A Life On College Hill Read online

  Meghan whined, “Just when it was getting good.”

  I had to help Meghan with her coat. The graceful dancer was suddenly having her own difficulties with coordination.

  We were walking out the door when I heard Hank yell, “Hey, kid, bring her back next time you have to watch her.”

  Top of the Second Inning

  Meghan was still in party mode and wanted to know where else we could go. Will’s was the only other bar open at that hour, and I had a feeling she didn’t want to go back there.

  “Sorry, Meg, Central Valley is closed, and they’re rolling up the sidewalks. It’s a long walk. We should start back.” She didn’t seem to mind the steady rain or that I had called her Meg. Maybe she did consider me a friend.

  Still whining, she asked, “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not going home?”

  We stood in the rain while I tried to figure out her motivation. Why was she hanging out with me? I had met girls who would act like a friend as long as I was buying the drinks. My disposable income for the week had already been expended on her and her friends. If she was looking for another free drink, it would have to come from some other guy.

  “I want to go to your house,” she said. “You’ve seen my house, I want to see where you live.”

  That was unexpected, but a great idea. My car was parked back at my apartment. I could drive her home, drop her on the front porch, ring the bell, and run. It seemed like my best option.

  Meghan was already in the mix when she walked into Will’s. I had bought her four or five beers in the time we were together. She was fading while we sat at the monument but rallied when she heard the music at Donny’s.

  It only took a few minutes in the cold rain for the rally to fizzle. We had half a mile to walk, and her battery was running down. She would dance a few steps and then lean heavily on my shoulder, for a few steps, to rest. She’d mumble something about backstabbers and no-good son of a bitch Eric. The sequence would then begin anew with another dance step.

  I wasn’t in much better shape. My thirteen-hour shift was a new personal record. A day at work was equivalent to a day in the gym. I was constantly lifting racks of dishes and cases of food. There wasn’t much storage space in the kitchen, so everything had to be put in its proper place. The proper place was usually an eye high shelf or rack. The heavier it was, the higher Chet liked it stored.

  I had to work so many hours on the weekends that my social life was practically nonexistent. My plan had been to have a beer or two after work and then hit the sack. Trying to keep pace with Meghan, I had three or four additional beers and had already lost a couple hours of sleep.

  As tired as I was, the night was far from over. I still needed to get Meghan back to her house. Driving was not a practical solution. Any college kid on the road at that hour risked being pulled over. I had had far too much to drink, and a DUI would be a financial disaster. Assuming she would eventually want to go home, we were going to have to walk. The round trip was over two miles.

  When I left for work at six-thirty that morning, it seemed like it was going to be a pleasant day. I certainly wasn’t expecting miserable weather. But now the rain had become a genuine downpour, mixed with sleet and snow, that showed no sign of letting up. My jacket was way too light for the cold, let alone drenching rain. I needed to start checking the forecast before going out.

  My apartment was on Elm Avenue. Elm runs all the way from Main to the river. It’s a distance of about a mile and a half. This is where the elite flaunted their wealth in the gilded age of Central Valley. A series of mansions had been built along the wide, tree-lined avenue, each one an effort to surpass the one before it. Now no one in town could afford their upkeep as private residences. Most had been converted into law and medical offices or apartments. One had become a social club and another the town library. We started down the driveway of one of the larger properties.

  Meghan, amazed, was just clearheaded enough to ask, “How much does Chet pay you?”

  I was embarrassed to say, “This isn’t where I live.”

  We followed the long driveway to the garage behind the house. A door on the side opened into a stairway. Climbing the steps to my one-room apartment, I was soaked to the bone and chilled to the core.

  They say a light bulb burns brightest just before it burns out. Meghan was shining brilliantly when we entered my apartment.

  “So, this is your bachelor pad.”

  “You could call it that if you want to but I don’t,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll bet you have a lot of parties here.”

  “Not as many as you might think, Meghan.”

  I wanted to get dried off and warmed up as quickly as possible. Meghan was beyond feeling physical discomfort. She raided my fridge and grabbed a beer. It was open before I could stop her, and the party was back on. A good portion of it spilled down her shirt while she danced in the kitchen. I took the beer from her and put it on the counter.

  She was becoming an annoyance, and I was beginning to run low on patience. “How about we take a break and get dried off?” I asked.

  Meghan had not let me out of her sight all evening. Every time I tried to excuse myself to go the men’s room, she came up with a reason to make me stay with her. Whenever she had to go to the lady’s room, she insisted I watch her drink until she returned. I only managed to sneak off one time while she was gone.

  Needless to say, several of the beers imprisoned in my bladder were demanding their immediate release. I told Meghan to find some dry clothes in my closet and change in the bathroom as soon as I was finished. Once in the bathroom I paroled the prisoners, washed up, and dried my hands. I grabbed a towel for her and opened the door.

  Meghan had pulled most of the clothes out of my closet before deciding on an old sweat suit. She had already undressed and was wearing nothing more than underpants.

  “Oops, no peeking!” she yelled.

  We both, quickly, turned our backs while she pulled on the shirt. Embarrassed for both of us, I said, “Meghan, I told you to change in the bathroom!”

