preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11

“I just got off the phone with Joey,” Dad said.

My heart beat a little bit faster.  “Yeah?”

“He sounds like an excellent guy,” Dad said.  He went on to list several qualities of Joey that he found impressive (which, not surprisingly, were very similar to the ones I found impressive), and I breathed easier.

Dad beat around the bush for about five more minutes before finally circling back around to the point at hand.  “If Joey asks you to date him, and you would like to say yes, that is just fine with me,” Dad said.

“Thanks,” I said, releasing all the pent-up oxygen in my lungs with a giant woosh.

I knew going into it that Dad would like Joey, but it still wracked my nerves.  I mean….what if he said no?!  But, I chided myself, that was why I’d had Dad involved in the first place.  So he could say no!

I am convinced my father has way more brain cells than I have.  He uses them very well, too.

Our conversation quickly turned to the familiar: cows, news about family friends, and Mom and Dad’s upcoming trip to Des Moines for one of Dad’s meetings.  They planned to stay with me in my little brown house with the creepy basement.

“Can you look at my weed whacker?” I asked Dad.  The thing still wasn’t cooperating and I hadn’t been able to do any trim work since Joey had helped me a month before. Dad has probably got stock in Weed Eater, I think he has three hanging up in one of the stalls in the barn back home.  (That’s what happens when you have a mile of fencerow and three and a half kids who hate to weed whack.)

We ended our conversation twenty minutes after we had begun, my heart lighter.  The sky seemed bluer outside and I ventured outdoors for a walk before it got too dark.  I took my cell phone with me, just in case, and my latest letter from Joey.  It had arrived that very afternoon.

If I even admit to you how much money I spent in postage that summer, you will be ashamed of me.  And, when you combine that with how much Joey spent…there’s little wonder why the United States Postal Service is still in business.  They’re still existing off the profits they made on us that summer.

I re-read my letter, folded it, and put it back in my pocket.  I glanced at my phone and noticed the date:  July 1.  Just two more days until Joey came home for a visit!

Joey and his friend Joel had plans to juggle in a talent show and be in a parade in Joel’s hometown of Creston.  I, being the not-quite-Joey’s-girlfriend-but-almost hanger’s on, was planning to come along also.  Joel, Amber, Joey and I were going to stay at Joel’s parent’s house for two and a half days.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had looked forward to something with such anticipation.

When Joey called at 9:00, we had our traditional hours-long phone conversation (although, by this time, our record was six hours.  SIX HOURS, people.  I’m surprised I don’t have cell phone brain damage).

“What are you doing tomorrow,” he asked.

“Getting ready to see you!” I said, which was not untrue.  I was planning to go get some new clothes before the weekend, and get my hair cut.

“Do you have to work?”

“Yeah, a few hours in the afternoon.  I’m still working on that archiving project,” I said, tangenting off to describe to him the scope of my work the next day.

An hour later or so, we managed to hang up the phone.

I spent a lazy morning cleaning my house, getting ready for the day, and starting to pack my suitcase.  I glanced at the paper chain I had made the day after Joey went to Minnesota.  It hung from my curtain rod in my bedroom, and at one point it had been doubled up on the rod, going to the ground twice.  But it didn’t look so long now.  I reached up and tore off today’s link: July 2.

My doorbell rang.

Instantly, I got nervous as I always did when someone was at my door and unexpected.  I glanced out my window, but didn’t see a car.  Hesitantly, I tiptoed down the steps and glanced out the peephole.

Flowers.

A bouquet of orange lilies and roses greeted me.  Had Joey sent me flowers?  It was hard to tell, there was a giant lily right in front of the delivery boy’s face.  I opened the door.

“JOEY?” I gasped.  He wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.

“Surprise!” He said, setting down the flowers and giving me a far more respectable hug than he had the day he left for Minnesota in the first place.

“What…when…I was on the phone with you not twelve hours ago!” I said.  (We had hung up early the night before, at 1:00.)

“That’s true.  I left at 5:00, so I’m kind of tired.  Do you have any Mountain Dew?”

I did not.  We walked to Randall’s, just about a half mile away to purchase some, Joey telling me about his drive down to Iowa, how he had been planning to surprise me for weeks now.

I smiled broadly at him.  “I’m awfully glad you did!”

With Joey back in town, I opted not to go into work that afternoon.  I left him on my couch to take a nap while I got my hair cut, and came back to pick him up an hour or so later.  We headed to Valley West together to do my shopping.

Here’s the real test…I thought slyly to myself.

Joey handled shopping with me like a champ.  Just one more thing to add to his “Good Qualities” list.

Oddly enough, even though Joey came home early, there was no talk of his conversation with my father.  Clearly we both knew it had happened, but since Dad had called me to go over its finer points, there had been no discussion of it.  This probably meant that Joey had (another) something up his sleeve, so I opted to hold my tongue and wait to see what he was up to.

That’s easier said than done, especially for me.
Joey drove home to his parent’s house Thursday night, calling me almost immediately under the guise of “I’m tired, I need you to keep me awake on the drive home”.

I was wise to him.  Always had been.  (He’d been pulling that trick on me since before school had been out for the summer.  I knew he didn’t suffer from narcolepsy.)

Friday morning, the next day, he arrived at my house by 10:00, his car loaded with a unicycle, unusual looking juggling paraphernalia I was not altogether familiar with and, oddly, a container of lighter fluid.

“It’ll take us about an hour and a half to get to Creston,” Joey said.

“OK,” I replied, hoisting my Nike duffel bag onto my shoulder and carrying it to the car.

We walked through my house, checking windows to make sure they were locked, and leaving some lights on for security.  While upstairs in my room, Joey noticed my paper chain.  “What’s this?” He asked.

“That,” I replied, “is a paper chain.  Didn’t you ever make those for your birthday or anything?”

“No…” Joey said.

“Well, I make them for anything I am anticipating, and this paper chain goes all summer until you come home.  See?  The ones that are highlighted different colors mean things.  Like this one, this is the link that I’ll tear off the day you head back to Minnesota, and this one up here is the link that I’ll tear off the day you go to camp…” I pointed out several more links on the chain before finally getting to the very last one.  “THIS is the one where you come home,” I smiled.

I think Joey secretly liked my paper chain, although as we walked back down the stairs I realized that it did strike me as something that could be misconstrued as creepy and stalker-like.  Fortunately Joey did not seem to think I was either creepy or a stalker.  He thought it was cute.

The drive to Creston was marvelous.

All summer thus far I had been worried, wondering if Joey was one of those types of people I could only talk to on the phone, or only write letters to.  Would it be weird in person again?  Would we find that we had nothing to talk about?

No, indeed.

There seemed to be no end to the things we could discuss…worldviews, future plans, pet peeves, favorite elementary school teacher and why…almost nothing was off limits.

I relaxed as we drove, realizing with each mile that whenever he did ask me That Important Dating Question, I would most certainly be able to say yes, and with no reservations.

Perhaps it strikes you as odd that Joey would have to speak to my father before asking me if I’d like to date him (rather pre-engagement, perhaps?) but that’s just how we did it.  I wasn’t willing to enter into a relationship that would be potentially as volatile and dangerous as the one I had been in before Joey, and starting off taking things seriously was the safest, wisest way I could think to do it.  Apparently Joey shared those opinions, because Dad seemed to think he was great.

As seriously as we had both taken the official beginning of our relationship, however, it was just that: a beginning.  Neither one of us knew where it would end, and neither one of us had committed to how it would end.  Not yet, anyway.  All we knew was that we wanted to be blameless, pure, covered with wise counsel and have our eyes wide, wide open.

With each passing mile as we drove to Creston, I knew my expectations were being met.  I sure hoped Joey’s were, too.

We arrived at Joel’s parent’s house and got settled in, Amber and I in upstairs bedrooms, Joel and Joey someplace downstairs.  I was unpacking my Nike bag, which didn’t travel very well – all my clothes got seriously wrinkled, when I heard a commotion in the garage.

I ventured outside and noticed Joel and Joey practicing, passing juggling clubs back and forth, spinning around and, every now and then, dropping one.  They had won the town talent show the year before, and they wanted to win it again.

