Do-Overs (24 page)

-61-

1820 Minutes Or 109,200 Seconds

Neither Long Enough

“You’ve been jumpy all week. Is something wrong?” Al asked and not for the first time. I wouldn’t say I had been classified as jumpy. I had been a total basket case. There was a war going on in my head. It was less than three weeks until summer break. The only guy I had ever loved was going to drop a bomb shell on me on Saturday and I was terrified of losing him, but also terrified that I’d lose myself if I did something I wasn’t ready for. Yeah, I was a little jumpy.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just stressed about finals and summer.”

He kissed my cheek. “We need to talk about summer. I’ve decided. . . oops there’s my phone,” he said as the theme from
Indiana Jones
began to play. “Excuse me, I need to take this one.” He answered his phone and then stepped away leaving me sitting alone on the steps of my dorm. Summer was coming and we hadn’t either one acknowledged that we were going to be apart for three months. We also hadn’t acknowledged exactly what sort of item we were. I missed middle school when you could have your best friend ask if a boy wanted to be your boyfriend or not. Life was easier then, when there was an intermediary person to clarify relationships. Grown-up relationships were so much more complicated. Al Dansby returned from his call and kissed me. Then again grown-up relationships were a lot nicer, much better than kicking a boy in the shins.

“Sorry to be interrupted,” he apologized again for the phone call. Another thing about Al that I loved, I came before his phone—most of the time. “That was my advisor. He wanted to move our meeting up to,” he glanced at the clock on his phone, “um, now. I gotta go, so sorry. But I’ll see you tomorrow evening. Six o’clock. Don’t worry. I got it all planned. Are you ready for the ‘main event?’” he asked with a devilish smile. My stomach dropped to my knees. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so good. Are you getting sick?”

I lied. “I’m fine. Skipped lunch.” He should have known I was lying as I had a ketchup stain on my shirt. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I stood and hugged him tightly as if we were going to be parted for months rather than twenty-seven hours, not that I was counting, of course.

Twenty-seven hours to make one of the biggest decisions of my life.

-62-

It Wasn’t Supposed

To End This Way

“You know you could be wrong,” Stina counseled sitting on the end of my bed that was covered in discarded outfits. Two of my twenty-seven hours of dilemma had been spent trying to find just that right look that said both come hither and stay back at the same time.

“Stina could be right. Probably not, but she could be,” Olivia added moving some clothing so she could sit on Stina’s bed. Many fashion options had been analyzed for this momentous occasion.

“Either way, he loves you. Tell him how you feel. How you truly feel. If he loves you—which we all know he does, he looks at you like a sick puppy all the time—he’ll understand,” said Rachel in her true counselor mode. “The main thing is make sure you know what you want.”

“Guys all want the same thing,” Olivia said, bitterness seeping through.

Stina shook her head no. “Not always, Olivia. There are wonderful, decent guys out there.” Hearts were floating over Stina’s head. She’d been that way ever since the ski trip. And thankfully, Jason had followed through. He had called. He had texted. He had even driven over on the weekends to see her. It was a first for him. Maybe a last, as things seemed to be getting serious. I wondered how soon we would be having this same conversation again about the two of them. The ultimate awkward would be a discussion about my brother, his girlfriend, and their sex life. It would be just one step down from walking in on your own parents doing it.

My phone buzzed. “Well, he’s here. Wish me luck, or is it break a leg?” I asked. I received hugs and last minute advice. I felt as if I was going off for battle rather than a date.

“Be sure to take your eraser. Just in case you need a speedy exit,” Olivia whispered in my ear as it came her turn to hug me. “Just in case.”

There he stood in the foyer, his back to me as I came up the stairs. As he turned his face lit up. All the worrying I had done seemed so silly. This guy loved me. He really did. And loving me as he did, he would want me to be happy.

“You look magnificent,” he said as he walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek. “Are you ready for a life changing evening?”

I nodded yes with no confidence at all.

