I'll see you in the Fall (Part 2)

Lake Kesar

This is part 2 of my short story, "I'll see you in the Fall."  If you read the first installment, you learned about my struggles in my first year at UC Davis, and about how I came to meet my friends, Bailey and Phyllis.  Here is the next installment; Part 2.

======  Continued from Part 1 ======

I'll see you in the Fall -- - by Nikki Holmes, ©️ 2002, 2018

The next time we had class, I waited for Bailey, and it was apparent that she knew I would.  She said, “I asked my friend Liz to meet us at the corner of the quad so she can take the pack from there.  We have that class together.”

“Cool,” I answered.  As we walked and talked, I heard about her life before Davis.  She was not a Freshman, but was actually a sophomore who’d come to Davis directly from high school; no stops at junior college in between.  So, I figured her age at about 19 or 20, and in my head, I dreaded the day that she might ask me my age.  I assumed that would be where the acquaintanceship would end.  I was 32 at the time. 

I met Bailey’s friend Liz, who was also an engineering major, and noted that she had a suspicious look on her face as we were introduced.  What was so odd about all of this that both her friend, and my new friend both looked suspiciously at me?  ‘Well, whatever,” was the only thought I could muster.

As the quarter waned past us, I got to know a bit more about Bailey on our between-class hikes across campus.  We watched as each day the trees pushed the buds of leaves out for their Spring canopy, and we talked.  Mostly, we just talked about easy stuff.  I found out she had a boyfriend at Chico and that she often took the train to see him as she didn’t have a car.  Otherwise, he seemed to be at her place in Davis often, and he also arrived by train.  She was always tired and late to class because she’d usually just gotten off the train.

She told me that she was the youngest of a number of kids, the next oldest being almost old enough to have been her parent.  I inferred that she was so intellectual as a result of having grown up as the only child in a house full of adults.  She liked purple; purple everything.  That became more evident as I got to know her.  Much of her wardrobe was purple.

I never told her that quarter about my secret–that I was a student going through a divorce.  It seemed almost too grown-up, or too mundane to share.  And, I didn’t want to view myself that way, either, so it was just something I left out.  I did get the details when she and her Chico boyfriend were breaking up.  Not that she was the sort to deride a person she’d cared for–or anybody for that matter–but she did tell me when she saw it coming to an end.  Just as a matter of course she told me, as she might also have told me that she’d finally acquired a car.

Over this time, I discovered I had become known as Bailey’s friend.  I couldn’t tell how this had happened.  But people would ask me about her, as though I should know the answers to her life.  It was rather funny, and it brought people to me in a way I’d never have expected.  It was as though they used me as their microscope to view an interesting bug.  I was their conduit to Bailey, though they mostly seemed to want to stay a distance from her.

I actually became rather frustrated and tired of this after a number of weeks.  Primarily, I was angry that people weren’t just getting to know her as I had.  I’d realized that she intimidated us all, and I’d overridden the knee-jerk response to dislike and judge her.  What I’d discovered in doing this was a genuine, loving, funny, kind, and very young woman.  She projected maturity, but I’d discovered she was still just a young person who was trying to live up to her ideals.

Liz, Bailey’s friend, hadn’t warmed up to me much, and that was disconcerting.  It was mostly disconcerting because I had finally managed to become somebody everybody knew, and was making friends left and right.  I suppose I understood that her feelings must have been similar to those we’d all felt about Bailey in the Thermo class.  She felt uneasy by my presence, and possibly threatened.  I couldn’t understand those feelings though, as I rationalized that here I was, about 12 years older than Bailey, not really hanging out with her, just helping her carry a difficult load–literally.

Besides, standing the three of us side by side, any average person would pick me out as the one who didn’t match.  The two of them were sisters, no doubt.  They both wore mismatched clothes that appeared that they’d been purchased at the local Goodwill, which I’d have bet they were.  Ancient and broken down Birkenstocks were their footwear of choice.  They each had macrame friendship bracelets or chokers with peace signs on them.