They practiced for several hours, we ate dinner, and then someone found a pile of old Bearnstein Bear books in the basement.  The four of us squashed onto a couch in the living room, reading the books to each other and laughing – there’s just something about reliving your childhood, I guess.

“It’s getting dark outside,” Joey noticed after awhile.  “Let’s go get our clubs.”

Everyone seemed to know what was going on but me, and in record time, the whole family was out on the lawn.  The boys had black-ended clubs in their hands, and Joey was pouring lighter fluid on the ends of them.  (Now at least I knew why he had brought it!)  Joel lit the end of one of his clubs on fire, and then let Joey’s.  They walked out into the street, stood in the darkest spot, and began passing the flaming clubs back and forth to each other.

I got super nervous.  He is going to set himself on fire, I thought.  Then I heard – “OW!”  Joey had caught the wrong end of the club, but had quickly dropped it.  Once I realized that he wouldn’t go up in flames immediately, I relaxed.  There’s something mesmerizing about watching flaming clubs passed back and forth in the dark.

Joel and Joey juggled for about half an hour.  By the time they were finished, I was completely worn out.  The next day was a big day, too.  There was the talent show, parade, and then fireworks in the evening.

When I woke up about 8:30 the next morning, everyone was already up decorating the wagon.  The guys had rigged it up with higher sides so it could hold their clubs, and they planned to ride it while Amber and I pulled the wagon and handed them clubs while they juggled and rode their unicycles.  (Yes, at the same time.)

“Wait, I’m in this parade too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Joey said.  “Is that OK?”

It was fine with me, I just had no idea what was going on, so Amber was definitely going to have to be the one handing them clubs when they asked for specific ones.  I would be the wagon puller.

“We have a t-shirt for you,” Joey said, handing me one of the “JUGGLE” t-shirts that Joel had designed.

“Well, at least I’ll match!” I said.  I can fake it ‘till I make it any day.

An hour later the wagon was fitted properly, decorated, and ready to go.  We all jumped in a car and headed off to the park for the talent show where, I’m sad to report, the boys took second.  Some little kid weaseled his way into the hearts and rational minds of the judges, because clearly Joel and Joey were the best.

I survived the parade, too, by only pulling the wagon.

Caught up as I was with wondering WHEN Joey was finally going to quit beating around the bush and make this official, the next 24 hours flew by.  Before I knew it, we had packed up all the juggling supplies into the car, lighter fluid included, and were heading back to Des Moines.

We were going to stop in Joey’s hometown to see his parents before heading to my house, so we stuck to the windy, tree-lined back roads.  As we neared Red Rock Lake, we noticed that the rain from the morning was still hanging heavily in the air. The sun was catching the misty at just the perfect angles and the hills were full of rainbows.  Dozens and dozens of rainbows…we tried to count them as we drove, but lost track after twelve.  More were appearing around every bend.  It was the most unusual thing I had ever seen.

“See that observatory up there?” Joey indicated, pointing off to a tall, metal structure towering over the trees on the top of a hill overlooking the lake.

“Yes,” I said, sidetracked by the rainbows.

“Let’s stop there so you can see the lake.”

I hate observatories.  I hate heights.  I don’t like that they’re made of metal grating and I can see through to the ground.  I don’t like that they’re high in the air.  I don’t like the dizzy feeling that I get when I’m on them.

Joey knew this, we had discussed at length how I have a nearly debilitating fear of heights.  But he wanted to show me the lake and so I decided right then and there to suck it up and go up in that observatory.

“Sure,” I said.  A knot began to form in my stomach.  Heights freak me out so bad.

A few moments later, we pulled up in front of the tower.  It was a winding staircase around a thick circular pole, towering high into the sky.  Well, I thought it was high.

Joey jumped out of the car and went up to the gate.

“It costs money, do you have any quarter?” He asked, walking back to the car.

For a quick second I thought maybe I could get out of going into the tower if we didn’t have a dollar in quarters, but I obligingly opened my wallet and dug out four quarters.   I handed them to Joey and we began our climb up the tower.

Halfway up, I froze.
“I cannot go any higher than this,” I said.  “I am serious, I want to go down right now.”

Joey came up next to me, blocking my view of the treetops, took my hand and said, “We can do it.  I know you can do it, come on…keep trying.”

I took a deep breath, and stepped up one more stair.  I surprised myself by only flipping out one more time before we finally reached the top of the tower.  But finally, just a few moments after we started up in the first place, we arrived at our destination.   Joey angled me over towards the lake and stepped behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders.

We enjoyed the view for a few moments before he began to speak.

And, unfortunately, because I was so scared about being so high in the air, I cannot remember his exact words.  I do remember that he said he was proud of me for overcoming my fear of heights to enjoy the beautiful view.  I remember he said something about relationships being something like that, but I can’t remember exactly what. I remember that he said he had talked to my dad and gotten permission for us to date.  I remember that he asked me if I would be his girlfriend.

I didn’t have to pause or hesitate; I said yes. (I know!  We’re so old fashioned!  But I loved it.)

My next words were, “Can please we go down now?”

Joey laughed, took my hand again, and led me down to solid ground.

“I don’t think I will  ever be able to forget that!” I laughed, once we were walking on grass again.

“That is exactly the way I planned it,” Joey said serenely.

And you know what?  I never have.

preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10

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.

Although Joey had left for the summer without defining our relationship, it was fairly obvious we had something going on.  Although Joey didn’t have much access to the Internet over the summer and his cell phone didn’t work out of state, we had a communication plan.  It felt kind of old-fashioned and romantic, but we had exchanged snail-mail addresses before he had driven off that Thursday night.  I felt silly on Friday afternoon when I dove for my mailbox, rifling through the junk mail to look for a letter from Joey.

There wasn’t one, of course.

He hadn’t even been gone for 24 hours.

Friday evening, though, began our telephone routine.  At nine o’clock, my cell phone rang.  (Verizon has unlimited minutes after 9:00, you know.)  Joey used a phone card to call from where he was staying in Minnesota and he gave me a number to call him back.  We hung up after the briefest exchange of information, and I directly dialed the number he had just given me.

We usually talked for three to five hours.

The conversations ranged from his days as an intern, my house and general safety, work, friends, school…and life.

It was when the conversations turned to the serious stuff, LIFE!, that I tended to get skittish.  I kept waiting for the bomb to drop, for the bottom to fall out, for Joey to discover something he didn’t like about me and start acting like X had – which, unfortunately, I still expected that to be “normal”.  But, the more Joey learned, the more he seemed to like me.

It was weird.

For the first two weeks of June, I was a total jitterbug.  I would sit on my couch watching CSI reruns and staring at my cell phone, just sure that this evening’s conversation would be The One, the last one.  (Honestly, I’m not sure how Joey put up with all this, but he did.)

When I wasn’t stressing myself out about when Joey would stop calling, I was spending hours (and hours, and hours) praying and seeking wise counsel.  (I was a busy girl!)  I’m not really sure when it happened, or what happened exactly, but one day I woke up after a particularly significant phone call with Joey…and I felt peaceful.

It was fantastic to not see X behind every bush anymore.  Frankly I didn’t like seeing him anywhere, but especially not nasty vestiges of his influence in my blossoming relationship with Joey.

I think Joey could tell when I finally got things figured out.  I think he had just been biding his time, waiting for me to get myself sorted out.  And once I realized that, I realized I liked Joey even more.

During these two weeks of indecision, Joey and I had been exchanging letters with lightning speed, probably 3-5 a week.  They weren’t short little letters, either, they were three page tomes.

Honestly, I don’t know what we found to write about, what with those five hour phone conversations every evening, but puppy love does strange things to one’s communication skills, ain’t so?

I’d get a letter from Joey one afternoon, then I’d read it four times while I sat on my blue plaid couch watching the TV that I had moved closer to me by putting it on the piano bench, VCR player precariously resting on top, DVD player on the floor below…my makeshift entertainment center.

I wish I didn’t have to admit how much CSI and Law and Order I watched that summer in the evenings.  When I wasn’t mowing the lawn (and subsequently getting catcalled by the creepy neighbors, so I usually tried to rearrange my schedule so I could do it in the early afternoon before everyone was home from work or school), sitting on the grass in the back yard, whipping up something delicious in the kitchen or waiting for Joey to call, I was definitely watching TV.

