January 8: This Time
Letter: C
CD Number: 9
Track Number: 26
Song: “This Time” by Colton, Graham off the album Graham Colton
A man and woman sit together at a high, small circular table in the back corner of the bar. For the sake of argument, let’s call the woman Rebecca, Bec to her friends, and the man Nick. They are huddled close together so they can hear one another speak, although the need for that passed an hour or so ago when the Happy Hour crowd cleared out. The bar itself is busy, but not overly so and certainly no one is stuck standing or having to perform feats of strength to get the bartender’s attention. The man is nervously swirling a watered down brown liquid in his glass without looking at it. The woman, is excited and animated as she tells a story, a glass of clear…something sitting precariously close to the table’s edge, sweating from inattention. The two are not a couple and likely never to be, but there is a sort of energy between them that one might mistake for sexually flirtatious. Really, they are just both chasing the heady lack of perspective that comes from telling overblown stories of your life to almost strangers.
REBECCA
The thing about Robert and Cheryl was that they were THE couple. The one we only kind of looked to. It didn’t matter your class year, your extracurriculars, or your social caste; if you attended our school those years, Cheryl and Robert were your ideal. You didn’t necessarily want either of them, but you definitely wanted their relationship. You know the kind?
NICK
Yeah, yeah…of course. For us in Secaucus, it was Jill and Carlton, if you can believe that. And it was always Carlton, never Carl.
REBECCA
Right. So you know what I am talking about. I mean, personally, no offense or anything, but personally, I bet Rob and Cheryl would wipe the floor with your power couple. Not your fault or anything. Nothing you should feel bad about…I am sure Jill and Carlton made out in the halls to raucous applause and rave reviews. It’s just…well, that’d be amateur hour in comparison to Rob and Cheryl. Amateur. Hour.
NICK (incredulous, faking being taken aback)
Oh you think?
REBECCA
Nick, let’s not waste time on this. I am content in my assertion of my couple’s superiority and you are free to imagine whatever you wish about yours. The larger point is that Cheryl and Robert were our gold standard, just like Carlton and Jill were for the good teens of Secaucus. Agreed?
NICK
Let there be peace in our times.
REBECCA
As it is said, let it be so. Anyway, they had the relationship we all wanted. Legend has it they had hooked up during some youth leader dinner thing the summer before our freshman year, but the details on that were always kind of, I don’t know, foggy I guess. I think we were all too excited about them to really spend much time fact checking their beginnings. In any case, by the time we got our room assignments, they were already a couple, a unit. They existed as separate people, physically, of course, but…spiritually, I guess? That whole one soul two body thing for sure.
NICK
That’s very poetic, Bec. Very poetic.
REBECCA
Hey! Nostalgia brings out my romantic side. As in the movement, not the flowers and candy thing, you understand? Anyway, am I telling this story or are you?
NICK (a backing off gesture)
By all means…
REBECCA
So they’ve got this…relationship going on. And it’s fascinating! We are young and this is the first one any of us have ever seen that was not a parent or an older sibling, you know? It was like we left the grade before and kissing someone might get you labeled a slut. And the next morning we woke up and if we weren’t grinding on somebody, we were prudes. It was bizarre. And confusing. So, we looked to Cheryl and Robert because they seemed to be playing by the rules and making it work.
Pauses and takes a long sip of her drink
I mean, it was clear that they were doing it. Or if not doing it, coming damn close. But no one ever called Cheryl a slut. And no one ever heard Rob brag about what he was getting. So they were getting it all without consequences. Or that’s what we thought anyway.
NICK (skepticism in his voice)
And she got pregnant, the end, right?
REBECCA
No. No! I wouldn’t waste all this time on just another teen pregnancy story. Give me some credit here. No, the real hook here is that we loved them, we wanted what we thought they had, but, for them, “they” were hell.
NICK
The pressure of being young, popular, and in love?
REBECCA (shrugging)
Maybe that was part of it. But it was considerably more screwed up than that.
The thing was, unbeknownst to us, they were both kind of crazy. Robert was kind of passive about it. Like he would sit and stare at his wall for an hour. For no reason. He wasn’t centering himself. He wasn’t communing with other worlds. He just…forgot, I guess, to move. So he was like that; spacey you could say. So maybe “crazy” is too harsh. Odd, though, certainly. But odd in a largely harmless but still mildly disconcerting way.
NICK
Like Chapman? On the third floor?
REBECCA
Actually, yeah! A lot like Chapman. That same indescribable air of something just not lining up quite the way it does for most of the rest of us. Although I’m pretty sure Robert was never as big a fan of photoshopping his head onto animals’ bodies as Chapman is.
NICK
Have you seen his work, though? He’s got a real talent for it.
REBECCA
He really does. Like the hawk picture?
