Do-Overs (3 page)

-4-

Beginning Again

Going from a huge conglomerate university to a small tranquil college was a major, but pleasant change. It took less than an hour to find all my classrooms and labs. They were within easy walking distance, so I’d never have to be late again from searching for a parking spot within a mile of my class. New faces were quickly becoming familiar. At OU arrangements had to be made to see friends; at OKMU every meal was a gathering of the entire campus as there was only one cafeteria.

I was amazed at how quickly I settled into my new niche in life. Rachel made sure to always save me a place at her table in the cafeteria. Stina, I quickly learned, was everybody’s friend. At every meal she was entertaining a different table with her effervescent personality. To Stina there were no cliques, just different groups of bosom buddies.

Olivia, on the other hand, seemed to be choosier, almost to the point of being a snob. When in the dorm she was inclusive of me in her life, but once we left our suite, she became the beautiful ice queen. Not totally snubbing me, just not going out of her way to include me. It only took me a few days to catch on. Olivia didn’t talk to girls when guys were around. And she was always surrounded by guys. They were her adoring fans, doing her bidding. It was almost comical to watch as she ever so gently manipulated the opposite sex to do any task she deemed appropriate. I never saw her carry a book or a cafeteria tray. Doors magically opened as she neared. Seats were always available in the center of every group. The most mystical element was that she never asked, these things simply happened. She ruled and she knew it. Olivia had it all working for her.

Like I said, it only took me a few days to catch on, but I would have saved myself a lot of embarrassment if I would have sooner. It was my third meal in the cafeteria. Rachel was at a meeting with a professor and Stina was “Stina-ing” somewhere on campus. I had started to wait for Rachel, but I was a big girl and big girls could go eat on their own. That was the pep talk I had given myself as I mentally put on my big girl panties—not to be confused with my granny panties that had somehow mysteriously ended up in the dorm’s charity donation box—and entered the cavernous room full of strangers. Then like a lighthouse on the windswept shore I saw Olivia. I had a friend. I wouldn’t have to sit alone. And there was even an empty seat next to her. I purposefully walked to that island of refuge and smiled at the table of guys and Olivia. “Is this seat taken?” I asked as I proceeded to put my tray down.

“Actually it is,” Olivia’s replied with a pleasant smile. “Matt just isn’t here yet.”

And that was it. No sorry. No introductions. No let’s make room for Lottie. I stood there like a moron waiting for Olivia, or someone, to come to my aid, but it didn’t happen. The conversation turned to wondering where Matt was and I stood there without a plan B.

I looked around for an empty table. Everything was full except for the nether regions across the room. Standing there feeling like a fool, sure that every person was tuned in to my dilemma, I saw him again. The gorgeous guy who had witnessed the granny-panty exposition. Now he was watching the whole seating fiasco. Two spottings and two disasters. Our eyes caught briefly. Was there concern on his face? Pity? Or simply acknowledgement that I wasn’t part of Olivia’s popular crowd? Why couldn’t I ever run into this guy when I was feeling confident and self-assured rather than always in some mortifying situation? I quickly turned and hurried across the room to a small table in the corner turning my back on the room as I sat. Trying not to choke on a mouthful of mystery meat, I opened my phone and pretended to read some non-existent text message so I wouldn’t look as pathetic and lonely as I felt.

“Hi, Lottie. I almost couldn’t find you. Hope you didn’t have to wait too long. Professor Freud is very long winded.”

It was Rachel. Grateful to see her kind face, I started to explain the Olivia debacle but stopped; afraid I’d burst into tears. Instead I asked the obvious.

“Do you really have a psychology professor named Freud?”

“That’s not his real name,” Rachel laughed. “It’s really Dr. Freedman. But he’s obsessed with Freud, same beard and glasses. He’s such a Freud wannabe the nickname just stuck. Behind his back, of course. I’ll just die if I ever see him smoking a cigar.” She laughed really hard on that. I didn’t get it. Must be one of those psychology major things. But, I laughed along because I didn’t want Rachel to know I didn’t get it.