“What were you watching,” Joey would often ask me right off the bat when he’d call.

Usually a cop show.

Those things scare the pants off me, but I love them to death.  I have to watch them with an afghan over my head, squeezing a pillow to death and with one eye closed (especially if I’m home alone), but I’m willing to make those concessions.  And now I’m off track, we’re supposed to be talking about how Joey’s awesome, not how much I like cop shows.

Toward the end of June, I drove in my driveway and noticed a little brown box sitting on my porch.

A package?  For me?!?

Yes ma’am.

I turned off the car, bounded up the stairs and sat down on the porch, using my keys to tear through the tap.  Inside was a letter (of course) and three matchbox Mini Coopers – from The Italian Job, the movie Joey and I had watched the night before he had driven up to Minnesota.

Written in Wite-Out was “I Miss You!!”, one word on each of the different Minis.

“Oh my gosh!”  I breathed, thinking that Joey was probably the sweetest, creativest, most thoughtful boy (who still was not technically dating me) in the entire world.  I sat there, leaning against the yellow siding, and read the three page letter Joey had written me.  The last page very thoroughly emphasized how much he missed me; I got butterflies in my stomach like any self-respecting girl would.

I read the letter about two more times between the time I received the package  and 9:00, when I knew Joey would call me.  (I could set my watch by Joey’s impeccable accuracy.)  Sure enough, as I was sitting on the couch fiddling with my Rubik’s cube, my phone rang.

“Hi!” I chirped.

“Call me right back?” Joey asked.

“Yep,” I said, and clicked END on my phone.  I redialed his number, and one ring later, he picked up.

“What’s going on?” He asked.

“I’m just working on my Cube,” I said.

And when I said “working on my Cube” I meant that I was sort of trying to follow the entire sheet of algorithms he had written out for me before I left, so I could “practice” while he was gone.  I had (sort of) solved the thing “by myself” once before he left, but we both knew that Joey had given me several key suggestions while I was working on that last side.  No way could I solve one of those things on my own.  And that sheet of algorithms?  They were written on a sheet of college rule paper, single spaced. I have enough trouble memorizing long Bible verses, people.  It was nothing but the severest of puppy love that induced me to even attempt mastery at solving a Rubik’s Cube.

“How are you doing?” Joey said.

“Oh…good.” I said.  I was stuck on getting all the four corners part near the end, and I’d even followed the algorithms to a T.  “Actually, not good.  I’m stuck.”

I explained to Joey what my Rubik’s Cube looked like, and he thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Oh, here’s what you need to do.”

If he didn’t solve that Rubik’s Cube over the phone from 600 miles (this was way, way before iChat) then my name wasn’t Jenna Laird. (And it definitely used to be.)

“You did it!”  Crowed Joey when I told him it was solved.  We both knew that wasn’t true, but I just went with it.

“I got a package today,” I said, about half an hour later.

“Oh?” Asked Joey.

“I did!”  I went to the trouble of explaining in great detail what the package had contained, and how it had come with a very, very nice letter.  I will spare you the majority of the sentimental, schmoopsy stuff.  (It always gives me the willies after I write it down, and I just wind up backspacing it anyway.  Yes, I actually do have a TMI limit, and it’s that.)

“You’ll have to keep your eyes open, you have another one coming in a few days,” Joey said.  “I think you’ll like this one better.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yep.”

I pressed him for details, but I was unsuccessful.  He knew how to be coy when he needed to be.

The next morning, I woke up hard.  I had gotten about four hours of sleep the night previous, it had been a long phone call, and I grumped around my little house, making breakfast and stubbing my toe on the bathtub until I remembered Joey’s words about the package.

I rushed off to work, eager to get home and check the mail.

There was no package yet, of course.  For four days I repeated this, until on the fifth day, there it was on my porch waiting for me when I got home.  I drove recklessly into my driveway, jammed the parking brake on and flew out of my car and up the steps.  I picked up the package and shook it….it was very, very light.  Tucking it under my arm, I unlocked my front door and dumped my bag and shoes inside.

I sat on the couch and tore back the brown paper and opened the box.

It was filled with dozens of white packing peanuts, and each one had something different written on it, very small in black permanent marker.

OH MY GOSH, I thought.  I knew exactly what this was…my hands were shaking as I took out the first white foam blob.  It said “I miss Jenna!” on it.  I smiled and laughed and shook the box.

This could take awhile.

I pulled out dozens and dozens of packing peanuts.  They read innocuous things like “Jenna is nice!” and “My hand hurts from writing on packing peanuts!” and “4th of July!” (the next time we planned to see each other, just two weeks away!) and “I like Jenna”.

The one I was looking for I could not find.

There were about ten packing peanuts left in the box, aside from the attached letter, which read “DO NOT READ FIRST” on it, and I was beginning to think that my original assumption of the box’s purpose was incorrect.

But then…

The next one I pulled out read, “Will you be my girl?”

I screamed.

Fortunately I lived by myself and no one was home to hear me, or see the packing peanut mess I had all over my couch.  I went ahead and read the remaining few packing peanuts in the box (they said very similar things to the previous hundred I had read) and ripped open the letter.

I shall not here detail the contents of that letter.  (You don’t even really care, do you?  Hehehehe.)  Considering the box only contained about a hundred white packing peanuts and a single letter, I was flying high as a kite until the 9:00 phone call later that evening.

“I got your box,” was about the first thing out of my mouth once I had called Joey back.  Gotta maximize those free minutes, you know.  (Frankly I’m surprised Verizon didn’t go under that summer.)

“Oh did you?” Joey said.

“I did.  And I found your message.”

It was here that the conversation got a little awkward.  “Yeah?” Joey said.

“Yeah,” I said.

He was quite for a few minutes. Then – “Do I need to talk to your dad or anything?”

“Yes, you do,” I said, rather relieved that he had brought it up.  My family really thinks it’s important to be involved in significant relationships from their earliest formation, and sometimes that’s a little bit foreign to the potential “significant other”.  Once I got to college and grew up a bit, knowing that I could screen potential guys through my Dad’s wisdom was really encouraging.  Dad knows a lot more about boys than I do…he’s the one who helped set me free from X after all.  I trust my Pops’ judgment implicitly.

“OK, can you give me his phone number or email address?”  Joey asked, snapping me out of my reverie.

I gave him both, and he wrote them down, promising to call my dad tomorrow or the next day.  The plan was to get this worked out before the Fourth of July, we were going to Creston so Joey could juggle in a contest and be in a parade with his friend Joel.  I was going to tag along and hang out with Joel’s girlfriend Amber.

As was our habit, we talked until 2:00 a.m. before calling it a night.  The next morning, I made a call to my dad to warn him that Joey would either be calling or emailing, depending on his ability to access technology.

Dad was ready.

Dad and I had done this drill before, but this time was different.  I had my brain engaged this time – I was not going to screw this up twice…not after the mess I’d made the previous year.

Later, about 7:00 that evening, my cell phone rang.  It was my dad.  My heart began to race; this likely meant that he had just gotten off the phone with Joey and was going to relay the conversation to me and ask my opinions.

“Hi, Dad!” I said.

“Well, I just got off the phone with Joey…”

To be continued…one more time

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…

Sorry campers, but due to my gimpy hand I just couldn’t crank out the necessary amount of words for the next chapter in my story.  Typing that much hurts like a wicked banshee.  Hopefully I’ll be back in the saddle by next Wednesday.

Three more chapters to go!

preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8

In no time at all Joey had dropped me back off at my little beige house on the east side of Des Moines. He waited until he saw that I was inside, with the door shut and locked tightly behind me, before pulling out into the dark.

I climbed the steep steps to my room and went through all of my clothes three times trying to find the best outfit to wear to the first day of our summer class. We were planning to sit together so I had to look my best…

Monday morning.  First day of summer school…with Joey.  I was not looking forward to the class, but I was definitely ready to spend a whole bunch of time with him.  I woke up so much earlier than necessary, took a very long shower and spent forever on my hair.  I was just about done when my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, did you put the Mt. Dew in the fridge?”

