“This Magic Moment” – Jay and the Americans
Rick was able to make up some time because Mike gave him a ride back to campus, so he was only about a half hour late when he called Cindy’s room in Prentice Hall. “Hey, sorry I’m late . . . yeah, I’ll tell you when you come down, okay?” When she didn’t seem to be furious, he continued in a much calmer voice. “Good, I’ll be in the waiting lounge. I’m really looking forward to this.”
He sat in a strategic spot where he could see Cindy before she saw him. He worried that he was not dressed well enough for her, especially given how little time he had had to get ready. He could see guy after guy come to the house phone in the lobby and call up to their date. Idly, he wondered which ones were first dates, trying to judge by how nervous they were on the phone. On the other end of dating scale were the girls who came down and their guy hadn’t shown up yet. They glanced around nervously, then went back upstairs to wait. He wondered if Cindy had come down and looked for him thirty minutes earlier. Nah, he thought, she’s way too cool for that.
Then he caught sight of Cindy out of the corner of his eye, and everyone else faded away.
He stood up, tugged on the legs of his jeans as they had stuck to him as he hadn’t taken time to dry off properly after his shower. He knew he was smiling like a fool as she approached him. She looked beautiful. And she was smiling back at him. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. He jogged across the carpeted lounge area, grabbed the railing and catapulted himself up over the three foot railing separating the hallway and landed in front of her. “Hey,” was all he could manage to say. For some odd reason, he didn’t seem to be able to catch his breath.
“Wow. It never occurred to me that a business major could run track,” she joked.
“This was nothing. Did I mention that I’m training for a decathlon? I finished the swimming portion earlier today. Tonight, is the 50 yard dash.”
“Really?” She wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth or not.
“No, actually, I’ve spent all day lying on my back in antique boiler water and body fluids. I thought you’d appreciate it if I took an extra couple of minutes to clean up.”
“That’s one of the better excuses I’ve ever heard. I appreciate originality.”
“I just wish it had been my imagination.”
She laughed. “I’m usually the one who is late, so you’ve been warned.”
“Good to know.” He held the front door open for her, and they began their walk toward Bowman hall to watch Midnight Cowboy.
It was a little cool and windy, and Cindy grabbed Rick’s arm shortly after they left. He covered her hand with his and smiled. “So, what did you do today?”
“I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, so I went with some other girls to the Cleveland Clinic. We spent most of the day following a nurse around the cardiac care unit. It was really interesting,” she concluded.
“Does it look like something you’d be interested in doing?”
“Yes, maybe. The nurse had two patients that flat-lined while we were there, and she was the first one in the room. I’m not sure I could handle it all. She was so good. She actually saved their lives.” She leaned closer and then pulled back slightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What kind of cologne is that?”
“Ah . . . I was afraid I might not be able to get all that yuck off, so I splashed on a couple different colognes. Is it bad?”
“Oh . . . no . . . interesting maybe. Why were you lying in water?”
“Mine was sort of like a heart attack issue, except I had to help replace the heart itself.”
“Heart replacement? You know the first one was only two years ago, but the patient died in a couple of weeks.” She challenged him.
“Mine was an ancient boiler, and not only did it live, and it will keep a houseful of men from freezing tonight. Oh . . . and I saved a monkey . . . sort of.”
“Wow, sounds like you were busy.”
“It’s been kind of crazy around the house the last few nights. There was even ice on the floor in the bathroom, and it was hard to sleep with blankets pulled over my head.”
They were a little more than half way there when Cindy stopped. “Look, you must be beat, and I’ve got to tell you that I’m not used to standing for eight hours at a time. My feet are killing me, and I have twenty pages of notes I need to turn in for extra credit.”
“It’s the cologne, isn’t it? I was afraid I had put on too much, but I didn’t want.”
Cindy turned, put her arms around his neck, and before he even realized what she was doing, she stood on her tiptoes, pulled his head down and kissed him like he had never been kissed in his life. “What if we grabbed something to eat at the Hub, and then go back and find a nice quiet corner of the dorm?”
