by Hale, Mandy
“Oh my gosh, did you hear?” she screeched as soon as she picked up the phone.
“Yes! We have to go!”
Though the NKOTB stalkers in us had been lying dormant for twenty years, it was as though we had never skipped a beat. Instantly we were eleven and fourteen again, plotting our plan of attack for getting ourselves as close to the stage as we possibly could.
Seeing the New Kids as young girls, when we thought we were gorgeous and were convinced we were going to sweep them off their feet with one glance at our frizzy poodle perms, hot pink jelly shoes, and shoulder pads that rivaled those of an NFL linebacker, had been truly amazing. But to have the opportunity to see them again in our thirties, when we knew we were gorgeous and had driver’s licenses, conditioned ends, and outfits with no shoulder pads, was beyond what I could really even put into words.
When we got to the show at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, decked out in all our grown-women glory, we automatically noticed that there was a blocked-off section right beside us that looked like a riser with a piano on it. We were ecstatic when the girls next to us arrived, seasoned veterans from attending the show in St. Louis, and explained that all five guys would be popping up on the riser during the show. Not only that, but they told us the exact moment during the show when it would happen.
When the guys came out to the platform in the middle of the show, we managed to work our way up to the blockade surrounding the riser and were the first to push our way through, which meant we were the closest to the guys. And when I say “managed to work our way up,” I mean we blew past everyone and everything standing in our way—parting the Red Sea of fans with fixed determination that would make Charlton Heston proud—to secure a prime position against the railing. The girls behind us were pushing us up against the partition so hard that I made the bodyguard on the other side of the blockade promise to fish me out of the pile and carry me to safety should the crowd get unruly and storm the stage.
The momentary lack of oxygen was totally worth it, though, when the guys launched into three or four songs on the riser, only feet away from where we stood. I snapped pictures frantically while trying to flash my sweetest smiles and flirtiest eyes at Donnie. Since Donnie was the only single New Kid and I had developed my penchant for bad boys since the eighties, I had jumped ship from being a “Joey girl” to become a “Donnie girl”. Unable to draw a deep breath because my ribcage was pressed up against the barricade, I feared my flirty glances came across more as pained grimaces. Apparently I did something right, though, because as the rest of the guys started to make their way back to the main stage, Donnie hopped down and began to work his way to my row. Then, as time stood still, he came toward me. Could it be? Was this really going to happen?
He swept me into an embrace, and the next thing I knew, Donnie Wahlberg’s lips were on mine, my arms wrapped around him, my heart racing, my world stopping on its axis for what felt like half an hour (but was in reality only about three seconds, tops).
Then it was over, and I was left standing there, the eleven-year-old version of myself freaking out inside the body of my thirty-year-old self, my mouth hanging open in stunned silence, the culmination of every one of my wildest dreams as a child wrapped up in one moment. One of the biggest wishes of my idealistic, innocent, stubbornly faithful heart was granted, just like that, in one fell swoop.
When I was ten, my biggest dream was to kiss one of the New Kids on the Block. In fact, I used to kiss their posters every night before bed as practice. At age thirty, it actually happened. How many women can say they got to live out one of their childhood fantasies?
And after the crash and burn I had just been through, the pain, heartache, and disappointment of being passed up by Mr. E for another girl had left me feeling flawed and somehow just not good enough. Yet Donnie Wahlberg swept in, like a knight in shining armor, and made me feel beautiful, perfect, and special, just as I was.
I’m sure to some it might seem like nothing more than a silly, simple kiss, but for me it was a truly defining moment that reminded me that dreams do come true, and amazing things can happen, for no reason at all—and that I was worthy of the kind of kisses you only see in fairy tales. I walked out of that concert with a pep in my step and a confidence in my stride that hadn’t been there in a very long time.
Soon it would be back to the real world, but for that night, feeling a bit like Cinderella, I went to sleep with a sweet smile on my face, memories of that night in my dreams, excitement for the future in my heart, and a kiss I had waited twenty years for on my lips.
Having a male roommate is sort of a twenty-four-hour-a-day, enter-at-your-own-risk type of situation. On any given day, you never know if you’re going to open the fridge and find six-monthold milk growing a new species of antibiotics, head into the bathroom to find the toilet seat up and maybe his pants down, or be sitting innocently on the couch and have him fly across the room like a sumo wrestler and leap on top of you in all his giddy, puppy-like joy, thinking he’s the most hilarious person on earth for pinning you to the couch and forcing you to sniff his socks. You have arguments over who scooped the kitty litter last and whose turn it is to take out the garbage and who used the last roll of toilet paper. Living with a boy is, in a word, chaos.
But . . .
It’s also late-night trips to Walgreens to buy matching chocolate Ghirardelli candy bars when it feels like the whole world is against you. It’s endless movie watching and spontaneous dance parties at midnight on your birthday and a big, broad shoulder to lean on when someone breaks your heart. It’s a prayer partner who helps you carry the groceries, and also the weights of life. It’s a best friend who loves you unconditionally, even when you have PMS, even when you’re wearing rollers and zit cream, even when you are the most unlovable person on the face of the earth.
