behind the times?  catch up!  preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

…At least The Kid was going to be my date.

And, when it came right down to it, Spring Banquet was fairly uneventful. It was boring, actually.

The Monday following Spring Banquet I had to work right after class. I grabbed a takeout lunch from the cafeteria and sped the 1.5 miles down First Street. I had worked for Dr. D for two years as a chiropractor’s assistant/acupuncture taker-outer/whatever else he needed me to do. We had hundreds of patients and I knew almost all of them by name, which exam room they preferred or hated, and which supplements from Standard Process they purchased with great regularity. It was the perfect college job.

On this particular day, when I came bursting into the office five minutes late and still in Classroom Dress, I was pleased to see two of my favorite patients in the waiting room.

“Hi Lindy & Keith!” I said, cheerfully. I dropped my coat and bag at my desk and went out into the waiting room to visit with her until Dr. D was ready to start seeing patients.

“You go to that Bible college, don’t you?” Lindy asked.

“Yep, two summer classes and one more semester,” I replied. I noticed a twig on the hem of my ankle-length, gray wool skirt, and I bent to flick it off.

“Do you know anybody named Joey?” She asked. She had a really sly look on her face.

“Woestman?” I asked.
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“Oh! You do know him!” She exclaimed.

I could see where this was going. Suddenly Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match! started playing on continuous loop in the back of my mind.

“I do know him,” I said. I was going to make her work for it.

“Are you dating anyone?” She didn’t take the bait; subtlety was not one of her hallmarks here.

I paused. No one had asked me this yet. “I am not,” I said. I couldn’t help smiling, it felt so good to say.

Lindy looked pleased with herself and ended her barrage of obvious matchmaking questions, changing the topic to her grandchildren who were coming into town next month.

I forgot all about our little conversation until the next week when Lindy came into the office again. This time she carried a packet of sheet music that was stuffed into an envelope. “Do you have a pen?” She asked me.

I grabbed one and handed it to her.

“How do you spell Joey’s last name?” She asked me.

“W-o-e-s-t-m-a-n,” I replied immediately, without thinking.

She looked at me very carefully. “If you know how to spell his last name, you must like him.”

I burst out in too-loud laughter to cover up my absolute shock. Oh my gosh, am I so obvious? I panicked internally. It’s way premature for me to be so obvious.

“Will you give this to him? It’s for Sunday,” Lindy said with an angelic look on her face.

I grabbed the packet and said, “Sure, no problem.”

It would give me an excuse to call him later. I had only gotten up the courage to call him one other time and it had been for a really ridiculous reason. We had talked until my cell phone battery ran out and died in the middle of the call, so we’d had to finish the conversation online. I remembered panicking and thinking he’d be so mad that I had accidentally hung up on him, but he was completely unfazed. It was amazing.

Two hours later after my matchmaking conversation with Lindy, I was off work and free to finally go home and change. One problem about working immediately after class was that I was generally stuck wearing extremely long, frumpy skirts (required for being in any of the classrooms) that were slit-free and impossible to walk in. I had three which I had dubbed my “restrictive moment skirts” and I vowed to destroy them the moment I graduated. They tripped me when I’d try to walk quickly. Seriously.

I was taking two week-long summer classes which began in three weeks, so I’d have to wear skirts and stockings a few weeks longer into my summer of freedom than I preferred, but if it would get me out a semester early, I’d take it.

I dialed Joey’s number on my cell as I hopped in my 1998 Saturn (stick shift, of course) and backed out of the parking lot. I waved to my coworker Ashlee and she raised her eyebrows when she noticed I was on the phone. She totally knew what I was up to.

Three rings. Four. Voicemail. I hate leaving voicemails.

“Um, hi Joey it’s me…I mean it’s Jenna. Lindy dropped off some music and she wanted me to give it to you soon, it’s for Sunday or something. Uh…give me a call later. I can bring it to you or you can stop by my office and pick it up, whatever. Have a nice day. Bye.” I snapped my phone shut and shoved my palm into my forehead several times as I sat at the stoplight on Trilien. The person in the car to my right looked at me with concern.

“IDIOT!” I yelled at myself into the car. “It’s me?!? How many times have I even talked to him on the phone! And I forgot to leave him my number. Oh my gosh I am such a royal idiot.”