It was Joey; I smiled.  “Of course I did.  How many do you want me to bring?” I asked, juggling my mascara wand, concealer, and the phone.

“Start with four.  If we need more we’ll go get some,” he said.

“Sounds good, I’ll see you in half an hour.” I grabbed my lunch from the fridge and shoved it in my blue messenger bag, swinging it over my shoulder, and grabbed my keys.  I bounded out the door and down my creaky wooden steps, careful to double-check that I’d locked the front door and windows.

Ten minutes later I was halfway to school, speeding up Highway 69 and singing along with the radio at the top of my lungs.  (I’m always singing along with something.)  I dug in my messenger bag and verified that I’d brought my new Rubik’s cube along; today at lunch was to be my first lesson.  My goal was to solve it once, just once, by myself.  Joey could solve the thing in just over 30 seconds – I had no illusions of that, but I could definitely play “damsel in distress” and have him teach me to solve it, at the very least.

He was standing in the parking lot, waiting for me when I pulled up.  I turned the radio down quickly, hoping that no one had heard the bass pumping out of my speakers, and jumped out of the car.

“Hi!  Ready for this?” I asked, overly cheerfully.  Idiot! I thought.  Act normal!

“How much Mountain Dew did you bring?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

We walked into the classroom and picked out a table, third row back, next to the window.

“This is perfect,” I leaned over and whispered to Joey as the professor was beginning to hand out the syllabus.  “I can watch the birds and squirrels this way.”

Joey winked at me and slid me a syllabus.

Four hours and two Mountain Dews later, we had an hour break for lunch.  We stumbled out into the sunlight with our twenty or so other classmates and blinked against the brightness.

“I cannot do that for another four and a half days,” I moaned.

“It’s pretty rough,” Joey agreed.  We found a good spot in the grass and pulled out our lunches.  “Did you bring your cube?”

I held it up, showing him that I had indeed remembered.

“OK, your first lesson is getting all the white on one side,” Joey explained.  He showed me several different ways to move the squares so they’d shuffle in a pattern.  It was actually kind of interesting, not what I had been expecting.  I’ve never been keen on math (ahem) and I had this sinking feeling that solving Rubik’s cubes had a lot of mathiness to it.  (Joey had said the word “algorithm” a few too many times when trying to explain the ease of Rubik’s cube solving to me.)
Twenty minutes later, after I’d gotten all the white squares on one side of the cube, I had had enough.  “I’m done for now,” I said.

“OK,” Joey said, putting his apple core into his lunch sack and squashing it against the grass.  “Let’s walk over to the HandiMart, I bet we can make it before class starts.”

I glanced at my watch and noticed that we still had about half an hour until class resumed again.  “Let’s do it,” I agreed.

The two of us walked along enjoying the spring breeze and talking about our upcoming summer.  I planned to stay in Des Moines the whole time, house-sit and work for Dr. D.  Joey, on the other hand, was headed to Minnesota in less than two weeks.  He had an internship up there and would be gone for nearly the entire summer; two months.

Two long, long months where he’d have no access to the Internet or email, and a cell phone that was on “Roam” the moment he drove across the Iowa border (and for some reason the cell carrier was called US Cellular…but it seriously only works in Iowa).

This summer would either make it or break it for any potential relationship for the two of us, I could tell that already.  About every other evening, after we’d finally hang up the phone from our hour (or two, or three) long conversations, I’d get cold feet.

You shouldn’t be doing this, I’d say to myself.  You don’t know what you’re doing.

You’re a relationship train wreck; do you want to ruin another one?

He deserves better…not somebody else’s leftovers.

And do you really know him?

Are you sure?

And so on, and so on, and so on.

I was one confused chica.  But there was just something about Joey, something I couldn’t shake off, so I hung in there.  I didn’t want to let go of something that could be fantastic just because I got a case of cold feet.  So every day I went to class and sat with Joey.  We whispered, giggled, passed notes and acted like high schoolers when the professor wasn’t looking.  We ate lunch together.  We talked on the phone all evening.  (It was a good thing I worked for a chiropractor because my neck was so out of alignment from making dinner or trying to fold my laundry with the phone pressed between my ear and shoulder.)

It rained all week.  My lawn was getting entirely out of control; I hadn’t had time to mow it before our summer class began, and it was impossible to mow the lawn and talk on the phone.  So Thursday afternoon, when the sun finally broke hesitantly through the clouds, I passed a note to Joey.

At break I’m leaving – I have to go mow my lawn before I have to haul in a baler to get the thing cut.  It’s so out of control.

Joey wrote back, I’ll come help you, I can run your weed whacker, weren’t you having trouble with it?

I was having trouble with it, now that you mention it.  I smiled secretly and prayed the rain wouldn’t start up again before break; the minutes dragged by like they used to when I was a kid waiting for my birthday.

Finally, we had our bags packed up and had escaped from the classroom.  “Want me to follow you down?” Joey asked.

“Sure, that makes sense,” I said.

Twenty minutes later we were driving up Wright Street.  I glanced at the shabby, broken down houses my neighbors lived in, thankful that my little house at least looked cute.  (It was a fixer-upper that just happened to be in the wrong neighborhood.  One afternoon there was a double stabbing a couple of blocks away.)

I lived in a house that was built in the turn of the century.  It was two stories with a slanting porch painted gray and fantastic wood floors on the first level.  The basement was one of those creepy old Iowa basements that is dark, damp and smells like spiders and mildew.  (I only went down there to do laundry and during tornadoes; the place gave me the willies.)  Upstairs was one larger bedroom, one small one and a slanted crawl space that could have been turned into a bedroom if need be.  I generally stayed out of there too, it was dusty.

My favorite room was the kitchen.  It was big, open and breezy, there were windows on two sides and it had a gas range.  The family who owned the house was in the middle of remodeling it, but I loved to go home in the evenings and invent something fantastic for dinner; it was my first “my” kitchen.

On this particular evening, I was out of groceries but I had a box of Macaroni and Cheese leftover from the semester at college.

“Sorry, all I can feed you is Mac & Cheese,” I told Joey as he stomped up the porch and into my house.

“That’s ok, I love that stuff,” He said.  “I’ll help you make it later.”

I ran upstairs and changed my clothes while Joey rummaged around in the garage to dig out the weed whacker, gas, and lawn mower.  I grabbed the lawn mower and got started while he fiddled with the weed whacker; that thing was acting seriously problematic.

I was half done with the lawn by the time he got the thing to work.  (My sibs and I are all remarkably fast at lawn mowing; when your yard is the size of the one we had to mow growing up you learn to mow extremely fast.)  Forty five minutes from when we started, we had finished the job.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get this done when you’re in Minnesota,” I whined. “I can’t weed whack my way out of a box.”

“It’s not so bad once you get it started,” Joey reassured me.

“That’s just the thing, I can’t get it started.”

Joey gave me a ten minute crash course on starting a weed whacker before I figured it out.  We put the mowing stuff away and went inside to start the macaroni.

“Here, I’ll do it,” Joey said.

I stepped back and watched the master work.  He actually set a timer for eight minutes once the water began to boil (“that’s what it says to do on the box,” he said) and when it went off, he began throwing noodles at my fridge.

“Woah, woah.  What are you even doing?!” I asked, springing forward to pick the two noodles up that had fallen to the floor.

“When the noodles are done they stick to the fridge,” Joey said.

I burst out laughing.  “You seriously test them by throwing it at the fridge?”

“Yeah, what do you do?”

I spear one with a fork and eat it.  But that’s a whole lot less funny than throwing them at the fridge.

Since the noodles hadn’t stuck to the fridge, he let the water boil a few more minutes before trying again.  Sure enough, that noodle stuck to the fridge door like it was glued on.

“Very impressive,” I said, stifling another laugh.

His next move wasn’t quite so smooth.  After draining the water he poured about half a cup of milk into the noodles before I squeaked “STOP!”  (I’m a little bit of a micro-manager in the kitchen, can you tell?)

Joey realized what he did and I could see his mind trying to analyze how to get all the milk out of the pan; he had already added the cheese and butter.

“What in the world were you doing?” I teased him.