  She replied, “Sorry, you took too long.” Without putting on the bottom half of the sweat suit, she danced her way over to the rest of her beer.

  She gave the can a whirl and said, “Let’s play spin the bottle.” The remaining beer flew in all directions as the can spun around the counter.

  She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You win!” she said.

  With a sympathetic look, she kissed my nose and said, “That will make it better for you.”

  Then she put her arms around me, put her lips to mine and said, “This . . . will make the rest of you better.”

  This . . . caught me completely off guard. I assumed she didn’t realize who she was with, but I let her kiss me. A debate was raging in my conscience. The angel on my right was telling me there’d be hell to pay when she sobered up. The devil on my left was telling me something completely different.

  I pulled away and said, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

  She sounded surprised as she said, “Eric, you said I was a knockout.”

  She called me Eric. That killed any temptation!

  “Knockout doesn’t begin to describe you, Meghan. I just need to get into some dry clothes,” I replied.

  I gave her a gentle nudge in the direction of the sofa and said, “Have a seat, and we’ll talk when I get back.”

  My apartment was freezing. I always turned the thermostat down to fifty when I left for work. Electric baseboard heat and an uninsulated apartment are an expensive combination. Even when I was in the apartment, I only kept the heat at sixty degrees. Sixty was as warm as I could afford. It was cheaper to wear a sweatshirt and sleep with two blankets on the bed.

  I picked up some dry clothes from the floor of my closet. On my way to the bathroom, I pushed the thermostat up to s
eventy. Meghan’s hair was still dripping wet, and I was afraid she’d get pneumonia. I figured I had worked enough overtime that day to pay for the extravagance.

  It only took a minute or two to dry off and change. When I returned from the bathroom, Meghan was passed out on the sofa. Nothing would wake her.

  “At least I don’t have to walk you home,” I said out loud.

  Even if I drove, I couldn’t carry her all the way to my car. Leaving her passed out on the porch wasn’t an option. With no telephone, calling someone for help was also not an option, and even if it were, who would I call? I couldn’t leave her passed out and alone in my apartment to go find Sandy and Helen. No, I was stuck with her until morning.

  I pulled the covers down on the bed and carried her over. I placed her on her side, propped her head up on two pillows, and covered her with both of my blankets. Her hair was still wet, and the heat had not yet kicked in.

  I checked to make sure she was still breathing. I had no idea how much alcohol she had in her system. Newspaper headlines flashed through my mind: “Coed Found Dead in Busboy’s Apartment.”

  Better to be safe than sorry, I took the bucket from under my sink and placed it next to the bed. I picked up all the clothes she had pulled out of my closet, wiped up the beer she spilled in the kitchen, and hung her wet clothes in the shower. I had heard that beautiful women were high maintenance. I didn’t realize this is what that meant.

  It was absurd that she called my dingy apartment a bachelor pad. The garage was originally a carriage house when it was built at the turn of the last century. My apartment was probably the servant’s quarters. It took seven steps to walk from one end to the other. A small sofa with a coffee table served as dinner table and desk.

  The bed barely fit crossways at one end of the room. The kitchen, at the opposite end of the room, was something of an afterthought. One cabinet below the sink and one cabinet above was the extent of my storage space. An old stove and a small refrigerator were the only appliances. It was all state of the art for 1939.

  The only good thing about the apartment was the price. It was the one place in town I could afford. My landlord gave me a break on the rent because I agreed to cut the lawn in the summer.

  A coat became my blanket while I tried to fall asleep on the sofa. Sleep wouldn’t come easy that night. The baseboard heating element rattled and banged while it struggled to reach the new setting. I wondered if Meghan’s friends were looking for her. I imagined Sandy and Helen giving my description to the police. Search parties were probably roaming all over town. I kept listening for the baying of bloodhounds in the driveway.

  Most of all I worried what Meghan would think in the morning. She probably wouldn’t expect to wake up to my busted face. “Area Man Held in Coed Kidnapping.” It was going to be a long night.

  When I was able to put those fears aside, I tried to figure out how I ended up on my sofa. The night started off innocently enough. It was obvious that Meghan needed to talk after breaking up with Eric. I was happy to lend a sympathetic ear. I didn’t even mind standing in the rain while she ranted about her sisters bailing on her. That’s what a friend should do.

  As drunk as she was, I couldn’t hold her accountable for anything she said or did. I had no illusions that there could ever be anything romantic between us. I was serious when I told Hank I was her babysitter. Still, I wondered what she was thinking when she kissed me. That’s not what friends should do! That kiss would linger on my lips all night. It was all questions and no answers as I longed for sleep.

  I dozed off once or twice but only for twenty minutes at a time. I kept checking on her and worrying about what the morning would bring. It also didn’t help that the sofa was too small. I couldn’t stretch out, and the armrest made a lousy pillow. Around four o’clock I surrendered to the inevitable. Grabbing my backpack, I pulled out my books and turned on a small lamp. If I couldn’t sleep, at least I could do some studying.