NICK
Oh, his masterpiece. No doubt about it.
REBECCA
Anyway, that would be fine. It would be the sort of thing that, normally, the girl would break up with the guy and tell her friends that he was distant or weird or whatever. Or she would keep dating him because she liked quirky. But the thing was, Cheryl did not take it like that. She took it personally. She got jealous. Really jealous. She’d drive by his house at all hours. She would wait in the driveway until he got home and demand where he was. The more… “him” he got, the more she lost it.
This one time, she snuck into his house and hid in his bed, naked, waiting for him. His sister ended up going into the room to borrow a CD and Cheryl just…flipped. She had Rob’s sister, Ally, like a dozen times, but suddenly she could not recognize her. She started screaming at Ally, demanding to know how long she had been screwing her “man.” Ally’s like twelve and this…person is shouting at her, in her own house. And, of course, Cheryl is naked the whole time. Ally eventually gets out of the house and runs to the neighbor’s and calls Rob. Rob eventually calms Cheryl down, brings her home, and promises he’ll call her tomorrow. And he does…for break up number one.
NICK
Number one?
REBECCA
Oh yeah, this goes on for some time.
NICK
Was she that attractive?
REBECCA
Seriously? That’s where you go with it?
NICK
Well…look. If a woman broke into my house and snuck into my room only to eventually accost my sister, in the nude, she would have to be pretty damn hot for me to ignore that kind of….boundary violating?
REBECCA
What if you were in love with her?
NICK
Alright…fine…fair. But then I’d be checking her into a hospital for evaluation, not participating in a cycle of date/break-up/date, et cetera.
REBECCA
As a teen?
NICK
Oh…oh. Yeah, nevermind then. As a teen, I probably would have loved it! It would be like starring in my own movie!
REBECCA
I’m pretty sure that’s not what it was about for Rob. I think, for him, he really loved her and he did not know what else to do besides break-up with her and then trust her when she told him she was better.
NICK
So how many times did this happen?
REBECCA
The naked thing? That was just once. But they probably broke up like…a dozen times? Once it was because Cheryl didn’t trust Rob with his lab partner so she dumped him until he apologized. Once he caught her breaking into his locker and he dumped her. A few times it was just because of some stupid fight that didn’t stop…you know, normal teen stuff.
Oh, and once, he forgot her birthday. Which, in fairness to Cheryl, is pretty galling. In any case, they were just lousy for each other. He couldn’t stop acting in ways that activated her deep seated fears and she couldn’t explain herself in a way he could grasp and neither one of them really wanted to live without the other.
We really all thought one or both of them would end up dead for it really to be over.
NICK
Oh god…that’s not what happened, right?
REBECCA
Oh no. Definitely not. Like I said, we were teens. Everything was big and whirling, you know? It is hard to see straight through the fog of high school. No, what happened was graduation. And college. And, theoretically anyway, maturity.
Their parents forced them to go to different schools and while they were away, Robert opened up a little, I guess. The staring thing, the distance…it was social phobia. He was trying to calm himself down when he did that because he was way overstimulated in groups. Once he got that and worked on it, Cheryl didn’t seem as central to him.
And Cheryl realized that she could not see him every day, not talk to him every day, not constantly monitor him, and be okay. Plus, I guess her parents were WAY controlling, which none of us knew, so she thought that was just how you loved other people. Someone at college called her nuts to her face for the first time and it woke her up. They came back on break and dumped each other.
NICK
And that was it?
REBECCA
Nah. They ended up getting back together two years later. Got married. Had a kid. Moved back to our hometown. Exactly what they thought they wanted at 14.
NICK
A modern fairy tale.
REBECCA
Well, sort of. Rob got sick last year. An organ was not working or something. His blood was poisonous to him because of it and the doctors…couldn’t figure it out, I guess. He died in a month.
NICK
…damn…that’s…
REBECCA
Yeah. I was kind of pissed for Cheryl, you know? You get your head together, you make your way back to this guy you love, your soulmate if ever such a thing existed, and he dies three years later. It seemed…fucked up, you know?
We went out for a few drinks afterwards, her, I, and some of the other high school pals and in an ill advised moment of sincerity I told her that. And she nodded politely and let me speak and when I was done she looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I know. But imagine if I did all that and he died before we had Sheila. Or got married. Or, hell, ever got back together at all.’ Which…you know, makes sense. Never would have thought of it. But it really could have been worse.
NICK
Huh. Didn’t expect that.
REBECCA
Oh?
NICK
Yeah…you…you taught me a little lesson there. It was like Aesop’s Fables in here for a second there.
REBECCA
I do what I can.
NICK
Any other wisdom you wish to impart?
REBECCA (shaking her glass)
Only that this is empty and I deserve a refill for carrying the conversation this long.