I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You
December 1984
All the girls were ready to go. Now came the waiting time. We crowded into the dorm’s common area and fidgeted and primped, using one another’s faces as mirrors. The unasked question – Do I look all right? No. Do I look good? The question we were afraid to ask.
Thursday night Must See T.V. provided the background to all the nervous activity. Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers….After Cheers ended, we would shift, anxious and anticipating, toward the door. It was almost time for the Thursday Night Club.
As a college freshman, I was introduced to all kinds of new social activities. No longer under the watchful eye of my small town neighbors who would tell my parents all, I stopped worrying about being caught. Caught doing what? Anything. Everything.
I sat, a little distracted, facing the television. Through the slotted wall behind the t.v., I saw the door open and in he walked. Ethan. I'd been watching for him.
I can’t remember now if we made eye contact and, damn it, I can’t find any journals from that time (I think I’d briefly stopped writing), but the minute he walked through that door, I felt electricity. I knew it was silly, this guy was just some kind of player, a lady’s man. When he sang Foreigner’s I’ve Been Waiting (for a Girl Like You) to me the night before in this very room, he was just goofing around, right?
I sensed him somewhere behind us. I peeked over my shoulder and saw him standing behind the row of seats, his eyes on the television. He glanced my way and snapped a grin. He may have wiggled his eyebrows. I’ll never know for sure because I whipped my head around to face the t.v., my face burning with embarrassment. Caught looking!
The show ended and we stood and stretched and collected our coats from the table where we’d stacked them. Ethan joined our little group and asked what we were doing next. Someone mentioned the Thursday Night Club. Did he want to go with us? I think it was Melinda who asked.
He said sure. My breath caught in my throat, but I still was not going to let myself hope. What was the point? Our gaggle of coeds included Melinda with her long legs and auburn hair. Deirdre with her China doll face, blond hair and perfect breasts and Cat with her exotic Asian beauty. This guy who would have had his pick wasn’t interested in me.
********
I’m that girl. You know the one. Cute, not pretty or stunning or unique in looks. Easygoing until you scratched beneath the surface and found a basketful of barely-controlled compulsions. Humorous as a defense more than anything. Accommodating. Too much so. Nice. As if it isn’t enough to be a middle child, I’m a Libra, too. I’m the Rodney King of birth order and astrological signs. The world can be crashing down around us and I’m wondering aloud if we can’t all just get along.
I’m just nice to be around, but I'm not going to make your heart beat out a symphony, I'm not going to inspire poetry or wild flourishes of affection. I’m nonthreatening and non-confrontational. I don’t make sport of contradicting people. Neither ornamental nor darkly compelling, I'm the classic girl next door. You'd do her, but you wouldn't die for her.
Someone once described me as the best girlfriend ever. In fact, that someone was Ethan, but he used the description about twenty-three years and five months after....., but now I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?
Anyway, I was that girl. Never the drop dead gorgeous one, never the unattainable ice queen. I was never the Queen Bee for that matter. I wasn’t exactly the side kick either. I was usually the third girl from the left with chestnut hair, friendly smile and large tits (not necessarily noticed in that order by the opposite sex). I just looked…nice. And maybe easy. None of this mattered because I was convinced that I was not the reason Ethan was joining us.
I repeated this to myself during the frigid walk to the house where the Club was in full swing. I thought it over and over as I flowed in and out of little knots of students talking, played drinking games in the breakfast nook, smoked weed from a one-hitter in the basement, and danced to the Psychedelic Furs, if you can call it dancing. It was more like dreamy swaying at that point.
This guy Ethan - tall, handsome, charming Ethan – was not interested in me. And then we were standing together making small talk while we waited for our turn at the keg. He smiled right before he leaned down and kissed me.
********
I awoke facing Ethan and was engrossed in memorizing his face when his dark eyes flew open startling me.
“What are you doing?”
I acted coy. “Nothing.”
"What were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
I watched his perfectly formed eyebrows knit together as he schemed to get me to tell him the truth. His skin was pale, his eyelashes framed his brown eyes giving them a wide-eyed appearance. “You were staring at me.”
I pulled back so I get a better look at him. His almost black hair was cut short and preppy, he had a long, straight nose and a strong chin that reminded me of Cary Grant’s with its subtle cleft. Without thinking I put my fingertip onto the cleft in his chin. “So what if I was. You’re not bad looking, you know.”
He tickled me until I squealed and then we settled down remembering that females weren’t supposed to spend the night in that wing of dorms.
“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. You’re going to get me kicked out of here.”
I turned my back to him and curled into a fetal position. “Oh, well, I’ve had my fun with you….”
He tickled me again and then pulled me close.
