Melissa, Oh?

After spending a week with one of my best friends and getting to decorate, write and organize (3 of my favorite things!), and having great moments with him and our other friends that will last a lifetime … of course leaving was not easy. Tears and hugs abound as I won’t see Chris for a whole month (a long time after seeing him every day for a whole week) … but  I digress. That’s not what I’m talking about now.

When I say leaving Athens was not easy … I mean literally. I asked Chris to back my car out of the too-tight parking space for me so I could go. I should mention this is not actually my car; I have a convertible that has a hole in the top (not good for a 3.5 hour road trip in the winter), so I had driven my father-in-law’s car, a Mercedes S500 (great car - but a very large car compared to my BMW M3 that I normally drive.) As Chris got in to back the car up, we realized the car would not start. Because the battery was dead.

My first thought, of course: Call AAA. That’s why we pay for them, right? Of course, Chris is a guy, (a stubborn guy) and a dead battery is no cause to call AAA … we’ll just jump it! Except, the car is flanked by a gate on one side, and a vehicle on the other, and there is a concrete wall in front of it. The hood is not accessible at all, so how would we even get his car close enough to jump it? We’ll call AAA, I repeat. But no, Chris has another plan. We’ll push my car, out of the spot, back it into another spot that is sort of across from my spot (meaning steering necessary), then pull Shaun’s car up to jump it. Or we could call AAA.

Fine, he says, we’ll call AAA. We go upstairs to get a signal on my phone so we can call, and Shaun is playing Rock Band on the couch. Chris tellls him what happened. “We can just jump it,” Shaun says. Explain dilemma about accessibility. “No problem, we’ll push it.”

These boys …

I call AAA and put in a request for a jump. The dispatcher says she will call back with an estimated time of the tow truck driver’s arrival. Meantime, we go downstairs to check out the car, and Shaun drives his car down “just in case.”

They decide pushing it is no problem, so that’s what we’ll do. I cannot back up well in normal circumstances (i.e., car is running) and Chris explains this fault of mine to Shaun. No worries, Shaun will steer and Chris will push. What should I do, I ask. I’m told to walk away to where I cannot see what is going on (presumably so I can get signal so I know when AAA is coming, but we all know better.)

I walk outside of the parking garage and wait. AAA calls and says it will be 45 minutes to an hour. No problem, I don’t mind waiting. I go in the garage to tell them and they have actually managed to move my car. I watch them glide it into the spot, and it’s a better parking job than I could have done had the car been running (which isn’t saying much, but still …)

I must mention how impressed I am by their super-human strength and ability to lift the car up and place it gently where they want it (OK, I promised them I’d make them sound really strong.) We might not need AAA after all.

We lift the hood and look for the battery. That’s when I saw this, underneath the hood:

Oops. Well, what is there to do but laugh? So laugh we did. The trunk had been easily accessible this entire time. Shaun turns his car around, so his hood is now next to my trunk, and we proceed to empty out my trunk and search for the battery (easier said than done; we had to consult the owner’s manual in order to find it!)

Then jumper cables out and about to be hooked up, when Chris noticed that to connect the cables to the battery also meant touching the cables to the carpet, which he was somewhat nervous about … What if the car catches on fire? The two start discussing what to do in case of the car catching on fire, when I step in and insist we wait for AAA. No fires to my father-in-law’s car today, please.

A few minutes later the tow company sent by AAA shows up (early, for the record). The driver asks us to pop the hood, at which point we tell him the battery is in the trunk. “Um, yeah, I know,” he says. “But sometimes Mercedes has a hot spot for the battery in the hood.” OK, we’ll shut up. …

Turns out there was not a hot spot in the hood, so he did use the trunk. And his portable battery thingie (love my official term for this?) didn’t give it a charge (”Your battery is really dead,” he told me), so he ended up using Shaun’s car after all. So it turns out backing the car up really wasn’t a bad idea, after all. Guess Chris and Shaun really knew what they were talking about!

The driver told me not to turn the car off for at least an hour and a half or else this could happen to the newly charged battery, so I ran upstairs for a last-minute bathroom break and another goodbye to JC the cat, then made my ever-so-graceful sputtering exit out of the parking garage and back to Charlotte.

Thanks Shaun and Chris - you are my heroes!

