in case of the pepper thing.
“Like I said, I had a nice, no strike that, a fabulous time tonight. I hope to see a lot of you.”
“Me too.” I don’t know why I ever thought I could be a writer, because as a speaker I was never very eloquent. ‘Me too’ was all that I could come up with.
Al stepped a little closer and took my hand. “I’m in this play right now. And when we’re in production I’m extremely occupied with practices,” Oh crap. I had misread everything. He was trying to find an excuse to not see me or at least not that often. “But,” Oh a BUT, I loved a but (the one t kind not the two t’s kind, although his two t kind
was mighty fine.) “If you don’t mind odd hours and unpredictable times, I really would love to spend more time with you.”
I just nodded. And giving caution to the wind, gave a full teeth smile.
With that, he stepped even closer and took my other hand. “I know this is our first date. Although as romantic as the atmosphere was, I wouldn’t count our trip to the emergency room as a date.” There was that mischievous smile again. My knees were going to melt. “I was hoping, well, wondering, . . . wishing. Lottie, may I kiss you?”
“Yes, yes you may.” And he did. It was the perfect kiss. Just the right amount of pressure with just a tiny bit of a nibble and . . .(oh sorry, TMI.) Anyway it was the perfect kiss.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said as he went to open the door for me. “Don’t worry, I’ve still got your number.” Then he pulled back his sleeve. “Sharpie is very hard to wash off.”
I floated into the foyer. Life was good. Fortunately the lobby was empty, as it took me a full two minutes to regain any sense of composure. Then my hand was in my bag snatching up my trusty friend. There were many things in life I wanted to do-over in order to change them for the better. But, some things in life are just too good to only do once. So with a flick of my wrist I was back on the front stairs staring into Al’s beautiful green eyes.
Hearing, “Lottie, may I kiss you?”
I loved that little pink eraser.
-39-
A Woman Scorned And Her BFF’s
Floating. I did a lot of that over the next few weeks. The only work my magic eraser was getting was to do instant reruns of wonderful moments. But, I had to confess, that even though doing a first kiss a second time was fantastic, it’s still not as good as the first. Knowing what to expect takes away some of the firstness of it and then it was really just a second kiss. Which was still pretty awesome.
It was late on Thursday evening. I was floating down the hallway, on my way to meet Al after his rehearsal. My mind was anywhere but in my head. So, it took a few seconds before I saw Kasha sitting on the floor in a little enclave of the hallway. She was reading something on her laptop and softly crying.
I knelt down next to her and asked that dumb American question yet again, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she answered. Why did we always do that? We could be standing there with blood pouring out of our bodies, a limb severed off and still we’d say we were fine.
“No you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“It’s not me. It’s Keesha. She’s so lonely and miserable. I was just reading an email from her.”
Keesha. It had been over a month since we all got her pregnancy news. After the seven-day wonder, we seemed to forget about her and go on with our happy lives. So sad, but so true. Maybe that was the hardest part of all of being a teenage mother, the loneliness. Keesha’s friends went on having their exciting adventures while her life was on hold—alone. Dealing with the overwhelming stress of being responsible for a new life coming into the world, and at the same time feeling guilty for wishing she could go back to her pre-pregnancy happy-go-lucky days. At least she had one true friend who hadn’t forgotten her, Kasha.
“There she is, stuck in Kansas. She’s already gained almost twenty pounds. Twenty pounds! Her clothes don’t fit and she doesn’t have money to waste on new ones. Twenty pounds. Way too much for being in her fourth month. But she says she’s bored and unhappy and nothing to do but eat. And then everyday I see that jerk soccer player strutting around campus, always some other fool girl with him. He’s not fat. His ankles aren’t swelling. He didn’t have to move back to Kansas. Urgh. I just get so mad. One of these days I’m just gonna walk right up to him and slap that smirky smile into next month.”
“I think we need a little project,” said Olivia. I jumped. I hadn’t heard her approach. “The ninja troop solved your problem Lottie, now it’s time for some retribution for ol’ mister soccer.”
“We can’t run him over!” I said before thinking.
Again Olivia gave me an intense look. I tried to put on my most innocent, I know nothing about your past face, as I possibly could. I guess she bought it as she continued speaking. “I’m not planning anything illegal. Gosh Lottie, what kind of person do you think I am? Well, not majorly illegal. I mean if we castrated him, we’d go to jail. So that’s off the list.”
“And egging his car is so middle school and won’t change anything. So what are we gonna do?” asked Rachel. Where had she come from? “I heard you all out here plotting a plan and I knew I wanted to be in on it too. Any ideas?”