  Managerial Accounting was my toughest course, and I was always playing catch up. We had just finished a chapter in class, and there were review problems to complete. An hour and a half later, I was on the last problem. It seemed, Mr. Thompson, the comptroller of the XYZ Corp., faced a dilemma. He needed help deciding whether he should lease or purchase the Company’s new delivery truck. I was only a couple clicks of my calculator away from solving Mr. Thompson’s problem when I heard a gasp.

  My heart leapt into my throat as Meghan began to stir. Looking over to the bed, I saw her lifting her head off the pillows.

  I said, “Good morning,” in as normal a voice as I could muster.

  Wearily, she replied, “Oh, it’s you.”

  “You were feeling no pain last night. How are you this morning?” I asked.

  “Not so good, my head is killing me,” she moaned.

  Making light of her pain, I said, “That’s your prize for drinking the most.”

  There was aspirin in the medicine cabinet. I poured some water in a cup and brought them to her bedside.

  I told her, “The best remedy for a hangover is a couple of aspirin and a couple hours of sleep. You’re welcome to both.”

  She sat up, took two aspirin, and washed them down with a gulp of water. A worried expression came over her face when she realized she was wearing my Rec League Baseball Champs sweatshirt.

  “What did we do last . . .” her voice trailed off. Trying again, she asked, “Did we . . . um . . .” her voice trailed off again.

  “No, Meghan, we didn’t. You slept in the bed, and I was on the sofa.”

  “You are a gentleman!” she exclaimed. With a sigh of relief, she fell back on the pillows and off to sleep.

  The last year I played baseball my team won the championship, despite having me on the team. The sweat suits were a reward for our stellar season. Unfortunately, adult, all adult size large, they were too big for us to wear at the time. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of mine even though it was now fairly well worn out.

  It was a lot easier to concentrate on my homework knowing that she wasn’t going to freak out on me. Over the next two hours I caught up on every subject. Who would have thought I was a morning person? While I packed up the last of my books, I realized Meghan had been sitting up in bed watching me.

  The aspirin must have worked because she had a very pleasant smile on her face. “Do you always do your homework this early in the morning?” she asked.

  “Not typically, but I guess this isn’t a typical morning,” I replied.

  My typical morning routine was already shot to hell. I had to be disciplined to survive on my own because I was hanging on by a thread. Missing a class or an hour of work could be catastrophic for me. I could not afford to get lazy. I was up before six every morning even when I didn’t have work or class. I’d turn on the coffee pot and then do sit ups and pushups for twenty minutes. After a shower, I’d eat breakfast and be ready for whatever the day would bring.

  “Were you awake all night?” she asked.

  “For the most part. You had a lot to drink, and I was a little worried.”

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I guess this wasn’t the first night’s sleep I’ve cost you.”

  I smiled but didn’t reply.

  “Did we meet up at Will’s?” she asked.

  “Very good, it’s always best to start from the beginning,” I replied.

  She was confused and couldn’t remember what happened after we met. I offered her a hint. “Then Eric walked in and . . . .” I left the rest up to her.

  “We took a walk. Was it raining?”

  “Pouring!”

  She was embarrassed. “Oh no! Did I drag you around town in the rain?”

  It was my turn to flash a pleasant smile. “I believe we’ve already established that I don’t like you walking alone at night.”

  She smiled back, I guess at the t
hought of me walking her home from Chet’s.

  Still confused, she said, “I remember we were dancing.”

  “Well, you were dancing, I was trying.”

  “Where were we?”

  “Donny’s Bar.”

  “Donny’s!” she squealed. “You mean the townie bar?”

  “Don’t knock it, you had a great time, and the bartender is hoping you’ll come back.”

  Covering her face with her hands and laughing, she said, “I’ll bet! What did I do?”

  “Nothing bad, he just liked the way you danced.”

  “I’ll bet he did. I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be,” I said, “it was fun. Now that I know they have a shuffleboard table, I’ll probably go back.”

  “How do you play shuffleboard?” she asked.

  “It’s too difficult to explain, I’d have to show you.”

  Most people seek clarity in their life. Clarity, at times, can be inconvenient. Sometimes it’s better if your memory remains a little fuzzy. Unfortunately, for Meghan, clarity was at hand.

  Hesitantly, she asked, “Did I kiss you?”

  That kiss had kept me awake most of the night, but I couldn’t let her know.

  “Sort of.” I said. “You wanted to play spin the bottle.”

  Looking a little hurt, she asked, “Didn’t you want to play?”

  “You called me Eric. I didn’t think we should play if you didn’t know who was in the game.”

  It wasn’t my intention to make her feel bad, but I managed to succeed without trying. To recover the situation, I laughed and told her I didn’t play because she was spinning an open beer can.

  She chuckled a bit but offered multiple apologies. Meghan was quiet as I put my books back in the closet. When I turned back to her, she was looking at the shirt she was wearing.

  “Where did I get these clothes?” she asked.

  “From my closet,” I replied.

  Visibly nervous, she asked, “Where did I get changed?”

  She looked down at the shirt and then up at me. With her eyes tightly closed, she said, “Please tell me I did not get undressed in front of you.”