In contrast, I had the shredder-engineer-jock-nerd look going.  I know the look, but you might have had to be a student at Davis to know it.  Black Jansport backpack with a travel coffee mug lashed by a mug leash to the pack, Teva sandals with socks optional, Gramicci shorts, long hair down to my waist in tight curls, and either a “Rocknasium” or a “Rok Shox” shirt, and Oakley MicroBlade sunglasses on another leash.  Neither Bailey nor Liz ever wore sunglasses that I could discern.

By finals week, Bailey and I had exchanged phone numbers in the event that one of us might need to phone the other regarding a homework problem.  This had been the solution after Bailey had discovered that I left campus to go to work after about 11 am every day.  Not only did I work, but I worked in Sacramento, and then went home to Roseville.  All of those details added up to one truth: I could not study with my schoolmates.  They studied in the evenings.  Not wanting the offer of joining a study group to pass me by completely, I had suggested that we exchange numbers.  She agreed.

I called her once that quarter, just before our final, when I was having a problem with a particularly nasty differential equation.  We realized that trying to do such math over the phone was a challenge even for relatively articulate people.  She gave her best effort, and suggested that I call her back if it still didn’t work.  It didn’t, but I hated to sound desperate, so I didn’t call again.

Spring quarter began, and Bailey and I had no classes together.  We bumped into each other in the union often, and always said ‘hi.’  Liz was always with her, and, I noted, always in a hurry.  I didn’t care; I had no agenda.  I knew I counted Bailey as a friend, and she me.  That was fine.  Halfway through the quarter, I got a phone call from Bailey, asking me if I wanted to meet her and several of her friends down at The Graduate the following evening.  I stalled.  Why was I reluctant to go?  Had I forgotten my desire to be liked and trusted?  I thanked her and told her that I’d see what I was doing.

The next day I saw her at school, and she came up to me and took my hand, and asked me again to join them.  Telling her no–which is what I did–made me feel sad and small.  Here was the essence of Bailey.  Her unselfconscious gesture of taking my hand in hers to ask me–to let me know she truly meant it when she said she’d like it if I came along that night–that was what I’d found in Bailey.  She was the embodiment of trust and openness.

The reason I said no, I reflected later, was the strong vibe I got from Liz.  Had I been thinking differently, perhaps I might have taken it upon myself to make the same effort with Liz that I made with Bailey to break that wall down.  But, it just seemed too impenetrable, and I didn’t try.

Fortunately, I had the chance to spend time with Bailey at the beginning of the summer.  She was on her way somewhere–Tahoe perhaps–and was passing through Roseville.  She’d called me the day before to ask if I’d be home so she could stop by.  I told her I’d make a point of being home, and that I’d love to have her over.

When Bailey showed up, I invited her in.  I was immediately reminded of the vast chasm of difference in our life experiences.  My home in Roseville was the one that I’d lived in for nearly four years which included all but the first semester of my total school time, as well as the entire time I’d been married.  The house didn’t by any means look as it had during my short marriage, but at the same time, it looked lived in by somebody who bought furniture new, rather than at the thrift shop.  I’m certain it wasn’t a difference that was lost on Bailey.

She asked me to show her around my house, and I did.  I was proud to do so as it was a great house.  It was built in the ‘30s and was a “Jack and Jill” bungalow with an amazing floor plan.  I’d really just moved back into it after the fire damage had all been restored or upgraded, so it was looking great.

We got to the second bedroom, and she took a peek in the closet, noting that it was identical to the first–an unusually shaped walk-in.  In it, she spied my wedding dress, which was tucked away in an oversized bag made for that purpose.  She asked me about it.  Her open, non-judgmental expression was the same that I’d come to know.  It was just a question she was asking, there was no more to it than that.

And so I answered her, and the answers and questions unfolded into each other until she knew the story–at least the parts that I could make sense of.  And even better, I knew as we talked, eventually sitting, then lying on our backs on the floor of that room, that she understood that I couldn’t make sense of all of it, and that was just how it was.

