Rebecca

During college, I had a lot of jobs. One of those jobs was thanks to the courtesy of my friend Jonathan of all the schemes.

Jonathan was a burly man. Stocky and stout with a full grizzly beard and balding long hair that kanked out in all directions to give him a generally "wild" look about him. He was clever and brilliant and manipulative and was always roping people into things.

One of those things was getting Carolyn to marry him. At our college, you see, we weren't allowed to live off campus unless we were an independent or a resident of the city. He figured out that if you were married, you would automatically fulfill both of those requirements. So since the three of us hung out all of the time and I was an uptight prude who would never go for such a thing, plus a lesbian, and since Carolyn was clearly in love with him and would do anything he asked, he asked her to marry him.

When he got his apartment, the three of us still hung out together all the time, drinking champagne and smoking pot, crashed out on his futon, bathed in the red light from the light bulb in his room. At some point we all went on a road trip to Chapel Hill and he took a bicycle for a test drive and lost control on a steep hill and we ended up waiting hours in the emergency room. By then he and Carolyn were having sex and he wouldn't admit they were dating even though they were married, and she was a wreck while we waited for him as he got his cut washed out and stitched up and ever after that, he still had gravel imbeded in his head, so periodically rocks would pop out. He got a rock tattood on his calf to commemorate the event.

After a while, Carolyn needed a break, so they got their divorce and she quit school and moved to a different part of town, but he was still there and that's when he got his job as a cook for this vegetarian restaurant across the street from school. They needed a dishwasher, he said, so got me the job. I needed, after all, a way to blow off some steam and work out aggression since I was always pissed off at Mary for something or another.

That's when I met Rebecca. Catherine and Rebecca were identical twins and they worked at the restaurant. They were painfully mousy, but also beautiful. They we so obviously damaged birds. So we took them in.

Jonathan and I would talk all the while he was cooking and I was squirting off racks full of dishes, putting them through the industrial washer, and scrubbing out pots. My fingertips shredded and bleeding from the steel wool. "Which one would you date?" One of us would ask. "Catherine," Jonathan said, "Because I think I'd have a better chance. What about you?" "Rebecca," I said, "For the same reason." Little did we know.

We asked them out for drinks after work. They agreed and came with, and both ordered sparkling water. We were miffed at why they would come. Shortly thereafter, though, Jonathan started dating Catherine. And it became obvious that Rebecca was interested in me. I was, however, living with, involved with, and in an on-again-off-again tumultuous relationship with Mary. So Rebecca hated Mary. And then we got our friend Stacey a job there as well.

This was right about the time Stacey started getting hooked on crack, but she thought Rebecca the water drinker was beautiful and I wholly encouraged their going out. Stacey was a cute little perky doll of a thing with long bubbly waterfalls of blonde hair. When Stacey decided she liked someone, Stacey always got what she wanted. No one said no to Stacey. So Rebecca went along.

A couple weeks went by and Stacey started complaining to me. "All she talks about is you." Neither of us could get it. Here Stacey was, the most darling of darling things, and her girlfriend was obsessed with me. And Mary was attracted to Stacey, so she encouraged my friendship with Rebecca. Unfortunately, Rebecca weirded me out like the pink haired girl did in the silence department. I just couldn't figure out a way to get the girl talking. It was always painful and digging in frozen dirt.

Somehow time went along and I moved to Atlanta and then to Boston and Atlanta again and forgot about Rebecca completely. That is, until one day my phone rang. My roommate from Boston calling to tell me an old friend of mine from North Carolina called. "I don't know any Rebecca," I said. But I gave the number a call anyway, just to see. Maybe she meant Rachel, who was another friend.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end hedged. I knew right away who it was.

I dug through the conversation and hung up as quickly as I could come up with a good enough excuse. I was on my way to work. With Melissa.

She called back a couple times, each one, I had to come up with something to say. Finally she said, "I suppose you're wondering why I called."

I paused. I waited. I had given up on digging.

"I'm wondering if you would like to go out on a date."

"Well," I said.

"I know. This is stupid."

Finally something snapped. I had no more reason to try to be polite. "Actually, it is." I said. I wanted to say, "and actually, I'm creeped out." I continued, "We live in different states. How, exactly, do you envision us doing this?"

"I could come meet you."

"And then what? You're going to drive six hours so we can go out on a date? Then what? You'll sleep on my couch? Drive back home? I'm not having you do that."

"I'll tell you what, though. If I'm ever in Greensboro again, I'll give you a call." That last part I shouldn't have said. It left a bit of hope. I should have sealed the door shut completely. But I never heard from her again, so I guess that was good enough. I hated to be mean, especially when the other person is so nice. But sometimes you have to be direct. It's something I wish Mark would have learned, even though I tried to railroad him into it. The goddamn bastard is still too polite.

Rebecca is, however, the one and only person who has ever missed me in my entire life. For that, she wins the prize. What the prize is, I don't know. But she is the only person who has ever had a thought about me after I've left. And honestly, even though she isn't the one for me, that is the one and only way she and no one else has ever made me feel special.