A memory

It is 1995, and it’s picture day. The senior-year me has just been officially captured by camera, and I walk down the steps of the school auditorium, happy to be out of class and wondering how my photo looks. Sitting in one of the auditorium seats is Brian. I have been friends with Brian for a few years. He’s nice, fun, always makes me smile. Other than that, he’s never really entered my thoughts.

“Hey Melissa, come over here,” he says, and so I walk into the aisle behind his seat and lean over him to see what he wants. He stretches his arms behind his head and wraps them backward around my waist. Sparks fly through me as I suddenly - instantly - see him differently. It’s as if a light bulb has come on. My God, this guy is gorgeous. I know then he is going to ask me out, and I know I will accept. He does and I do.

I don’t remember our first date, or our first kiss, or how we go from being on the brink of something promising that Fall day to being officially an item, but it happens quickly and it happens effortlessly. Our nights are full of phone conversations and as much time together as our teenage curfews will allow. Our days are happy, as we get to make eye contact between classes and steal kisses beside lockers. He picks me up before school in his Camero with T-Tops, and we ride with fresh air and sunshine on our faces and the promise of forever is in the air (or, at least in our young and unsuspecting minds).

Our companionship is not without controversy. Brian is known as a “bad boy” around school - he has a reputation for stealing girls’ hearts and playing the field. I am shy, innocent, nice (at times to a fault), and a virgin, so we are a match that surprises several. I heed more than a few warnings to be careful with my heart, from friends, from acquaintances, from teachers even. I ignore them all and defend him - it is different with him and me. He actually cares for me.

He brings me roses and bath salts. He asks me to marry him (not really meaning it, but my heart soars anyway), he writes me love letters and takes me to ”nice” restaurants (Olive Garden) and he actually cares for me.

The day it all changes is a normal day for me, for us. Amanda and Michelle and I decide to cook dinner and our boyfriends come to Amanda’s where we have prepared fajitas (for the record, Michelle doesn’t have a boyfriend, so she brings a friend, Adam). We dine and enjoy being happy and together. Then Brian tells me he is going out with Adam - a “guys’ night” - after dinner. No worries, I say, and I kiss him goodbye and go home happy.

The next morning I receive a phone message from Brian’s dad. “Your purse is not in Brian’s car,” it reads. What? I call Brian’s house, confused. His dad answers. “Um, you called this morning … I checked his car … your purse isn’t there.”

No, I didn’t call this morning.No worries, must be a mixup. I ask Brian about it later. “Oh … that … well, I ran into this other girl named Melissa last night at the gas station and she needed a ride home, so I gave her a ride. … Dad must’ve been confused. She must’ve called; he must’ve thought it was you.”

Oh, OK, I think, and I go on happily with my day and my relationship … until, things start to feel … wrong. We are falling out of sync. Our connection wanes; he no longer has time for me and I feel like I’m fighting for something that isn’t there anymore. I fight and fight and fight because I can’t stand to think of the alternative. I fight because he cares for me, he wants to marry me, even if he doesn’t remember that he wants it. I fight until the day he tells me, sadly, that he just can’t do this anymore. This = me. This = us. He just can’t do us anymore.

I cry. And cry. And cry myself to sleep and go to school and cry some more. Try to hide my heartache from my parents, too embarrassed, but they see it anyway. Try to hide my heartache from him, but I am certain he sees it too. But eventually I can look at him without crying. Sometimes I can even think of him without crying. And then one day, I can even look fondly on him, on us, without feeling bitter and cheated and wronged.

And then, much later, I am taking to a new friend, Marie, and she says, “Wait, were you dating Brian the night of the fall dance?”

“Yes,” I answer, remembering that night specifically because we’d chosen to forgo the dance and instead have fajita night at Amanda’s.

“Oh, my,” she says. “I have to tell you something. My friend Melissa fucked him that night.”

———————–

Amazing how the universe knows even more than we do what we need sometimes.

I posted the above comment to a blog post I read recently about a love that was not meant to be. There’s another great love lost story over here if you want another dose of relationship reflection. …

———————–

Of course there are two sides to every story, and for the rest of his days Brian will swear he did not cheat on me. And for the rest of my days I will never believe him. At the time it is hard for me - knowing he did more with her than he ever did with me - his girlfriend. But also knowing the choice not to sleep together was mine - not his. Can I blame an 18-year-old boy for acting that way? Is this simply what I get for being so conservative? Maybe the whole thing was my fault … But even the 18-year-old me knows that it isn’t, that sometimes these things happen and that people are faced with choices every day. Sometimes we make the right choices, and sometimes we make a choice that is very, very wrong.

