behind the times? preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9

…It was the runniest, blandest Mac & Cheese I had ever eaten, but I had so much fun eating it that I barely noticed it had absolutely no flavor…

By Thursday, I was sick both OF Mountain Dew and FROM it.  I had a permanent sugar coating on my teeth, my stomach ached constantly, and I was so jittery from all the caffeine that I had started jumping at my own shadows.  I didn’t care if I never consumed another accursed Mountain Dew again in all my born days…but I never would have told Joey that.  No sir, not even with the threat of a gun to my head.

Infused with that toxic Mountain Dew, Joey and I dutifully attended every remaining session of our class after skipping that afternoon to mow my lawn.  (Fortunately we had caught it just in time, the next day it had rained cats and dogs.)  We had a habit of, after class, heading down to my house, making dinner (but not Mac & Cheese again, once was enough there) and “studying” for several hours before Joey had to go to work.

I say “studying” because basically all we did was flirt, but under the guise of academia.  He’d sit on one side of the couch, legs up on the cushions, and I’d sit on the other, and we’d basically just kick each other and giggle for several hours.  Of course, we’d throw in a question or two from the notes now and then so as to be able to tell our friends we had been “studying”, but come on…who are we kidding?

All we were studying was each other.

Friday afternoon of our last day of class, Joey mentioned that he had to do some repairs to the windows at his parents’ house over the weekend.  His parents lived about 40 miles away, so it was a pretty easy drive out there and back on the weekends.

“Well, let me know if you want help,” I volunteered.

Joey looked at me.  “Are you serious?”  He asked.

“Sure, I like whacking things with a hammer now and then,” I smiled.  “Plus I’m really good at painting.”

I spent a summer after my freshman year in between mission trips repainting apartments for my Pops.  (I can tape off and cut in a room faster than you can say “lickety split”…comes in handy now and then.)

“Well, if you want to come out I’ll take the help.  It will be more fun, that’s for sure,” Joey said.  He drew me a map to his parents’ house and told me he planned to get started by 10:00 the next morning.

“I have to work a few hours tomorrow morning,” I said, “But I’ll be there by one.”

I was still going back and forth about whether or not I was really ready for another relationship with anybody, much less Joey.  He left for Minnesota in just six days – six more days for me to absorb as much of his real personality as possible before we were down to phone calls, emails and letters.  It’s not as easy to get to know someone’s soul when you’re reading from a page or clutching a cell phone that’s overheating because your conversation is going on three hours.  Those are great supplements…but, for me at least, I felt like I needed to see more Joey.  I needed to see how he treated his family; those people he was closest to, most comfortable with.

And that is why I volunteered myself to help prep the windows on the back side of his parents’ house.

Saturday afternoon, about 12:15 as I was speeding down Interstate 80 towards Altoona, praying I didn’t miss my turn, I started to wonder if I was insane.

Jenna.  You are an idiot.  You’re going to pull up at his house and he probably will be out back, which means you will have to introduce yourself to his family BY YOURSELF.  What kind of flirty girl will they think you are?  Seriously. I berated myself for about twenty miles before I gave up.  I cranked up the radio, rolled down the windows and sang along so loud that between the wind complexly messing up my hair, and the music…I forgot to pick on myself.

Whatever works, right?

Miraculously, I found Joey’s parent’s house without incident.  I am queen of getting lost, but Joey’s directions were meticulous.  (That, and his hometown is pretty small.)  I parked my little silver Saturn in the driveway of Joey’s house and took a deep breath.  I was just about to chicken out when –

“HEY!”  It was Joey.  He had been inside waiting for me.  I was so relieved to see him and not someone I didn’t know that I practically fell out of the car.

“Shall we get started?” I said, smiling a big cheesy smile and brushing my hands against my jeans repeatedly to cover up my nerves.  I doubt it worked.

“Sure, I was just taking a break,” Joey told me.  I had a feeling he had taken this break for about the last twenty minutes and had parked himself in front of the bay window so he’d see me drive up.  He’s predictable.   A dog burst out from the front door and came galloping over to see us.

