Mary called. She wants to meet me. We have to talk she said. I’m to swing by her apartment and pick her up. Maybe the car won’t start. We may get something to eat, a sandwich or something, nothing too intimate. Whatever happens we will talk. We have to talk.
The first time Mary met me was at a party. The campus housing for upper classmen included some old stone townhouses that had been converted into dorms. Mary’s friends had gotten organized and they had an entire house. I was a freshman; I’d only been on campus two weeks, I didn’t know Mary’s friends. It was Friday night and I heard music coming from their building, which was all I needed. Back then I thought nothing of walking in unannounced, unknown. “Hello, what’s your name? Really. Where can I get a drink? Right. Well then, we’ll talk in a moment.” They were playing charades at the party, which gave me license to make an ass of myself without irritating anyone. I’m damn funny with the right context. Anything can make sense with the right context.
I remember that party. I left at around one in the morning and was sick on the way back to my dorm. I don’t remember who was at the party. It’s been a sort of fetish for me, not remembering people. I didn’t remember Mary that first night, so from my end I can’t really count it as a meeting. I first met Mary four months later. Our context was misaligned from the beginning.
Our school is legendary for breeding shy loners. To combat the effects of near constant study and anxiety a massive blind date mixer is thrown every year. Roommates are responsible for putting the dates together. Usually they pick people who know each other, if only in passing. It’s the girls who make the whole thing work; arrange the dates, think up skits, and make sure there’s punch and cookies at the party. All the boys need to do is say “Okay.” Hal, my roommate at the time, said “Okay.”
The day of the dance came. As I said earlier, the girls had skits for us. More like pranks really. Hal blindfolded me and told me to keep quiet. He led me into the cafeteria. There was a manic, giggly feel to the thing, like a slumber party. I was brought to an open space. Around me I heard the murmur of a crowd, punctuated by laughter. The pranks where always set up to bring the couple into physical contact: blindfolded-twister, KY-wrestling, things of that nature. Mary and I didn’t have to do anything so violent, maybe because Mary was - is so petite. They had us share an apple without using our hands. It was their clever way to bring Mary’s lips toward mine. We ate and bumped heads: laughter and applause surrounded us. When Mary’s friends where satisfied the blindfolds came off.
She was pretty, small with dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Her hair was her most striking feature, shoulder length and full, it gleamed like coffee poured from the pot. I stood there nervously, at a loss for words and not even looking for them. Who was this girl? Mary’s face shared my surprise, but not my nerves. She looked back at her friends. “Him?” she asked rhetorically. I could almost hear her eyes roll.
“Come on, you said he was cute.” One of her friends said.
The exchange jarred me out of silence. Mary had said that I was cute, but she didn’t seem very pleased with the arrangement. Better start talking. “Hello, I’m Conner.”
She looked back towards me. “I know who you are.”
Before we could say anything more the next fortunate couple stumbled in wearing Velcro t-shirts. We retreated to opposite sides of the space. Mary raised her pinky and thumb to her mouth and ear respectively making the sign for ‘call me.’ Then her friends hustled her away. I was left standing there; I still didn’t know her name.
Hal was gone so I went back to the dorm to find him. He would know the girl’s name. Hal wasn’t around; he got out more than I did. Panic began to set in, how was I going to call this girl? The phone rang. I picked it up “Hello, this is Conner.”
“Tell me, can you say anything else or is it just Hello and your name?” It was a girl’s voice.
“Well, yes” I replied.
“Complete sentences?”
“I like to think ‘Hello, this is Conner’ is a complete sentence. Short hand for ‘I greet you. I am the being known as Conner’”
“I’ll accept that answer.” She said.
There was a pause here. I had no idea who I was talking to and I was hesitant to bring that up.
“I’m your date tonight if you’re wondering.” She said
“Of course, I know that.”
“Let me ask you a question Conner. What is my name?”
I had a feeling that my answer was important so I went full bore BS. “Isn’t it more important that I know who you are rather than some silly arbitrary appellation?”
