“How about we meet at Biddy’s at 12:45? Does that work for you, you busy girl?”
“Yeah, I think I can make it,” I say, elated that he is asking me to lunch, just the two of us.
“See you then,” he replies, hanging up the phone after my response. I have one more class to attend and then I’ll meet him for lunch. I’m so fricken excited and nervous that I can’t sit still or pay attention during my next class. Again, I’m oscillating between panic at being alone with Jared and the possibility of embarrassing myself and a happiness and excitement so intense that I swear I will not let my panic ruin this for me.
Finally class is over and I’m ready to walk to Jenkins Court to meet Jared. It’s a 10 minute walk down the brick sidewalk toward the small downtown area, and my thoughts are swirling. What will we talk about? What if I get nervous? Do I look okay? I wish I wasn’t wearing this damn shirt. I’m glad I wore these tight jeans though. On and on the thoughts go…partly nervous and partly excited, my stomach fluttering, never able to focus on any one thing for long. He’s waiting in front of the brick building when I arrive, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a grey sweater.
“Hey,” he greets me with a smile, drawing me into the restaurant. Biddy’s is a new favorite campus hangout, and is actually kinda classy with dark low-lit booths with high sides that gave the maximum amount of privacy. There aren’t many people around and Jared and I nab a sweet booth toward the back of the restaurant with a window facing the picturesque little downtown.
“So, Vicky, what do you want to eat?” he asks, rising one eyebrow at me quizzically.
“I have no idea,” I reply, studying the exceptionally full menu, “This is only my second time at this restaurant.” The menu is primarily Italian food and boasts salads, subs, and pizza.
“Hey I’m going to order a beer, you want to share it?” he asks.
“Yeah sure,” I reply, happy that’s he’s over 21 and that I can piggy back on the nice calming beer feelings. Thank God for small favors.
“How the heck old are you, anyway,” I finally asking, looking up from the menu for a moment, “are you a senior?”
“Oh, Victoria,” he states, looking at me with a withering teasing expression. “I’m a junior. I took a year off and I just turned 21. Andy’s a junior too. Normally I’d be a year ahead, but since I took a year off, the little twerp is in the same class as me.”
I smile at this comment, because the brotherly love is so adorable, and then the waitress appears to take our order. After she leaves Jared leans back comfortably in the booth studying me.
“Yes?” I ask, watching him watch me, amused and scared at the same time, not sure what to say, not sure what we’ll talk about. The thought of me running away from him at the frat flashes through my mind and I feel my cheeks grow hot. Finally he speaks and I’m drawn to the outside of my head.
“I was just thinking that we should get to know each other,” he says, “You know, a little 20 questions.”
“Really?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow at his idea. “That sounds interesting, what are the ground rules?”
“Well, I think we should be allowed to ask any question, but we must also answer our own question too or else it wouldn’t be fair.”
“I agree to your rules. Are you gonna start?” I ask as his beer arrives. As soon as the waitress leaves, I grab it for the first sip, feeling bold, grinning at him. He smiles back, then gazes out the window forming his first question.
“What’s your middle name?” he asks. Ha, not this question. My middle name is an embarrassment. I sigh dramatically.
“You prying bastard, you had to ask, that’s like the most personal question.” He rolls his eyes and I laugh and then finally give up the goods.
“Louise, okay? It’s ridiculous.”
“Louise, huh!” he chuckles, trying to give me shit. “Kinda old fashioned, eh?”
“Yeah it was my grandmother’s name, so my mom wanted to incorporate it into my name.”
“Maybe I’ll start to call you Vicky-Lou!” he teases, taking a sip of his beer.
“You’d better not!” I reply, sending him a fiery look. “Well, so what’s your middle name?”
“Mine is Michael.”
“Oh sure, perfect, so typical, so all-American,” I drawl, dripping sarcasm, but with a sly little teasing smile. How awesome is it that we’re bantering with each another? “Did you play any sports in high school or here at NHU?”