We fell asleep. A little later, I lay with my eyes closed and felt his warm breath on my neck as we spooned together. I became curious about the sounds outside and rose up on one elbow to look out the window. Moving the curtain aside, I squinted in the morning light and wondered what time it was. The snow that had been on the ground for a few days was shrinking back, giving way to the dead grass and mud of the worn paths around the dorm.
“The whole world is melting.”
I could feel his weight shift. “Mmmmmm. That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
I let the curtain drop back in place and turned to him.
********
Still Life February 1985
"Hurry up! I’m freezing!”
“Hang on. These are going to be good, I think.”
I took a deep breath and waited. Counted to ten and waited. Waited some more. What was taking him so long?
I regretted my offer to pose. What had I been thinking? I was a fidgeter, not made for this kind of thing. And Ethan! I had no idea he could be such a perfectionist, twisting my body this way and that, giving direction, adjusting the lighting. Meanwhile, I was topless and my nipples were hard as the icicles that hung off the eaves of the house.
“Stay right like that,” he whispered, backing away a little and aiming the Nikon at my bare breasts.
I was torn between wanting to get this over with and wanting to look down to see what he could see. As I sat frozen and stiff, trying not to think about which body part itched more, it occurred to me that I had ceased to be flesh and blood, the soft, pliable girlfriend who shared his bed and secrets. I had crossed into that other place as his subject. His eyes roamed over my body with a precision that didn't mesh with the desire that normally accompanied his response to my naked breasts. He studied me like the artist he was. I could have been any body. Any. Body. I could have been a bowl of fruit, a jug of wine, a mandolin leaning against a wall. I shivered.
“Now you’ve got goosebumps,” he said, leaning down to adjust my right shoulder ever so slightly. “You must be cold.”
I didn’t want to tell him what had made my skin go all prickly.
Later, we sat on the worn blue carpeting while he repacked his gear. I slid my foot underneath him and wiggled it. “I love you.”
He didn’t miss a beat as he continued to dismantle the lighting. “I love you, too. Want your pay?”
“And that would be?” I asked, pushing my foot further under him and goosing his butt with my toe.
“Dunkin Donuts, of course!” he yelped as he grabbed my foot between his legs an held on to it.
I tried to wriggle away, lying down and stretching to reach the tee shirt just beyond my grasp.
He let go of my foot and lay on top of me. "That was pretty cool, seeing you like that." He was so warm.
Like that. For days after I would wonder if he meant like that naked or like that posed. Or both. When I finally saw the photos, they took my breath away. He’d captured a beauty I did not know I possessed. Until I saw those photos, I'd thought my breasts awkward, too large, unappealing. At that moment, though, I wanted to stay there, feeling his weight on me. I knew where that would lead though and my roommate was due home shortly.
I reluctantly pulled away and tugged the shirt over my head. "Donuts, remember?"
********
The GirlfriendJuly 1985
We decided to stay in Muncie that summer. Ethan took classes and I worked at the Sears in the mall. We moved into neighboring studio apartments in the basement of a columned colonial on University Avenue. The landlady, a gruff old bird named Mrs. Blix, claimed that David Letterman lived there when he attended Ball State. She'd tell anyone who'd listen about what a slob he'd been.
Although we had two studios next to each other, Ethan and I shared his, which was nicer and bigger. We filled our days with giddy, young love, shared a twin bed and didn’t mind so much. We got addicted to reruns of Hogan’s Heroes and M.A.S.H. and when those shows weren’t on, we played a computer version of Monopoly on his Commodore 64.
We were playing house and it was lovely.
******
Someone was knocking on the door. Ethan and I lay paralyzed for a moment. What if it was Mrs. Blix? We'd assured her that slept in our own beds. She’d been adamant that unmarried people would not be “fucking in her house.”Ethan sat up, not sure what to do. I climbed over him. “I’ll hide in the bathroom,” I scampered across the room, and shut the door behind me. I pressed my ear to it to hear. I could hear a woman, but it didn’t sound like Mrs. Blix’s gravelly voice. I pushed my ear harder against the door. My heart pounded and I simmered - was annoyed that I couldn’t make out the words.
I cracked the door a little and peeked out. I couldn’t see Ethan, but I could hear him. He sounded nervous. No, he sounded really nervous. I opened the door a bit more and leaned out. He leaned against the wall, the door partially opened in front of him. His bare chest stood out in stark contrast to his navy blue sweatpants. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and smiled at the person in the doorway.
The door blocked my view so I couldn’t see to whom he spoke, but I heard the voice clearly enough. It belonged to a young woman – and she sounded cute. Deciding to make my presence known, I swung the bathroom door open and sauntered across the room. I chose a spot on the bed so the person in the doorway could see me.
Ethan swung around cloud of fear passing over his face, his smile a frozen. I gave him a stony look. My heart beat double time and my pulse assisted by drumming in my ears.
