Authors: Christine Jarmola
Do-Overs (2 page)
-2-
The Genesis of the BFFs
“Sorry I can’t quit laughing, Lottie, but you have to admit it was funny,” Olivia apologized again. “You did make a memorable move-in day for all of us.”
There we were. My new suitemates including Olivia Corazon, the beauty of OKMU, with her thick black hair and her flawless tan skin, who made sure to tell the others of my grand debut on the steps of my new abode. My family was gone. My things were slightly unpacked and it was bonding time with three girls I hoped would become my new BFFs.
Asbury Dorm was divided into suites—one bathroom between two bedrooms. Shared by four women. How were we ever to be ready on time for anything sharing one bathroom? It was either designed to help us with the bonding process, or as a proving ground for the survival of the fittest.
“I’m just glad to know that you wear panties if we’re going to be roommates,” said Christina Hart, known as Stina to her friends and she counted everyone as her friend. Stina was one of those petite, pixy girls with short choppy chestnut hair and a cute little nose to match. It took almost thirty seconds together for me to want her as a friend for life.
“No more of the P word,” interrupted Rachel Herz, the fourth member of our suite. Rachel was our token redhead, although it was the most luxurious shade of auburn I had ever seen. “That is over and done and I’m ready to learn more about Lottie.” It was apparent that Rachel understood my embarrassment. I would come to learn over the next year of Rachel’s kindness. She once told me that if there really were such a thing, she would be an empath, like on
Star Trek,
as she could always feel other people’s pain.
“So why does someone change from the top state school to a tiny private college as a junior?” questioned Olivia in a demanding manner. “Were you flunking out or are you changing majors?”
“Did you get arrested?” Stina chimed in giggling.
Just what I didn’t want to talk about. Did I confess or did I play it cool and not give out my whole life’s story to people I had just met?
A month before I had been in a similar situation. Well not actually similar because nothing involving my extended family is ever like anything else. It had been my parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary and my entire family had gathered to celebrate. I had put on my best celebratory game face but my heart wasn’t in it. And to make my day even more trying, my Crazy Aunt Charlotte had focused in on me from the moment she arrived.
Aunt Charlotte was my great aunt, nobody knows how many times removed. However in our family she was commonly known as Crazy Aunt Charlotte when she wasn’t around. When it came to colorful, unique, interesting and eccentric, Aunt Charlotte held the prize. My dad always said she was once married to a Gypsy and traveled in a caravan. My mother said no, she had been a flower child on a commune. All I ever knew was that she dressed in yards of flowing, gathered skirts and had tons of bangles and beads stuck on her anywhere they would stick. She wa
s
a character that I tried to avoid, yet was curiously drawn to, like knowing not to look at the dead and rotting deer carcass on the side of the highway but looking anyway.
“Now, Lottie,” said my peculiar aunt in her fortuneteller voice that day. “What’s this I hear about your changing colleges? I thought you always wanted to go to the University of Oklahoma just like your brother. Although I remember at the time saying it would be better if you went your own way and didn’t have to languish in your brother Jason’s shadow all the time. But nobody listened to me. They never do.”
Never one to worry about voicing her opinion—that was our Aunt Charlotte. Yes, as a junior in college I was switching schools. It wasn’t because of grades, or majors, or scholarships. It was totally personal. And it definitely wasn’t the kind of intimate information I wanted to discuss with some eccentric woman somewhere between the age of 70 and 1,000. But, we all knew that with Aunt Charlotte nothing was private. Maybe that comes from having lived in a commune?
Trying to change the subject I picked the first idea to come into my head. “Don’t my parents look lovely? Isn’t it just crazy to think they’ve been married twenty-five years.” Did the word
crazy
come out of my mouth? I started to apologize just for the word association going on in my head, but Crazy Aunt Charlotte interrupted me.
“How many times do I have to ask? What’s up with the school thing?” my aunt persisted. There was no simple way to derail that freight train but to give an answer. I knew it would happen in the end so I might as well get it over with at the beginning.