I loved living with Crawford. There was never a dull moment, and rarely a moment that we weren’t laughing hysterically. We were both movie lovers and had ridiculously expansive DVD collections, so the first month or so that I lived there, we had nonstop movie marathons to the point where people started to send out search parties for us because we hadn’t left the house in so long. And since he was still going through his post-divorce heartache and I was going through my post-Mr. E heartache, we made the perfect pair. The perfect moody, often sniffling, sometimes crying, pajama-wearing, Ben & Jerry’s–consuming pair.
A lot of nights when we couldn’t sleep, Crawford and I would have prayer time together. It was so nice having a built-in prayer partner. We would pray for our families, our friends, our careers, our own heartbreaks, and our destinies. Though I loved my job, I still felt very much like there was something greater that I was meant to be doing with my life; I just didn’t know what. And Crawford had a heart for missionary work and had taken several trips overseas to minister in different third-world countries over the years, and he very much hoped to do more in the future, as long as he had the finances to do so. We both knew God had a special plan for each of our lives, and prayed that we would be sensitive to His voice and know when to take action and when to simply be still and wait on Him.
Steven and I were also growing closer. Though I had only viewed him as a friend and nothing more for years, his kindness, understanding, and support during my whole Mr. E crash and burn had made me start to see him through new eyes. And my special kiss from Donnie Wahlberg had boosted my confidence about the idea of finding love again. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that my feelings for Steven were mostly misplaced feelings of insecurity and hurt from Mr. E’s rejection. I even tried fasting from dating and relationships for forty days to try and work through my unresolved issues, but I still hadn’t quite mastered the art of loving myself enough to wait on God’s timing in the area of my love life instead of trying to manufacture love myself. I was rebounding in a big way, and instead of realizing I needed a lot more than forty days to care for myself and give myself time to heal, I was masking the pain as so many people
do by running headfirst into an ill-timed and ill-fated new romance. Steven and I started spending more and more time together, and when he finally confessed his true feelings for me a few months after I moved back to Nashville, I ignored the nagging doubts in my spirit and agreed to go on an actual date with him.
And while the spark between Steven and I was just starting to kindle, Mr. E’s relationship with Shayla was coming to a fiery end.
Crawford and I hardly ever spoke of Mr. E anymore, even though I knew Crawford still talked to him on occasion. I respected my friendship with Crawford way too much to pump him for information about Mr. E, plus Mr. E had largely dropped off the face of the earth after he started dating Shayla, so there wasn’t really anything to tell. And I was actually very okay with not knowing. I knew I couldn’t fully let go of Mr. E if he was still lingering around, in person or merely in conversation. I was happily (or so I thought) moving on with my life with someone new, just like Mr. E was, and I had no desire to see him or hear about him.
So you can imagine my surprise the day I came home from work and Crawford broke the news to me that Mr. E would be coming to live with us.
“What?” I shrieked in disbelief. Had I heard him wrong?
“Well, not coming to live with us, per say,” Crawford explained hesitantly, looking a little like he wondered if he should run for cover. “Just coming to stay with us for a bit.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why in the world would he be coming to stay with us?”
“Well, he and Shayla got into a huge fight and broke up, and now she’s kicked him out and he has nowhere to go.”
“And this is our problem, why?”
Crawford looked sheepish. “Mandy, he really doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He gave up his apartment a few months ago, and I’m his best friend. If you have a major problem with this, obviously I’ll tell him no, but I’d really like to help him out and give him a place to crash. It will only be for a little while, I promise.”
I sighed. “How long of a little while?”
“A few days—a week at the most,” Crawford replied, looking at me hopefully. “So can he come? Are you okay with it?”
As furious as I might ever be with Mr. E, I didn’t want to see him out on the streets, especially when he was probably already suffering a broken heart to boot. Plus, this was Crawford’s house, and Mr. E was his best friend. I didn’t really feel comfortable telling Crawford he couldn’t provide a little solace and shelter to his best friend. I could certainly understand needing your best friend during a time of heartache. I wasn’t going to be the one to stand in the way of that.
“Yes, he can come,” I relented. “Although that’s going to be an interesting conversation with Steven. How am I supposed to explain to my new guy that my old guy is coming to camp out on my sofa?”
Crawford and I looked at each other and started laughing.
“Wow, Mandy, you do find yourself in some bizarre situations,” Crawford noted. “Like, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction situations. Have you ever thought about writing a book?”
Surprisingly, Steven was a lot cooler with the situation than I expected. Either that or he was lying through his teeth since we were newly dating, and he probably didn’t want to come across as the overbearing psycho type. I breathed a sigh of relief when we hung up the phone, saying a silent prayer of gratitude. Thank goodness. This was a new relationship, and the last thing I wanted was to introduce any drama to it.
The next day drama walked into my living room in the form of Mr. E. Or at least, the remains of Mr. E. The scraggly, unwashed, uncombed, unkempt person who wandered into my house wearing a floor-length black trench coat in the dead of August sort of resembled Mr. E.
“Crawford!” I hissed as we huddled in the corner, watching Trench Coat Man shuffle across the room and collapse into a chair in front of Crawford’s video game console. “What is that?”