As the years go on we fade in and out of each other’s lives. He breaks my heart a few more times, sadly. And heartbreak hurts like nothing else. My dad says to me, when I begin dating the next guy after Brian, “I don’t want to see you get hurt like you did the last time.” Oh, please, if you can tell me how not to …

But eventually, after years of back and forth, tears and smiles, happiness and anger, Brian and I step off our destructive path and emerge as friends. Real friends. We have seen each other through marriage, divorce, kids, we even got tattoos together (after many Long Island Iced Teas one day last summer) and I know he will be my friend for the rest of my life.

And ironically - the night he cheated on me has become something we can laugh about, now  (12 years later.) I can say, “I know you cheated on me,” and he will insist, “I would never cheat on you,” and I always say, “I know you’re lying,” and we laugh - real laughter - with real twinkles in our eyes and everything.

Yes, the universe is amazing.

Character traits I love:

- Genuine interest and care for my well being. This includes bringing me into a conversation, asking me how my client meeting went or if my rough day got any better.
- Hugs and other forms of affection (yes, I will accept the back rub you offer me.)
- Little things you do to show that you notice I am paying attention to you. Thanking me for sending you that music I think you might like or for bringing you that item I don’t need any more but it’s perfect for you.
- Little things to show me that you are paying attention to me (sending me coffee because you think I might like to try it or giving me dark chocolate because you know it’s my favorite, sending an email to say you’re thinking about me or posting a blog comment with feedback - even negative feedback - just so I know you’re reading.

Character traits I despise:

- People who don’t keep their word. Why would you say something/promise something/claim to feel something if you don’t mean it?
- Poor listeners. No, I am not talking to hear myself talk. I appreciate conversation.
- People who interrupt. I understand at some points it’s necessary to keep the conversation going in the right direction or to correct or clarify what I am saying, and at those times I don’t mind it (I have been told I do it myself), but people who interrupt in general, especially when they are changing the topic and not contributing to the present conversation, are rude and it tells me they’re not listening (see above).
- People who assume things. If you’d get your head out of your own ass for one second, you would see that your brain is likely the one that needs fixing, not mine.

Stairs are no object in this
twisted game as heel slips
off concrete
Let’s call it an accident

Dog leash wraps
around ankles and calves
Canines out of harm’s way
and you are, too.

It’s not my fault - I was tied up, don’t you see?
If I tumble we all fall down.

Hollow threats but you know they mean nothing
threaten to expose your words to the world
and you run, not out of concern for my heart
but worry for your physical hurt

I see through you and laugh
You are not who I thought you were.

I would die for you
and you won’t stand up for me.

A memory

It is 2004, my first trip to Vegas and I will finally get to meet Jeff’s sole cousin, Ryan (I have a couple dozen cousins, so this one-cousinthing is a surprise to me.) Ryan and Robin are getting married one week before Christmas, and Jeff and I are full of excitement: A wedding, reuniting with a family member that has meant so much to Jeff, and Vegas of course!

We arrive at the newly opened Marriot Renaissance and were upgraded to a room on the club floor. Sweet! We hit the strip to explore, as much as we can after working all day and suffering a 3-hour loss due to time zone changes. We don’t push ourselves too much this first night, as we have all weekend and we are tired.

Kick off the next day with tapas and Sangria at a restaurant on the strip, then we proceed to sight see and shop all day. Around the time we start thinking of walking back to the hotel, Jeff suggests we get a cab. I look at him oddly - we love to walk … “I’m not feeling all that great,” he says. Hmm. OK, cab it is.

By the time we get to the rehearsal dinner a couple of hours later, Jeff is pale-faced and shaky. Something is clearly wrong. He stops in the bathroom at the Paris hotel and notices a sign warning people of a virus making its way around the city. He’s a trooper, though, and we are seated at a table with many members of the bride’s family - none of whom we know. The staff brings out the first course - lobster bisque soup - and Jeff’s expression is a tell-all. “I have to go,” he whispers to me, and slips out as quickly as he quietly can.

So here I am, in Las Vegas, at a table with nobody I know. The 3 people I do know - the groom’s parents and grandmother - are way too busy playing their wedding roles to really notice Jeff has gone. Robin’s family doesn’t miss a beat, however - they instantly begin asking me questions about myself, including me in conversation, inviting me out after dinner. What a wonderful, welcoming family.