“I really need to stop doing that, renaming people that is. It’s kind of an OKMU unwritten tradition. Maybe every college does it. Don’t know. Never went anywhere else. Do they do that at OU?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, the important thing is to never mix the alter ego name up with the real one. Fortunately, I’ve never done that. Hate to be the fool who did.”

“Yep, me too,” I hastily agreed. “That would be the ultimate embarrassment and an automatic ticket to an F in any class.”

“Speaking of names...” I said thinking there was one real name in particular I wanted to learn and any insights into his alter, inner or super ego would be just fine with me. Hopefully, Rachel could tell me it if I pointed out the gorgeous guy to her. I tried using a spoon as a mirror to look behind me, but all I saw was an upside-down distorted view of what might possibly be people or aliens from Pluto, the non-planet. Next, I tried unsuccessfully to discreetly turn around to see Him, but by the time I had drummed up enough courage to completely turn around and really look, He was gone. Perhaps that was for the best. It hadn’t been the luckiest day of my life and I simply couldn’t handle any more rejection.

-5-

Oh Crap!

School started much the same as any other year at Hogwarts. Oh, sorry wrong story. Anyway, my classes did start rather unspectacularly. My professors seemed nice enough. It was a pleasant change to be taught by people with actual doctorates rather than graduate students, but it was also more challenging. My fellow students were accommodating and friendly. However the same question arose with everyone I met—why had I switched schools? As always I gave vague answers about wanting some change in my life. But is change always for the good, or had I made these drastic decisions to simply end up right back at the same crossroads as before?

After all the obligatory dorm meetings, advisory meetings and final registration, I was off to my first class at my new school and my new beginning. Transferring to a church sponsored school required that I take a couple of Bible classes. I thought that would be so easy. Hey, I went to Sunday school as a child. I could quote a few Bible verses. “Jesus wept. John 11:35.” I was quite the theologian.

When I received my syllabus for Old Testament, I rapidly found out this wasn’t Vacation Bible School—no crafts, no Kool-Aid, no recess. He wanted us to read books—big honking books—and write papers—enormous, indexed, cross-referenced papers—and take exams, the massive essay types. Dr. Pharisee (Okay that wasn’t his real name. But I had latched on to the OKMU nicknaming idea and it really did fit him better than Phillips) took his class seriously. A little too seriously. Like we had no other classes to prepare for in our lives. Like we had no lives.

I sat down in the back. It was obvious those were the coveted seats as the entire front two rows were vacant except for some over eager, overachiever, Hermione Granger types. The pathetic guy on my right looked like he had slept in his clothes, and not for just one day, but the whole week. He must not have gotten the memo that saggy pants were so 2008, because he was the typical suburban teenager gangsta wanna be. On my left was Susie Sorority. I’m all for clean cut and preppy, but she was the poster child for
bring back the eighties
.

There I sat, a junior in a sea of freshmen, getting preached at like I had never had a college class in my life. My attitude was slowly corroding. It was time to relax and remind myself this was a freshman class, thus, it would make sense for the Prof. to treat us like freshmen. Breath in. Breath out. Mistake. Something smelled awful. What could that horrible stench be?

I looked over at Miss Preppy. Yup, her petite, pert nose was upturned also. Like a gross, invisible, but would be green if seen, fog, the smell was working its way across the classroom. The professor preached on, but everyone could tell it was taking all his years of experience to not shout out, “Who stinks?”

Poor slept-in-his-clothes guy. I knew it had to be him. Didn’t he know to shower once in awhile, even if momma wasn’t there to tell him to? Pitiable guy, everyone’s first impression of him would always be the loser that stunk up the Old Testament class. And he had the nerve to be looking at me like I stank. In fact everyone was starting to look my way. Actually it didn’t really smell like B.O. More like dog poop.