Ethan turned slowly back to the young woman at the door. She stood there smiling with her open, friendly face. Her dark eyes were muted by her glasses. She wore her shiny brown hair in a chin-length bob and had decked herself out in a navy blue slicker with matching rain boots. Little ducks dotted the ensemble. I hated her instantly.
Ethan still didn’t react. I cleared my throat and waited. The young woman looked from him to me. We were waiting for him to make the next move.
“Um, right. Um, um……,” It was painful to watch. “Um, this is Cynthia,” he stammered, gesturing to the slicker chick whose smile grew wider as she nodded my way.
“Ah, uh, um…..Cynthia is in my photography class. She just stopped by to say hi.” It came out in a rush. He cast his eyes to the floor.
I tried to smile. I waited, my eyebrows raised, my eyes snapping shut and open, shut and open. Ethan turned back to Cynthia. My mind was already racing with questions. How did she know where he lived? How did she find the exact apartment? What the hell was she doing here at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday? In the rain? And what was she wearing under that slicker with its little duckies and matching rain boots?
Ethan shook himself, as if to try to deflect the angry vibes shooting in his direction. He finally found his footing, sort of. “Um, heh, um, Cynthia, this is, is…….is um The Girlfriend,” he managed. The second the words were out of his mouth, he winced.
“Actually, my name is Lisa,” I said quietly from the bed.
********
I paced the room while Ethan escorted Cynthia out. My mind whired with invectives and questions, but mostly invectives. I’d already made up my mind what this meant. Cynthia was what Ethan did while I worked. I heard the door open behind me. I wrapped my fingers around the first object I could find on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. Ethan moved fast, but not fast enough. The Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup can connected with his forehead before he could speak.
********
Backseat SweetheartEarly August 1985
“Mmmm. I don’t want to work today. I want to just hang around and play with you,” I picked a raisin out of my cereal and popped it into my mouth.
Ethan stood behind the bar.“I know, but when you get back, I’ll have a nice surprise waiting for you.”
I watched as he bent down to get something out of the cabinet.He straightened holding a hand mixer.
“Does that surprise have anything to do with what you’re doing now?” I watched as he measured out some milk and tore open the package of Dream Whip.
He just smiled and dumped the items into the bowl. I returned my attention to the television and shoveled more cereal into my mouth. I had to hurry or be late.
Ethan shut off the mixer. I stood and carried my bowl to the sink. He tilted the bowl so I could see inside. “It’s looking good, huh?”
"What are you….” I didn’t finish my sentence. Ethan had turned the mixer on to give the white froth one more turn. I watched as the metal bowl slipped away from him. It shot down the bar, ricocheted off the wall and splashed its contents all over. Ethan stood dumbfounded, the mixer still spinning in his hand.
Poor Ethan. He’d been so proud of his work and now it coated the floor, the wall and the refrigerator. He looked at me, the color gone from his face. I closed my mouth with a snap.
“Well, it did look really good, right?” He tried to laugh.
I picked up the bowl, swiped some cream with my finger and licked it off without a hint of suggestion. This was not the time. “Tasted good, too.”
“Let me clean that up and I’ll drive you to work. Looks like I need to make a run to the store.”
“Hey, it’s the thought that counts,” I joked. “You know I’m not mad at your anymore, right?”
Ethan touched his forehead where the Hershey’s Syrup can had left a dent. “So you say…”
********
“I cannot believe we’re doing this,” I mumbled as I climbed into the backseat of the car.
“I can’t either, but then, I don’t believe a lot of the things we do,” Ethan sat on the wide, plush backseat of the Cadillac. My father had allowed me to continue to drive it, especially after he’d talked Ethan through the installation of a new fuel pump.
“You mean like driving through a snowstorm with no heat?”
“Yeah, like that. I guess that’s what makes life interesting, isn’t it?” He reached for me.
I laughed thinking about that drive through the snowstorm. We’d gone to a weekend-long party in northern Indiana. Later, we’d commonly refer to it as The Lost Weekend. I had vague memories of waking up on a closet floor.
We drank away that Friday and Saturday while a blizzard raged outside. After we’d semi-sobered up, we had to take turns pushing cars into the host’s heated garage so that each car would thaw enough to start.
Ethan finally got the car started, but it would not warm up inside. The heat wasn’t working and thus, neither was the defrost. We ended up driving the two hours back to school using a vodka soaked rag to keep the windows clear.
“What possessed you to want to make out in the backseat of the car here in the parking lot?” I glanced at the mall’s bright sign.
He stroked my cheek with his rough fingers. “You.”
I'm still a sucker for having my face touched. And sweet talk.
“But….” I never did finish that sentence. His lips were on mine and I'd already reached to unzip his jeans.
“I love you so much.”
“Mmmm, I love you. Are you sure no one can see?” His hand was under my shirt, sliding under my bra.