“I usually make two boxes at home, which is about two glugs of milk from the jug.”  At least there was method to his madness.  “I forgot we were only making one.”  He stirred the pan and the milk/cheese/butter mixture sloshed around the noodles.  Not a good sign.

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.

To be continued…

preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7

An hour later, my cell phone buzzed on the desk beside me. It was Joey.

“Hi,” he rasped. The cough from earlier sounded like it was turning into a full-fledged cold. He’d probably picked it up running chairs into the soccer field last night.

“Hey, are you expelled?” I asked.

“Nah, they went easy on us. $50 fine each and we have to scrub the mats and all the chairs in the chapel tonight.”

I was so relieved that he wasn’t expelled.

“Well, it could have been a whole lot worse,” I encouraged him.

“Oh, totally. Hey, I’m on my way over to the chapel now to get started, but I’m feeling sick. Do you have any cough drops or anything?” He asked.

My heart flip-flopped. “Sure, I have Halls and stuff. Do you want ibuprofen too?”

“Sure, I’ll take whatever you’ve got,” he replied. “Thanks. I’ll see you in five.”

I perched myself on the window ledge and watched out the window, waiting to see him leave his dorm room and walk across the circle. Sister raised her eyebrows knowingly and plunked down on the floor to study for her Old Testament Prophets exam that was coming up on Monday. She was mumbling something about prophecy and the millennial kingdom when I finally spotted Joey coming across the circle. I flew out of the room, jumping over her and her books without so much as a backward glance.

“Sorry,” I tossed over my shoulder at her, and I thundered down the steps.

Joey looked awful. He clearly should be taking a nap instead of going to scrub chapel mats, but I guess that’s what you get when you pull a prank of that magnitude on President’s Chapel day.

“Here,” I said, handing him a napkin full of medicine and cough drops, “I hope you feel better.”

“Thanks,” he sniffled. “I probably will.”

We chatted for a few minutes, until the cold evening air made Joey’s nose redder than it already was, and I shooed him into the Convocation building to thaw out.

The next day the chairs and mats in the chapel looked exactly the same as they had the day prior. But the guys had cleaned them and paid their $50, so restitution was made. Joey, however, looked miserable.

“I’m going to Wal-Mart after class,” he said, stuffily to me. “Do you need anything?”

I didn’t. Nor did I have any money.

“Yes,” I said, racking my brain to think of what I could possibly “need” that was really cheap between now and when we left for the store.

“OK, I’ll pick you up at 2:30,” he said. “Or do you have to work today?”

“No, I don’t have to work, it’s my day off since I’m doing a Saturday shift.”

“I’ll pick you up in ten, how’s that?”

I ran back upstairs and changed into jeans and a t-shirt and studied until I noticed it was 2:30 and Joey was probably on his way. It was still too cold at the end of April to go without a jacket, so I grabbed my lightweight khaki trench coat from the Gap, still trying to come up with something I needed from Wal-Mart.

Joey drove up to my dorm in a gold Honda Accord. I jumped in and noticed a stuffed cow sitting on the dashboard. Oh no, I wonder if he has a girl he likes who gave him that cow…I wondered.

I decided to be brave.

“Nice cow,” I said, picking it up and shaking it around. It was one of those beanie ones.

“Yeah, my dad got it for me in Atlanta,” he replied.

I smiled broadly but turned my face so Joey couldn’t see me.

“His name is Mr. Milkypants,” he offered, gesturing to the cow.

“I really like cows,” I told him. “I have a collection of them sitting on my desk.”

“Mr. Milkypants is pretty much my only cow,” Joey said. “But they’re still pretty cool.”

I informed Joey that cows are more than just “pretty cool” but they are actually awesome and he would know that if he had ever bottle-fed a calf before, or let a freshly born one suck on his hand. He responded that he would probably never do either of those things because they seemed gross.

“I need peppermint tea,” I said blurted out abruptly.

“Huh?” Joey asked, sliding into a parking spot at Wal-Mart.

“I need peppermint tea from Wal-Mart,” I repeated inanely.

Joey kind of looked at me as if he had just realized that I hadn’t a clue what I needed from Wal-Mart when I got in the car with him. And then he looked pleased with himself.

“Five,” I said, glancing over the top of the car at Joey and slamming my car door, hard.

“Woah, don’t kill the door!” He teased me. Then – “Five what?”

“Five people from school in the store. Five bucks says we see five people we know from school in Wal-Mart.” Joey and I have always been competitive.

“Seven,” he replied. “And you’re on.”

We shook hands on it and I withdrew mine…he gave me tingles.

“I’m pretty sure betting’s against school rules,” I said, Joey was grabbing us a cart. “Is that a Major Violation or a Minor Violation? If you get one more of either you’re totally expelled from school.” The thought of the chair prank made me giggle every time. I couldn’t help myself.

“It’s probably a Minor Violation,” he said. “Oh look, there’s one.” He indicated a couple going through the check out.

“Do couples count as one or two?” I asked.

“Two,” he said. “And I’m going to win.”

We got my peppermint tea from the grocery section and went to the cold aisle to get Joey’s medicine. I talked him into Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges and Emergen-C (to prevent future attacks of illness) and, surprisingly, he threw them in the cart without protest.

He must like me, I thought. That was way too easy.

“Oh.” Joey said, stopping the cart cold in the middle of the main aisle. “I forgot one thing. Shampoo. I’m out of shampoo.”

“OK,” I said, starting into the shampoo aisle.

“I hate that aisle, it makes me nervous.” He was looking pale.

“It’s not so bad,” I said, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the aisle. “Do you like Pantene or L’Oreal?”

“I don’t even know what that stuff is. I usually just get the generic brand,” he admitted.

I rolled my eyes at him, stifled a laugh, and grabbed him a bottle of L’Oreal All-In-One shampoo/conditioner. “Try this.”

Joey didn’t even look at it, he just turned around and raced the cart out of the aisle as quickly as possible.

“You,” I said, “Have problems.”

“None I can’t handle,” he replied.

We spotted three more people from school on our way out of the store and, when we reached the car, I put my hand out. “Pay up,” I said. “You lost.”

He groaned and pulled out five dollars. “Rematch next time, Laird.” He challenged me.

“You’re on,” I said.

He dropped me off at my dorm, five dollars richer and a box of unnecessary peppermint tea poorer.

“You got more tea?” Sister said, noticing what was in my bag.

“I needed an excuse, he asked me if I wanted to go to Wal-Mart and I had to get something to make it look legit,” I admitted.

“You’re weird,” Sister said.

“I know,” I replied.

The next two weeks were a flurry of studying (well, Sister studied and I mostly didn’t – but don’t tell my parents that) and taking final exams (because I couldn’t get out of those). Mom, Dad and The Kid were headed out for the Commencement ceremony, which all students were required to attend on pain of death if they did not, and to take Sister and Andrew home for the summer.

As for myself, they’d move me to Des Moines where I was house sitting. In a bad part of town. By myself. Because I’m full of great ideas.

An hour before Mom and Dad arrived, Sister and I were packing the last of our clothes into our laundry baskets and trying to find the skirts and stockings we’d set aside to wear to Commencement. Somehow they had gotten lost which, when one looked at the state of our room, was not a great surprise.

Dad called to give us the “I’m five minutes out” warning (no boys allowed in the dorms, Dads included, until after Commencement, at which time they were allowed to help move us girls out) and we grabbed our notebooks, gum and colored pens to take with us. I grabbed a couple of little containers of Play-Doh which I had bought on a previous Wal-Mart run with Joey and planned to sneak into Commencement (which gets extremely long) as a diversion.

“All set?” Sister asked.

“All set,” I replied, showing the Play-Doh and notebooks. She held up the pens and mints. (Dad always, always wants mints during church or anything that requires him to sit for a long time.) We Laird girls are always thinking.

Mom, Dad and The Kid were waiting for us at the door when we came down. Andrew was graduating from the one-year Bible program, so he was off getting his graduation dress on (at least that’s what I called it, just to make him mad) and we wanted to get good seats so we could make faces at him as he walked across the podium. (Some things never change.)

As we walked into the chapel, Mom and Dad fell in step behind us while Sister and I flanked The Kid and linked arms with him. We showed The Kid the Play-Doh and his eyes widened. “Ohhhh!” he said. “Yes.”