Oh crap! It
was
me. I looked down at my shoe. Right there on the side of my new silver glitter Toms was a blob of brown, gooey, stinking dog S***! I grabbed my books and fled the room. Outside the door I jerked off the shoe and threw it into the first trashcan I saw. Limping, I fled the building for the sanctuary of my dorm. I’ve no idea why I kept the one shoe on. I don’t know if I thought I’d find a half off sale on Toms that literally meant half as in one shoe, or if it just seemed to save a tiny portion of my dignity to wear at least the one shoe.

I went trudging back toward my dorm, when who should appear walking my way but the hunky him from the granny-panty-fiasco and the cafeteria-seat-rejection-scene. Was I only destined to meet him when I was in the middle of some humiliating situation? Well, not that time. I maneuvered to hide behind some hideously ugly statue of a benevolent donor to OKMU. It was a very close call, but he didn’t see me. The last thing I wanted was to meet the man of my dreams while one-shoed and then feel obligated to confess why. And confess I would do. Because for some unknown reason whenever there was something in my head that my mind wanted no one to know my tongue would always rat me out and spill every detail.

The coast was clear. I had saved myself one tiny shred of pride on an otherwise total humiliation day. Sure the one shoe gig had worked for Cinderella but her glass slipper hadn’t been covered in
caca
.

Change the one shoed-ness to barefooted; as I looked down to realize I had stepped in more excrement with my remaining shoe. New rule for my new life at OKMU, always look where stepping. Throwing my second shoe away in another nearby garbage can, I finished my barefoot walk to the dorm mentally juggling my days schedule to figure out when I could go see my advisor about dropping my Old Testament class. There was no way in Hell or Heaven that I was going back to that class as the dog-poop-shoe girl.

-6-

Oops, I Did It Again

Clean shoes, necessitated changing my entire outfit so I still matched. Which then required a slight tweaking of my hair to accentuate the wardrobe change. New purse and good to go. In the midst of it all, I had to stop and read five text messages from my mom talking about everything from did I have enough money in my checking account to was the cafeteria food okay. When I was younger I would have seen the texts as nagging or manipulative, but an older and wiser Lottie, I knew them for what they really were: little, tiny, repetitive reminders that she loved me. I knew that she knew nothing of the dog-poop-shoe incident, but my mom could always sense when I needed reminding that I am loved. An hour later and my confidence quasi-restored, I set off for the class I had looked forward to more than any other.

My Advanced Nineteenth Century Women’s Novel class looked very promising. I loved everything about the women novelists this class was to cover, from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley to the Brontë sisters. They were my heroes. Their centuries old stories, simple and pure, still spoke to the hearts of my generation.

That was my secret ambition. To write simple but profound stories that made people think beyond the boundaries of their ordinary lives. It was such a lofty unreachable dream that there were only two people I had ever shared it with: my mother, who encouraged it, and my former professor, who ridiculed my work as sappy and sentimental. The worst was when he had used the C word on my writing—cliché. That was the day I knew beyond all doubt that if I ever taught English I would never crush someone’s dream as lightly as if I were telling her she had a piece of broccoli stuck in her teeth. It was also the day I tucked my writing dreams away, doubting I would ever be good enough.

Instead, I studied other people’s books. Read their thoughts. Lived their dreams, spending many days with Jane Austen, and I must confess a few too many nights with Mr. Darcy.

The class looked promising as I entered. No one seemed to recognize me as the dog-poop-shoe-girl. At the state university a small class still had fifty people in it, but here less than ten. All women, except for one token guy. I sat in the chair next to him.

“Butch,” he said.

“Huh?” was my eloquent reply. Was he commenting on my appearance? I thought my replacement outfit looked simple yet stylish in an unpretentious way.

He laughed. “My name’s Butch.”

Life is always full of ironies. Had his parents hoped that by calling him a tough guy macho name he would follow suit? Hadn’t worked. Butch was slim, small boned, very metro and I didn’t even need to turn my gaydar on to know which way his screen door swung.

