41

How I Got Exactly What I Asked For

After coming home from Paris, I went out a little with friends, but I stayed pretty secluded otherwise. The whole thing with Sera had left me a little reclusive. I’d felt stupid, ashamed and embarrassed, all on top of being depressed about how things had ended.

One phone call changed things.

“Hey, where you been? Haven’t seen you around at all.”

Caitlyn had called me. She knew I’d been back in town for a few weeks, and though I’d called her to let her know, I wasn’t going out. Not even to the Tuesday nights at the pool hall that I’d been a regular at, where Caitlyn was still working pool tournaments. Despite all that had changed, at least one thing had stayed the same.

I relented, and went back out to the pool hall. It was nice. In a way, I was able to have fun and not think about what I’d imagined that I’d lost. But I wasn’t as smitten by Caitlyn as I had been. Either I’d grown up a little bit, or I’d just lost a little bit. Things had just changed.

I stopped going out to the pool hall every week. I still went somewhat regularly, but it wasn’t a weekly beat for me anymore. I still enjoyed seeing her, and don’t get me wrong, I still had a crush on her, but even that was muted.

What I did do was get out a bit more with my other friends. I stopped being about all sports and movies. When I was in Paris, I’d gone to an opera for the very first time. The truth was, I’d hated it. But I’d started to think more about ways to go out and try new things. So that summer, when Nathan asked me if I wanted to go to see the touring performance of Les Misérables, considering my recent experience in Paris, I said yes.

It was a lot of fun. It didn’t make me want to go off and join the theater, but I was into it. It was like a new world had opened up for me. And one person I’d opened up around was Caitlyn.

“Oh, I wish I could go to the theater more often.” she said to me when I told her about the show during the pool hall. “My dad used to keep promising to take me to go see Phantom, but he never did.”

Caitlyn’s life had begun to have some changes, as well. She was still working as a live-in nanny, but her relationship with her family had improved. She was looking to return to school. And while her friends had gone away, she’d been able to find a new group of friends. A girl like Caitlyn does not stay lonely for very long.

Yet, she still found some time for me. It wasn’t a lot, but we even saw each other outside of the pool hall on occasion. That summer, it helped while we both worked, neither of us had school to be taking up our time. But with August rolling around, we’d both set our school schedules and were having to already adjust our work schedules around it. Time was going to be falling short for both of us.

What was coming up, however, was Caitlyn’s birthday in mid-August. And for the first time since leaving for Paris, I started to become devious again.

A plan had come to mind, but it had a bit of a tripping point. There was something I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do it without some investment of money. And yet, if what I had to try didn’t work, all that money would go to waste. Was it worth the money I was about to risk? The time? And most valuably, the emotion I was going to put into it?

Of course it was.

So, one afternoon at work, I decided to do it. I did it while at work, the office job I still had at that point, knowing I couldn’t let failure overwhelm me while I was there. I could concentrate on something else, at least for a little while, so I didn’t have to wallow in anything. So, at lunch one day, I got on my brand new cell phone, and I called up Caitlyn.

After the usual pleasantries, I started up with my plan. “So, I had something I wanted to bounce off of you.”

“Okay,” she said, with a tinge of suspicion.

“Well, your birthday’s coming up, and I have something I’d like to give you.”

“Okay!” she said, with more excitement lightening up her voice.

“But, there’s something more than that. Something a little extra I’d like to do for it. If not, then it’s okay, it’s not like I’m not going to give it to you, but…well, what are you doing on the Thursday before your birthday?” Her birthday was on Saturday.

“Um, I’m coming back from the lake, but I’ll be around in the evening,” she said.

“Well, good. So…” I paused. All the nervousness I had been thinking about was coming to a head. I felt it was a big moment in my life, but I really hadn’t realized why. I just felt like I was doing something big.

“So,” I continued, “would you go out with me that night?”

“Yeah!” came the quick reply I wasn’t expecting.

I’d instinctively held my breath after asking the question. I was used to that transfer of awkwardness hanging in the air while waiting for an answer. But after that quick reply, I don’t even remember letting my breath go. I was just breathing again. I told her that she should plan to dress up a little, and said goodbye.

That was it. It started to sink in. I’d had a crush on the girl for over three years. I’d confessed that I’d liked her, and she’d known it for a long time. I’d snuck peeks at her across a classroom for the only times I’d see her some days, and then I’d hung out with her on a regular basis. She’d given me her phone number, and I couldn’t call her, and now I was at the point where I could just call her up to say hey. I’d gone from being a guy with a crush to being a friend and confidant. And I’d never stopped having feelings for her, even if I’d been distracted at times. But over all that time, I’d never actually done what I did that day.

I’d never asked her out.

I’d tried to let confessions of love, dedications through friendship, and even through romantic gifts, get us to start going out. Or worse, I’d tried to prompt her to do it for me. I’d been so nervous around her, and so preoccupied with crushing on her, that I’d never even bothered to try asking her out. After three years, I had finally asked. And the answer came about so simply, that it seemed ridiculous that I’d gone through all this for years.

