Do-Overs (4 page)

-7-

Didn’t See That One Coming

Living in close confines with other women can be amazingly fun when sharing cookie dough, clothes and gossip. However at 8:30 on Saturday morning after a week of stress filled classes and major social screw-ups it could have some drawbacks. In one week I’d shown my granny panties to the world, stepped in dog poop, been humiliated in the cafeteria, called my professor an unflattering nickname and gotten myself on the bad side of a creative speller. I wanted to sleep.

Stina and I had stayed up past two the night before sharing life experience and laughter so all I wanted was topull the covers over my head and block out the world. Instead I heard what sounded like a muffled New Year’s Eve party taking place in the hallway outside my door.

There are a lot of morning people in this world. I’m not one of them. I hardly ever get angry. And even when I do I rarely say anything. But I was tired. I was stressed. And to top it off, it was my twentieth birthday and I was feeling a little homesick for my mom and our traditional homemade waffle birthday breakfast in bed. I wanted to sleep. Without thinking matters through, I flung my covers off and marched to door. Jerking it open I said through gritted teeth, “Could you please be quiet. Some of us are trying to sleep in here.”

It wasn’t one of my finest moments. There stood the K’s, the volleyball team and my three suitemates holding a cake.

A birthday cake.

A birthday cake with my name on it.

“Happy birthday,” squeaked one of the K’s as all the others stared like possums in the center of the road suddenly aware of the fate that was coming.

My birthday didn’t feel so happy. Instead I wanted to slam the door, sit down on the floor and cry. Obviously my new friends had gone to a great deal of planning and work to make my day special and I had ruined it before it ever started.

Then Stina began to giggle. Stina should have been registered with the Center for Disease Control because she was the most contagious giggler I had ever met. Soon everyone was laughing.

“Note to the group,” Olivia said, “Lottie Lambert is not a morning person. And she’s not aging all that well either.”

I must have said sorry a hundred times before the cake had been cut. And another hundred after.

“It’s no big deal,” Rachel kept reassuring me. “An 8:30 birthday party is rather lame. Sorry. It was the only time we could figure out when everybody would be here. The volleyball girls have to leave for a team outing the rest of the weekend and the K’s have dates tonight. So, birthday cake for breakfast seemed like a good idea when we were planning the surprise.”

“And we couldn’t not celebrate your twentieth birthday. You’re almost legal,” Stina added.

This brought all kinds of remembrances about everyone else’s birthdays as if they were in days of the ancient past.

Soon we were having cake and morning coffee. I opted for a Diet Dr. Pepper instead. Let me clarify instead of the coffee. I had my fair share of the cake.

With one last apology for shouting at them, I added, “Thanks so very much for remembering my birthday. I thought with being new and all no one would even know it was my birthday.”

“So why did you change schools?” asked a K.

She caught me with a mouth full of cake and I choked. For the first time ever I was glad to have something caught in my throat as it got me out of explaining what I wasn’t sure I could. That was until I feared that Rachel had decided to do an emergency tracheotomy with our cookie dough butcher knife. Fortunately, I quit coughing before she actually tried.

The volleyball girls began to make noises about having to go. I felt bad that they had gone to the trouble of helping to plan my surprise party and I was still thinking of them as an entity rather than individuals. Project for that week was to learn all their names.

“We want to give you our presents before we go,” said the short brunette one. I think her name was Pam. Or was it Paula. No, I think it was Pat. I was at least sure it started with a P.

“Brenna, that’s a great idea,” Rachel replied.

Yep, I had some name cramming to do.

With that everyone began revealing gift bags. Identical gift bags. Pink striped gift bags.

“Olivia thought you might could use these,” said one of the K’s.

With that it dawned on me where all the pink, striped gift bags came from. I took the first and pulled out the skimpiest thong panties I had ever held. By the time I had opened all the bags I had a nice pile of the sexiest underwear ever and my face was pinker than all the little bags put together.

“Welcome to adulthood, Lottie Lambert,” Olivia declared. “No more granny panties for you.”

