Do-Overs (12 page)

-27-

Call Me?

My evening had been enchanted, but the next day wasn’t. Would he call? How could he call? I hadn’t given him my cell number. How would he find me? If only I had left a glass slipper, but sadly glass slippers were in short supply during an Oklahoma ice storm. And I really doubt he wanted an upchucked-on boot.

After hours of panic, common sense set it. He had walked me home. He knew where I lived.

The day wore on. Books to buy for my new classes. Forms to be signed by my advisor. Stina and I had to catch up on all that had happened in our lives over the past month apart—all the details that we hadn’t given each other in our daily text messages and Snapchats. It was a busy day, yet in the back of my mind, out of the corner of my eye, I kept looking for Al Dansby.

By evening I was a basket case again. I had sat in the cafeteria for an hour and a half at dinner picking at some disgusting thing they billed as an enchilada. He never came through. I finally gave up my vigil and headed for the dorm when the cleaning crew started moving tables to vacuum. Stina wanted to go to the movies. It was our last night without homework, but I wasn’t in the movie mood. I would never confess that I was afraid to leave the dorm. Afraid that if I did he would come by and I’d miss him. I was roaming the room like some pathetic caged animal.

“Lottie, sit still. You’re driving me crazy,” said Kasha. She and two other K’s, Rachel, and Stina were primping for a girls’ night out to the movies. Seems ironic how much time they spent to look fantastic to go and sit in the dark, but hey, it’s a girl thing. They were off to see some vampire thing they’d all seen before, but once was never enough. “Just call the guy. It’s a new millennium. You can call a guy yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? You’re a liberated woman.”

“No, I can’t. I don’t have his number.”

“Oh. Well, don’t worry. He’ll call you.”

“Can’t.”

“Doesn’t have your number, huh?”

“It was a little too awkward to exchange technical info with Olivia’s stomach contents on my feet.

“Have fun at the movies. I’m going for a walk.” And that I did. I walked by the music rehearsal building three times hoping that we might just casually bump into each other. No Al Dansby there.

For once there was no wind blowing. It was a nice evening to be out. That’s the craziest thing about Oklahoma weather. It changes. The day before we had sleet, the next sun. My mom always said our weather was like a metaphor of life—things might be bad, but in a day or two it would melt away and be nice again. What she didn’t add was that after that day of sun it would be sleety again. I kept walking. As I rounded to the back door of the fine arts building I heard voices.

“Thanks Al. I had the most wonderful time,” said Taylor all gushy and sultry.

I turned the corner to see her arms around Al’s neck like a baby anaconda. Al Dansby’s neck. His eyes met mine for an instant. I felt like an enormous fool. He must have thought I was some pathetic stalker seeking him out just because we had had a chance conversation the night before. His eyes looked anything but pleased to see me. Obviously there was something going on between him and snake woman. But she didn’t have a magic eraser and I did. Redo time.

“Lottie, wait,” was all I heard. Then, I was back in front of the music rehearsal building. I was tired. A walk wasn’t a good idea after all. Time to return to my dorm and get ahead on my reading for my Lit. class. I’d probably end up graduating
Magna
Cum Laude
seeing as how I was going to have plenty of time for studying that semester.

-28-

And Then There Were Three

“Hey girlfriend, how was the movie? Did all the werewolves take off their shirts again to your approval?” I asked Stina, when she came back at midnight.

“Ooo baby. And the funniest thing is all the cougars in the audience drooling over jailbait boys on the screen. Love that movie,” laughed Stina. “Any vampire action around here tonight?” she asked. One look at my face told her the answer. “Bummer. He’s probably just busy. Those theater people are always practicing something. Didn’t you say he has a lead in the next musical? I’m sure he had some rehearsal or something.”

Or something was right. First I had spent a semester thinking he was gay and unobtainable. I find out he’s straight, but straight into the arms of super gorgeous octopus woman.

“Well, here’s some news to put priorities back into perspective,” said Stina. As she was talking Rachel and Olivia came through the bathroom passage to join our gab session. “Keesha didn’t come back this semester.”

“Only three K’s. That just won’t work. All out of balance,” observed Olivia.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Prego,” came Stina’s reply. All the joy gone from her voice.

Rachel gave a heavy sigh and sat down on the end of my bed. “I thought she was before Christmas. She said she thought she had a stomach virus. Some rare type that only happens in the mornings. Mr. Soccer Player—old love ‘em and leave ‘em.”

“I just don’t get it. She said she was using protection,” came Stina’s naive little voice.

I gave a sad laugh. “Come on we all know it doesn’t always work. Ask my mom. That’s how she ended up with my little sisters. After that she took dad to the vet for the old snip, snip.”

“So what is Keesha going to do?” asked Olivia. The mood in the room was like that of a funeral. In a bizarre sense it was. The death of the K’s as we knew them. The end of Keesha’s childhood. Yes, we all wanted to be adults and mature, but not instantaneously.

Rachel filled us in. “She dropped out. Just too much stress to try and go to school full-time right now. Kasha said she is looking for a job and taking some classes online. They’re only sophomores so she wasn’t even half way through with her degree.”

“Is Mr. Soccer helping out any?” I asked. Always the romantic, I was hoping for a happy ending.

Stina rolled her eyes. “Phew, no. He’s still dating that skank Taylor. According to Kyra he tried to claim the baby wasn’t even his. Called Keesha a slut and said she’d been sleeping with every guy on campus.” At least there was a little justice in that Taylor was cheating on him also. Sadly, with Al Dansby. Made me despise her even more.

Olivia was hot. “We all know that’s a lie. That scum. That lousy soccer-playing scum. If I could just get my hands on him.”

“Run him over,” I murmured. Olivia shot me the strangest look. Then she looked at Rachel.