Rick whispered, “There’s no way you could have held your breath that long. The cologne must not be that bad.”
“Yes it is, and I can hold my breath that long.”
They laughed and walked even closer than before as they headed toward the Hub which was renowned for weak hot coffee, cheap fast food and Top 40 hits playing on the jukebox.
Rick held the door open for Cindy as she walked in ahead of him. They hesitated just inside when they saw that the Hub was packed.
“Why’s it so crowded in here?” Rick asked a guy and his date who were standing in the food line.
“Who knew Midnight Cowboy would be full?” the guy exclaimed.
“I told you it was a hit. I heard Dustin Hoffman will probably get an Oscar.” The guy’s date pouted. “I really wanted to see it.”
“So did we.” Rick nodded. It was easier to agree than to explain how they had changed their minds. He glanced at Cindy and she winked.
Rick and Cindy found a booth away from the line. About 90% of the crowd were couples. The cloying smell of deep fried potatoes and onion rings along with the grilling of hamburgers and hot dogs overpowered his own fragrance.
“So, you had a premonition that the movie wasn’t a good idea . . . how long have you been psychic?” They were sitting on the same side of the booth, and Rick turned so he could look at her directly.
Cindy smiled. “I knew you were going to ask me out on a date hours before you actually did.”
“It wouldn’t take special powers to figure that one out. I was a goner the first time you spoke to me.”
Cindy looked pleased. “Then what took you so long to kiss me?”
Rick leaned in and kissed her as he cupped her face with his hand. They pulled apart by a few inches and stared and studied one another’s face. “I wanted to, but I didn’t think I had a chance with you.”
“Why, because I’m so smart?” she teased.
“Yeah, that was it.” He gave her another deep kiss. “I didn’t think a smart girl like you would go for a handsome guy like me.”
“I promise to never hold your good looks against you if you’ll forget that I’m a genius.”
“It’s a deal,” he agreed, laughing out loud. The irony that she was gorgeous and he was only average was not lost on him. If she wanted to downplay her beauty, then he’d go along. It truly was her great personality that he was beginning to love. Of course, her looks didn’t hurt.
“So what can I go pick up for us?” Rick asked.
“I’d like an order of fries, a cheeseburger and a cola. Oh, and no onions.”
That, alone, promised there would be more making out to come.
“Sounds great,” Rick agreed enthusiastically. “Hang here, and I’ll be right back.”
Cindy gave him one of her spectacular smiles, and he knew that there was nothing on earth that would keep him from coming back to her for the rest of his life.
Rick walked quickly over to the other side of the restaurant and got into the line ahead of about ten other people who had just arrived at the Hub. After a few short minutes, he disappeared behind the partition and after a few more minutes, he carried the tray of food to the booth where Cindy waited. Rick sat back down, only this time closer to her. “I got ketchup and mustard. Did you need anything else?”
“Just you . . . and food.”
They talked and ate and laughed, sharing the plate of French fries that quickly became cold because they were paying more attention to each other than the food.
Rick moved a few inches away so he could turn toward her to make the conversation more intimate.
“We didn’t talk about our families much that night we met, did we?”
“No, it’s not something I do very often,” Rick admitted quietly.
“How come?”
“I never knew my real father.” This was a story he never shared with anyone. But there was something about her and the promise their relationship held that made him continue. He stared at her as his heart opened a crack . . . or two. “My Mom met some guy just after her husband left for Korea and she . . . got pregnant.”
“Just after? What was going on with them?” she asked, being careful not to say anything offensive, but the timing seemed odd to her.
Rick understood that question. He had asked it himself, many times, but only once out loud to her. “That’s a great question . . . how could a women have an affair a month after her husband goes off to war? I asked her the same thing as she was dying of cancer when I was fifteen. I was so mad at her anyway ‘cause I was going to have to go to a foster home until I was 18. Anyway I was just a kid and I was being selfish, so I asked her what happened.” Rick’s eyes filled with tears and he grabbed a napkin from the holder on the table.
Cindy shook her head slowly and reached out to take his hand. “Listen, you don’t owe me an explanation. It’s okay . . . really.”