“This is Muffie,” Joey said.

Muffie was adorable, a golden Cocker Spaniel with a face full of smiles.

“She’s so cute!” I said, bending over to scratch Muffie’s head.

We walked around back, Muffie in tow, bypassing the inside of the house to my great relief, and Joey handed me a screwdriver.  “OK, we’re picking out the old caulking so we can replace it with new, then later we’ll have to go over and paint it all.  But I doubt we’ll get that far today,” Joey said.

“Thanks,” I grinned, and climbed up on the lateral painter’s ladder.  I sat down on the flat bars and got to work.  We chiseled out old caulk for what felt like no time at all, but was really several hours, talking about Joey’s upcoming internship in Minnesota, my house, creepyish neighborhood and whether or not I should divulge to my parents just how dangeresque it seemed, and our relief that the summer class was finally OVER.  Muffie settled on the ground near Joey’s ladder.

“HEY,” we heard, someone was hollering from over on the other side of the garage.

“Dad, we’re back here,” Joey yelled back.

My stomach fell off the ladder.  I stayed put, frozen in place.  I was about to Meet The Father.  Joey’s dad came around the corner holding tools, which it didn’t look like he intended to use, and I was right.  He handed them to Joey and suggested that he try this tool and that tool, they’d give better results.

Then he turned to me.

“Hi.” He said, extending his hand.  “I’m John.”

My hands were covered in caulk, dirt and paint chips.  “My…my hands are dirty,” I said, hesitantly brushing off my right hand and extending it.  “But it’s nice to meet you.”

“No matter,” said John, “I’ve seen worse.” And he shook my hand with so much gusto that the ladder I was sitting on shook.

“Thanks for helping Joey with the windows.”

“Oh, no problem.  I like this kind of work,” I said, lamely.  “It’s a beautiful day.”  Nice, even lamer.

John moved back over to Joey’s window and inspected his work before saying,
“We’ll probably start grilling around 5:00.  And Mom wanted to see you before she leaves.”

“Oh, cool.  We’re about ready for a break anyway,” Joey said, shifting on his ladder and dropping one of his hammers to the ground.  It landed with a dull thud and scared Muffie; she took off towards the barn with a sidelong gallop.

“Will she—” I started.

“Nah, she won’t run away.  Come on, let’s go see what Mom needs,” Joey said.

We climbed off our ladders and put our tools in a pile on the picnic table.  I frantically looked at my dirty hands again.  I rubbed them on my jeans as hard as I possibly could as we walked up the steps and in the back door.

“MOM!” Joey yelled.

I was getting nervous again; I was clearly about to Meet The Mother.  I swallowed hard and followed Joey through the kitchen.  We found his mom in the living room, getting ready to leave for work.

“Mom, this is Jenna,” Joey introduced me.

I smiled and extended my dusty hand.

“Jenna, this is my mom Nancy,” Joey finished.

We stood around and chatted for a few minutes, and I learned that she was on her way Des Moines to work, she was a transport nurse in the NICU at one of the hospitals…same unit as Joey, actually.  Nancy explained where to find the meat to grill and the lettuce and other sides, and Joey disappeared into the kitchen to dig things out of the refrigerator.

“Well, I need to get going,” Nancy said, after a few minutes of small-talk.

“It was very nice to meet you,” I said, then kicked myself for being full of cheeseball.

“Don’t let Joey work you too hard!”

“Nah, he’s an easy foreman,” I smiled.  It was true.

And, just like that, I had Met The Parents.  And I had survived.  I stood in the living room, staring out the window by myself, and listened to Joey and his mom in the kitchen as they talked about work stuff.  I decided it was weird for me to just stay in the living room by myself, so I shuffled into the kitchen and leaned against the wall, just watching.

(Neither of us knew at the time, but sometime that afternoon Joey’s dad had whispered to his mom, “Joey’s gonna marry her someday.” He was totally right.)

I was very comfortable with how Joey was interacting with his family.  He was relaxed, respectful and quite at ease.  I liked that.  I thought I could handle that.  He was exactly the same with me at my house as he was when we were in his own house; there was no personality swap when he got to his comfort zone.  One more piece of my Joey puzzle had fallen into place, just like that.