He loved me. Right?

We walked to his car. Al was in a euphoric mood. I was terrified. I had every thing I wanted in him except for commitment. Could I stand to risk losing him? Could I live with myself if I did something I wasn’t ready for?

He opened the door to his little red car and helped me in. It was a top-down kind of night. The car I mean, not me. Or maybe for me to? That decision still had to be made. “You forgot your seatbelt, again,” I said, as he started the car, hoping to sound normal. I reached across his chest, lingering there for a moment, then pulled the strap and buckled it. And we were off.

“So where are you taking me? You’ve driven me crazy all week. Are we off to the city?”

“Nope,” was all he said.

“Here in town?”

“Yep.”

“Please tell me.”

He turned the corner and then turned to me. “Someplace I’ve never taken a date, with a chef that has never cooked before.”

I felt like I was talking to the sphinx. What kind of answer was that?

He turned into a residential section. I shouldn’t have known where we were going, but due to our former ninja stalking skills it all started to become clear. We were off to his condo.

“Your house,” I guessed.

“Right,” he said delighted. “I’m making you dinner. Impressed?”

“I didn’t know that you cooked.”

“I don’t. But I got a little help here and there. Then I called my dad. He walked me through it. Viola, I figured out how to make spaghetti. You do like spaghetti, don’t you? I never thought of it until just now. I’ve never seen you eat it, but for some reason when I thought of cooking for you, it was what I thought of first.” He was so proud of his accomplishment he seemed to be babbling. That was good, as I couldn’t think of two words to put together.

“So is that the main event?” Maybe I had been worried for nothing.

Al just smiled. “That’s for after dinner. You have to wait.”

We pulled in to a lovely duplex. At any other time, I would have oohed and aahed over the magazine perfect landscaping and architecture. It wasn’t your typical college student housing. I hadn’t really ever consciously thought about it, but nothing about Al Dansby was typical college student.

“My dad thought that investing was wiser than renting since I was going to be here for four years. So we bought this duplex. I use one side and rent the other to a really nice couple.” Yes, he was babbling.

We entered through the garage. It wasn’t the bachelor pad I expected. Everything was new, top of the line and clean. Except the kitchen. There were pots and pans everywhere, spaghetti sauce on the stovetop, the counter and the backsplash. “Sorry about the mess. I didn’t know spaghetti sauce could be so violent. I had to call my dad again and he said to use a lid,” he confessed. “Never thought about a lid.” He laughed at himself.

We moved through the war zone into the open living room/dining area. The table was set with matching plates and flowers. As Al lit the candelabra on the table, I could see that his hand was shaking. Whatever the main event turned out to be, it seemed to be making him almost as nervous as it was making me.

Suddenly he blew out the match and pulled me to him. “Lottie, I had this all so planned out. I tried so many different ways to say it, rehearsed just like a play. I even worked on my blocking, trying different entrances and speeches. Life is so much easier in a play. The author has given you all the perfect lines at just the right timing to say things so eloquently. But, I can’t endure all of Act I tonight waiting for Act II. I can’t wait. I can’t sit here and try to eat when all the while you’re right there and . . .” He stopped talking for a second. It was like he had lost his place in the script and was trying to remember. He took a deep breath and started again.

“Lottie Lambert, I know we haven’t actually known each other that long. But, I’ve just felt, known, was sure from the first moment I talked to you, that you were special. I’d heard of love at first sight, but thought it was a fantasy, that was until I saw you. So, we’ve been dating three months,”

“Seventy-Five days,” I interrupted.

“Seventy-five days,” he corrected himself. “And they’ve all been wonderful. But, Lottie, I can’t wait any longer. This relationship has to move to the next level.”

There it was. How could it possibly be, but it was. Did guys have a phrase book that they studied in how to pressure a girl? ‘This relationship has to move to the next level!’ was word for word the same as the ex at OU. I was crushed. I was devastated. I needed time to process. I was crying. I was leaving. Out came my eraser. My salvation. And with a sob, and a wave of my hand, I was back in my room listening to my phone buzz.