Crawford looked a little nervous. “Mandy, I don’t know what’s going on. He looked like that when I picked him up. This is apparently his way of dealing with the breakup.”
“By not bathing for what looks like”—I paused and sniffed the air—“and smells like a week?”
“You know how overly dramatic he is,” Crawford said with a shrug. “He always grieves the end of relationships in colorful ways. I guess the trench coat and the whole, um, not bathing thing is just his way of dealing with his emotions.”
Mr. E spent the next week in front of the video game console, dealing with his emotions. I went to bed, he was playing video games. I woke up, he was playing video games. I went to work, he was playing video games. I got home from work, and yep, you guessed it, he was playing video games. I’m not sure when he slept, or if he slept. And the trench coat remained firmly glued to his body, even as the temperature soared higher and higher outside.
This was not to negate Mr. E’s feelings or to say that his broken heart wasn’t valid. I’m sure he was working through his grief in his own way. Some of us eat ice cream and watch movies. He wore a trench coat and didn’t bathe for ten days. I had battled depression myself and would never make light of anyone truly struggling with depression. But this, this felt like an act, a show, an overly theatrical stunt designed to get attention. And after everything I had already been through with Mr. E, my patience with his attention-seeking games was starting to wear thin.
On day ten, I marched into the den and tossed a bar of soap into his lap. He looked up at me with surprise.
“You have until five to get in the shower willingly, or so help me, I will drag you in there myself if I have to, kicking and screaming,” I said evenly. “This is getting ridiculous. Crawford is kind enough to give you a place to stay. The least you could do is be respectful enough to take a shower.”
He didn’t respond, but simply went back to playing his video game.
When I got home that afternoon, the trench coat–covered lump was gone. His stuff that had been scattered around the living room had vanished. The empty box that had contained the bar of soap was the only thing left, sitting in the chair in front of the video game console.
“He left,” Crawford said, walking up behind me.
“He left?” I asked in quiet surprise. “Where did he go?”
“He decided to go stay with his friend George for a few days, out at his house in the country. He thought it would be good for clearing his head, figuring out what to do next.”
I picked up the empty soap box and sat down in the chair silently.
“And, Mandy,” Crawford said, putting his hand on my shoulder gently.
“Yeah?”
“He said to tell you thanks.”
A few weeks later Mr. E packed up and left for good. He moved back home to Boone, apparently to reevaluate, recharge, and get his life together. And just like that, I was free to move on with my life and with Steven, and see if this new relationship of mine might lead to the kind of happy ending that always seemed to elude me and Mr. E.
Except I wasn’t really free. Not at all. I was still totally hung up on Mr. E and too prideful and stubborn to admit it to myself, so instead I continued to run from my feelings by hiding out in the safety of my relationship with Steven. Steven seemed to care for me so much, and he had been such a rock over the past few months, and a great friend for the past few years before that, it seemed at the time that I was making a healthy choice. Little did I know how soon that “healthy choice” would blow up in my face.
When Steven’s birthday rolled around in October, I eagerly helped him plan his birthday fiesta. By that point we were boyfriend and girlfriend, and I was very much in the blissed-out, new-relationship state. By the end of the night, however, a skeleton that rivaled the size of Skeletor in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe would come bounding out of Steven’s closet. (Since it was close to Halloween, I guess it was fitting.)
The party went well and things seemed perfectly fine and normal, until we got home. At some point between when we left the party an
d when we arrived back at my house, Steven experienced a case of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He went into a swift and completely unexplainable rage, ripping his shirt from his body, pouring a canister of motor oil over his head, and playing whack-a-mole with Crawford’s birdfeeder, dashing it into a million tiny pieces. Miraculously, none of the neighbors or Crawford woke up to experience this one-man circus, and I was the only witness to the bizarre series of events. Though he didn’t put his hands on me that night, his sudden fit of insanity should have tipped me off to the fact that something in him was broken, and I needed to get away before he tried to break me too. I was so stunned, I didn’t know what to do. I simply couldn’t understand how this man I had known for years could suddenly morph into this monster in the blink of an eye.
The next morning I ended the relationship. Steven objected and apologized and cried and begged me to give him a second chance, but I was unyielding. I was hurt, embarrassed, frightened, and beyond confused. And he hadn’t just hurt me; he had hurt my roommate. Crawford had never been anything but kind to Steven, and now he was left picking up the pieces of his damaged belongings. I was mortified.
Over the next couple of weeks, Steven begged me to reconsider and give us another try. He had a million excuses about why he flipped out. His uncle had passed away a few months prior, and he blamed it on that. He blamed it on the stress in his life. He blamed it on something someone said to him at his party. He pointed his finger at everything and everyone except himself.
“Mandy, you know me,” he pleaded. “You’ve known me for years! Have you ever seen me act like this before now?”
The truth was, no, I hadn’t, which was part of the reason I was so stunned.
When he saw that his begging and pleading wasn’t going to do the trick, he trotted a series of character witnesses (also known as his friends) past me to swear up and down that this was an isolated incident and they had never seen Steven lose his temper like this before. His friend John was particularly convincing.