Date: Sunday, 9/14/69

Now I have officially been on a date. Oh my. What a date it was. So much to tell about it and if I get it all down right, even if we never see each other again, which of course I don’t want to happen, I will have this to read through so I can remember it all.

First, I had so many things to take care of on Saturday morning to get ready for this once in a lifetime experience that I barely slept on Friday night. Too excited and too worried. I had no idea how I was going to pay for this dinner. Even with the extra money Goldie sends me, well, I didn’t know what it would cost. I had spent so much money already on books.

Clothes too were going to be a problem unless I got out of bed early and made sure that I had clean clothes to wear that looked presentable. For the first time in my life, I looked at my wardrobe and saw that it was a sorry story. Nothing about it told anyone who I really am. The kids here have such interesting clothing. I look like a stock character from the Midwest who has just recently learned how to apply lipstick.

I see their boots, Frye boots, and tasseled leather jackets, lots of leather all the time. Leather vests. Leather hats. Charles just has that one leather jacket but it looks so good on him. In the cold it makes a noise that sounds like feet in very cold snow.

I have solid-colored everything and my one concession to something different for me is the collection of striped oxford cloth shirts that require lots of ironing to look nice and neat. I wore corduroy pants with an oxford cloth shirt and one of the new bulky sweaters Goldie bought me because of how cold it gets up here and boy does it ever. I thought Chicago was cold.

But even though my clothes make me feel inferior and let’s face it, poor, it’s the actual lack of money that weighs me down here and no more so than when I got out of bed on Saturday morning.

Boy, what an idjit I am. Girls don’t pay for the dates. As soon as Alex told me that, I began to soar above everything. I was filled with helium and my sorry wardrobe and my even sorrier bank account were insignificant. Now above all that worry, I was determined to have the best date ever.

I looked around for Eileen on Saturday morning but couldn’t find her. I wanted her advice about clothes and money. I went for my scheduled run when I couldn’t locate her. Alex and I were the only ones who showed up. Saturdays we go for a 7-mile run. I showed up without yet having committed to being on the team. I enjoy running. I assume I can run with them whether I compete or not.

For the first 3 miles of our run, Alex didn’t speak. He was annoyed that no one else had showed up. I didn’t mind his silence as I was building up my courage to ask him for a loan. I hoped the opportunity to ask would just present itself.

When he asked me what I was doing for the weekend, I thanked the air around me, and started to tell him that I had been asked out on a date but didn’t really have the money to pay my way.

We were running side by side at that point so I blurted my words out to the air in front of me. Alex laughed. I hadn’t expected that.

“What are you some womens’ libber? Don’t you like it when the man pays for you? Feel like he’s taken away your power or something?”

That shook me up. Out of my confusion, I said, “Hey, I’m no feminist.” In all likelihood, that isn’t true but as I noted, I was very confused.

“Then why are you concerned about having the money for a date?” He tried to look at me sideways but it was difficult in the terrain we were now racing through. I have no idea why the speed of our run had increased, but we were really moving along at quite a pace then.

“Well, just in case he needs me to help with the bill,” I eked out of my now very confused brain. That at least seemed somewhat plausible.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, my lovely Scags, and could we please reduce our speed here? This area is tricky and with all this leaf cover we could have a serious accident and be so far from the campus.”

He spit into the woods and slowed down. I did too.

Back in my room, I was overcome with something I never felt before—gratitude. I have felt gratitude before of course, but this was a different type of gratitude. It was like being held in the arms of good luck and not worrying about when it would drop me.

Charles showed up right on time for our date. I was ready, had been ready for at least an hour and I was starving but also afraid I would throw up when we ate.

His beat up Jeep is even more unpleasant to be in than it looks. It was dark outside when Charles came to get me. The lights don’t go on inside the Jeep when you get in. Even my Mama’s old Rambler has lights inside. In the darkness, I couldn’t see anything. I kept banging my knees against this metal plate where the glove compartment should be. It was drafty too. Cold air rose up through the floor.

Charles drives like he owns a sports car. He is plain reckless. At the bottom of the hill at the spot where you have to turn left or right to leave the College, he frightened the pants off me. It was a foggy night. I couldn’t see anything and I don’t know how he could either. There’s a sharp curve so the cars coming from the right aren’t visible until they are coming right at you.

I held my breath as he turned right onto the highway. Not one car came up behind us or towards us. The noise of his engine made my sigh of relief inaudible but once he got the damn thing up to speed, I started laughing about the close call we had just had. He said that wasn’t true. We had had nothing to worry about. Yeah sure, I thought, he had nothing to worry about. I worried enough for both of us.

By the time we reached the Town, the fog had lifted, and I could calm down. He drove along the silent streets with his car sounding like we were an invading army. By the time he pulled into a parking lot in the middle of town, I could barely hear anything. He took my hand as soon as I got out of the car. I was too excited to object and followed him straight for the restaurant. I wanted to roam the streets in quiet with him before dinner. But he was hungry and also said he wanted a drink. I thought, oh my, good thing he’s paying for all of this.

The restaurant was up a long flight of stairs. When Charles opened the door, the sound of quiet eating and drinking greeted us. No loud laughing and shouting like at the Commons, though lots of kids from the College were there.

