Julie -TS-C5-

From the beginning, Julie was one of our favorite servers. We first met her when the boys and I were trying to remember who invented the printing press. We asked her. She didn't know, but it opened a channel of communication that lasted to this day.

Julie was the epitome of cute. Plump and short, she had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. She was so nice and sincere that instantly you were her friend, even if she didn't like you. It took me a long time and a lot of work to ever discover any darkness behind her. Outspoken, intelligent and funny she was my best friend at work. In the break room she would ask me for a cigarette. She didn't really quit, but she was pretending  because her boyfriend Marc, the bane of my emotional existence for some time, didn't like it. A nice, vivid slice of memory I hold in a fond place recalls her in the dish washing area talking to the busser, Frank, who will definitely get his own chapter at some point. I walked up to her and asked her to guess what I was doing. I then charaded. I hopped into an athletic stance, feet wide and knees bent. My hands went up in a basketball-guard fashion and started snatching at the air with quick darts. She laughed. "I'm picking blueberries," I explained. She laughed harder. It's awesome when she laughs that hard cause it kind of takes control of her and she has to put a hand in front of her mouth and struggle to contain it. We were buds, it was great.

I was eighteen or nineteen in my blueberry picking days, the exact date escapes me. She was twenty five at the time. I was only friends with those my senior. The kids my age, some still in high school, grated on my last nerve and I was somewhat scared of them. They knew something about youth, or maybe didn't know something about maturity, that I couldn't relate to. In the movie Waiting the staff at the restaurant plays a game where the objective is to trick your coworkers into looking at your penis contorted in various ways. The forms your organ might take included the bat, the brain, and the goat. A hilarious concept unless you convince adolescents this is actually a fun game to play. As I recall, only two people at work participated in this game to their infinite delight. Things like this, reckless, senseless and bizarre acts confused me and I knew I couldn't fall into that clique, even if I tried. So I shunned them and joined the group of senior servers and Stovall.

Julie and I became closer and closer. She started giving me rides to or from work. You could say our first date was when we went to Wal Mart together, late one night, or early one morning. It was in December and snow clung to the ground. Our breath turned to frosty vapor when outside. Inside the car the windows were fogged over. While we waited for the windows to clear, we hugged our own bodies and shivered. Cold weather forces your body to look for warmth. It reminds you of how dependent you are on the warm clothes around you and makes you thankful for a body to share when one is had. In  retrospect, it should have been obvious where we were going, relationship wise. It was already obvious that we were going to Wal Mart.

We were Christmas shopping for her family and her boyfriend. It wasn't a chore though, we were playing. It seemed like I could do nothing but amuse. Every joke I made was met with the same face covering laughter. I rode on the end of the cart while she pushed and I spread my plumage, although I don't think I realized it at the time. We had very different backgrounds. She had a sort of reckless childhood and got pregnant for the first time at age fourteen. I hadn't kissed a girl at age fourteen. She knew about acid and cocaine. I had smoked pot a few times and never been drunk. Two ships that should have passed in the night collided head on and fused together. That night at Wal Mart and all the long Steak & Shake nights proved we were of a kindred spirit. Something about us was extremely compatible. We spent a lot longer than we needed to at Wal Mart.

She started coming home with me after work. It was just friendly. She was old enough to buy booze, so we welcomed her into our apartment with open arms. We would have anyways though. As I said, she was your friend instantly. Her, my roommates and I played drinking games in the very early morning, sometimes while the sun was rising. Or we watched movies or just hung out on our porch smoking cigarettes and talking about whatever it is people talk about on chilly winter sunrises. It is a testament to my romantic short comings that her intentions didn't even cross my mind. I was too hung up over my ex girlfriend to recognize others as objects of romance, but I don't know if I would have recognized it anyways. I was caught off guard when she started playing footsie with me.

Some roommates fighting sleep joined Julie and I to watch Quills, the Geoffrey Rush movie about the Marquis de Sade. Julie surreptitiously slipped off a shoe and started rubbing her socked foot against mine. Instantly I was terrified. Panic roared through my head. A near panic attack took over my breathing and I fought for an idea of what to do. In the past my courtship attempts involved months of poetry and less-than-manly pleading. This forwardness was uncharted territory to me and I definitely did not know what to do. For at least an hour the merciless foot rubbing continued. The only reason I didn't start crying and run into my room and slamming the door behind me was I liked it.

After the movie we went on to the porch together and in a typical confidentless way I confessed all of my shortcomings to her and the reasons she should not be interested. I'm messed up over my ex girlfriend. You're a lot older than me. Work will be weird. I'm a virgin. Thank God she was older and a lot more mature and wise than me. I think a girl my age would have immediately lost interest and run away from the convulsing sac of insecurity that was me. I think she thought it was cute, which it definitely was.

We spent the night, well we had this conversation at sunrise, so I guess we spent the day together? The point is we fell asleep in my twin size bed together, clutching at each other in such a way that made our bodies thank us. For me this was something of a first. Never before had I felt the real security of someone with you, just the two of you, glad for the chill outside that demands this intimacy. I remember putting my head on her hip and looking out the window next to my bed at Bowling Green below. Snow still painted the sidewalks and grass and parking lots. I felt the cold coming through the glass. I was glad for the winter, the cold outside, and the warm in my bed.