We grilled out for dinner and around 7:00 I decided I ought to head back to Des Moines.  On my drive back home, as the sun started setting over the hilly Iowa farmland and I watched the shadows lengthen and colors brighten, I sat in my quiet car and processed my entire afternoon.

I had lots of thinkin’ to do.

Saturday turned into Sunday, which gave way to Monday, which melted into Tuesday, which suddenly became Wednesday.  The days before Joey left for Minnesota were growing shorter and shorter – he planned to drive up on Friday morning.  I was getting considerably more reluctant to see him go with each passing day.

On Thursday I woke up abruptly at 7:00 a.m.  I didn’t have to go into the office until 10:30 because I was working on special archiving projects (it was really boring, actually) but I just felt like getting a jump on my day, so took a shower and did my hair, planning to stop by the mall before work.

Good thing I did.

At 7:30, I heard a knock on my door.  I froze, not sure what to expect – was it one of my neighbors?  I only knew one family, and I really doubted they’d knock on my door at 7:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning.  Hesitantly, I shuffled to the door, trying not to make any noise.  I held the cordless phone in my hand just in case, butterflies jumping all over the place in my stomach.

Going on tiptoe, I peered out the peephole.

“Joey?” I whispered.

It was indeed Joey Woestman, standing on my porch at 7:30 on a Thursday morning.  I opened the door.

“Hey…” I said.

“Hi.  We’re going out for breakfast,” he told me.

My stomach flip-flopped.  Was this…was he…?

“Sure, just let me grab my shoes,” I said, letting him in the door.  I grabbed my blue bamboo flip-flops and breathed a quick prayer of thanks to the Lord that I had gotten up early and actually gotten ready for a change.  I would have died if I had still had bedhead when he showed up.

We thumped across the porch and down the steps.  It was still so early that the dew was glistening on the spider webs and the air was full of freshness.

“I could have this kind of weather every day,” I said, taking a deep breath.  “It’s so beautiful out!”

“Sure is,” Joey agreed.

We piled into his Honda Accord and Joey sped off towards the freeway.  He headed towards downtown, absolutely not the direction I had been expecting him to go.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” He said, coyly.

I wasn’t that familiar with Des Moines yet, so I had absolutely no clue where he could be heading.  I sat back and enjoyed the scenery; usually when I was in Des Moines I was the one driving, and I was usually lost.  It was nice to be in someone else’s car who knew where he was going.

Joey pulled off on an exit that looked vaguely familiar.

“I’ve…I’ve been lost here before,” I said.

Joey just laughed.  “Where were you going?”

“I can’t remember.  I just know that I was definitely lost here once before.”

No sooner had I said that, but Joey had whipped a sharp U-turn and pulled into a parking spot.  “Here we are!” He said.

“The Waveland?” I asked.

“Yep.  My grandparents used to come here all the time,” Joey told me.  “They have good breakfast.”

They did have good breakfast.  I ordered my absolute favorite, pancakes, eggs, sausage links, and grapefruit juice and Joey got an enormous stack of pancakes and chocolate milk.

“Grapefruit juice is disgusting,” Joey said.

“So is chocolate milk,” I retorted.  “We are even.  Although I don’t see how you can drink that stuff…it’s so thick and opaque.”

Breakfast continued in much that manner.  I was on the edge of my seat waiting for him to drop the DTR bomb.  (That’s “Define the Relationship” for those of you who never were involved in Campus Crusade.)  I ate half of my food but couldn’t finish the rest; my stomach was flipping around and in too many knots from nerves.

We finished our meal.  No DTR.

The check came.  No DTR.

We sat there and I told Joey stories of all the times I had gotten lost in Des Moines.  No DTR.

Finally we left and went out to the car.  No DTR.

By this time I had fairly well convinced myself that Joey had no intentions to define our currently ambiguous relationship before he left for Minnesota, and that was jolly well fine with me.  I was still not sure if I was ready to get all that out in the open.  I was almost ready.