“Aunt Charlotte, have you ever just wanted to start over? Get rid of all your past mistakes? Have a clean slate?” I tried to figure out how much I would have to tell her before she would let the subject drop.
“Oh honey child, we all do. What was it you girls used to call it when playing? Um, do-overs, wasn’t that it? Yes, I think we all need those sometimes. So how bad did he break your heart?”
I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t said anything about a
he
or a
broken heart
. All I’d admitted to was a desire to start over. Yet, she had hit the nail right on the head. That was exactly it. He had broken my heart and my spirit. Was Crazy Aunt Charlotte really clairvoyant or did I just have the pain still written on my face?
“Pretty bad,” was all I answered.
“Let’s go outside where’s it’s a little quieter and talk,” she said as she took me by the arm and led me through the crowded living room to the outside door. “You know I wasn’t always older than Methuselah.”
So Aunt Charlotte and I spent a half hour that afternoon sitting in lawn chairs out under an oak tree while I did most of the talking. I didn’t realize how great it would feel to talk it all out with someone who had lived a lot of life and had been there and done that herself. I was beginning to think that maybe Aunt Charlotte wasn’t as mental as the family legend said when the Double J’s, Jennifer and Jessica, my twin sisters, came walking over to rescue me. As Aunt Charlotte saw them coming across the lawn a furtive look passed over her face and she began frantically rummaging through her humongous carpetbag purse.
“Sometimes in life you just need a do-over.” Then she placed her old gnarled hand in mine whispering as if giving me the most coveted secret to life, “When that time comes, just erase it away and do it again.” With that she dropped an old pink, four-inch eraser like I had used back in fourth grade in my hand.
I knew then and there that Aunt Charlotte really was completely, totally, absolutely, thoroughly crazy after all.
“Hell-Low?” Olivia said, laughing and snapping me out of my thoughts. “What kind of deep dark secrets are you hiding?”
Telling Crazy Aunt Charlotte about my disastrous love life had proven to be a mistake, one I didn’t want to repeat on my first day with my hopefully new friends. Unable to think on my feet, I became flustered which unfortunately often appears curt and rude. Later, I would think of just the perfect response, but in the heat of the moment I felt put on the spot. “It’s really complicated. My personal business. I don’t want to talk about it.” I stammered.
Obviously that was the wrong thing to say, as evidenced by the shocked look on Stina’s sweet face and the defiance on Olivia’s. I quickly deduced that people did not speak to Olivia Corazon in that manner very often.
“It’s okay,” Rachel quickly said. “We have ages to learn every intimate detail of each other’s lives. Don’t tell it all in the first chapter,” she said with a laugh. Yes, Rachel seemed to always have the insight to defuse any awkward situation. Maybe, someday I’d learn to be more like her.
“We need to tell Lottie about ourselves,” chimed in Stina regaining the relaxed mood from before. “We’ll let Olivia start. She loves to talk about herself. Don’t you, gorgeous?” They all three laughed.
“I get the gorgeous comments a lot. But I can’t help it. I’m just the way God made me,” said Olivia as she stuck out her very ample chest and gave a cover girl smile, while Stina and Rachel rolled their eyes. Obviously that was a conversation had many times before.
Stina giggled. “God was in a very good mood the day you were made,
chica
.”
“Tell me about it. Here I am gargantuan woman living with
Mademoiselle Magnific
.”
I’m not lying. It wasn’t until that point that I noticed how large Rachel really was. She had to be close to five nine and hadn’t seen the lighter side of three hundred pounds in years. Yet, she had been so instantly kind and caring on meeting me that all I saw was her kind face, gorgeous red hair and sympathetic spirit.
“I’ll tell you about Olivia,” Rachel continued taking charge. “Let’s see, she’s a junior Communications major. Is that still it?” She looked to Olivia for affirmation, who nodded her head. “She’s changed her major a few times.”
“Seven,” squealed Stina.
“Not true,” Olivia countered back. “Only five. I just changed back and forth a few times, but there have only been five different majors.”
“A question of semantics,” Stina answered.