The next morning, I wake up to a very sick Jeff. The sickest I’ve ever seen him. I walk down the hall for breakfast, bringing a newspaper and intending to eat alone, when I see Robin and some other women. “Melissa!” she calls me over to them and invites me to eat breakfast with them.

This is her wedding day and the chatter is fun and loving and hopeful and excited. Just being in the presence of these women is so entertaining and endearing. As I start to settle into breakfast, I notice who I am really sitting with. Robin’s mother. Her sister. Her best friend. She is surrounded by the women who mean the most to her, and she has invited me - a stranger before last night - to share her last breakfast as a single woman.

There are no words to say how much this has touched me, and I am torn between wanting to make an excuse to allow them their precious last moments and wanting to stay all day and enjoy the love that is radiating. I choose neither; I stay for breakfast only then rejoin Jeff’s aunt, uncle and grandmother, as the groom’s family rarely has a lot to do the day of the wedding.

Jeff has the strength to make it to the wedding that evening, but barely. He laughs in pride at me, as we walk into the reception and everyone seems to know us as “Melissa and her date.” This is his family, after all.

Jeff attributes this to my ability to be social and make friends anywhere. While I would like to think so, I have to say honestly this time it was not me - no, this time it was Robin and her family, the ultimate hosts and hostesses to a girl they barely know on a day that is much larger than a dateless guest.

Family had always been most important to him.

He always said he needed them to live.

That was before they crossed him.

 

That was before he found her lying there,

in satin sheets given as a wedding present.

He guessed she thought the gift was meant to share.

 

Gertrude always said she shouldn’t have married him:

girls should listen to their mothers.

He never could stand her visits

accompanied by too much old lady perfume

and mustiness that only comes from old lady attic.

 

The children, how he had loved them,

bringing them presents from business trips
and watching their eyes light up

when he was around.

Very seldom was he around.

 

In the darkness of the bedroom closet
they sat facing each other

she whispered to him that the children
were not his but her lover’s.

She said things could have been better

If they had taken more time for each other.

She had only done what she had to do.

 

He wanted it done without shame,

No mess, no screaming, no pain.

He’d slipped the pills in the vegetable soup

Prelude to the meal no one got to enjoy

but him.

 

They’d slouched in their own laps,

two children, once beautiful

now in death looked like their real father.

 

Vengeance placed two pills in Gertrude’s bowl,

he’d always hated his mother-in-law.

He smiled to think not everyone properly cared
for the ones that got in the way.

 

He was different, was smarter

than all the men who put up

with the burden of in-laws by

rolling their eyes or biting their tongues.

 

He would eliminate all annoyance,

Unlike other men who would try

to watch the Sunday afternoon football game while

listening to the Gertrudes of the world

pester them about weedwacking along the sidewalk,

or taking empty beer cans to the curb.

 

And as for his wife,

she should have seen

the way he glared at her in the dark.

He was sure his eyes were glowing with anger

It was her fault because she never looked him
in the eyes anymore

anyway.

 

Later he loaded them into the minivan,

they took a little family trip

to the police station where he dropped them off,

and said he didn’t want them

anymore.

This poem was written in the late 90s. In my college poetry class, the assignment was to write a poem based off of a story in the newspaper. An unidentified man turned up at a police station Feb. 7 with the bodies of four people he said he had killed. The man produced the bodies of two children and two women in a van at the police station. The victims were the man’s two children, his wife and her mother. He admitted killing the four people but apparently gave no explanation as to why, when, how or where he killed them.

In honor of Nanowrimo, (or perhaps to keep myself from cheating and using old material) I am publishing some short stories I wrote in college. Let me repeat: I wrote in college. Apologies in advance.

I still remember the first time I ever pondered the concept of a one night stand.  April called to tell me how she’d been dealing with her recent breakup with Matt.

“I hooked up with one of his fraternity brothers last night,” she said. “Have you ever had someone pin you to a wall and start making out with you? You gotta try it.” I wondered what Matt would say if he knew. “But anyway, Sallie, what are you doing for lunch?”

  —————–

I met Matt first, before he turned preppy. Freshman year, first week of classes, I was walking along the sidewalk when I saw him. He had long blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail and the hint of a strawberry blonde goatee framing his face. He wore an untucked t-shirt and Birkenstocks. He said hello and my eyes followed him until he was out of sight. Even with that first sighting, I had nearly forgotten my boyfriend Jake, who at that point was mere comfort-an aid in the transition between high school and college.