“Lottie,” I finally said.

“Are you new here? I don’t remember you from any other class.”

I confessed that I was a transfer.

“You’ll enjoy Dr. Jekyll.”

“Oh, snap! Am I in the wrong class?” I jumped up gathering my books to leave before everyone realized I was the goof in the wrong room.

“No, you’re fine, Lottie,” Butch laughed. “That’s just our affectionate nickname for Dr. Jamison.”

“Oh, my friend told me the nickname traditions here,” I said trying to be all in the know of the OKMU heritage. “But why Jekyll?”

“You’ll understand after a few weeks with the menopausal woman and her mood swings. If you can learn to watch for the transformation signs you’ll love her class. Just need to be prepared for the evil side to come out when least expected.”

I was about to ask Butch what sign to look for when the professor started the class by calling the roll.

As long as I’ve been in school I’ve always dreaded that first roll call of any class. I’m naturally a little shy and hate having any attention thrown my way when in a large group. To top that off my actual name isn’t Lottie. No I’m not in the witness protection program. I simply have a mother who tends to think outside the box, sometimes even outside the entire packing crate. My real name is Charlotte. Like Charlotte Brontë. Alas, I am not her namesake. I had thought most of my life that I was named after Crazy Aunt Charlotte and wondered what horrible thing I had done in the womb to deserve such retribution. When I was twelve I asked my mom why she had named me after the looniest person in the family. She had stared at me blankly.

“You were named after one of my all time heroes—Lottie Moon. A heroic woman missionary to China who gave her life trying to help the people there,” she finally said. “Not a relative.”

I was even more confused. “Why didn’t you name me Lottie then?”

“Lottie is a nickname for Charlotte,” she replied like it was common knowledge like the missionary herself, when neither was. It never made sense to me. If they wanted to call me Lottie, why not just put Lottie on the birth certificate? From kindergarten on I had to endure the yearly ritual of the roll call: the calling of Charlotte Lambert, the clarification that I go by Lottie and the confused look on my teacher’s face.

However, my Nineteenth Century Women Novelist class was the exception. Dr. Jamison began class like all the educators of my past. I waited nervously for her to reach the L’s so that I could as quickly and succinctly as possible explain my name. This time, however, Charlotte into Lottie was merely a footnote on the page of interesting names.

“La-uh-ah Brown?” Dr. Jamison stumbled over a name with a very confused look on her face.

“Dr. Jamison, it isn’t La-uh. It’s La Dash ah. Just like it’s spelled, L, A, a dash mark, A, H.
La Dash Ah
.”

I laughed so loudly I snorted. “She’s got to be pulling Dr. Jekyll’s leg,” I whispered to Butch forgetting that this was no huge state school class, but a very intimate setting. An intimate setting where everyone could hear my comments. I could feel Butch’s body language as he physically tried to distance himself from me as much as possible by shifting in his desk. In our short acquaintance we hadn’t bonded enough for him to be willing to go down with my ship. At that point I did wish that I could have sunk and escaped the laser rays that two sets of very angry eyes focused in on me.

“My mother was a creative speller. She liked to think outside the alphabet, ” said La-ah with pride as she turned from giving me the evil eye. And a second murderous look La-ah Brown sent my way told me, with no creative spelling required, that she did not like to be ridiculed. Great, my first class and my lack of an internal filter system and a big, spontaneous mouth had gotten me my first enemy. Make that two.

After joining La-ah in a maybe-looks-can’t-kill-but-don’t-expect-an-A-in-this-class look Dr. Jamison continued. “Well,
La dash ah
, that is an interesting use of punctuation to create words. Next Charlotte Lambert.”

“Here,” was all I squeaked out. For the next year I’d be Charlotte to Dr. Jamison as going by an alias would be safer than drawing any more attention to myself in Dr. Jekyll’s class that day.