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Show later because no one asked me. Each Christmas Formal I was the only one home, wrapping gifts for my family, and enjoying the quiet, my three-tape set of "Christmas Classics" playing in the background. I didn't flirt and giggle like the women around me and hated the taste of beer; I studied hard and did well in class; my calendar was crowded with meetings rather than parties. The boys I knew stayed away from me. Looking back, I don't think they knew what to say. At the time, I thought I was ugly. And then John. Older. Handsome. Sexy. A man that women around me wanted. One night he and his friend, Mike, came to my sorority. I wasn't home. My friend Kerry left a note for me on the message board: "John and Mike stopped by to see you. They sure were cute, Jen, esp. John." And that's when I knew he had noticed. By January he was sending me cards: "You are turning me into a morning person because I can't wait to get up and see you." I saved everything, all the evidence that I was wanted: three cards on Valentine's because he couldn't decide between them, notes that praised my tongue, flowers left in my car, the receipt for every dinner, every movie, every motel, champagne corks, matchbooks, "Do Not Disturb" signs from motels in Denver, Kansas City, small towns in Wisconsin. At night I would sort through them, organizing them by date, by event, by the way they made me feel. Like so many pipes, so many pennies, each one a response I could hold in my hand to my fears of being left alone. By the end of that fall, I spent most afternoons in John's office, talking about music or movies or the people we knew in common. Sometimes my friend 216 |