My Quiet Evening

I was having a quiet evening by myself. Sometimes I did that. Sometimes I refused to go on dates or hang out with kids or go to the dance because I needed to have a quiet night. I was going to listen to music—by myself. Write a bit, by myself. Read a bit—by myself. Eat something, by myself. And enjoy the quietness of the silence of lamplight and the love within the pages of a book that never seemed to happen for me in real life. Romance novels were stupid, I told myself, but I could still enjoy reading one at that age.

Then I got a phone call. It was Cameron, a friend from school. “Why aren't you at the dance tonight, Steph?”

“Uh, because my brother and his friends are going. I feel old and stupid going to a Magrath stake dance and I want to stay home,” I whined.

“But you have to come!”

“Why?”

“Because someone is going to ask you out tonight, for sure!”

I looked up, really far up, because I always did my best thinking when I looked at the ceiling or the heavens. “What are you talking about? I can't think of anyone you and I both know that would be interested in asking me out.”

“Well, there's someone.”

“Who?”

“I can't tell you. You have to come.”

“No. I don't. You have to tell me what nonsense this is because I was just about to put my pajamas on. I'm not dressed to go to the dance.”

“I can't tell you. You have to come,” he repeated.

Again, I looked up. Best case scenario, Cameron was going to ask me out and I had to go to the dance for him to do it. “Okay,” I said, giving in. “But you have to meet me at the door. I can't come to a dance by myself. You have to wait in the lobby and walk in with me.”

He agreed and I got dressed.

I walked in and got settled with Cameron and the rest of my guy friends from school. This was a good scene for them. They were sixteen and much older than most of the girls there, but they didn't seem to know how to take advantage of it and hung out with me. I was still twitching with confusion. Half the guys were cousins of mine I had grown up with. What was I doing there?

Finally, one of the other guys from school asked me to dance for the second time, but I still wasn't prepared when Doug asked me if I would be his girlfriend. It wasn't the first time. He'd given me a bracelet years before that I had refused to keep and I had been pestered by his friends who kept asking me out on his behalf.

I had answered them firmly that he had to ask me himself. It had taken him years to ask me and it was happening in front of me. I had no patience for it. He had walked me home numerous times and I had always refused to let him carry whatever heavy thing I had with me. I hate, hate, carrying heavy things and I loved taking advantage of every boy who was willing to carry anything for me, but when Doug asked, I refused. I didn't want to give him even a snowflake of encouragement, because there was no way I was going out with him.

The problem was his personality. I couldn't tell that he had one. He could have been anything and I wouldn't have known. I like people who are open enough to talk comfortably. You know who you're dealing with when you talk to a person who talks, even if the speaker is full of crap, I'll be able to see that. This guy was one of those guys who just agreed with everything I said because I was forceful and beautiful and he liked looking at me. Well, it was not enough for me to be with a guy who merely enjoyed me like I was a performance piece.

Anyway, I didn't know what to say to this guy. I put him in a headlock and walked him around the gym in a circle a dozen times saying that my love life was very complex and I couldn't possibly add him to the complexity without losing my mind.

The thing that makes this story memorable is that I got my face chewed off by my brother Hugh when I complained to him about what happened. I said something like, “Doug asked me out at the dance. Can you believe that? Can't he tell I'm hopelessly out of his league?”

And Hugh temporarily lost his mind. “Seriously, Stephanie, you’re so selfish! That guy has had a crush on you forever and he finally had to say something to you about it so he could get you out of his system and you can't even be civil while rejecting him? We all knew you weren't going to go out with him. All you had to do was say that! You haven't been pained by this situation as much as he has.”

I agreed. I like it when people tell me off with proper gunfire behind it.