For a year, I’d avoided speaking of my story; my life of the past few years.  I didn’t want to be anybody except Nikki, just the engineering student that my newest friends had in one of their classes, or met at the pub on Fridays, or Rollerbladed with on Sunday afternoons.  Bailey–the person I’d come to think of as the very coolest person I knew at Davis–now knew, and it didn’t make any difference.  There was no clap of lightning as my secret leaked out to only the second person on campus I’d told.  I felt both relieved and a bit silly.

Before we rose to get drinks, Bailey began to tell me a private story about her life.  I’m not sure where it began, and I’m not sure how it came up.  One thing I do know, she wasn’t simply trading.  She wasn’t giving me some gossip from her life just to show she could share too.  No, this was a very private and touching detail.

I think we were talking about boyfriends and becoming intimate with them.  Yes, I’m fairly certain that’s how we were lead to her story.  She said, “I have a hard time letting people see me naked for the first time because I have this really horrible scar.”

Propping myself up so I could look see her face, I asked, “A scar?  What from?”

Gesturing, she said, “I have a scar that runs from here to here,” she pointed to the point where her clavicle bones would meet and then ran a line straight down to the bottom of her solar plexus.  “I had open heart surgery when I was 7, and so I have this huge scar.”

My mind raced to try to picture this person–my friend Bailey–in the hospital at such a young age, facing such serious surgery.  Even now, Bailey was such a tender soul.  I couldn’t quite picture her there, in a big hospital bed, surrounded by her grown-up family.  Although, at the same time, I completely understood how loved Bailey must have been with all those grown brothers and sisters and her mother and father all there.  I felt suddenly sad, though Bailey sat before me now, seeming as healthy as a horse.

“What was wrong, Bailey?” I asked.

“I have this heart condition,” she answered matter-of-factly.  “They put a new valve in my heart, but the technology wasn’t so advanced then, so they told me that I’d need to get a new one, like, maybe when I’m about twenty-five or thirty.”

“Wow.  Oh my gosh Bailey, that’s scary.”  I was having a hard time being unemotional about her revelation.  I knew she felt strong and resolved about her reality, and I didn’t want to be ‘reactionary’, but I cared, and I worried.

We lay back on the carpet, and enjoyed the afternoon breeze wafting through the open window and skylight in the room.  Neither of us said anything.  She stayed another half hour or so.  As she was leaving, she mentioned her upcoming trip to the East Coast to stay on a lake in Maine.  I think she must have been caught off guard by my reaction, because I got very excited and she most likely expected me to ask her about her trip, but instead, I asked, “Oh, would you send me a post card?  Please?  I know it’s probably a pain, but I have this great collection...”

And I did.  I hadn’t consciously been collecting post cards until the past year, but the previous summer, as I sifted through what my ex-husband had left for me, I realized that I had been born into a family that was blessed by both the urge to travel, and the urge to write.  As I sorted, I found that I had (most likely) every postcard my father and mother ever sent me, not to mention pretty much every one they ever sent my sister, and every one my grandparents ever sent any of us.  As one set of grand parents were European, the post cards were from all over the world.

I explained all this to Bailey--in the short version–and again asked if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could she please send a postcard.  I promised to bestow upon it a place of honor in my collection.  I also added that my collection already included friends’ cards from just this past year, and that I was looking for an album to put them in.

She agreed, and though I suspect there might have been some reluctance–she wasn’t a big ‘commitment’ person, I inferred–she took my mailing address down and put it into her address book on the spot.  I gave her a hug, and told her I’d see her in the Fall, if not before.

In the second week of August, a postcard arrived with a scene from Lake Kesar, Maine.  The picture was the lake, and around it’s entire circumference were spreading trees in their most colorful season–Fall.  They were true to the East Coast reputation for incredible colors of orange, yellow, red, gold, and every other hue in those color families.  A true tapestry of nature.  On the back, in fat purple pen, was a short note from Bailey.  After a rather lengthy stint on my refrigerator door, it took its place of honor in my collection, where it remains even now.

===== To be continued in Part 3 =====