“Shhh. No one can see. It’s dark. There’s no one around.” His whole hand cupped my breast now and he lifted my shirt just enough to expose my nipple to his tongue.
My body rippled with heat. What he did created a ribbon of fire through my belly right down between my legs. I stroked him with my right hand and pressed my left against his chest. He slid my skirt up my legs.
Just one word. “Yes.”
He shifted and moved me onto his lap. I slid my panties over to one side and he slipped into me. The forbidden nature of what we were doing made what had always been delicious that much better. Just as he ground himself into me, his hands on my hips, my head thrown backward, a strobe of light raked us. We froze.
The car drove by, but the moment had vanished. My heart pounded out of fear now and I could feel him shrinking away from me.
“Home?” His voice came out rough, clipped.
I slid away from him and straightened my clothes. “Let’s take the short way.”
********
Don’t You Forget About Me
Mid-August 1985
The campus remained summer empty. The sun inched toward the horizon. Cicadas hummed around us and the evening shimmered over the green as the Earth gave back its last bit of sun-stoked heat.
“You’re a damn good cook, you know that?” Our fingers were laced together. Every third step or so, I had to skip a little to keep up with him.
“Fanks!” Ethan said in that lover’s baby talk that we indulged in.
“No, I mean it. When we’re married, you can do all the cooking, if you like.” I laughed at this. Over the last several months, getting married had become a foregone conclusion. We spoke about it now as though it were inevitable. We'd even picked out the names for our presumably perfect children.
Ethan laughed. “Yes, well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?” He paused, and then added, “I mean, you’re a pretty good cook yourself.”
Something troubled him. I wondered how long we would talk about things that didn’t really matter until he could finally tell me what bothered him.
“I make a pretty mean spaghetti, but who wants mean spaghetti?” His response to my bad joke would indicate his level of anxiety. He would either rib me for being so facile or .....Yeah, it rated pretty high. The joke received no reaction at all. Not even a ba-dump-bump from him.
“Ethan?”
“Miss Hewitt?”
“What’s going on in your head?”
We walked in silence for a few moments. I bucked under the pressure of keeping my mouth shut so he could have space to talk. I wanted to fill wipe away the silence with more happy talk, but I would not let myself.
Without stopping he spoke, his eyes cast down at the mossy path. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Oh no. My mind went immediately to the girl in the slicker and matching rain boots. The awful truth was about to be offloaded onto me. I waited.
“It seems my grades haven’t improved and…” his voice caught.
I had a sense of what came next, but still I said nothing.
“Well, I can’t stay here at school. I’m going to have to do something else.”
And so the words were out. He hadn't brought his grades up and and would have to go back home. His mother had made it clear – if he didn’t improve his grades, he could not afford to stay in Muncie.
I didn't know what to say. I wanted to rant and rave, but I stayed quiet, too stunned to speak. I didn’t want him to go. I knew that we couldn’t continue to play the way we’d done over the summer, but I didn’t understand why he couldn’t stay in Muncie with me until he figured out his next move.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” He stopped walking and turned to me.
Words, well, eloquence failed me. “Fuck! Shit! God damn it! How’s that for a start?” I made a little hiccup trying to swallow my tears. He hugged me hard and let me cry myself out in the purpling light.
********
So Far Away from YouEarly October 1985
“So did you write in you write in your journal today?”
I sat on my bed watching David Letterman with the volume turned down. “I did, but didn’t you tell me to keep it private?” I picked some lint off the plaid comforter and flicked it onto the floor.
Ethan laughed. “Busted. Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re writing. Do you have a full schedule this week?”
“I have to work 3:30 to close four days this week, but I have Saturday off for my birthday so we can go ahead with the party.”
“That’s good. I hate it that I’m going to miss your birthday. Watch your mail. I’m sending you something.”
I frowned into the phone. I hated it, too, that he wasn’t going to be here for my birthday. I hated it that the only contact we had were phone calls that ate up my bank account. I hated it that he was so far away.
“Hey, you there or have I lost you to Stupid Pet Tricks?”
I looked at the t.v. Stupid Pet Tricks were on, but he hadn’t lost me. “Nope. I’m here. I’m just trying not to whine too much about missing you."
He sighed. “I know. Okay, well, I better get off here before she comes upstairs to remind me of how much last month’s phone bill was.”
“Yeah, okay. I miss you.” I got up and walked to my dresser where I kept the red cloth-covered journal Ethan gave me right before he moved back to live with his mother. I stretched the phone cord until all the coils were straightened out.
“I miss you, too. I love you so much.”
God, how I hated hanging up the phone after speaking with him. “I love you, too. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days?”
“Yep. That should be fine.”
“Okay, goodnight.” I hesitated, not wanting to be the first to break the connection, but not wanting to hear the emptiness on the line after he was gone. I put the phone back on its cradle and sat looking blankly at the television screen.