“Do you think you’re charming?” Her tone told me that I was definitely not charming.
“Sometimes I get confused.”
“Okay” she laughed the word. “Meet me in front of Jefferson at 9:30. Wear a tie and don’t keep me waiting. By now”
“Wait, your name?”
“I think I’ll make you earn it. That might help you remember it this time.”
The phone clicked and she was gone.
I waited in front of Jefferson in my only tie, looking at the colored pools of light cast by the stained glass windows. Jefferson was a big stone church that had been converted into a social center for the campus, presumably by an alumnus named Jefferson. Alumnus Jefferson had gutted the building, leaving only the bell tower and stained glass windows as evidence of its former purpose. The bells still worked and they rang every fifteen minutes. I heard them twice before Mary arrived wearing jeans, a tank top, and an unzipped parka.
“You clean up nice” she said.
“Thank you.” I eyed her parka. “I’ll just take it on faith that the same is true for you.”
She gave me a smirk and a half curtsey. I offered my arm in exchange. We entered the neon lit foyer of Jefferson.
“What’s that on your tie? Palm trees?”
My tie did have palm trees on it, and a sailboat. I liked the palm trees. “I bought it special for you.” I said, with a false whimper in my voice.
“Come on” she said laughingly. “Let’s go dance.”
We danced that night and I kissed her on the dance floor. Later she told me her name and we kissed more seriously. Morning found us in her narrow student bed.
“Okay Studly, it’s time to take the walk of shame.” Mary said.
“Walk of shame?”
“Yes, it’s the traditional half-blind hobble to the cafeteria in yesterday’s clothes that brings a formal end to a successful liaison.”
“You know, there really ought to be another name for it. I don’t feel any shame.” I said while pulling on my pants.
“Don’t worry, I’ve enough for both of us.” Tragedy dripped from the words.
I watched her squirm into a t-shirt, a simple thing but completely engrossing. I waited for her head to reappear and said. “If I had known how mean you are…”
“You don’t know what mean is. Mean is crashing a party, flirting outrageously with the hostess, and then spending the next four months ignoring her.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
“Some jerk who I never want to see again.” The remark arrived with a half serious slap. “Unless he has reformed himself.”
“Lust cures all my dear.”
“Does it?” She kissed me and then pulled away. “Put on your shoes, I’m hungry.”
That semester was Mary’s final semester in college. It was my best semester. I had a tiny green Toyota that I had hidden on a residential street. It ran loud and smoky and when I parked it I had to wedge a cinderblock under a wheel to keep the car from rolling away. That horrible little car took us to the movies, restaurants, museum exhibits, any little thing to spend time together. I loved that piece of shit Toyota. On days when we couldn’t get off campus we would go to the library with the stated goal of studying. We had none of the same classes, and it didn’t matter anyway. We never made it more than a half hour before finding an empty study room.
The summer was a glory. Mary was going to go to grad school in the area and decided to have a summer of nothing. She got an apartment and I helped her move in. I had a crap job at a nursery, I spent thirty hours a week watering plants and shilling fertilizer. For the rest I was with Mary.
This fall came and she started grad school and I went back to college. Our context got knocked out of alignment. I think I love her, Mary doesn’t believe it. More, she’s grown tired of undergraduate parties, novelty neckties, and my cinderblock car. She’s grown tired of me.
Tired of me. I’m putting the keys in the ignition and for the first time hoping the car fails to start. This feeling now, I’ve come to know it over the last days. When it comes, it comes in waves, rising from the center of my being and flooding through my brain and into my eyes. The crest peaks there and I feel that if I could cry it would get out, but I can’t. The wave recedes back and sits in my stomach like bread pudding and Gatorade, soporific and mildly nauseating. It’s the feeling of imminent, inescapable failure. Sometimes life gives us a second chance. I had mine, and for a few months two people understood every inside joke and never finished a story with ‘you had to be there.” But things change, or worse they stay the same. I take a breath and turn the key. The car starts beautifully. < /span>

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