-8-

Not The Perfect Way to Meet A Guy

Entering the cafeteria, my thoughts were everywhere. I was wondering if people could tell I was no longer a teenager. Did I look different? I had practically gotten whiplash over the last few days making sudden stops at every mirror I passed to study my face to see if there was any change. So far none detected. Was I more mature? I had handled the thong barrage better than I usually did when I was embarrassed. I wasn’t sure if they had been laughing at me or with me about the panty fiasco. But I decided to let it go and laugh along. That was something I hadn’t been able to do when I was nineteen. Did I feel different? Not really, except for thong underwear. That definitely took some getting used to.

It was Spaghetti Day in the café. That’s a good thing. College cafeterias are not known for their
haute cuisine
. But spaghetti was one food few could ruin. I took a big helping and added a Diet Dr. Pepper to counteract the carbs. Life seemed to be looking up. I finally felt old enough for college. I was making friends and feeling confident. Stina was waving at me from across the crowded room. She had a seat at her table and was pointing at it indicating I should come sit with her. I know it sounds so juvenile, so middle school, but even adults need to feel included and be at the “popular” table once in awhile in life.

I started weaving my way across the crowded room, looking toward my goal, when something amazing caught the corner of my vision. It was Mr. Gorgeous Of The Granny Panty Fiasco again. Close up he was more fantastic looking than I would have thought humanly possible. Then the most miraculous moment happened. He looked up. Our eyes met. My heart stopped. Maybe there really was such a thing as love at first sight. Okay actually fourth sight, but first time to ever make true eye contact. His picking my panties from a tree or seeing me dissed by Olivia weren’t significantly adequate encounters to generate true love at first sight reactions. And my hiding behind statues and across the lawn didn’t count, as he hadn’t actually seen me. This first time was going to be for real.

We were within inches of each other. He smiled. I smiled. He started to stand like an old fashioned gentleman and began to speak. Suddenly, my plate of spaghetti launched itself into the air coming to rest on his luscious hair, his tight white T-shirt, and his lap (which I feel would be inappropriate to describe.) As I tried to catch the plate, I dropped my tray and my purse. The Diet Dr. Pepper joined its coconspirator the spaghetti on his lap. My purse spilled across the floor. And, oh yes, a big fat
super absorbent
tampon rolled right to his foot.

Death, where are you when so strongly desired?

Like a fool I stood there gaping, while the entire cafeteria thundered with applause.

I needed to do something, anything to fix this horrendous mess. I grabbed a handful of napkins and started to wipe spaghetti off of the poor food-drenched hunk not realizing until too late that I was trying to rub spots off of his crotch. I looked up from my task and our eyes met again. It wasn’t the romantic across the room eye contact of love at first sight like before. Rather I saw perfect green eyes filled with humor and a slight bit of terror. What couldn’t have ever gotten worse just had. I dropped to the floor groping around for my purse and belongings. A spaghetti covered Mr. Gorgeous bent to help me pick up my things, reaching the tampon first.

It just couldn’t happen that way. Our first ever meeting could not include me rubbing his privates and him handing me a tampon, especially a
super
absorbent
one. The first thing my hand touched from my purse spillage was the stupid pink eraser Crazy Aunt Charlotte had given me weeks before that I had thrown in the bottom of my purse and forgotten. Just as he reached the god forsaken sanitary product, with tears in my eyes, I picked up the ridiculous eraser and said, “I wish, I really, really wish, I could do this over.”

Instantly I was back in the food line.

What the . . .? I looked around. Mr. Gorgeous Of The Granny Panty Fiasco Now Spaghetti Crotch Incident was still sitting at his table in a clean white T-shirt. Stina was still at her table with the popular crowd, a seat still vacant for me. What could possibly have happened? Had the moment been so utterly humiliating that I had mentally snapped? Was this how crazy started? Did it begin at a point in time when the mind could no longer handle the hopelessness of the situation?

No one seemed aware that anything earth shattering had happened except me. Had I become as deranged as my Crazy Aunt Charlotte? Crazy Aunt Charlotte. Stupid Pink Eraser. It couldn’t be. I looked down. The eraser was still in my hand. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t have happened.

I stood there like a goob for a full minute. There couldn’t be such a thing as a do-over. I had studied physics in high school. I never understood much of it, but I knew that what had just happened was impossible.