My phone rang, interrupting my self-deprecating rant.

“This is Jenna,” I answered. (I’m a total chip off the old block – that’s how my dad answers his cell phone. Well, except he says “this is Doug” instead of “this is Jenna”.)

“Hi, it’s Joey,” I was surprised to hear.

“Hi. Did you get my voicemail?” Could I be more awkward?

“Yeah. I’m on my way to work now, maybe I could pick the music up from you later, or I could stop by your office tomorrow afternoon?”

“Either one’s fine, just call me when you want to get it.”

Once the initial “awkward turtle” part of our conversation was over we talked for ten minutes or so about upcoming finals in two more weeks, summer classes we were taking (one of them was together!) and his schedule for the evening.

Before hanging up I gave him directions to my office, just in case he had to stop by tomorrow, and he told me he’d call me later. I hung up, pulled into a parking spot at my dormitory, and glided inside.

“What is wrong with you?” Sister asked the moment I walked in our room.

“Nothing,” I said. “OKfine, I was talking to Joey on the phone. But nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Whatever,” Sister said, giving me a sisterly-type look. She returned to the email she had been writing and I yanked my ankle-length khaki skirt off and threw it in the corner on the floor.

“When the semester is over in two weeks and I am burning that thing,” I announced. “I hate it. When I walk I can’t take a normal stride, I can only do this weird penguin shuffle thing and that seems hazardous.”

“You will not either burn it, you still have one more semester,” Sister said; the voice of reason. “Plus it’s cute and I like it, so give it to me before you burn it.”

“Well…whatever, I wish I could burn it,” I glared at the skirt. “I’m also going to listen to Caedmon’s Call wicked loud in my car.”

We had rules about appropriate music and inappropriate music. Caedmon’s Call was considered highly “inappropriate”. I was so fed up with skirts and rules and Greek tests I was about to spontaneously combust.

Homework wasn’t going anywhere, so I decided to take advantage of the last several hours of daylight and sit by one of the ponds near the public library to study. I changed into jeans, grabbed my favorite navy Polo cardigan, messenger bag filled with books and my journal, and my portable CD player.

“I’m gonna go sit by the ponds for awhile, I’ll be back before dark,” I tossed behind my shoulder at Sister as I left the room.

“Have fun,” she called after me.

Since breaking up with X a month prior, I had been savoring every moment to myself that I could possibly spare. I’d sit there in the grass and stare at the cattails as they whispered and bowed in the lazy Iowa evening breeze. When dusk began to fall, I’d lay back and stare up into the clear sky, winking at the moon and watching for shooting stars.

I was looking for myself.

Somewhere, about two years prior, I had lost me.

I couldn’t remember my favorite color, favorite song, favorite food, favorite soda, favorite animal, favorite teacher, favorite subject. I hadn’t spoken unless I was spoken to. I had rarely laughed. And I certainly hadn’t smiled much for a very long time.

The harder I looked, though, the more I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Me I remembered from several years before wasn’t quite as lost as I thought she was.

My favorite color is green. The Carnival of the Animals is my favorite classical piece. I love sugar. Pepsi. Jeans. Small, furry animals. Mrs. Miene. History.

It wasn’t quite as hard as I thought it would be. Every day I remembered a little bit more. Every day I laughed louder and smiled brighter, today in particular. It’s a little bit hard to find yourself when you know where you got lost but can’t figure out how to get back, but I had been around the labyrinth so many times I had it memorized. I was just about out.

I reached the pond after a short ten minute walk and I sat down on my cardigan. I hauled my Greek textbook out and began reviewing the paradigms I needed to have absolutely perfectly memorized for the final (which I was feeling more and more like I was going to bomb – I had been spending too much time late at night on the Internets talking with a Certain Boy and not studying). I couldn’t study Greek without my man Rachmaninoff, so I pressed Play on the CD player and before too long, I was in my own little world.

Somehow in my bag the ringer button on my cell phone must have gotten bumped; when it rang at top volume I shrieked and jumped clean out of my skin. I had been studying for so long that I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. The shadows were long and the water bugs had multiplied and were dancing in swarms on the pond.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Oh my gosh, are you still alive?” Sister asked.

“Sorry, yeah, I got distracted. These paradigms get me every time.”

“I don’t even know what that means. But I need to go to Wal Mart, can you take me when you get back?”