I still didn’t believe it in my mind, even as the day approached. I’d gotten a little too used to the idea that the people might let me down. I spent all day worrying that she might stay up at the lake. I was worried something as innocent as traffic would lay my plans to waste. But when I called a couple of hours ahead of time, she said she was home and getting ready.

When I finally showed up at her place, she came out in a beautiful short black dress that did enough to show she’d gotten a lot of sun up at the lake. She had her dark eyes and her shining smile and a bounce in her step as she came out to hug me, as I was dressed up in a suit and trying to dress to the nines.

She had genuine excitement for the night. First was dinner. We drove up to the City and pulled into one of the tallest hotels, and at the top of that was the Cityscape restaurant, which overlooked the entire city. It might not have been a restaurant that spun around, but it sat above the City and had an incredible view of it in every direction.

We took the elevator to the top, and the two of us walked into the center lobby. The hostess, a beautiful girl, as they so often are at those types of restaurants, greeted us and I told her we had reservations. However, when the maître d’ saw us come in, a young couple dressed up like we were, he practically shoved her out of the way. He took over our reservation, and showed us to a table in the far corner of the restaurant. In most restaurants, that’d be a dark, lonely corner that was far from the waiters and where they put the customers they don’t want to be seen. Here, it gave us the most incredible view. Behind me, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. To the side, the city’s skyscrapers were highlighted in the evening sun. In the hills behind them, the sun sparked in windows scattered across the houses, the sunlight flaring up and reflecting in them like flash fires that take minutes to start and finish, as the sky turned pink, orange and purple above them.

It was the most beautiful version of the skyline I’d ever seen, and judging by the look on her face, it was the same for her.

After dinner, I told her that it was time for her gift. She got a little excited, and I pulled a birthday card from my jacket. On the cover were the famous comedy and tragedy masks from the theater, with Shakespeare’s quote “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women are but players.” I’d left the inside blank, save for a paperclip holding two tickets, front row of the balcony, to that night’s showing of Phantom of the Opera.

I swear, her eyes didn’t just widen when she saw them, they positively glowed.

Of course, I’d picked that restaurant because the show was just two blocks away. She also noted that the bar area had a dance floor as we were leaving. We walked the two blocks to the show and had an amazing time. It was the first time seeing Phantom for both of us, and it was an incredible show.

Coming back, Caitlyn was awake, excited and feeding off of herself. While we were heading back to the car, she asked if I’d be up to staying out for a bit. I told her sure, and we went back to Cityscape. There, she got me onto the dance floor with her. We danced, laughed, had fun, told good stories about Paris. It even turned out that while in Paris, I’d mercifully missed out on a fad that came and went in less than the three months I was away: the Macarena. However, Caitlyn insisted that I get on the floor with her and experience it once. She remains the only woman I’ve ever Macarena’d with in my life.

The drive home, she turned on my car radio and started fast-forwarding through my CDs. Finally, she came across an artist I’d loved, but had never dared to share with almost any of my friends. Because you have to really trust someone to admit you like Meat Loaf’s music. She squealed and said she loved his songs, too, and we proceeded to sing one of his songs together on the way home. Just like the Macarena, she’s the only girl who would ever share singing a Meat Loaf song with me.

Finally, we got back to her place after midnight. I got out of my car and walked her to her door. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. I mean, even as much as had been going on that night, part of me was saying she just went out with me for the gift. But I still felt like it was the polite and proper thing to do. On the porch, she told me how much fun she’d had with me that night.

“Listen,” she said to me. “I wanted to ask you for something, but if you can’t, I totally understand.”

“Okay,” I said, completely unsure of what she was going to ask.

“I’m having a party on Saturday for my birthday, and, well, I was kind of hoping you’d be there.”

“Okay!” I exclaimed, but then I thought about it for a moment. “Hey, are you sure? I know that, with my lack of…drinking and stuff, I can be a bit boring. I don’t want you to feel like you have to invite me just because I did something with you tonight.”

“I don’t!” she protested. “It’s just that…it’s at this empty house down the way, and I was hoping…god, this is weird.”

“What?” I asked.

“I just, we’re going to have drinks, and I’m planning on getting wasted, but, I just don’t want any drugs or pot or anything there to ruin it. I want you to have fun, but I just know that I can trust you to help keep things…clean.”

I relaxed. She had no idea about the conversations Sera and I’d had about pot. But still, I gave her a nonchalant “Yes,” followed by a less humble “You can always trust me.”

Her smile beamed again. “Thank you,” she said. And she jumped into my arms, and gave me a long kiss on my cheek.

That would be the only date we’d ever go on. At her birthday party, news spread that someone had taken her out for her birthday to a show, and that she’d loved it. Of course, someone copied the idea, and added things like limousines to the overall concept. And, as expected, she enjoyed herself on those dates as well. We drifted apart in the months after that, and it felt fine. After three years of heart-wrenching crush and drama in my own mind and life, I’d gotten one date out of her. One wonderful date, and a kiss on the cheek.

And it was enough.