Yet, there I stood in the same place I had been five minutes before. I stood and stared longer. I had to get a grip. I hoped I wasn’t drooling all over myself. It was a dream. That was it. I’d just play along and then I’d wake up.

Okay. Time to wake up. I pinched myself.

The guy across from me looked at me like I was mental. Oh wait. I was mental. I thought I had reversed time. I had to keep it together for a while longer.

As normal life went ahead in the crowded cafeteria, a debate on the level of Lincoln versus Douglas was going on in my poor brain. Either I was as
loca
as Crazy Aunt Charlotte or I really did have a magic eraser. Which just couldn’t be. Or could it? Had the big pink eraser worked? Was Crazy Aunt Charlotte not bonkers after all?

All my poor befuddled mind could comprehend was that the impossible had become possible. Time had started over. Life really was giving me a do-over.

In my peripheral vision I saw La-ah entering the cafeteria. As I wasn’t the most popular person in her world at that moment I decided it was time to get moving. I’d wait until I was alone to finish my nervous breakdown. For the moment I’d pull from every ounce of acting ability I didn’t posses to appear calm, cool and collected. I’d figure out what had happened later when I could cry, babble and drool on myself in private.

Obviously I wasn’t having spaghetti. I changed to the hamburger line. It took longer to get it grilled, but less chance of a mess if dropped. And water to drink, please.

Stina approached as I was finishing with the condiments.

“I was hoping to eat with you, but I just remembered I have to run back to the room for the right notebook,” she said. Then she turned back to look at me really hard. “Are you okay? You don’t look so spiffy. Maybe you should sit down.”

“No I’m fine,” I lied. Not ready for the little men in white coats to come take me away yet. First I had to meet Mr. Gorgeous Of The Granny Panty Fiasco But No Longer Spaghetti Crotch Incident and then I could go bonkers.

“If you’re sure. I’ll talk to you later.” And she was gone.

Food finally prepared, I was off to meet Mr. G.O.T.G.P.F.B.N.L.S.C.I., possibly soon to be shortened to Mr. Right. Turning to where he had been, my hands firmly on my tray, my heart dropped.

He was gone. I guess I had been in line longer than I realized. The moment had passed. Or perhaps in my redo reality, it had never been.

-9-

Mental Melt Down

“Mom are you sure you don’t know Crazy Aunt Charlotte’s phone number?” Yes, I had called my mom as soon as I returned from the cafeteria to the safety of my dorm room. I know I was a college student, an adult, but be real. No matter how old I got, when in a crisis mom was always who I called.

My first thought was to tell my mom everything that had happened, or maybe didn’t happen after all. Maybe I was just going crazy. Too much stress. Too much frozen cookie dough. I must have shared too much of Aunt Charlotte’s DNA. I hadn’t had anything strange to drink. No weird pills. And no way I could explain over the phone to my mom the last thirty minutes of my life. I needed to come to terms with the situation. I had always had an excellent imagination. Maybe it had temporarily taken over. I desperately needed to talk with Aunt Charlotte.

Mom was talking. I tried to listen. My brain was racing and it was so hard to focus.

“I really don’t have any idea how to get in touch with her. To be honest I don’t remember ever calling her or writing to her. She just seems to always know when we’re having a family get together. Must be another family member that contacts her.” Then my mom gave a confused little laugh. “I hadn’t thought about it much, but your dad and I were talking years ago and neither of us even know how she is related. Isn’t that funny? She’s always just been there. But she’s not my mom’s nor my dad’s sister or aunt or cousin and your dad says the same. Maybe she married into the family? Except, I can’t remember her ever not being there. So I guess she must come from my side of the family. Except your dad says the same thing.” Mom could have gone on for hours on the topic of our family’s genealogy, but I was having a crisis and it was taking every ounce of sanity left in me to sound coherent. I thought it best to get off the phone before I started to worry my mom.

“That’s okay, Mom. If you should think of some way to contact her, could you let me know? I just wanted to thank her for a gift she gave me last summer.” That sounded sane, right? It would please my mom that I was using my manners and thanking people, right?