Dad found us a row of seats and we plopped down. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Joey a few rows in front of us. He was wearing a tuxedo (he was all dressed up because he was playing his saxophone as part of the Commencement ceremony) and a black felt bowler hat, which he was rolling up and down his arms, flipping in the air and catching on his head. Standing next to him was a cute older lady who giggled as he flipped the hat off his fingertips and plopped it right on her head.

“Mom,” I whispered, leaning over, “That’s Joey.” I had mentioned him once or twice before.

Mom followed my gaze and noticed Joey goofing around. “Who’s that lady?” She asked.

“That’s his grandma,” I replied.

“How nice,” Mom said, smiling.

Joey noticed us watching him. He smiled and waved, twirling his black bowler hat.

“He has lots of unique talents,” I said to Mom. “He can juggle. And solve a Rubik’s cube really, really fast.”

Mom didn’t appear so impressed by that as she was by the fact he was playing with his grandma, who was still giggling and laughing at his antics.

“He seems very nice,” Mom said.

“He is very nice,” I replied.

I sat back in my black plastic, uncomfortable chapel chair and was pleased. My reverie did not last long, however.

“Got any mints?” Dad asked, leaning across mom and reaching his hand toward Sister and I, exactly the same way he does it when we’re in church.

“Where’s that Play-Doh?” The Kid demanded. He jabbed me in the ribs with his bony elbow repeatedly until I produced the demanded Play-Doh.

Commencement was about to begin.

Several hours, and an intense back ache, later, Andrew had gotten his diploma. We were all in one of the classrooms at a graduates reception, buzzing around him, blowing his tassel in his face and making comments about how nice his dress looked. Poor Andrew.

Glancing at his watch, Dad noticed it was getting on time to load the van so they could head back to Cedar Rapids. Andrew turned his robes back in and he, Dad and The Kid walked jovially over to the dorms to get his stuff together. Mom, Sister and I went to our dorm room to the do the same.

(Joey tells me that, as Dad, Andrew and The Kid were carrying Andrew’s boxes to the van, he rode past them on his unicycle and volunteered his help since they were my family members. Pops however, replied, “Nah, we’ve got it. Thanks.” So Joey rode off.)

We ate dinner at one of the restaurants near the freeway, and within no time at all, my family was on the road again…headed back home. Three days later I was settled into my little house on the wrong side of the tracks down on the east side of Des Moines. In no time at all I had learned how to lock (and double lock) all the doors in the house, and where the safest spot was to park my car. I was starting to figure out which side streets were OK to go for walks on and which were a bad idea.

My summer class began the following Monday. I had high expectations of it being very boring indeed, but the class’ one redeeming factor was that I was taking it with Joey. We had a deal, though, he and I. We each bought a 12 pack of Mountain Dew and planned to sit together for the duration of the entire week long class (which went from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday) and keep each other awake.

Let it be said here that I have never fallen asleep in class. (Joey, on the other hand…)

On Sunday evening around 8:30, the night before our class started, I was at home by myself laying on my couch watching TV. I had all the curtains pulled tight and was hoping the neighbors couldn’t see that I was home alone; I was more jumpy than a fainting goat.

Suddenly, the house phone rang and I jumped.

“Oh my gosh, calm down!” I told myself. I got off the couch and went over to pick up the phone.

“Hello?” I said.

“I just got off work and we’re going to Chinese; are you hungry?” It was Joey.

“I could eat something,” I said.

“I’ll be over to pick you up in just a few minutes.”

“No problem, I’ll see you in a few,” I said, panicking instantly. I dashed upstairs and went through three outfits before I found one that I felt like wearing and then ran back downstairs, being careful not to trip, to re-apply the makeup I had just taken off an hour before.

I was sitting on the couch like nothing had happened when Joey pulled up and knocked on my front door ten minutes later.

We got into Joey’s car and drove all over the place trying to find a Samurai Sam’s that was open. (This was back when gas was still “cheap”.) Pretty much every Chinese restaurant in Iowa closes at 9:00 on Sunday nights, so by the time we’d pull up their lights would just be going out.

We wound up at Taco John’s.

Joey ordered four tacos, I ordered two and we split an order of Potato Ole’s. We sat in a booth with about twenty packets of different kinds of hot sauces, putting different ones on different parts of the tacos to see which ones we liked best. I sat with my feet up on his side of the booth and, every so often when I’d say something irritating, he’d give my feet a little shove.

Flirting, I tell you what.

An hour later we had closed down Taco John’s. “Did you get your Mountain Dew yet for tomorrow?” Joey asked.

“Oh my gosh, no I had forgotten!” I said. It was so convenient that I had. He didn’t have to take me home for a little bit yet.

“Let’s stop at Wal-Mart before I take you home, then,” Joey said, and he pulled into the parking lot. “Eight,” he said, right before we walked in the store.

Oh yeah…our little Wal-Mart game to see how many people from school we could spot in the store.

“Four,” I said.

Five bucks was our agreed upon amount again, and we blazed into the store with eagle eyes…neither one of us really likes to lose.

First stop: soda aisle. (Or, the pop aisle if you live in Iowa, and we definitely did back then.)

I prefer Code Red Mountain Dew if I’m going to drink it, Joey is a purist and likes the “real” kind. But, because he was trying to impress this girl he liked, he threw an entire 24 pack of Code Red into the cart at Wal-Mart. (It would be many more months before I discovered just how much he doesn’t like Code Red.)

We meandered through the aisles of Wal-Mart, pointing and giggling as we spotted people from school. In no time at all we had seen five classmates and I had lost. I kept trying to distract Joey from noticing others, and I directed him into the toy aisle.

“What’s that thing you can solve really fast?” I asked.

“Oh, a Rubik’s cube?” Joey said.

“That. Can you teach me how?” I asked.

I was totally flirting again. I didn’t care how to solve a Rubik’s cube any more than I care about geometry theorems, but it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get Joey to hang out with me more.

“Of course I can teach you,” Joey said. I thought I noticed his head inflate a little bit.

He stopped in front of the Rubik’s cube display and pulled one down, throwing it in the cart. “You need one to work on over the summer,” he said.

“Can’t I just borrow one of yours?” I asked. He had just told me the day before that he had five at school and an entire box at his parents’ house.

“No, most of them are worn out. You need your own,” He insisted.

“Wait, they’re worn out but you still keep them?” I said. (I have this problem with getting rid of stuff that hasn’t been used in six months…)

“Each one is different!” He defended himself. “Oh, there are three more people from school. I win.”

I dug five dollars out of my pocket and handed it to him, he, in turn, bought my Rubik’s cube.

“Your first lesson is tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll come over after class, before I go to work.”

I was pulling it out of its packaging, which I stuffed in a trash can we walked past on the way to the car, and twisting it around to mix it up.

“Sounds good. I’ll be home all evening. Oh, while you’re over do you think you could look at my weed whacker? I couldn’t get it start last time I tried. The neighbors will probably start gossiping about the state of my yard if I don’t do something about it soon.”

“No problem. Are you sure it has gas in it?”

“I know how to use a weed whacker,” I deadpanned. “You just watch it or I’ll use it on you.”

In no time at all Joey had dropped me back off at my little beige house on the east side of Des Moines. He waited until he saw that I was inside, with the door shut and locked tightly behind me, before pulling out into the dark.

I climbed the steep steps to my room and went through all of my clothes three times trying to find the best outfit to wear to the first day of our summer class. We were planning to sit together so I had to look my best.

To be continued…

preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6

“I’ll talk to you later,” he had 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.

The next day was Wednesday. Sister and I skipped our first class together, as we sometimes did, and got ready for chapel in a sort of lazy fashion. We usually dreaded Wednesday chapel because it was President’s chapel. That normally meant that it had the potential to be either:

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…

 

previously…  preface part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4

I was discussing my problem with Sister, who suggested I call our mom to see if she’d let Alex, our youngest brother whom we mostly refer to as The Kid, go with me.

I thought it was an awesome idea.

So did Mom.

It was decided. My date to my senior Spring Banquet was to be my youngest brother. For the first time all year, I was excited about Spring Banquet.