“I hate this,” I breathed to my empty room. “Hate it.”
I flipped the journal open to the next empty page and wrote.
********
February 1986“I thought you liked poetry.” Thee speaker with the Einsteinish hair and the eyebrows to match was my English professor. He seemed determined to sort out why I couldn't pass his class right now. I'd done well the first semester, but this class saw me struggling. I didn't attend half the time because I was tired from work, hungover or simply uninterested.
I sat doodling on a pad of paper. I hoped to put off an air of I couldn't give a shit really. “I thought I did, too. I mean, I do, but…”
Dr. Battle waited. “But?”
I sighed and fidgeted in my seat. I'd let him convince me to join him for coffee at the Waffle House. Now I wondered if it had been a mistake. I didn't intend change things. I had no plan to improve my grades. I barely hung on and I did not care. Now Dr. Battle had taken a personal interest - I felt like his little project. I knew I would let him down.
A month earlier, I’d given Dr. Battle and one of my coworkers a ride to northern Indiana for New Years celebrations. Ethan and I had plans to attend a party with his old friends from high school, Dr. Battle stayed with his sister and Ed, my coworker, had a full agenda visiting friends and firing guns into the air. That's what they do in Gary, Indiana on New Year's Eve.
Ethan and I stayed with his mother so sleeping together was not an option. I didn't even try to pretend to be happy with that arrangement. After dinner with his family, we joined his at a seedy motel for liquor we still weren't old enough to drink. The tension between me and one of his old girlfriends pretty much ruined the night. She wanted to engage in a game of "I Know Ethan Better" and I lacked the maturity to ignore her. When I told him I wanted to leave, Ethan feigned ignorance of the whole thing and acted amused. When the evening ended, I felt drained. For the first time since I’d known Ethan, I felt glad to leave him behind.
Now I sat across from Dr. Battle wishing that he'd not been privy to any of this. “I'll try to pull it together. I've been working too many hours at Sears." I gave him a fake smile.
He reached across the table and patted my hand. Sometimes he seemed grandfatherly and sometimes he seemed a bit creepy. Right now, I didn't mind the grandfatherly pat.
“Your boyfriend still giving you trouble?”
Damn. I shrugged.
“Well, you know long distance relationships can be an enormous, um…..” he searched for just the right word, “challenge.”
I rubbed my temples with my fingertips. “I am well aware.” I wanted to cry. I hated this feeling that things weren't quite right with Ethan. I loved him so much, but I didn’t see the point in it if we couldn’t be together.
Dr. Battle sat up straighter and modulated his voice so that he sounded more like my dad than my dad often did. “Well, now listen here. You must stop this. If you don’t bring up your grade in my class, and in a couple of others, as well, I’m afraid you’ll lose your scholarship. Then where will you be?”
My shoulders slumped. I hadn’t thought clearly about school and classes and grades in weeks, maybe months. My thoughts were consumed with Ethan, our future and then work. I had worked loads of hours at Sears recently. School ranked pretty low as a priority.
“I just don’t know. Maybe I should take some time off from school. I need to figure out what I’m doing, what I want to do. I know I don’t want to teach so I need to change my major…..” my thoughts drifted away. I thought of the application I’d sent to Loyola in Chicago. I thought maybe if I went to school near Ethan we could bring our relationship back to life.
Dr. Battle took the pen from my hand and slid the notepad toward him. “Why don’t we write out the pros and cons of doing that,” his voice was smooth, his smile playful.
I nodded. “Okay. Well, if I quit school, I’ll have to go home. Put that under the con list.”
He wrote it down then looked at me, waiting for more.
“You know, we can stop right there. I don’t want to go home. I should pursue this idea of going to Loyola. Or maybe look at other schools here in Indiana?” I had to try. Really try. I needed to make some decisions for myself. Ethan had looked out for his best interests. I should do the same. He’d gotten accepted into The Art Institute of Chicago and had been there since November. It suited him and he loved every minute of it. I wanted to feel the same way about what I did.
“Loyola?” Dr. Battle looked confused.
“Yes, I applied there to study art history. I’m not sure I can afford it, though."
He frowned. “I see. Well, have you considered changing your major and staying here?” Now it was feeling a bit creepy.
“I should think about that, too,” I paused. “But see, uh, the problem for me is that this is where I lived with Ethan. Without him, I just don’t…..” I swallowed hard. I hadn’t thought this through, but now that I’d put words to it, I understood my dilemma. “I just don’t want to be here without Ethan. And I know he’s never coming back. There’s nothing holding me here.”
He grimaced ever so slightly. “Well, then, you have a lot to think about. In the meantime, I suggest you get your grades up. You’re going to need good grades to transfer anywhere.” And so he morphed back into his role of grandfatherly professor. I took a drink of my sugar-heavy coffee and felt relief.
