Currently sitting on my beautiful overstuffed and super classy pink sofa, I am watching both Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns on Chiller as well as watching my battery on my laptop die. I should really just go get the chord, but that requires so much effort that I am only too unwilling to give.
Over the summer the topic of my English Literature major has come up more times than I thought it would. For some reason the only two careers everyone thinks of when you say "I'm majoring in English" are teaching or writing. "Oh, so you want to be a writer?" Ha, that sounds like Diane Duanes novel So You Want to be a Wizard... Sure I'd like to be a writer, but at the same time, I would also like to be able to finish more than 13 pages of a story, or draw an accurate portrayal of the human face, or better yet still be able to do a proper pirouette without nearly falling on my face! There are plenty of things I want to do, the question is am I able to do them?
For lack of anything else to say and poor grammar due to a summer hiatus I shall copy and paste more of my glorious past phrases. The current choice is in fact one of my imitative papers from my English class last semester. Here ya go kiddies, please enjoy :)
Serendipity
Jenny had always done the right thing. She had gotten strait “A’s” in all her classes because her parents expected her to, she never went out on the week days and on the weekends was home well before twelve, she wore button down blouses and knee length skirts, because it made her look respectable, and she always, always, respected her father. Jenny was her father’s shining star, and that was exactly how she liked it. When she graduated from high school, naturally she stayed close to home and went to her father’s Alma modern. After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and history she picked up a job at her old school teaching fourth graders. Her father always said that teaching was the only respectable profession anymore if you didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for med school. In college she had toyed with the idea of majoring in something frivolous like English literature or Philosophy, but her family would have never understood.
“How are you going to make a living?” They would all ask.
“I’ll teach.” She’d respond. And through their fits of giggles they’d all agree that if she was going to teach she might as well teach something useful. Her family just didn’t understand the power something as simple as words could have over someone.
Despite her regrets Jenny was satisfied. She was nearly 25 and already had a steady paycheck as well as a steady boyfriend. He was a kind man a few years older she had met at a friend’s birthday party nearly a year ago. His name was Steven Montgomery and he worked at a bank. He was fairly handsome, had good teeth, bought her plenty of presents, was above average in bed and most importantly, her father adored him. Yesterday he had proposed. He had taken her out to a fancy restaurant and in the middle of dessert had got down on one knee and said:
“Jenifer Marie Desoto, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am madly in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
With the whole restaurant anticipating her “yes” and patiently waiting to burst into applause, she had stuttered barely audible:
“Can I think about it?”
Steve was a caring man. It wasn’t a particularly creative proposal but she figured it got the job done. After all, how much can you expect from a banker? He said that it was perfectly acceptable for her to take some time to think it over. But that was because he didn’t think she would say “no.” Any person with any sense would have said yes. They had been together nearly 10 months and they were both the right age for it. Marriage was a logical next step. And he was just the man her father wanted her to marry. He as well as said so after the first time he met Steve.
“Jenny, he’s a keeper. I like him.” Her dad had said with a strong handed pat on Steve’s back.
She should accept his proposal. She should say “yes” and they could start their perfect suburban life together. She could make her father happy. But instead of thinking about Steve for the last few days all she could think about was her senior year of high school, the first time in her life she ever questioned her father’s opinions of people.
Sitting in the small kitchen of her apartment, Jenny’s mind drifted off into the past. She had called in sick to work to avoid everyone badgering her about the proposal. Surprisingly, she wasn’t even concerned about missing class. She left explicit instructions for the substitute and was sure her kids would be manageable. She stirred her hot chocolate clockwise watching the marshmallows follow the spiraling liquid around the brim of the mug. Eventually, her mind jumped back to senior year.
It had come as a pleasant but unnerving surprise when she saw him for the first time. He had walked into her English class by mistake that morning. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on and completely off limits. His eyes shone a vibrant emerald green and his skin was the lightest of browns. She remembered that color perfectly. It was the color of this new pair of suede boots she had bought with Steve a few weeks back. They were too small and she had to return them because they pinched her toes funny. But now that she thought about it, she had only liked them for the color, the light, smooth brown that could only be complimented by the right color of emerald green. Over the years the image of the boy’s face as he smiled shyly faded from her memory. But it was back now. And she couldn’t seem to shake it.