“Fortunately Keesha has a wonderful mom who’s going to help raise the baby. Without her I don’t know what she would have done. She doesn’t have any job skills to get anything more than a minimum wage job and with paying for a babysitter she wouldn’t make any money. Could have ended up homeless,” said Stina

“It just isn’t right. We think we have progressed so much since the days of Jane Austin, but let’s be honest. That LSPS” which the lousy soccer-playing scum affectionately became known to us from that moment on, “gets to go on and live his life with no interruptions and Keesha’s entire world has changed. It’s just not fair,” I ranted.

“No, life just isn’t fair very often, princess,” said Olivia in a world-weary voice. “It’s just not fair.”

-29-

IT

“So have you ever done IT?” asked the little voice in the darkness. It had to be one in the morning when we had finally gotten lights out and to bed. I thought Stina had been asleep for some time as I lay there wishing and dreaming and worrying.

“Stina, where did that come from?” I countered.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then Stina said, “With everything with Keesha. It made me realize it could so easily have been me.”

“But you’re not even dating anyone. Especially not a tool like that soccer player.”

Stina sighed. “Back in high school. There was this guy. I was seventeen. I was in love. Next thing I knew we were in the backseat of his car and it was over in less than four minutes. Not at all like the movies, not at all. Just awkward and messy. I felt so stupid. It wasn’t even a nice car,” Stina finished with a mirthless giggle.

I had no idea how to respond. I knew that most people my age had had a least one sexual encounter. Most a lot more. But somehow I never would have thought that Stina had. She just seemed so innocent.

“Two weeks later and two more quickies and then he dumped me. He was a senior and I was a junior. Said he wanted to go off to college with no ties. I was crushed. I really thought he loved me.”

I could hear the tears in Stina’s voice. Our sweet, bubbly Stina. Almost four years had passed, yet it still hurt her.

“I haven’t dated a guy seriously since then,” she continued. “Just felt so betrayed. Don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Thanks anyway. It’s just that I could have gotten pregnant at seventeen.”

“Didn’t you use any protection?”

“No. Didn’t know how. I was a good girl. Nobody teaches good girls how to protect themselves. Good girls don’t have sex.”

“No, they just get pregnant.” It was quiet again.

“So? Have you?” Stina asked again.

“No.”

“Oh, I thought that was what the whole OU guy was about.”

There in the darkness I began to unburden my soul. It was amazing how easy it was to tell Stina about the hardest event in my life. Maybe knowing Olivia and Stina’s stories helped me put my own experience into perspective. Although heartbreaking and humiliating it didn’t compare to Olivia’s terror or Stina’s disappointment. Maybe it was just that it was a story that was easier to tell in the dark.

“Yes, it was. Same story just a different twist. We dated about a month. He kept trying to get me to do
it
. Not saying I didn’t want to. But, I wasn’t ready. I wanted the dream. The magical moment. You know—the beautiful four-poster bed, white curtains blowing in the breeze. And a knight in shinning armor that you know will still be there the next morning and the next year. Not some backseat and four minutes.” We both gave a sad laugh. “I was prepared. My mom made sure of that when I turned sixteen. What she didn’t realize was that a lot of my friends were already doing it at fourteen. But she tried, bless her heart.”

“So, why did you leave OU?”

“It was a catastrophe. He said, his actual words, ‘Lottie, this relationship has to move to the next level.’ Then he gave me an ultimatum to put out or get out. I finally told him no way, no how until marriage and that didn’t seem very likely. You should have seen his face. He was mad. Like I’d gypped him out of something. Like I owed it to him. Needless to say we broke up then and there.”

“So, why did you leave?”

“Cause he didn’t stop there. He was out for some sort of demented revenge. He got on my Facebook page—I didn’t know he had my password. He put this horrible status that—well—it was vulgar all about how much I enjoyed having sex with him and a bunch of other guys. He also put my phone number on Craig’s List for kinky stuff. Then he told anyone who would listen how I was bad in bed and that’s why he dumped me.”

“What a ...”

“Yeah, my reputation shot in record time. How could I undo that? I had to close my Facebook account and get a new phone number. My brother Jason was going to beat the crap out of him. But I talked him out of it. It would have gotten him suspended from the team and wouldn’t have changed anything. I’d have still gotten the looks, the smirks. Suddenly, I had guys lining up to go out with me because they thought I was easy. I even had a guy I barely knew lean over and tell me during class not to worry if I was bad at sex—not the words he said, something too disgusting—said he’d teach me how to be better if I’d go out with him. It was just gross. I had to get out of there.”

“The girl always seems to lose.”

“I don’t get it, Stina. What do you mean?”

“It’s the girl—every time. Look at you. You left a great school to get away from a D-bag idiot. You’re the one that life became unbearable for, not him. You had to change your life, not him. Just like Keesha. She’s gone. Her life has changed forever and the LSPS just gets to go on like nothing ever happened.”

We laid there in the silence pondering it all. Stina was right. When things went bad it always seemed the girl had to make the changes while the guy went happily skipping down the road of life.

I thought Stina must have gone to sleep when I heard a little voice again. “He should have anyway.”

I was totally confused. “He who should have done what anyway?”

“Your brother. He should have pulverized the scumbag.”

“I told you, it wouldn’t have solved anything and could have gotten Jason kicked off the team.”

“Yeah, but it sure would have felt good,” said my loyal friend.

“Yeah, it sure would have,” I giggled. “Anyway, I left there older and wiser.”

I heard someone walking down the hall bouncing a ball. Volleyball girls must still be up.

Stina sighed. “I hope someday I can trust again.”

“Me too,” I whispered. In my mind I no longer saw the scum from OU when I thought of trust, instead a pair of green eyes over a beautiful smile. “Me too.”