“I can’t go.” Two sets of stunned eyes looked at me. Olivia’s eyes were wiser.

“Can’t go or already been?” she asked obviously making no sense to the others.

I gave her a simple nod as the tears came.

“I’ll go make an excuse for you,” came her reply. Stina and Rachel started to object, but Olivia took charge. “Let her be. She knows what she’s doing. We’ll work through this. But right now, just let her be.” With that Olivia left the room to go tell Al Dansby, the man of my dreams, that the main event was off.

-63-

Death Doesn’t Give A Do-Over

Someone was pounding on my door. I had locked my dorm room door, something I had never done in all my time at Asbury Hall. I just wanted to be left completely alone for a few minutes or days. My heart was broken. I needed time to work things out. My logical mind knew that Al and I would find a way to sort things out. I loved Al and he loved me. But it had hurt so badly to be given the same tired line again, just by a different man. I needed time to absorb it. I probably was making too much out of some simple words. By morning I’d feel better. Olivia had told him I had a stomach virus. That had bought me some time to think. But not enough time. Al had called, but I refused to answer the phone. I didn’t know what to say or do, so avoidance seemed my best bet.

Still someone was pounding on the door. And on the adjoining bathroom door.

“Lottie, open up.”

“I don’t have my key. We never lock the door,” I could hear Stina say to someone else behind the door.

“Lottie, open up now!” shouted Olivia. “It’s an emergency!”

I jumped up and ran to the door. There was hysteria in Olivia’s voice and I knew something was wrong, as she wasn’t that good of an actor.

“A wreck. He had a wreck!” Information was coming at me from all sides. But nothing was making sense.

Rachel took charge. “Sit down. I need you to listen closely. Al has been in a bad wreck. We don’t know any details yet.”

I didn’t sit. Instead, I grabbed my purse and keys and ran for the door. “Where? When?”

“I’ll drive,” Rachel said.

We piled into da Godmother with none of the joy of previous trips. All our other problems had become trivial as we faced the reality of life and death. Olivia was shouting directions and Rachel was driving like a possessed woman. I sat in the middle row waving that horrid eraser for all I was worth. Nothing changed. I was in the middle of a do-over so nothing could change.

The accident scene was impossible to miss. The beauty of an Oklahoma sunset was being decimated by the flashing of the emergency lights on multiple police cars and fire trucks that lined the road. An unused ambulance sat idle as the paramedics watched uselessly.

Rounding the corner, I jumped from the van before it was completely stopped. Police and official people of all types were loading a body on to the Lifeflight helicopter. That wasn’t a good sign. I ran for him, but a police officer held me back. I tried to explain, but she wouldn’t let me get closer.

“Hon, they won’t let you go on the flight. They’re taking him to the hospital in Oklahoma City where they have a better trauma unit. He’s bad off. Didn’t have his seatbelt on, so he was thrown from the car.”

By then my suitemates had caught up with me.

“Can’t I please, please just talk to him,” I was begging.

“Hon,” she said in her mother voice, not her cop one, “he can’t hear you. He’s in real bad shape. Are these your friends?” I just stared. “Girls, you can drive over and meet him at the hospital in the City.” She gave Rachel all the details. I couldn’t focus on what she was saying. The helicopter was leaving. And it was all my fault. He’d been upset because I stood him up. He’d been thrown from the car, because I wasn’t there to remind him to put on his seatbelt. Al Dansby was in a helicopter being rushed to the hospital all because I couldn’t face life’s decision and work things out instead of always wanting to run away and look for the easy solution in a do-over.

Death didn’t give do-overs. I prayed with everything in me that Al would make it. I bargained with God. Just let him make it and I would get rid of that abhorrent eraser. Just let him live and I’d grow-up and face life instead of looking for the easy out. Just let him live.