Wisdom would, perhaps, have whispered in my ear to exercise caution, but I couldn’t help myself. Joey was so dang funny. And easy to talk to. And nice. He was respectful, smart and had the strangest hobbies. He was, in short, fascinating.

I really tried to keep my distance. I had, after all, just come off a breakup and didn’t want to be using Joey as a rebound, he was too special for that. So I prayed a lot. I talked to my mom. And I spent more time chatting online with Joey than prudence would recommend.

Thursday before Spring Banquet was one such evening. It was 11:00 and I had homework to do, but…Joey kept chatting with me. And I wasn’t exactly signing off. Somehow the topic of Spring Banquet came up.

You should come with us, I suggested. It’s going to be me, Sister, Andrew, Laura, Stephen, our little brother, and maybe somebody else.

I don’t think I can, I have to edit this video for Matt. He said, lamely.

Whatever, you’ve never even gone to a Spring Banquet, I prodded.

He wouldn’t agree to come with us, but he did say he’d stop by later when Jamie and I were putting together centerpieces the next evening. I glanced at the clock and realized I had probably better use my head, so I said goodnight to Joey and tried to finish my homework. It was tough.

Jamie and I spent the entirety of the next afternoon going to Michael’s, picking up last minute supplies, and counting mirrors.

“I cannot believe we agreed to do this,” she said, as we were hauling a large silk tree into one of the school vans.

“I can’t either….three more days and then we are never serving on student government again,” I concurred. Jamie was the secretary and I was the treasurer. X, of course, was the president. Poor Jamie…stuck in the middle of the war.

We shoved the tree in the van haphazardly, then started walking back to the classroom we had taken over for the afternoon. It was covered in centerpiece mirrors, fishbowl things, and floating candles.

“Holy cows, what is that?” I asked. Someone was riding a unicycle across the circle toward us.

“Oh, that’s Joey,” Jamie said.

“Oh, of course it is,” I said, still gawking. I hadn’t actually ever seen him do it, he’d just mentioned it in one of our five hour conversations on the internet.

“Yeah, he and Joel both do it. Haven’t you ever seen them in the gym?” She asked.

Somehow I had not. I was still standing there looking shocked when Joey rode up, hopped off his unicycle, and grinned at me.

“Hi!” he said.

“Hi,” I replied. I tried to think of something witty and charming to say and I came up entirely blank.

Jamie took charge.

“We’re working on centerpieces. Come help us,” she said.

Joey, to my great amazement, fell in step beside me as we walked into centerpiece central. We had a video playing on the classroom TV, Toy Story I think, and put Joey to work cutting out stars. I then covered the stars with foil. For the next hour and a half we talked and laughed until our stomachs hurt.

“Hey, Jenna, help me take this outside,” Jamie said, indicating several full boxes.

I hefted one and the two of us walked outside.

“What is going on?” Jamie whispered.

“What?” I played dumb.

“You…Joey?”

“Oh. Well, OK, fine, I have a crush on him,” I admitted.

Jamie laughed. I was not expecting that. “I think you two would be good together,” she surprised me by saying.

“Well, we’ll see…it’s still early,” I said. I was being super, super cautious, it hadn’t been very long since I had called it quits with X, I wanted to be careful. My heart had moved on months before I handed the ring back and I couldn’t shake the attraction I felt to Joey. He was just…perfect. And I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him.

Jamie and I walked back into the classroom and found Joey right where we’d left him, cutting stars out of cardboard. He glanced up when he noticed me and gave me a big, heart-stopping smile. I smiled right back.

Then he glanced at the clock.

“Nuts, I gotta get to work on that video,” He said, standing up and picking his unicycle up off the floor.

“Thanks for helping us,” Jamie said, giving me one of those raised-eyebrows looks behind Joey’s back.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Joey said to me, then hopped on his unicycle and rode off.

“I have never seen him act that way before,” Jamie said. “Never.” And she hung out with Joey a whole lot more than I ever did. I sat and stared out the window as he rode away until he was out of sight.

I really needed to get myself figured out before I did something I wasn’t planning to do.

Jamie and I finished up the centerpieces and decorations by 7:30. The vans were loaded and we were exhausted. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jamie said.

“Early tomorrow,” I concurred. Blech. Early.

We dragged ourselves off to our respective rooms. When I went inside, Sister was sitting at her computer, typing away to somebody.

“I am so tired.” I moaned and collapsed on the floor. I really like laying on the floor. Always have. (The sibs call me a “floorist”, and with good reason.)

“Mom says Alex is coming tomorrow morning,” she told me. “And did you get your dress approved yet?”

Stupid dress approval process. “No, I didn’t. Thanks for reminding me.” I got up off the floor, put my dress on, looking it over carefully to ensure that no straps were visible at all, anywhere, finally having Sister do some fancy safety-pinning. (I hoped nobody would notice the safety-pinning, because that was against the rules too. It had to be completely normal.)

By sheer luck, my dress passed inspection. I stood there with my arms spread out from my sides while the RAs eyed from every imaginable angle, looking for the abominable straps of course, and then kneeled when they told me to so they could ensure that nothing was visible from above.

Glad that was over, I swooshed back to my room. I sat down in my desk chair, still wearing my lovely midnight-blue gown, and noticed that Joey was online.

I just passed dress inspection. You should come with us, you would have fun…. I flirted.

Can’t, I have to finish editing this video, he replied, it has to be done by Monday and I’m not even halfway there. I even had to skip dinner to work on it.

Oh, well I have stuff for a PB&J sandwich, want me to bring you one?

Sure! I’m at Joel’s. It’s 3351 NW 4^th, almost on the corner with Arlan.

I’ll be over in 10 minutes, I typed.

“Hey, I’m gonna run over and take a sandwich to Joey,” I yelled to Sister. She was in the bathroom, sitting on the counter and plucking her eyebrows.

“Sure…” she said absentmindedly. She never pays attention to me when she plucks her eyebrows.

I changed out of my dress and back into jeans and a t-shirt. I slapped together a sandwich, wrapped it in a paper towel, and headed out the door. It was getting dark. I glanced at my watch, and noticed that it was now 8:30. Two hours before curfew, I was safe.

I knocked on Joel’s door a few moments later. He was surprised to see me, and I didn’t really blame him. Last year he had been roommates with X, but he was friends with both X and Joey.

“Hi,” I said tentatively. “I brought this sandwich for Joey.”

“Oh, he’s upstairs. I’ll show you,” Joel said, leading me into what was a very obvious bachelor pad. The cream colored carpet on the stairs had gray fuzz growing on the crevasses and lots of brown mud stains here and there. There was an empty Papa John’s box at the top of the stairs. It was slightly open and the leftover jalapeno was looking dried out, like it had been there awhile.

“She’s here,” Joel yelled as we turned a corner. There sat Joey at Joel’s Mac, doing his video-editing thing. It was pretty much the first Mac I had ever seen, and I thought it was super amazing that Joey knew how to make the thing work in the first place, much less edit a video on it.

“I hope you like strawberry,” I said, holding out the sandwich wrapped in a paper towel.

Joey smiled, took it from me, and started eating. “It’s really good,” he complimented me. I knew he was runnin’ me a line, is it even possible to mess up PB&J?

“Thanks,” I said. “What are you doing?”

Joey explained to me that he was editing a video for Student Movie Night or something like that, a bunch of guys had written a script, he had helped film it and was now doing the editing. (Some things never change, right?)

I stayed there and watched for an hour and a half, until I started to yawn. “Oh my gosh, it’s almost curfew. I better get going,” I stood up and stretched.

“I’ll walk you back, it’s dark out,” Joey said. He brushed PB&J crumbs off his lap as he unfolded himself from behind the computer desk.

“You really don’t have to, it’s—”

He wouldn’t hear my protests, though, and before I knew it the two of us were walking back towards my dorm. He kept saying the funniest things and my laugher rang out over the quiet campus. It felt so good to laugh again, especially with somebody as easy to talk to as him.

We walked under a street lamp, not unlike the one I very nearly crashed into riding Joey’s bike all those months earlier, and as we passed through the light I noticed X sitting on a bench several yards away, watching the two of us. I shook my head slowly at him, and turned my attention back to Joey.

