“He could if he were with you,” I offered. She shot me a very nasty look. “You’re just embarrassed,” I said. “You’re worried about what people will say if you date an undergraduate. That’s not a good enough reason not to do it.”
“When you’re seventy-nine and he’s seventy-two, it won’t seem like that big an age difference,” Katie giggled. “Your kids will think it’s funny.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “You’re both idiots,” she said.
She waited until after break and asked him out the first week of spring semester. She thought it only fair she do the asking and the taking since he had made his feelings clear from the start and had performed the miracle of saving SGA (and her ass). He was so glad, so purely, clearly glad she’d asked him, so happy to have the chance to prove himself worthy of her but also just to be with her. When you looked at him those first few weeks, he radiated simple, pure gladness. It suited him. And though there was some initial whispering around the department, it didn’t last. Most people were just jealous anyway.
Most of a semester later, they were really happy. We all liked Dan. Jill was starting to think about next year, a thing you should never do when you are dating someone about to graduate from college. She knew this but couldn’t help it. They were young and in love. It had ceased to be weird. But none of us could really guess how Daniel Davison would react to this late-April news. He was a good guy, yes, a nice kid and smart and in love for sure, but from there to graduate-from-college-and-raise-a-baby-with-a-woman-you’ve-been-dating-for-three-and-a-half-months was a long way indeed.
Six
The last Saturday night in April no one was working. Jill was having Dan over—to make him dinner and tell him. Katie had a date. I was painting my bathroom purple. Between us, we had more or less a book to write and one to grade before next weekend, but we had, I guess, more pressing things to take care of. Jill was having a baby apparently. Katie was finding a husband. I had predicted that things were going to get more rather than less crazy at the end of this semester, and if I wanted the bathroom painted, I had to do it right away. It was that quiet right before a thunderstorm when you sit on the front porch watching it close in, soaking everything it crosses, unable to work up the energy or desire to move inside. It was coming, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Student Life folks are fond of saying that you do your best learning in college outside the classroom (I was an RA as an undergrad). What I had learned about personal narrative over those couple days was that as long as it’s boring and mundane, it feels like it belongs to you, but the moment something happens, the moment it starts to look like a book or a movie, it stops feeling like your own. Suddenly, you have only the epic options of literature at your disposal instead of the boring but limitless ones you’re used to. On most Saturday nights, Jill could go out, she could stay home and rent a movie, she could grade, she could read, she could go to the library, she could do countless boring random things, but that night, she had only a few, dramatic options—she could become a mother or have an abortion; she could make Daniel be a father or lose him to fear and bad timing.
For Katie, life was always like this. She thought the author of her personal narrative was God and considered her lows and highs part of the Grand Plan. So tonight’s date, a setup, a friend of a friend, a guy she had not yet met, was already either (a) the love of her eternal life or (b) someone else sent to help her find the love of her eternal life. Which is a lot of pressure for a first, blind date. We were on the phone, finished with what she should wear—denim skirt, white T-shirt, cardigan (cute, casual but not too casual, layered for a range of temperatures)—and on to what she knew about him already.
“Dionne says he’s cute, but Jenny thinks he’s weird looking. She has strange taste though.”
“What does he do?” I asked, hoping he was out of college. The undergrads hadn’t been working out lately.
“Dental school, first year. He’s twenty-four. Also,” she added very reluctantly, “he’s a Yankee fan.” Not dating Yankee fans is my number two rule of dating. Katie knows this but doesn’t care yet. Later, when he’s no good, she will admit that dating a Yankee fan is stupid, careless even. Truly, this is foolproof relationship advice.
His name was Chris, her second Chris of the month, which I knew would make him hard to track regardless of what happened on the date (good date or bad, he and the other Chris would remain a topic of conversation for at least six weeks). He went to church in a different ward. He had already been on dates with Annabelle, Alison, Kelly, and Dionne, the woman who set them up in the first place (the rule against dating one’s friends’ ex-boyfriends—my number one rule of dating—does not apply in Katie’s world; a guy may not be in the plans for you because he may be in the plans for someone else).
“Anyway, we’ll see. Annabelle really didn’t like him, but she was still hung up on Josh, and they got back together the night after she went out with Chris, so he might be fine. Dionne said he’s really nice.” She was not very excited, not holding out high hopes for this one, I could tell. For Katie, like for most of us I suppose, dating is work rather than pleasure. She likes to shop for clothes for dates, likes to talk about dates good and bad, likes to talk to and about boys on the phone—it’s just the actual dating she doesn’t care for. Being friends with Katie is like being in eighth grade again.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked.
“Painting the bathroom.”
“Finally.” I’d been musing out loud about a purple bathroom since January. “Should I come by when I get home?”
“Sure. I’ll be up.”
“When are you going to write?”
“I’ll start tomorrow.”
“Me too,” she said. “After church. Ugh.”
“Ugh,” I agreed. For me though, it’s all anticipation. I dread starting, but once I get writing, it will be fine I know. Katie is happy to do the research, but the actual during of the writing process drives her mad.
“I guess I better go,” she said. “Good luck painting. Wish me luck with Chris.”
“Good luck with Chris,” I said. “I hope he’s not really a Yankee fan.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.” I’d gotten purple paint on the phone. And the rug. And was considering the relative advisability of using nail polish remover on either when the phone rang again. It was Jill. Of course.
“I’m sautéing fish,” she said, preludeless. “How long?”
“What kind?”
“Halibut.”
“In what?”
“That’s the next question.”
“I’d do about two minutes on one side then another five or ten or so, covered, on the other side. Until it looks done in the middle of the thick part.”
“What am I sautéing it in?” she asked.
“Butter? Lemon? Some white wine maybe?” It was out of my mouth before I paused to consider that wine wasn’t good for the maybe-baby and then that, really, the alcohol cooks off anyway. But enough? I had no idea. “Uh, let’s say butter, lemon juice, and garlic.”