Rick lifted her hand, turned it over and kissed the palm tenderly. He set it back on the table, but kept holding it as he wiped his eyes again with his free hand. “I’ll be fine . . . it’s good. Really. She told me that her husband had always abused her and he wouldn’t let her leave him. She felt like she was trapped until he left for Korea. She wasn’t trying to meet someone, but she and this really nice guy, who was a student at Kent actually, met at the bookstore where she was working. They fell in love, and she got pregnant. She told me she never told him she was pregnant or even that she was married. He was a poor student and was struggling to stay in school. He could barely afford books, much less a baby.
“Plus, she was afraid that if her husband found out, his brothers would kill this man or hurt him really badly. She really loved him, but she knew it wasn’t the right thing for him.” Rick studied Cindy’s hand, stretching out her fingers, then weaving his own with hers. “Her husband came back and he promised he would treat her better. They moved away and tried to start over, but it wasn’t long before he fell back into his old habits. It got even worse when I was about five years old and he found out I wasn’t his son.”
“Guess he wasn’t very good at math,” Cindy commented.
“He wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. You don’t have to be too smart to join the Army and march into battle. In fact, it helps if you’re not a deep thinker.”
“But couldn’t your mother get help? Couldn’t she have gone to the police?”
“She tried, but the Army protects its own. No one believed her, and even if they did, they didn’t care. She was his wife.”
“And, therefore, his property,” Cindy said with disgust.
“Then he disappeared completely when I was about twelve, and Mom and I were on our own after that.”
“What happened to him . . . your real father?”
“Don’t know. My Mom didn’t know either. I don’t think she ever tried to find him. I think she was so ashamed that she had been unfaithful to her husband that she couldn’t face him. Or maybe she thought he’d found someone else and had a life that no longer included her.” Rick shrugged, wondering, not for the first time, how different her life could have been had she been able to marry a man who loved her rather than one who beat her. He’d been awful to her at the time, but after she died and he grew up, he’d come to appreciate her sacrifices and how much she had given up for him. He wished he had told her so.
Cindy took a deep breath. “Foster care when you were fifteen . . . that had to be rough. Like did you have to change schools and everything?”
“Yeah . . . being raised by a single mom, I got pretty good at making friends cause we moved a lot. It helped me figure out who I am and what I want to do with my life.” Rick had been miserable at the time, but it had forced him to grow up strong and fast.
Cindy sat there processing Rick’s heartfelt admission and admiring the positive attitude he had in spite of it. She had had a wonderful childhood with two parents who were still together and loved each other and who encouraged and supported her with all their hearts. She couldn’t image how horrible it would be to have gone through what he had. She felt a tear slide down her own cheeks as she smiled at him and looked at him like he was the world’s cutest pup that had followed her home.
“What?” Rick prompted, wondering what was on her mind.
“Nothing. Tell me . . . how did you end up here?”
“When I graduated high school, with honors, my foster parents, offered to help me pay for college if I went to Kent, an amazing generosity since they didn’t have any extra money lying around.”
“Unreal . . . people do that?”
“These people did. Then a year ago he lost his wife, so he’s alone now.”
“What about the fraternity? They paid for that too?”
“I was talking with my high school counselor about applying to Kent State and about finances when, out of the blue, he asked if I wanted an internship where I could work around my class schedule and it would pay the rest of my tuition and room and board. I even won an academic award that helped with the expenses. My foster dad thought it would be a good idea, so I started working for a man who does real estate development. He got me interested in joining Phi Psi . . . so I did. He’s their benefactor, and he said he put a good word in for me.”
“How’s that going?”
“Great. I do all the financial and record keeping. God, it was a mess before I took over,” Rick said proudly. “Enough about me. Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn? Well, that means we sit here and get more food and another cola and we don’t go back and spend some quiet time while I check out your cologne. But that’s cool.” She extended the offer knowing what his response would be.
“I think we should save your family for another day. Right now, I think we should see how fast we can find a place where we can be alone,” Rick said as he scooted out of the booth so fast, she almost fell over. They put on their coats and headed outside.