“Sure, I’m packing up now. I’ll be there in a few.”

Wal Mart was pretty much The Hangout for people at our school. There was nothing else to do, and I can recall full weeks together where I went to Wal Mart every single day of the week. Sad, really, when you think about it. (But when there’s no cows to tip and it’s subzero outside, Wal Mart is the next best thing.)

Sister and I were leaving Wal Mart before I realized that it was nearly 10:00 and Joey still hadn’t called me back.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Sister told me. “He said he’d call you.”

“I know.” I said. “I’m such a loser aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are,” She concurred. We linked arms, laughing, and walked out of the store.

It was the next morning in chapel before I saw Joey again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back last night, I had to work a later shift than I expected. I won’t be able to meet up with you again before you go to work, so do you mind me stopping by your office later and I’ll pick up that music on my way to work?” He asked.

“Sure, that would be fine,” I said, looking up at him. I couldn’t figure out why I was such an idiot whenever he actually spoke to me in person – I could totally handle the phone thing (OK, well, after the first five minutes) but I was an absolute basket case in person. Maybe I wasn’t ready.

“I’ll be by around 3:00,” he said.

“I’ll have the music,” I replied.

He smiled. Gave me the Top Gun wave as he walked off to class…I gave myself mental kicks in the shin.

After class I rushed home. If Joey was stopping by the office, absolutely no way was I wearing my regular old school clothes. I had to figure something out – and quick.

The new jean skirt I had purchased a month ago was still hanging in my closet. I had only gotten the gumption to wear it one other time, and even then I had to be stealthy about it since it was so much shorter than the dress code allowed. (But, folks, in all honesty it was barely above the knee.)

“Whatever, why did I buy it if I wasn’t going to wear it?” I asked myself, and in ten minutes I was running out the door in my “short” jean skirt and a pink shirt.

I ran in the door at the Chiropractor’s office just two minutes late. “Cutting it close today?” My co-worker Ashlee asked me. Then, “Woah, what in the world are you wearing? Is that pink?!”

“Yes, it’s pink.” I said, crossing my eyes at her.

“And…are those your kneecaps?”

“I’m afraid so. Don’t look at them too long or you’ll get blinded,” I teased her. I am incapable of tanning, and I’m especially blindingly white after the winter.

“What is wrong with you?” She asked. Then she noticed the music Lindy had brought in the day before. “Oh my gosh, is that one guy stopping by here to pick that up?”

Ashlee didn’t miss much.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh my gosh.”

“What. Can I sit at the desk today and you take adjustment notes for Dr. D?”

“Oh my gosh.”

“Here, you’ll need this for notes,” I said, handing her a blue gel pen.

“If I’m in an exam room when he comes, you better come up with some reason to get me out here,” Ashlee snatched the pen out of my hand and made her way to the exam room where Dr. D was adjusting a patient who was already screaming in pain.

“Maybe. If you promise to be nice,” I teased her.

“Oh my gosh!” She whispered, then disappeared into the room with the screaming patient.

Two hours dragged by. Every five minutes I found myself peeking out the window to see if a certain tan Honda Accord I recognized was pulling into the driveway. It wasn’t. But then suddenly, while I was on the phone scheduling a new patient appointment, there he was. Standing right in front of me. Smiling.

I finished the conversation with the new patient as quickly as possible.

“Hi! This is what Lindy left for you,” I said, handing the music to him. We chatted for about ten seconds before Ashlee came bursting out of one of the exam rooms (she “needed to get something”) and flew past the desk.

“And that’s my coworker Ashlee,” I said, loudly, as she walked by.

“Hi,” she stopped and beamed at Joey. I gave her a pointed look and she stifled a smile.

A few more awkward moments later, Joey glanced at his watch and noticed the time. “I am totally late for work – I need to get going. Thanks for giving me this, I’ll call Lindy and tell her I have it.”

“You’re welcome.” I said.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he called, and jogged out the front door and down the sidewalk to his car. Just at the very last minute, he turned around and gave me the Top Gun wave, then he disappeared into his car and drove off.

Ashlee yanked me out of my chair and back into the staff area away from patients. “Oh my gosh,” she whispered. She sounded like a broken record.

Then, for no reason at all other than we’re girls, we burst into giggles.

To be continued…