During our drive back from the horrible trip north, Dr. Battle and I were alone. Ed had stayed on with friends and would find another way back. The drive was fine, but Dr. Battle sensed my unhappiness. I felt that I'd glimpsed the beginning of the end of my relationship with Ethan and I wasn’t ready for that.
“So things didn’t go so well?”
“Not particularly. I just….” I didn’t really want to talk about it. I regretted taking the trip and now I regretted that I couldn’t just listen to music and stew.
“I’m sorry to hear it.” Dr. Battle watched the scenery passing by his window. “I don’t want to pry, of course.”
I smiled without feeling. “It’s okay.” No! No! That’s not what I wanted to say. That was the me who was afraid to offend anyone. What I wanted to say was “Good, please don’t pry. It’s inappropriate. You’re my professor. I’m your student. That’s the end of it!”
But of course, I’d swung the door wide open for prying and speculation and all kinds of inappropriate suggestions.
“Julie, I know that this could be misconstrued.” He waited for my reaction. I gave none. “But you are special. You seem to…” his voice trailed off. My internal alarm was dinging madly. I gripped the steering wheel and hoped that he would quit talking.
“Dr. Battle, would you mind looking in the glove compartment for some tissue, please?” Diversion. Please work.
He clicked the button and lowered the door. “I don’t see any.”
“Damn.Okay, thanks.”
“May I just say that is the tidiest glove box I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Battle said, shutting the door.
“My dad.”
“Pardon me?”
“My dad. He’s a fanatic about a clean car. I can thank him, I guess.”
Dr. Battle laughed at this. “It’s funny what we pick up and retain from our family.”
“Yes, it is. I glanced over at him. He was trying to smooth down his wild hair. I looked at his profile. He was a handsome man in a professorial way. He turned and caught me looking at him.
“I could feel your eyes on me, you know. I always can.”
I blushed. “We should be careful.” That was meant to be helpful. The minute the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I appeared to be acquiescing to what I suspected he wanted.
“Julie,” he began again. “What you need is a man, not a boy. I can give you the kind of love you need. I can….” He stopped. I glanced over at him again as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
“Please, Dr. Battle,” I didn't know what to say.
“I told you to call me Marcus when we’re not in class, yes?”
I sighed. “Marcus, I think we’re on two different wavelengths here. I love Ethan. I want to be with him.”
“But he makes you unhappy.”
“No, being away from him makes me unhappy.”
“I believe you just told me that you were unhappy this weekend when you were with him.”
I closed my mouth and chewed my lip. He had me there.
“You misunderstand.”
“I don’t think I do. I think I understand perfectly well what’s happening. You’re not ready to let go, but whatever you had with this young man, it’s over. Why keep making yourself miserable? Why make decisions based on his whims and desires? Why should you change the course of your life because he’s made some decisions for himself?”
“You’re making some wild assumptions. Perhaps my life has no course. Maybe Ethan is my course.” I was getting shrill.
“I don’t believe you are a woman who wants to mold her life to some man’s.”
I wanted to slam on the brakes and order Dr. Battle, Marcus, out of the car. I drove on in silence.
When we got to his apartment, Dr. Battle sat waiting for me to speak. I refused. “Okay, look, I am sorry that I meddled. I want the best for you, Julie.”
I stared straight ahead, still saying nothing.
“Fine. I’m going inside. Come see me if you want to talk. You have a lot of thinking to do and I want to help you.”
“I don’t believe that’s all you want to do.”
“Now who is making assumptions?”
I put the car in drive. He’d barely cleared the door and it slammed on its own as I gunned the engine, spraying gravel as I left. I drove a couple of blocks and then pulled the car over. I flipped the visor down and looked into the mirror. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked myself out loud.
********
May 1986 The sun blazed overhead. I stood shading my eyes from the bright light watching as my father backed his white Ford Ranger into the driveway. He came to a stop and opened the door. “Close enough?”
"Yep. Thanks.” I grabbed the handle and yanked down the tailgate. “There was no way I was going to get all this stuff back home in the car,” I said, lifting the back window of the truck’s camper shell.
Dad surveyed the bed of the truck. It groaned under the weight of my bed, a dresser, some other random bits of furniture, a small television and many, many boxes.
“So you’re really not going back to Muncie?” He seemed both incredulous and relieved.
“Nope. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I don’t want to go back there.” I started heaving boxes out of the trunk.
“I guess you’d better start looking for a job then….” His voice trailed off, but I got the message.
“I know, I will.” Shit. I wanted to take some time off, have a bit of summer.I’d worked full time last summer and had carried a pretty heavy workload all year in addition to my coursework. I was tired, but it seemed a ridiculous thing to explain to a man who’d put in years of sixteen hour days so that we could have our comfortable middle class lifestyle.
“Why don’t you climb up there and hand me the boxes and I’ll put them in the garage,” he instructed.