“Back to my very interrupted narrative,” continued Rachel. “Olivia Corazon,” she stressed the last name with her best
gringa
accent, “started out as a Spanish major, but after flunking Spanish 101, she changed to English.”
“The first Hispanic to flunk Spanish 101,” Stina couldn’t help commenting.
“There were legitimate reasons,” defended Olivia. “It was an eight o’clock class. And the prof wanted grammatically correct Spanish. No one in my family ever conjugated a verb or knew there were gender issues in the language. They just spoke it. Anyway, it really wasn’t the major for me. I was doing it because I thought it would be easy - and then it wasn’t.” She laughed and continued. “Enough about my shortcomings. I’m now a Communications major and doing very well at it.”
Feeling more comfortable, I volunteered my own roundabout arrival as an English major. “All my professors at OU kept pushing me to do the English Ed route, but I could never be a teacher. I have no idea what I’ll do with my degree,” I lied. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell my true dream to people I’d met only a few hours before. It seemed too farfetched a fantasy to confide in anyone that wasn’t a true confidant.
“I’m going to be a teacher,” volunteered Stina. “Elementary Ed. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I started first grade and met Mrs. Askins. She was the perfect teacher and I’ve always wanted to be just like her.”
“All hail, Mrs. Askins,” Olivia said as Rachel gave a fake bow of worship. It was instantly obvious that they were very familiar with Stina’s hero.
“Okay, so I do talk about her a lot. But she made a permanent impression on my formative years,” Stina giggled.
I was beginning to notice that giggling was one of her major characteristics. And it was contagious. Stina was like a bottle of bubble soap that just couldn’t be contained and soon had everyone around her joining in the fun.
“My mom was an Elementary Ed major too,” I said. “She taught third grade for about five years and decided it wasn’t the right job for her. Didn’t like all the rules. Walking in straight lines, raising their hands to talk. My mom is a free spirit. She probably gets that from my crazy Aunt Charlotte. She’s had lots of jobs. None ever for over five years. Whereas my dad has been a CPA for the same company for all his adult life.” I was babbling on about a topic they probably didn’t care a flip about. I do that too, when I’m nervous. Talk too much about the wrong things. Then the awkward silence always comes. But, not that time.
“Moms are like that,” agreed Stina. “We still haven’t heard from one in our group.”
I turned to Rachel with a questioning look. But Olivia was the one to answer. “Isn’t it obvious. Rachel’s a Psych major. She’s always reading our minds and solving our problems. Be careful, Lottie, or she’ll use you as one of her mental guinea pigs.”
Without a comment, Rachel crossed over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a huge butcher knife. I was a teensy bit worried that the Psych major was psychotic herself until she also grabbed a roll of frozen cookie dough. “It’s time for us to partake in the sacraments of the suitemates,” she said in her most solemn voice. It lasted for a nano-second and then the three were laughing again. Rachel began slicing off chunks of dough for a major snarf fest.
“Here.” Rachel handed me a glob.
“We work out daily so we can pig-out nightly,” they all chanted in unison.
-3-
Camo
The pig-out continued that night at our dorm’s welcome back party. Asbury Hall was the oldest dorm at the university built by donations from little old Methodist women circles raising money through bake sales and stiff-arm donations. I had learned as a young child, from my father, that when Methodist women want a donation for a cause, you don’t say no. Thankfully, the dorm had been majorly remodeled a few years before my arrival.
Our suite was in the basement. That sounds depressing, but it was actually only half in the basement, so we had windows at eye level inside and at ground level outside.
Originally I hadn’t planned on living on campus. I was twenty. I was ready to live on my own. But my meddlesome and sometimes very wise mother felt I wouldn’t make friends and was worried that I’d be depressed living alone off campus. She was right, but I would never tell her that. Instead I’d blown out a big frustrated breath and rolled my eyes—very maturely—and agreed to try student housing. At least for the first semester.
As a junior I thought I knew all about dorm life, so dreaded the obligatory welcome/orientation meetings. But this group was different. Every meeting was a reason to party. There were pizzas, nachos, ice cream and cookies and one tiny plate of fruit. I guess that was to ease the collective conscience that health food was available. I was going to have to start a very vigorous exercise program or my size fives weren’t going to fit much longer.