“Yeah, I played football in high school and opted for cross country once I got to college. I enjoy running long distance. It clears my head when I’m angry or upset. What about you?”
“No, I wish. I’ve never been a very sporty girl. I didn’t start young enough with any sport and was always uncomfortable starting anything because I felt I’d look ridiculous since I had never played before. I wish now I had though. I did, however, do quite a bit of sailing and camping with my fam.”
“Sailing’s cool. I’ve never been. Well…I guess we’ll have to go running sometime, too,” he says, grinning at me.
“Hrmph, we’ll see about that,” I reply, “I’ve always hated running ever since they forced us to run a mile in gym class. It sucks for someone who has never run before and I’d always get a terrible stitch in my side!” I smile because he’s mentioning future things we could do together. Awesome!
“Don’t be a wimp, Vicky!” he teases back, as I steal his beer glass again. “Well I guess it’s my turn again,” he muses. “Tell me what your nickname was when you were younger.”
“Hmmm…,” I start, “I never really had a nickname per se, but there were a few boys who taunted me in middle school. They would say Vicky likes Dick. Then in high school there were two guys in my Spanish class who called me Los Buen Tits, although I didn’t find that out until later.” Jared just looks at me quizzically, leaning across the table.
“I took French, so you’ll have to translate that first part, although I think I’ve got the Tits part down,” he says with a laugh.
“It means ‘The Good Tits’,” I say laughing and covering my chest with folded arms. “You’ll have to determine the truth of that statement on your own time!”
“I think I’ve already made up my mind as to the validity of that claim,” he replies, giving me a heated teasing look.
“You are very naughty,” I reply, shooting him a prim virgin mocking gaze. “I’ll have you know that they are real and they are fabulous!” I laugh, quoting Seinfeld.
“Ha!” he replies, “Did you watch that show when you were younger?”
“YES on rerun! And I loved it!”
“I loved it too,” he says, “that Kramer!’
“Yeah,” I say laughing as he begins to quote lines, doing funny impressions and reminding me of hilarious scenes from the show. “Ok, ok, now you have to tell me your nickname,” I ask, bringing us back on topic.
“Oh God,” he says, putting his head in his hands, peeking his eyes through two fingers, “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes I’m sure,” I reply, pulling his hands away from his grinning face. “Tell me!”
“Ok, ok…the girls used to call me ‘The Irish Stallion’ in high school. One of my ex-girlfriends started the rumor while we were dating so that she could brag to her friends. Once it got around the teasing never stopped. The guys would give me shit in the locker room, trying to say that my ex had been trying to make me feel better!”
At this revelation my mouth hangs open and then my eyes close own to little glaring slits. I can’t hold back my comments on this one. Sly bastard! “Number one, you are totally full of shit!” I say batting at his arm across the table. “And number two, you wanted to ask me that question just so you could answer it yourself. Cocky bastard!” He just looks at me for a moment, trying to hold back a slightly abashed look. I finally break my glare and grin at him.
“So, is it true?”
“Again, Vicky, you’ll have to determine the truth of that statement on your
own time, I can’t comment right now.”
“Oh you are so full of yourself!” I squeal, giving him a look of utter disapproval. “Men are sick,” I say, as the waitress brings our meals to the table. Jared digs into his burger and fries as I pick up the conversation again. “You must be a total man-whore.”
“Oh, my pride, my wounded pride, Vicky. Of course I’m not a man-whore. Well, maybe just a little…” he says, pausing to get the full effect of my reaction, a slow smile spreading over his face.
“Ug. Men are gross, they will sleep with anything,” I say with mock disgust. “Can’t you please keep that thing in your pants?!”
“Vicky, Vicky, how can you deny the truth that I’m irresistible,” he teases. “And how can I be expected to resist all the stunning women who throw themselves at me all the time?”
“Really, Jared, how many women have you been with?” I ask, not really sure I want to know but I can’t seem to resist asking the question, at least in jest.
“Well…I think…between 5 and 10,” he replies with a cocky sarcastic grin, as I narrow my eyes at him again.