I did as he said. I looked across the yard and saw that Beth had gotten home. I wondered when she’d returned from Muncie. At school, we didn’t see each other much. I wondered if she’d want to get together this week and go out for a drink.
“Hey, Andrew, when did Beth get back? Did you notice?” I addressed my younger brother who’d just returned home in his own truck.
He smirked at me. Now that he'd be a high school senior, he was way too cool for me. “How should I know?”
I sighed. So unhelpful. “Nevermind.”
“I think she got back on Friday. Her dad said she'd be out looking for a job, too,” Dad chimed in.
“Sounds like a theme amongst fathers,” I murmured.
“Huh?”
Andrew laughed. “More like wishful thinking.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to look for something.”
“Uh huh.”
“No, really. In fact, I think Andy Brown has a line on a job for me. At that factory where he works in Kentucky.”
“Andy Brown, huh? I guess you heard?” Andrew took a box from me and headed toward the garage.
“Heard what?” I wiped the line of sweat that had beaded up on my upper lip.
“Well, if you haven’t heard….”
“Dad! Do you know what he’s talking about?” I implored, but Dad just shrugged.
“Andrew! What?” I swatted at his hands. He just took a step back. “Give me another box. You’re almost done.”
I turned and lifted another box. They were packed pretty lightly since it was up to me to move them down the apartment stairs on my own. “Are you going to tell me?” I whined.
Andy Brown had been my high school boyfriend. I suppose some had assumed we’d eventually get married. Pleasantville was like that. You dated for a couple of years of high school, graduated, got jobs and got married. This idea of people waiting well into their twenties or, god forbid, their thirties to get married and start a family was ludicrous, it smacked of city-slickerism.
People were a little shocked when, in the last few months of my senior year, Andy and I broke up. Oh, we ended up going to the same state school, at the same time, but we weren’t together. For a time, we were almost mortal enemies. There were lots of glares and ugly words exchanged, but eventually the sting went out of things. We each found new sets of friends and grew up by about one tenth of a percent. It was just enough for us to be friendly when we saw each other. Sometimes I even gave him a lift home to visit his family and his new girlfriend.
"So what’s the news? Andy didn’t say anything to me when I spoke to him about a job.”
Andrew shrugged. “I’m not sure, but rumor has it that his girlfriend Kelly is pregnant.”
A breeze could have knocked me over. Pregnant? How could they be so stupid? It wasn’t as if birth control was hard to get. “Wow.” It was all I could manage. “That’s huge. I wonder…”
Dad stood next to the tailgate. “Slide the dresser down here. Let’s finish up. I want to go fishing.”
I rolled my eyes at Andrew, but did what Dad asked. “Man. Pregnant? Wonder why he didn’t tell me when I spoke to him last week.”
“Maybe he didn’t know, genius.” Andrew helped Dad carry the empty dresser into the garage. “Okay, that’s it for me. Say thank you.”
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. I still reeled from his news. “Dad, is it okay if we just leave these boxes and stuff here until I figure out what I’m doing next?”
Dad looked at the stacks of boxes and furniture. “I suppose so. It’s not like we ever put a car in the garage anyway…”
********
June 1986The vintage Chevy Chevelle turned the street corner like it had so many times before. I stood up and grabbed my brown bag lunch. Reflexively, I smiled at Andy as he pulled into the driveway.
“Hey. How are you?” I climbed into passenger seat and clicked in my seatbelt.
Andy watched over his shoulder as he backed the car out of the driveway. “I’m kind of tired. How about you? Ready for your first day on the job?” I was glad to see that he was smiling, too.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I tried to deliver the cliché with some style, but it felt silly anyway. I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves over my hands. “It’s kind of chilly out this morning.”
“Just wait. You’ll be plenty warm on the floor.” He referred to the binding factory where I’d be working in the sorting department.
We rode in comfortable silence for a few minutes listening to Led Zeppelin on the radio. In the old days I would have been sitting in the middle of the bench seat, my hand on Andy's thigh. I glanced around the familiar vehicle. How many times had we dove over that seat while the car sat parked at the dark end of Dam Lane? The song ended and the deejay began his spiel. I waited for Andy to say something. I wanted to ask him about the pregnancy rumor, but I’d promised myself to let him bring it up.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as he concentrated on the road. He opened his mouth a couple of times as if he were about to speak, but he closed it again and chewed his bottom lip in thought.
“So, you glad to be home this summer?” he finally asked. I thought about that. Was I glad to be home? Was this home anymore?
“I guess so. I mean, yeah, it’s nice to see everyone again.” I stumbled over my words. I'd gotten used to not thinking about how I felt. Things seemed easier that way. I preferred to either be busy or numbed by the soothing synapse coating of alcohol.