“Oh, that’s nice Lottie. What did she give you?”

It wasn’t working. I had momentarily forgotten that my mom was a snoop. She wouldn’t let it rest until she knew.

“My goodness, look at the time. I’m going to be late for class. Gotta go. Love you!” With a click I disconnected and set my phone to go directly to voicemail. I knew she’d call back soon.

“Are you okay?” asked Rachel. I jumped about three feet in the air and gave a squeaky scream. I hadn’t heard her come through our adjoining bathroom into my room. “You look awful. Bad day?”

Always intuitive, Rachel knew that I was having a melt down. She was so wise beyond her years that I almost told her of my bizarre eraser and time travel experience. But then again we had known each other for less than two weeks and I doubted, even with her empathetic spirit that she would believe me. She’d probably just pack quickly and look for a different suitemate or make sure to always bolt the door between our rooms. As much as I would like to confide in someone, I didn’t want my new start to land me on the nutty list.

“Poop,” was what I said instead. Actually I might have used a more descriptive noun, but it meant poop.

“Yeah, I heard about that the other day,” Rachel replied with a sad smile. “Small campus, remember. Do we need to go shoe shopping?”

Leave it Rachel to see the silver lining in fecal matter. At least it would give us a reason to go shopping.

Reaching in the mini-fridge, Rachel retrieved two cans of Diet Dr. Pepper and a roll of cookie dough. Slicing off a chunk with Stina’s big butcher knife, she sat down on my bed and motioned for me to sit next to her. My eyes didn’t leave the knife. With a nut job in the room, that big honkin’ knife was not the best of ideas. I’d get rid of it later before my mental capacity deteriorated any further.

“Seems your start over is going a little harder than planned,” she began. Dr. Rachel Herz, psychologist extraordinary, was in for counseling.

“Two classes and I’ve already stuck my one foot in my mouth and the other foot in dog crap. Then in the cafeteria. . .” I barely caught myself before I mentioned the spaghetti fiasco that in reality had never happened—or something like that.

“Oh I heard about that.”

There was a look of shock on my face. Maybe I wasn’t the only one to experience the time change. Maybe Rachel wasn’t just empathetic but in touch with all otherworldly occurrences. Hopefully together we could figure it out.

“Olivia’s like that,” Rachel continued. I was confused. I started to shout out, great you felt the time change too when I slowly realized she was referring to the Olivia-hunky-guy-table-incident from the week before. “Please don’t judge her badly by that. She really is a good person and in most ways a loyal friend. Just not where guys are involved. As you get to know her you’ll start to notice—how do I say this nicely? Well, she’s not super academic. I mean, you heard us teasing her about flunking out of Spanish, when she grew up in a household of native speakers. That doesn’t happen very often. Her whole life she has gotten by on her looks. I’ve met her family. Nothing she does seems important to them other than how she looks—and if she finds a rich husband.

“I hope you don’t think I’m breaking any confidences, as that is something I will never do. To be a good psychologist I have to be trustworthy. Even more so to be a good friend,” Rachel paused for a moment and ate a nibble of dough. “Anything I tell you about Olivia, or Stina for that matter, is something that is common knowledge. But as we are all living in close confines together, the faster we understand each other the fewer hurt feelings. So I’ll fill you in on the most pertinent facts. You’ll find that for all her beauty, Olivia has no self-confidence. She needs to feel control of her situation a little more than most of us. She’s just as lost and confused as the rest of us inside that drop-dead gorgeous body.”

For a second I felt better. My mom had tried my whole life to make me understand that everybody has their own sorrows and success and not everything that happens has to do with me.

But this insane time change ability did. Then reality hit again. I wasn’t just a freak with a magic eraser. Suddenly with Rachel recapping all the horrid things that had happened to me over the past week I had an epiphany. If I could figure out how to harness the power of the eraser, I could have what I had always wanted. I could have control over all the situations in my life. No more dog poop on my shoes, or laughing at the wrong moment, or watching my mom chase down huge underwear on the campus oval. If I wasn’t crazy then it meant that I had the power to change my destiny. Look out world. Life finally did give do-overs.