“You think?? You think? Gawd, men are nasty!” I say, teasing him, trying to pretend that his number isn’t a lot compared to my zero, zip, nada. I can’t help but feel some heat flush over me at this conversation because he’s so damn good looking, his eyes warm brown, crinkling at the corners when he smiles and yeah…that smile is so perfect, lighting up his face. I can’t believe I’m out to lunch with him and that I ran away from him at the frat. OMG.
“How many people have you been with Mz. Pure?” he asks, giving my arm a squeeze across the table.
“A lady never tells,” I demur, giving him a sexy look, feeling my face heat up again because I’m sure he’s thinking about how I ran out and wondering what the hell that means. It’s unspoken between us, neither one of us mentioning the unmentionable. And I definitely don’t want him to know that I’m a virgin, yet. Eventually he’ll have to find out if our relationship goes any further, but I’m definitely not ready to divulge that secret.
“Hrmph,” he replies, picking up a fry and dousing it with ketchup, apparently letting it go. We talk on and on for over two hours at the restaurant, moving between teasing and sexual comments, to serious topics such as politics and our futures. I learn that we both enjoy reading and that he had taken an English lit class that had started him reading biographies. And like me, he enjoys history, music from the 60’s and 70’s including my favorites Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and Creedence.
We also share an interest in playing musical instruments. He plays the guitar and I tell him about taking piano lessons as a child. Neither of us are faithful to practicing now, but discussed how we could read music and start playing again whenever we wanted.
I’m finding myself spellbound by his voice and interested in everything he tells me. He seems to know how to do everything and has tried lots of different things. I even find myself telling him about my writing and how I love to create art work in my room at home while listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. We even share an interest in funny movies, both having loved Old School, Super Troopers and Slackers. Then Jared asks me if I’ve ever seen The Big Lebowski or Caddy Shack. I tell him that I haven’t and he replies that I need to, even hinting that maybe we could watch them together. He laughs at my jokes and teases me unmercifully and I find that I enjoy doing the same to him and am even relatively comfortable around him. I can hardly believe I haven’t panicked all afternoon, I’ve been that caught up in our conversation.
Now we’re sitting in the booth an hour after the check has arrived. Jared finally picks it up and pays for the meal, and we both get up to leave.
“I’ll walk you back to your car,” he says, “as long as you don’t mind dropping me off at my apartment before you leave. If you’re leaving campus that is?”
“Yeah, I’m going home,” I reply. “Thanks for inviting me out, I had fun, and thanks for lunch,” I say smiling at him.
“Yeah me too, I hope we can do this again sometime,” he replies as we walk up the tree lined street toward the commuter parking lot on the edge of campus.
I drop Jared off at his apartment and am disappointed that there is no goodbye kiss. In fact there hadn’t been any physical contact of any kind between us the entire time, regardless of how positive our “date” seemed to me. I’m kinda puzzled because most dirty bastards, AKA almost every guy I’ve ever known, usually have only one thing on their mind underneath all our conversation and interactions. In fact, it’s often on my mind too. I mean, God, I really wanted to kiss him, touch him, memories of our fooling around at the frat all coming back to me whenever I looked at him today. So, Jared is an enigma to me, the guy who tried to have a one night stand with me at a drunken frat party, but who doesn’t touch me at all when we go out to lunch. Damn, I hope I won’t be puzzled for long.
Then again, what if he doesn’t find me physically attractive and this is just a friendship? Maybe he had beer goggles on last time? Shit, that would suck. I would hate to be “just friends” with him. I try to shrug off the feeling as I drive slowly home to my parent’s house, hoping that he’ll call again soon.