Jenny remembered passing him in the hallway later that day. He had bumped into her and knocked her books out of her hands. She had expected him to keep walking and ignore her like every other boy in school, instead he had kneeled down on the ground next to her and apologized nearly a thousand times as he picked up her books and helped her to her feet.
“Hi,” he said breathlessly, “I’m Patch.”
“Jenny. You really didn’t have to pick those up. I could’ve managed”
Jenny couldn’t quite remember now what he had said. But Patch had walked her to class. She remembered that he made her laugh. They had laughed together all the way down the hall that afternoon, eyes glittering from would be tears at the sides. When they had to part, Patch asked if he could see her later. Jenny hesitated. Patch was beautiful, but he was hardly the kind of boy he father would have approved of. He had that “slacker” look about him, the kind of body language that said he was in detention twice a week for skipping class and never did homework. But he had the kind of smile that was so charming you knew he’d do just fine in the real world. Jenny knew her father would hate him, but she had scribbled her number down on a blank sheet of notebook paper and tore it out to give to him.
“Call me later.” She had said.
Looking at the paper Patch asked to borrow her pen.
“Jenny. 867-5309.” He recited as he transcribed the number onto his forearm explaining, “I’ll lose this otherwise.”
That night Patch had called. That night Patch came to pick Jenny up to go bowling with some of his other friends. And that night, Jenny’s father took one look at him and wrote him off as no good. As far as Jenny was concerned, Patch had done everything right when it came to meeting her father, but as far as her dad was concerned Patch was all wrong in general. That night when they got back her dad told her she wasn’t allowed to see “that boy” ever again. That night, Jenny had cried until her eyes were dry and after she called Patch. He drove immediately back to the house just as Jenny climbed out of her window. They spent the whole night together at a park not too far from her house, gazing at the stars. Turning to Patch Jenny shared a desperate idea.
“Let’s just leave. We can just drive away and never come back. We’ll be like Romeo and Juliet, star crossed lovers.”
Patch looked up at her with sympathetic eyes.
“You’re brave.” He said with a smile, “But we can’t do that. Didn’t Romeo and Juliet die at the end? Besides, if I take you away from him, your Dad will only hate me more. If we’re meant to be together, we will be. Someday, when your Dad can understand, we’ll find each other again. And if not, we will always have tonight.”
It had been the perfect thing to say. Jenny touched her hand to her face dropping her spoon against the side of her mug. It had been so long, but the memory still brought tears to her eyes. Right then hadn’t been the right time to go away but now certainly was. It would be irresponsible to leave her job, plus that was unfair to all her students. They would miss her. But she needed to stop abiding by her father’s choices and make some of her own. She wondered if Patch still lived in town. Scrambling for her phonebook, she flipped through the white pages desperately looking for his name. She couldn’t remember the last name, but how many “Patch’s” could there be? Completely frazzled after searching for nearly 20 minutes, Jenny remembered something: her yearbooks. She kept them all in a box under her bed. Jenny sprinted down the hall to her room and yanked the box from its hiding place. Tearing through the tape she dumped the box upside down and pulled her senior yearbook from the debris. Flipping to the last signature page she found it: “For someday: 662-6723 Love, Patch.”
She prayed that his number had remained the same and punched it into her cell phone. On the fourth ring someone answered. Using the same words she had that fateful night years ago Jenny gasped:
“Patch? It’s Jenny. Can you come get me?”
There was a long pause before he spoke. She expected someone to be like “Sorry wrong number” or “I’m married” or “Jenny who?” She had expected anything but what she heard.
“Where do you live now?”
That night Jenny and Patch lay in the park side by side for the second time in their lives. It had been nearly seven years since they had seen one another. Jenny had her boyfriend and Patch, she had found out, had a girlfriend, but being together that night felt just as right as it had all those years ago. Turning her head to face him Jenny looked into those forever green eyes; a tear rolled down her cheek as she asked:
“Patch… Can we run away now?”
Tootles! annnddd stay classy blog readers!