Awkward. But then, it was a small school.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us tomorrow night?” I asked one last time as we stopped outside my door. “It might even be fun.”

I was undeniably attracted to him and I was looking for opportunities to see how he interacted with people when he let his hair down. There were some mistakes I didn’t want to make twice.

“I really have to finish this video, they’re showing it next weekend and I have to work so much this next week, plus with all those end of semester papers…I just don’t have time. I have to edit for the next two days or I won’t get it done.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed his foot on the cement.

“Well, we’ll probably have more fun than you do,” I said. “Thanks for walking me back.”

He turned back towards Joel’s.

“Isn’t that the wrong way? Your dorm’s over there,” I indicated the opposite direction.

“I have to go do more editing tonight, I probably will head home later,” He said. He smiled and did that Top Gun wave thing again as he walked backwards away from my dorm.

I floated inside and up the stairs. He had walked me home and it wasn’t even on his way! I dropped in my desk chair and announced to Sister, who was laying on her bed, “I like Joey.”

“Oh good. He’s nice.” She was totally unfazed, clearly she already knew what was going on. Sisters are like that, I think.

“Wrong; you’re supposed to tell me I’m not allowed to have any crushes because I apparently don’t have a very good track record and because of said track record I just had a messy break up…or something,” I whined.

“I’m not telling you that. You did just have a breakup, but it, like, was six months overdue because you’re chicken.”

“Point taken,” I said.

“So, major topic shift, what should we do with our hair tomorrow night?” She asked, rolling off her bed and onto the floor by my desk. I hate doing my hair and I always have, but anything’s more fun with Sister. Two hours later, we had ourselves made up, styled, and decided that we were quite ready to suffer through whatever Spring Banquet brought this year. 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.

To Be Continued…

need to catch up?  preface part 1 part 2 part 3

“You need to break it off.” Dad had repeated.

And suddenly I felt free. For the first time in two years.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said.

Easter Sunday dawned bright and beautiful. I dressed for church, putting on my brand-new Easter dress (a family tradition…actually, I still get an Easter dress every year) and, for the last time, I put on that sterling silver ring. Oddly, it didn’t feel as heavy this time.

I couldn’t wait to go back to school that afternoon.

On the way back to school, I told Andrew and Sister about my conversation with Dad. I told them what I had resolved to do. They were deliciously supportive.

At 7:00, after I was resettled into my dorm room, I made the phone call.

“X, I need to meet you in the circle,” I said. I tried to sound normal.

He agreed, and five minutes later, I saw him walking toward me. I twisted the ring off my left hand and held it so tightly that it left marks on my palm.

I held the ring out in my right hand. “I am giving this back to you,” I said. “We’re done.”

I don’t think he’d been expecting it, but also I don’t think it was very much a surprise. He accepted the ring without saying anything.

“Are you sure?” He asked, finally, as he stuffed the ring in his pocket.

“I’m sure. I’m going to leave now,” I said.

I turned around and walked back to my dorm. I ran upstairs, burst into my dorm room and said, “I BROKE UP WITH HIM!” Sister screamed, we called Andrew and the three of us went out for McFlurries to celebrate. (I have to say, this was the only breakup I ever celebrated.) I shook the entire time we were at McDonald’s, which makes it very difficult to eat an M&M McFlurry.

The three of us came back, sated with ice cream, and I finally stopped shaking. I collapsed into my desk chair and started deleting everything X related on my computer, screen names, emails, you name it. I went through and blocked him on all my messengers, and it was then that I realized…I could unblock Joey again.

That guy must think I am such a nutcase; I have blown him off so many times, I thought. I’m probably not worth it.

But I unblocked Joey nonetheless. And, somehow, within thirty minutes of the aforementioned unblocking, he had initiated a conversation with me. I couldn’t believe I was talking to the boy I had secretly had a crush on for, like, four months…I subtly managed to mention that I had broken up with X. For good. Joey was nonchalant, and I stressed myself out over whether the nonchalance was a good or bad thing.

In the course of our conversation, I foolishly mentioned that I had gotten a cavity drilled on the previous Friday afternoon and that the Novocain had deadened the left side of my face for hours, way worse than normal. And I don’t even know why I told him that Sister had taken a picture. Naturally, Joey wanted to see it.

He had me giggling in my desk chair before I knew it, we were sending pictures back and forth like adolescents who met in a chat room on the internet while their parents weren’t looking.

Jamie called just then.

“Um, hi…did you break up with X?” she asked.

“Oh.My.Gosh. The grapevine in this school is way too short. Yes, I broke up with him about an hour and a half ago,” I said.

Jamie got very quiet. “That’s odd…”

“Why?” I demanded.

“He asked one of the girls on my floor to Spring Banquet last Friday…so I thought maybe you broke up last week.”

“No…no, I definitely broke up with him just this evening,” I said. “It’s clearly a good thing I did, too, because I wonder how he planned to explain that one to me.” I asked.

And it was then that realized how truly glad that I was free. I just had one more thing I needed to do.

The next day, Sister and I skipped chapel and went to Great Clips.

“Cut it all off,” I said. “All off.”

The stylist looked at my hair. I hadn’t cut it in almost two years, so it was mid-back. And I had no bangs. It looked horrible…blah, unattractive, and just plain nasty.

“Are you sure?” She asked me.

“I hate this hair. I have hated it for as long as I’ve had it, cut it all off.” I insisted. I’ve been a short-hair girl my entire life and the long hair had been driving me crazy. I hate it when it touches my shoulders, gets stuck in my shirt, or flips up inside my collar. Plus I look like a monk with a skullcap when I have long hair, no bangs, and I pull it back in a ponytail…it’s not pretty, friends. (As I’m sure you observed in the Novocain picture.)

Sister sat in the chair next to me and cheered me on. The first thick, long lock fell to the floor and I squealed with delight.

“This,” I said to Sister, “Is my Freedom Cut.”

And I loved it. It was just above my shoulders and flipped out a bit on the bottom. It was tastefully layered; I’d found a similar style in a magazine on Julia Stiles and I thought she looked super cute.

I walked out of Great Clips a new person. Sister and I went back to our dorm room, put our skirts and stockings back on (we had changed into normal clothes for the haircut) and went over to get lunch from the cafeteria. I saw X as I was walking in, he was going out. He looked truly startled when he saw my short hair, and I stared at him until he grew uncomfortable he looked away.

The first meeting was over.

I took a deep breath and continued into the cafeteria. I had avoided that place like the plague for the last six months, not being able to bear the fact that X never saved me a spot and when I’d try to sit with another group of people and X was there, I had this uncomfortable feeling that people were staring and gossiping. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but I had convinced myself, so I had given up eating there unless I knew Sister or Andrew was going to be there also, they always had my back.

Now, though, I didn’t even care what anybody said about me anymore. I pulled open the door and walked inside.

“Woah, you cut your hair,” was the first thing I heard. I glanced up. It was Joey.

“Yeah, I did,” I said, shyly.

“It looks great,” he said, and shot me his million-dollar smile, did this Tom Cruise wave-thing from Top Gun (one of my favorite movies), and walked out the door.

My heart did flip-flops. I told it to stop, that it was highly inappropriate to be flirting this close to a break up and that I should exhibit some decency. I was having a hard time convincing myself.

That evening, I went to the mall. I bought red lip gloss, two pink shirts, an above-the-knee jean skirt (SCANDAL!), dark brown eyeliner and someeyeshadow. I looked like a new woman. Heck, I was a new woman.

Breakup or not, though, I was still dateless for Spring Banquet and it was only two weeks away. And I had that great dress. Andrew was going with Laura, his girlfriend, Sister was planning to go with her friend Stephen. I was discussing my problem with Sister, who suggested I call The Kid to see if he’d go with me. He could come ride out and back with Laura and stay with Andrew in his dorm room.

I thought it was an awesome idea.

So did Mom when I called her to ask her if she’d mail him over to me in time for next Saturday.

And, thus, it was decided. My date to my senior Spring Banquet was to be my fifteen year old baby brother. For the first time all year, I was excited about Spring Banquet.

To be continued…