#######################
What is life? What is living and then you die? I’d like a redo or another life after this one. Maybe another body but still me. Do I always come from my parents? That mix of genes that created me. Different people getting together creates different new people. All chance? Choosing a partner creates the next generation with a mix of specific traits. If you choose someone else you will get a different child, a different soul. Where does that come from? The spark, the light in someone’s eyes? Their intelligence? Two people create a child, genes tell looks, hair color, eyes, height, intelligence. Inherited traits. But what of the spark, the soul? And when someone dies and that light goes out, the animation is gone, where does it go? What happens? The shell, the body is still here, but something is obviously missing. What happens? Is it gone forever? Is that the end? Brain is still here, heart, lungs, traits, gene traits, but no animation. No movement. No heart thumping, no eyes moving. Where is the part that made this person unique from everyone else? The part that gave them their personality? Is it there in the genes and traits or is there something more?
What is the point of all this life? How truly fragile it all seems. Heart always beating, a muscle that somehow never tires and is necessary for life, to keep the spark inside the shell, the body. Lungs must breathe. What if we want to escape? But we don’t. We always seem to cling to life, or try to. We don’t want to die because we don’t know what it means. We’re scared. Especially now, when death is a less common occurrence in everyday life. We strive for life, to preserve it, not to die. What if death is freedom? Or better than struggling with life? All what-ifs. Some people choose suicide. The unknown is better than the known pain. Did they find peace? What is nothingness? It’s like trying to fathom outer space. How large, how ever expanding. Our minds can’t fully comprehend everything in this world. I don’t think we’re meant to understand death or why we even exist at all.
Such a delicate balance. Teetering on the edge between life and death. Always. And most of the time we don’t even consider it. I wonder if I were born again, a new me, a new time and place, would I still suffer from panic? Is that part of my soul or is it just a manifestation of a problem in my body?
December 3, 2004
It’s called “Workshopping”
I’m lying in bed, blankets all tangled around my legs. I’ve just slammed the alarm clock ‘cause I’m still tired and my mind seems cloudy and overcast, like when you are forced to wake up during a dream. I’m wishing I could skip class today. I didn’t sleep well and the air in my room is cold, the blankets a warm cocoon that I really don’t want to leave. Already my stomach is tied up. How lovely it is to wake up ready for panic, already dreading the day ahead. I know I can’t skip class because this is part of my grade.
I’m having a
non-fiction essay critiqued by the entire class. It’s called “workshopping” and all the other students will give me ideas on how I can improve my writing. I’ve prepared a piece about memories from childhood. It’s a descriptive piece about the sounds of the night, the stars, a roaring campfire, friends, family, childhood innocence. I’m proud of the melody of the piece and am glad that I’ve accomplished something I find beautiful. It’s going to be hard for me to present and it sucks that I didn’t sleep well.
An hour later and I’m out in the cold air, making my way to my car. Now to just make it through the fucking day. I load my backpack into my junky old Ford, thinking about how I’ve really got to clean my car, observing the trash and debris all over the back seat. I shrug my shoulders as I climb into the front seat behind the steering wheel. Worry about my disgusting ride can easily save itself for another day.
My stomach clenches itself into a tight little ball as I turn out of the driveway. Oh how I hate being alone like this in my car where my thoughts have free rein to imagine all the horrible possibilities. Sometimes I really hate my creativity, cause I can come up with some fucked up shit. It’s really all very silly and irrational. Sometimes it helps if I focus on convincing myself with rational thoughts. Would it really be the end of the world if I have to leave class? Sometimes reasoning with myself is successful, other times, not so much.
It’s hard to rationalize in the heat of the moment and I remember this when I’m finally sitting in class amongst my classmates waiting for it to be my turn to present. Of course I’m not going first which means I will have to sit and wait. Not that going first is necessarily my first choice, but sitting and waiting can sometimes be worse.
My classmate Ken goes first, reading his piece to the class in a monotone voice. I’m finding it hard to pay attention. I feel like I’m about to go on stage, waiting nervously in the wings for my turn. I look around, trying to focus on something, my eyes moving over the small room packed with student desks, the windows overlooking the tree lined, lightly snowed walkway. The clock ticks by slowly above the door. I tap my nails, struggling to focus on what Ken is reading. Constantly I slip back into my own thoughts. I don’t want to be here right now. I want to escape. I’m acutely aware of every passing thought, of the flush of uncomfortable heat that flares through my body.
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