Almost.

Joey took me back home and dropped me off.  “Can I come over tonight after work?  I have The Italian Job, my parents just got it, you wanna watch it?”

“Sure, that sounds good!” I said.

I climbed my porch steps and waved as he drove off.  The sun was higher in the sky now and had burned off all the sparkling morning dew.  The spider webs were back to being invisible.  I sat on my porch for a few minutes after he left, just thinking about breakfast and sending up frantic prayers for wisdom and guidance.  I had just a day and a half more until Joey left for Minnesota for three whole months.

I still had a lot of time before I needed to work, so I sat down at the kitchen table with my Bible.  Halfway through my study, I thought of something and I shot off my chair and into the kitchen.  I returned to the kitchen with a 12 pack of Mountain Dew, left over from the summer class, a pen and a pad of blue Post-It notes.

I flipped my big ole’ Ryrie open to the topical section in the back and began searching for verses.  When I’d find just the right one, I’d write it on a Post-It note and stick that note to a can of Mountain Dew.  (I’ve always loved Post-It notes…)

In no time at all my kitchen was covered in blue posties, discarded ones were crinkled up and scattered on the floor, extra ones were stuck to my table in various places.  Two hours later I had eleven encouraging cans of Mountain Dew all lined up pretty on the table in front of me.

Feeling very pleased with my idea, I glanced at the clock and realized that I was now an hour behind schedule…and quite late to work.

Good thing nobody cares, I muttered, and ran out the door.  Nobody did care, either.  I was kind of on my own schedule that summer, which was fantastic.

On the way home, after I had done just about as much archiving as I could handle, I stopped by Wal-Mart where I grabbed Joey a couple Three Musketeers bars and Brown Sugar Pop Tarts; his favorites.  For the road, of course.

At 7:00, Joey showed up at my doorstep again, almost twelve hours on the dot from when he’d been there that morning.  DVD case in hand, he walked through my front door with a smile.

“Ready?” He asked.

“Sure am,” I said.  “Let me go put in some popcorn though.”

While I was in the kitchen I double-checked to make sure that I had put the Mountain Dew in the fridge.  Joey’s bag of treats was sitting strategically on the counter, so I wouldn’t forget it.

We flopped on my couch the same way we had been for the last two weeks while we “studied” and Joey finagled the DVD player to work.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do when you leave,” I said.  “I’ll never get that thing to work.”

“You can just call me,” he said.  “Oh, did I give you all the numbers?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.  I got up and moved over to the phone table where I dug him out a piece of paper and a pen.

Joey finished fixing the DVD player and then scratched a couple of numbers on the paper.  I stared at them; they were home numbers.  I was going to have to call some random people and say, “Um, hi, is Joey there?”  This was scarier than trying to call a boy in middle school for some reason.  Not to be deterred, I whipped out my cell phone and entered them.  I read them back to Joey, just to be sure.

“Yep, you got ‘em,” he replied.

That item of business taken care of, we started the movie.  I really liked it (it’s still one of my favorites, mostly for sentimental reasons) and wasn’t ready for it to be over when it was.  Joey stood up, stretched and said, “I need to get going; I have to leave early tomorrow morning and I’m not finished packing yet.”

“OH!” I said, jumping off the couch, “I have something for you.”

I ran to the kitchen where I grabbed the refrigerated Mountain Dew and bag of snacks.  I carried them back to the living room and handed them to Joey.

“I got thirsty so I drank one of the Mountain Dews, but they’re cold!  And the snacks are for the road.”

“Thanks!” Joey said.  “That was really nice of you.”

He set the soda and bag down on the couch and gave me an extremely awkward hug.  Then, with his trademarked Top Gun wave, he picked up his loot and disappeared out the door.  I sank down into the couch after he left and stared out my front window for a few moments, thinking.

Then I realized that all my unusual neighbors could see inside my house and I jumped up to shut the blinds.

My phone rang.

“Hello?” I said.

“It’s me,” came Joey’s voice from the other end of the line.  “I miss you already.”

I melted.

To be continued…