As we scarfed calories, there was a human bingo game going on. Each girl had a bingo card but instead of numbers it had facts, like who was from out of state, or who was engaged. We had to go around the room and find different girls who fit the criteria and have them sign the square. First one to get a bingo won. Of course the prize was chocolate.
Most people hate being forced to mingle, but I appreciated it. I’m not exactly shy, but I can be awkward at meeting people. And almost always I’ll say the wrong thing. So having a structured way practically forcing me to meet and greet my new dormmates helped me lose some of my anxiety.
Square one-
a blonde
. Oh that was easy, over two thirds of the room. Wonder if it had to be a natural blonde. That would narrow things down. I approached the closest blonde I saw.
“Hi, I’m Lottie. Would you sign my card here on
blonde
?”
I was rewarded with a thousand-watt smile. “Sure, but you might want me to sign on the
suitemates that names all start with the same letter
. That’s us. The K’s.” She was joined by three more blondes. All four looked like they had been picked by central casting to match with each being about five foot three, one hundred five pounds, and perfect Hollywood white smiles. “I’m Kasha,” she continued. “This is Kaylee, that’s Kyra and that’s Keesha. People say they have trouble telling us apart.”
“But it’s not that hard,” chimed in the girl on her right—Kaylee or was it Keesha. No I think Kyra.
“We’re all different,” said another. They all chimed in talking at a rapid pace and finishing each other’s thoughts.
“Kasha’s left handed.”
“Kaylee plays soccer.”
“Kyra has four brothers and I’m an only child.” File that for future reference. One was an only child, but I didn’t know which one.
“I’m a vegetarian, but the others are carnivores.”
“No plasmavores.” They all laughed. I’d have to think on that one later.
“She has a boyfriend. He’s on the basketball team.”
“Keesha just likes soccer players.”
“Well, why not? They look good in their shorts.”
“That’s right!!” They all said in unison. I would learn as the year progressed a lot of what they said was in unison.
Kasha, I think, signed my card. I looked down at the signature. No, it said Kyra. Having lived my whole life with twins I should have been better at seeing the differences, but they were like a carnival shell game. Every time I thought I knew which shell the ball was under it had moved to a different one.
“Here sign our cards.” They said as one.
I looked over the list looking for a category that fit me. Oh there was one.
Sister of twins
. But I didn’t want to sign that one. That was a classification I was trying to get out of.
New at OKMU
. That fit me to a tee. I signed all four cards and the wave of
K-
inetic energy went on its way.
Friends seemed plentiful in Asbury Hall. Sure there were the stereotypical groups. I could see six very stylish, very bored, very too-cool-to-be-there girls over in one corner making a diligent attempt to make sure everyone knew they did not find our sophomoric games amusing. The tall, brunette alpha female of the group looked as if she could model on any swimsuit magazine cover. I didn’t foresee us becoming bosom buddies.
In the opposite corner were two girls of the extreme opposite—Goths with their jet-black hair and multiple piercings. I never really understood Goths until I had to sit by a girl Goth in my eighth grade algebra class. Mid-way through the year, after I quit being terrified of her, we became quasi-friends. She confided in me that she came from a rough part of town and an uncaring family. Actually she phrased it much more colorfully, including words for excrement and the not so pleasant part of the afterlife. In her world it was important to look tough. If she looked weak she would be preyed upon by the more powerful. It was a real eye-opening experience for me. Most Goths are just like the rest of us, trying to find a way to survive. Not fitting in is their camouflage just like the snooty mean girls on the other side of the room hid behind the camouflage of designer jeans and $800 handbags.
In the middle of the chaos was the volleyball team. They shared our wing. I’d already had to maneuver through an impromptu practice in the hallway earlier in the day. They were the life of the party group. And of course in the middle of it all was Stina, loving life as always.
As I looked around the big basement meeting room of Asbury Hall, I was pleased. New potential friends were all around. This looked like the perfect place to regroup, put the past behind and restart. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I’d tried for a new start.