“Not yet,” said Olivia back in her commandant mode. “This one will have to be perfect. Some way to screw-up his life, like he did Keesha, but in a way that it doesn’t come back to bite us all on the butt. This will take some major planning. First we’ll start with surveillance. We need his schedule. Who he’s with, when, where? Anything we can find out.”
“The K’s are on it,” said Kaylee. What another materializing person? Note to self. Never have a confidential conversation in our hallway, as it was becoming apparent that anything said in that area was heard by all.
“We need his phone number and any passwords, logins and pertinent information we can find,” the General continued. “Stina,” last to join our importune conference, “you’re the best at computer espionage. See what you can find.” Then turning to Rachel. “Dr. Freud, you get into his psyche. Find out the thing he values the most. We already know he’s a horn dog, with no scruples when it comes to women. Now we need to know his ultimate weakness. His Achilles heel.”
The look in Olivia’s eyes was almost maniacal. Maybe our plan of sabotage on the LSPS wasn’t such a good idea. She was out for blood. Not just revenge on one self-centered, egotistical jock, but on all of the evil, manipulative, predatory men on the planet. She was out for revenge for her eight-year-old self and any others like her. Then again, maybe it was time for some of those wronged women to be avenged. All I knew was that I would be holding very tightly to my magical friend in case anything should get out of hand and we needed a rapid redo escape route.
-40-
The Green-Eyed Monster
One thing I had learned in less than a week of dating (oh, that sounded so nice, dating, I think I’ll say it again, dating) an actor was that rehearsals ended when they were done, no matter what the clock on the wall said. Al had invited me to go for coffee after his practice, ending time TBA. But I didn’t care. Al Dansby was worth the wait any day.
I quietly slipped into the last row of the auditorium and sat to watch patiently wait. It was still two weeks before the show went up. That was a theatrical term Al had taught me. Plays didn’t start. They went up—as in, the curtain goes up. I also learned that thespian meant actor. Go figure. To while away the time I opened my laptop and tried to focus on my newly motivated writing career. I had started a short story about a girl who almost didn’t meet her Prince Charming because she was too obsessed with always seeming perfect. Yes, art was attempting to imitate life, but once Al came on stage my fingers quit moving across the keyboard. His voice, his face the way he moved totally consumed me.
It was the first time that I had made it in time to see Al’s big scene. It was a good thing too that I was able to see it without a crowd of people. I’d forgotten a lot about South Pacific. I’d watched it once when I was in middle school on DVD with my mom. I knew that Al was playing Lt. Cable and he had a Tonkinese girlfriend.
There stood my man, in half a military uniform. For some reason his shirt was on the floor. That was my first viewing of his chest. Nice. Just the right ratio of muscles to hair. But, what was he doing topless on stage? And he was singing the most beautiful, romantic ballad about a girl who was younger than springtime. It was melt your socks steamy as he kept singing and reached out to gently stroke her hair. That’s when I realized that wasn’t any regular Tonkinese girl. It was skank woman, Taylor. Oh and it just kept getting worse. He kept singing and they kept getting closer. Then th
ey were kneeling on a blanket. Where did that come from? Smashed together! And then they weren’t kneeling anymore. They were lying down—TOGETHER. It was getting dark in the theater. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the stage lighting or I was about to pass out from rage.
After at least three hours the song finally ended. The stage was black, but I was definitely seeing red. I didn’t remember this part on the DVD. Obviously my mom had fast-forwarded through it as it was a little too risqué for her middle schooler.
“That was great!” came a call from the front row. I guess that was the director. I felt like standing up and yelling, “I object.”
The director spoke again, “Bring up some light.”
I couldn’t agree more. And some clothes. And some space between them. The lights came back on and Al, my Al Dansby was still laying on that blanket with that woman. Finally, he sat up.
There was a long technical talk between Al, the director and SW I didn’t understand it. My brain wasn’t functioning for all the steam coming out of my ears. As quietly as I could, I left. I was going to have to do a little rethinking. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out to be dating an actor.
***
Al found me an hour later, sitting on the bottom step outside my dorm. He didn’t talk at first, just sat down.
“It’s rather cold out here,” he began. Then I knew it was coming. “Are you okay?” Yep, like I said, that phrase got used a lot. But this time I wasn’t going to say fine when I wasn’t.
“I came to rehearsal.”
“I know. I saw you leave.”
We sat side by side for a few minutes. He was right. It was cold out there. I’d been so upset, I hadn’t realized until then.
“Why did you leave? I thought we were going to go for coffee.”
Do-Overs Page 14