Later on the lawn by the lake, I saw Matt talking with a girl I knew from high school. “Hey Liz,” I said as I walked up to them, looking at him the whole time. “Oh hey, I’m Sallie.”

“Matt,” he said. I made conversation with Liz until she had to go to class, leaving Matt and I alone.  I looked at him, and he said, “So, you want to go get something to eat?”

  —————–

Later that night I picked a fight with my roommate and went for a walk, ending up at Matt’s dorm room. “I just had a fight with my roommate,” I whined. “I have nowhere else to go.”

We sat in his room and drank Jack Daniels out of the bottle and then roamed the hallways. I got hot and changed into one of his tie-dyed T-shirts. College was even better than I imagined.

I called my roommate and made amends, and Matt and I decided to walk back to my dorm.

I was walking along a brick wall behind Public Safety, holding Matt’s shoulder for support as he walked beside me. I listened attentively while he told me he had this plan to come to college and get a girlfriend.

He stopped suddenly, faced me, and looked me up and down. I was red-faced and tipsy, wearing jean shorts and his T-shirt. “You’re really cute,” he said. “Too bad you have a boyfriend.” I agreed silently, and he laughed like he had just made a joke.

When I got back to my room I had four voice mails from Jake. The last one was louder than the rest. “Where the hell are you at 2:30 in the morning?”

(more…)

Jealousy is like the scheming cousin you say you’re not going to listen to because he always gets you in trouble, but then he comes up with a new scheme (let’s put the treadmill as fast as it will go and then see if you can run on it) and it sounds like a good idea at the time (but when you hit the ground running, sometimes the only way to stop is to fall down. It’s a painful lesson.)

Jealousy is the reason I hate the song “Lady in Red” (exboyfriend from high school took new girlfriend to prom and she wore red. He requested that song and to this day it makes me want to make an inappropriate 17-year-old face when I hear it.).

Jealous is something I always say that I’m not … until I am. I am not a jealous person when I feel confident and secure in my position and relationship with you. And if I am not confident and secure, then … well, then I am jealous of anyone else who might be taking what I see as my place with you. This goes for lovers, friends, even family and coworkers sometimes (not that I have coworkers anymore; one reason for you to be jealous of me!)

Jealousy doesn’t go away because you tell it to. In fact, the more you ask it to leave the more it wants to hang around.

It’s the reason we fight so hard for what we believe is ours. It can be why we allow others to kick us while we’re down.

It’s why we bite our nails, twirl our hair and call our best friends at 3 a.m. when we can’t sleep because we’re crying too hard.

What’s redeeming about it? Sigh. When I figure it out, I’ll tell you.

—————–

It’s empowering to find out what you can endure. It’s even better to learn what you won’t.

This was no ordinary concert. I’ve been to several concerts in my lifetime, some for artists I absolutely adore and other featuring artists I didn’t care much about one way or another (typically was invited to these by a friend and went alon more for the company than the show). But I’ve never been to anything like this.

This was a trip back in time. Back almost 20 years in time. And I was not 30 years old, not that night - I was 11, I was 12, I was dancing in my bedroom in front of Joey’s poster and calling Amy to dish about how cute he was and to argue whether it was Donnie or Joey that had the Right Stuff.

Amy said it best in her post, and I got busy with my novel writing and I will use that as my very valid excuse as to why I didn’t post about the concert previously.

One thing I will add to her post is that these Kids know their target audience: They knew what we wanted that night was to be pre-teens again, and they delivered. Even their new stuff was very reminiscent of what they would have sung 20 years ago: Nothing like hearing a late-30s group of guys crooning that they “want to be your boyfriend.” (and yes, that was a new song).

At one point, Donnie even begged the women in the audience to take all of that energy that we have built here tonight and go home and use it to make your husbands happy … I wasn’t sure whether to fall out on the floor laughing or try to get backstage passes to see Joey after that monologue …

I promised Amy pictures, and that said, no further adieu - here they are! (apologies for poor quality; even with our seat upgrade, we were still quite far away … and it was hard enough to sneak in the point and shoot; I didn’t even want to try to get the D70s inside!)

“Is it too soon?” he asked,
and the look on his face was genuine
but about 5 minutes too late.

“Too soon for what?” she retorted,
and she rolled her eyes.
“Too soon for you to break my heart?
Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Then I’ll be back,” he promised.