He stayed quiet while I rolled all of those thoughts around in my mind.Finally, I returned to the present. “How about you? Glad school’s out?”
He smirked. “I – I…yes. I’m definitely glad that this last semester is over. I had some tough classes.”
I nodded and watched the scenery out of the passenger window. “I’m ready to be done with school for a while,” I blurted out before thinking.
“Really? You surprise me. I thought you loved it,” he laughed.
“Har, har, funny man. Yeah, turns out I’m not as smart as I thought. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now.”
“Sounds familiar.”
I looked at him and he grinned back. His skin was already tanned and his hair had honeyed up just like it got every summer.
“Okay, spill it, mister. What’s going on?” The time had come for us to drop the pretense. We'd been best friends once.
“I guess you’ve heard?” Andy looked a little sheepish. So it was true.
“I did hear. Wow, Andy. I mean, what? You know, it’s none of my business,” I closed my mouth and waited.
“I know. You’d think I’d know better. But sometimes, it’s out of our hands…” He steered around some construction and I waited for him to go on.
“Anyway, it is what it is. She’s going to have a baby. I’m going to be a father.” It sounded so bereft of the happiness one might expect from such a monumental occasion. For a moment, I wanted to reach out and squeeze him. In an instant, his future had changed – like it or not, he was going to be a father. I was sure he’d be a good one, but was he ready?
“So how does that feel? Wow! I’m sorry. I just can’t get over it. A father! How does it feel?” I let my mouth go on with out my brain.
We were crossing the huge iron bridge that spanned the Ohio River. Just a couple of years ago we'd made this drive many times. Dates to see movies or going out to dinner. Now we headed toward work and he'd be a father in five months. Youth seemed far away at that moment.
Finally he spoke.“You remember that day we got you to jump off the bridge?”
"Yes.” He and some of his friends would jump off a highway bridge into the creek below. The bridge, at thirty-three feet over the water didn't compare to the one we'd just crossed, but standing it on with no protection between me and the water below had scared me into a brief spell of incoherence.
“Well, you remember how afraid you were once you got over the railing and you couldn’t get back?”
I nodded. “Uh huh. Terrifying. There was only one way down.”
“It feels like that.”
********
“So how’s it going, working in the factory?”
I twisted the phone cord coil around my index finger and watched as the color drained from it, except for the tip. It turned an angry red, like a sting. “Oh, you know. It’s not Sears. I’m surprised you remembered that I was working.”
Ethan laughed nervously. “You’re such a dope. Of course I remembered. How’s it going commuting with your old boyfriend?” he shot back.
I sighed. I hated these phone calls now. Our relationship had become like an old, sick animal. It just needed to be put down, but neither of us wanted to be the one to give the consent to kill.
“It’s fine. You know, he’s going to be a daddy.”
“What?” Oh, now I had his attention. “Who? Not you?”
I groaned. I couldn't believe he'd said that. I thought he understood that Andy and I were just friends. Unless…. “No, of course not. Are you trying to piss me off tonight? What’s going on?”
I wanted to ask if he were projecting. I’d gotten the sense that he’d been spending a lot of time with that old girlfriend of his who’d been so rude to me at New Years. Whenever I asked, he steered the conversation in another direction.
“Ethan? What’s up with you?”
I could hear him breathing. I paced the hallway, stretching the phone cord as long as it would go. Thankfully, my parents were both asleep in their chairs in front of the television so I could have some measure of privacy.
Okay, I’d change the subject. “I don’t think this factory job is going to last. It’s the most boring thing I’ve ever done. I thought taking inventory at Sears was bad. I had no idea.” I rambled, filling the silence. Maybe I hoped that I could keep him from saying what I feared came next. I knew it had to be done, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I could already feel a bit of my heart breaking as Ethan took a deep breath to deliver his speech. “Leese. You know this isn’t working.”
My chest felt heavy. I wanted to drop the phone and run. If I didn’t hear the words, then it wouldn’t be true, right?
“Leese, you there?” He sounded so far away now.
I sank down onto the hall carpet and pressed my forehead against the wall. Breathe, breathe, breathe, I told myself.
“Leese, come on. It’s been over for a while. We just…” He didn’t need to finish. He spoke the truth. The distance had made it impossible for us to maintain the intensity we’d shared when we lived together. It was like trying to go backward. The relationship had started off so quickly that being apart was too much to bear. The constant companionship had been the single most important element that made our love burn bright and now it had dimmed to nothing. I didn’t doubt that he missed it just as I did, but that didn’t make this any easier.
“I know,” I whispered. “I know. I’ve gotta go.”
"Don't. Come on.” He wanted me to reassure him, tell him this would be okay. We would be Fine.
“Bye, Ethan.”
I dropped the receiver onto the carpet and sat for a few minutes without moving. I could hear him on the other end saying my name and then the line went dead.
“Goodbye, Ethan.”