The waiter took us to a table near the fireplace, it was really quite cozy and beautiful. He treated us both as if we were there every night. I pretended that was true and now hope that it might be.

As beautiful as the place was it made me nervous. I wanted to ask the waiter for help. I wanted to ask him why there were so many pieces of silverware on the table, so many glasses too and then why so much of it was removed as soon as we ordered our meals and drinks.

In the end, none of that was the real problem. The problem for me was I didn’t know Charles and I didn’t know how to talk to him. We kept trying to talk and interrupted each other. I listened to the crackling of the wood in the fire and waited for the first warmth of the wine he ordered for us to help me find something of interest to talk about.

I tried to conjure Aunt Money and have her fill me up with smart, funny things to say. Charles, it turns out, doesn’t like to talk that much. It seemed like it was going to be my job to make our evening interesting.

At first I said the strangest things, things I had never said before. You know that stupid stuff we say when only cliches will do. I didn’t know how to stop this avalanche of inanity. Charles was no help.

What saved me from total humiliation was Odessa’s appearance at the table. She stood over us with her hands on her hips smiling at me. When she said, “Are you ready to make some sense now?” I knew the smartest thing I could do was to ask Charles about himself. After all, no matter how quiet a person is, he will gladly answer questions about himself. Charles was no exception and I finally sat back and let the man speak.

The fire was quite warm and it played along his cheekbones making him look a bit sinister one minute and then sad the next. Neither was true but he spoke softly, slowly and I can’t say I paid close attention. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face and the way those blue eyes worked. They are enormous, protected by these lusciously long eyelashes. It hit me that I had met a man who is beautiful, more than handsome. Sitting so close to him, I could finally see what he looked like and how his mouth moved while he spoke and what the texture of his skin was.

In the midst of answering my questions, he turned to me and asked, “Are you nervous?”

“Of course I am.” I thought how obvious it must be and how nice of him to notice. “Thanks for noticing.”

“It’s okay. I don’t bite.”

He took my hand for a moment and looked at it.

“My what long fingers you have.”

“All the better to scratch your eyes out with if you don’t ask me out again.”

We both laughed at that.

“I guess the ice is broken.”

With that, we talked about things I rarely get to talk about with anyone. Like what it was I really wanted to do with my life and why. Charles was good at asking questions too and as I relaxed into the night, as dinner came and went (I can’t remember what we ate, dammit) and as the coffee and brandy sat before us, I knew this was how I was meant to live.

Charles had been a theater major and then dropped out of school to figure out if that was what he really wanted to do. Then he came back, this fall, to be a political science major with a minor in economics.

“Now that’s a radical change.” That was all I could say. But it was so radically different, such a different course he now charted for his future.

My plans sounded vague and fanciful, even to me. As a freshman, I am entitled to such vagueness, I told him. I had a bit more time to figure things out. The scholarship gave me the time to figure things out too.

He looked surprised when I told him I was on scholarship. I don’t know why. From my clothes and all it ought to be obvious. In any case, once the surprise left his face, we continued talking about what we wanted to study.

He was full of ambition to do something more substantial with his life but felt that the war stood in the way. He is opposed to it, he told me, and wanted to work for a society that wouldn’t ever choose to go to war again. He asked me if he sounded naive.

I couldn’t believe he thought I would have an answer to that question. Talk about naive. I smiled and held onto his hand that he hadn’t taken away since we finished dinner and gave it a squeeze.

It felt wonderful to feel so grown up. To have such a wonderful night that I hoped would never end. But of course it did. It had to.

The restaurant cleared out and we remained. The fire didn’t get replenished with logs. Eventually, Charles asked for the check. I breathed a sigh of relief as he took out his wallet without even looking at me. He put a number of large bills on the table and we stood up to leave. I wanted to ask him if he didn’t need to wait for the change but I kept silent and followed him through the door and down the stairs.

The night was still cold but clear. The number of stars in the sky made me realize that so much was going on as the two of us sat and talked the night away. A half moon hung right near the horizon and I wanted to go sit in it with Charles. I smelled magic and wood burning stoves in the air.

The best part was as he drove me home, he didn’t speed up. He took his time. He cleared his throat and turned to look at me a lot. My eyes were on him and on the road (you can’t ever be too careful).

When we got to the dorm building, he stopped the car. He said, “Don’t get out yet. It’s too cold to stand outside.”

I let go of the door handle and sat back. He leaned over and put his face near mine, looked into my eyes and then kissed me. He did. He kissed me with his lips only and then his tongue played at my lips. Something inside me knew what to do and I responded to his kiss as if I had kissed someone every night all my life long. We kissed for a long time.

When I got out of the car, my cheeks felt reddened by his cheeks. I also had another date lined up with him for Friday night. We are seeing another film, “Brief Encounter.” That’s what they’re showing. I don’t know anything about it.

Charles said he likes that they are showing these older black and white films. I didn’t care what they showed at that moment so long as it meant that I would see it with Charles.

I’m so tired now. I barely slept on Saturday night. All that food and the coffee so late at night. Then today I had my work to do for the coming week. It is a special week now. I know at the end of it, I will be seeing my Beautiful Charles.