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Our Story, Part 2: In which we date but say we're not, and then I do something really stupid
2 comments Posted by Lala at 1:29 PMOur story picks up in 2002, when I was a senior in high school and Michael was a college freshman. I occasionally would see him on instant messenger, but honestly he wasn't really on my radar since he was A) dating someone else, and B) away at college. You could say we were casual acquaintances. Every year, our high school's AP English teacher would take her class on a field trip to the UNCC campus library to do term paper research in a college setting. I was doing my term paper on Hamlet (which I still can't bring myself to read or watch an adaptation of to this day, ten years later). My classmates and I piled on the bus for the hour-long drive to Charlotte. Once we got settled in at the library, my dear, over-achieving friend Joanna (remember her from the last post? The aspiring Star Wars fan?) gathered a hefty stack of "college books" that she wanted to take home and read. Unfortunately, not being a student, that wasn't going to happen. She was bummed, so she started asking around if anyone knew any UNCC student that might be willing to check out her books for her. Michael immediately popped into my head, and I told her I'd check online to see if he was around. He was. I struck up a conversation, told him we were at the library, and asked if he'd be willing to come check out Joanna's books. He of course said yes and jogged over to the library to meet us. After he made Joanna's day by checking out her books, he sat down in the library to chat. We fell into easy conversation like old friends, which has always been one thing that attracted us to each other over the years - how easily we could talk to each other. During the course of the conversation he told me he had recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend, and I pretended to be sorry. When our class left, he walked me to the bus and said goodbye, but we both knew it wasn't.
Our Story, Part One: In which it all begins
I was a freshman in high school. I had aspirations of becoming a film or stage director, so I immediately threw myself into our school’s theater production, which, that year, was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. I volunteered for backstage tech crew and got to work. Every year, our drama teacher would recruit her Drama 1 students by brute force to either be in or work in the play. That is how Michael and I came to be backstage together that week, running props and lights and costume changes and other such business. He was a sophomore. We had never met, but I had known who he was since 3rd grade when I memorized my school’s yearbook and noted how incredibly skinny that particular 4th grader looked. We had a mutual high school friend, David, which gave us a bit of common ground as we got to know each other. I immediately developed a violent crush on Michael (remember, I was a high school freshman - enough said). I remember going home after the first night we met and writing in my diary that I’d met a guy with “great skin and perfect teeth.” Good to know I was paying attention to all the important details. Anyway, the rest of that week is fuzzy to me now. I do particularly remember a fight we had over a soda bottle cap. By “fight,” of course, I really mean “excuse to flirt shamelessly.” We each claimed the cap belonged to us, and we tried to pry it out of each others’ hands, eventually “giving up” in a stalemate and keeping our hands clasped together, both refusing to budge. Very subtle. For the record, I still have that little bottle cap, tucked away in a box of keepsakes. I think that might be a little weird.
After the play wrapped, I started to hang around under the stairs at the high school entrance with Michael, David, and their friends. We goofed around, but honestly we barely got to know each other to any extent. I confided in David about my crush on Michael, and Michael did the same. David decided to arrange for us to go on a date (read: us and 20 other high school freshmen), which, incidentally, he forgot to explain to me. So we rounded up a group of people to go see Star Wars Episode 1. Michael felt a bit awkward since he didn’t know anyone but David and me. I remember we went to Hardees for food, and then we all walked en masse to the theater. Once we got inside the theater, Michael and I were both a bit shy, so we sat on the same row but left a seat between us. Almost immediately, my well-meaning but clueless best friend Joanna (bless her) plopped herself down in that seat and asked Michael to please explain the entire Star Wars universe to her. She was trying to make him feel at ease, but she also managed to make sure we didn’t say a single word to each other throughout the entire movie. I, not realizing this was supposed to be a date, didn’t make much of it. Michael, knowing it was a date, assumed I wasn’t interested and was too much effort. So that was that. I did borrow his oversized Superman shirt when I was in a Godspell dinner theater later that year (I was supposed to be a skater punk), and he claims I never gave it back, but I’m sure he’s wrong - because why would I keep that?
We remained acquaintances, but not really friends. My sophomore year, a friend asked me to prom, and we ended up going with the same group Michael and his date were in. Again, I don’t really remember interacting with him much during that time. I do remember we ate escargot for the first (and last) time that night, and that we all had our pictures taken on the lawn of the doctor who would perform lung surgery on me two years later (sorry for the details that mean nothing to you - but this is for my benefit too!).
He started dating someone else, and so did I. We continued to do school plays together. My sophomore year our school did Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma (noticing a pattern here?). I was assistant director or stage manager or something or other, and Michael had a few bit parts (no pun intended - you’ll see why in a moment). There is a quick-moving auction scene in Oklahoma, and poor Mike could never remember where his line (“Two bits!”) came in. I would sit in the wings with the script, ready to prompt actors who forgot their lines. On opening night, the auction scene came, and Mike’s line came up, and....nothing. I knew he wasn’t going to say it without prompting, and I knew prompting was going to create an awkward pause onstage. So I deepened my voice and called out from the wings, “Two bits!” The auction scene continued without a hitch.
My junior year, we put on Annie, a vast improvement over Rodgers and Hammerstein. Michael played Drake (the butler), and I was assistant director, a fishnet-wearing chorus girl, and a dancing maid. Fun. This was Mike’s last play before graduating. I don’t remember interacting with him much other than taking a picture together when the play wrapped.
Then he went off to college, and I started my senior year in high school. We wouldn’t cross paths again until later that year when my AP English class took a trip to the UNCC library to do research for a term paper. But I’ll save that story for next time.
Disclaimer: I realize this is just a bunch of little pointless vignettes strung together, and that this hardly qualifies as a love story. Just give me time - I promise it gets better. I’m just trying to get these details out there so they don’t escape me later.
I really kind of meant to do these posts on Fridays. But as I've been under the false impression all day today that it was actually Friday, I figured what the heck. I've been carrying around a journal so I can record these little gifts, but I'll admit that I haven't been great this week about keeping my eyes open and counting these blessings. I have such a hard time relinquishing my hold on the "busyness" that has defined me for so long. So here's hoping that this coming week will find me more aware of all the things I have to be thankful for.
This week I am thankful for:
21. finally understanding the meaning behind a word my son has been saying for months
22. waking up slowly with my husband's arms around me
23. cherry blossoms
24. orange zest
25. sitting with a dear friend and watching our boys playing in the yard
26. that the Man of all Sorrows never forgot what sorrow is carried by the hearts that He bought
27. a restaurant-quality, home-cooked, SIT-DOWN dinner with my husband last night
28. PBS
29. eskimo kisses
30. that it still wouldn't be enough time
31. holding an hours-old baby girl
32. unexpected and rare toddler hugs