The Chronicles of Mar and Jennifer

Mark's story

Oh, man, I slept great! I couldn't help thinking about Jen when I got back to my student slums apartment, and it was a wonderful feeling. There was just something about her, something I couldn't define. I pulled off my clothes, brushed my teeth, and went straight to bed, and was out like a light in just a couple of minutes. I couldn't remember any of my dreams, but I woke up feeling good and happy, so they must've been good dreams. I glanced at the clock, already knowing what time it was. I never bother with the alarm, because I always wake up automatically, at 6:14 in the morning. Not 6:12 and not 6:15, right at 6:14. I figured that I could take a quick bath, shave, brush my teeth, and be at Blazer Hall around 7:15 to see if Jen could go to breakfast. If she couldn't, I'd just meet her after class.

Jen looked pretty good. I figured that she'd have been back in her dowdy long skirt again, but she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, like any regular coed, and had her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, just like last night. Her hair was so long that it reached down to the small of her back, and the ponytail had a swing of its own when she walked. All of a sudden, I felt ten feet tall: Jennifer Matthews, the cool, calm, religious girl, the girl who never made an effort to look anything but plain, was taking an effort just to please

me!

I'd never had a real girlfriend before, and walking from her dorm to the Student Center, while holding her hand, made me feel proud. While most of the foot traffic was going the same way we were, there was one guy in a fraternity jersey who was walking toward us, and I noticed his eyes checking her out.

Any

guy is proud when another guy checks out his girlfriend with a look of envy. I had been dreaming about going out with Jen, prior to our first date, but my imagination never really took me to having such a pretty girlfriend.

And that's what she was:

pretty!

I can be objective enough to know that she's not some beauty queen knockout, but she was girl-next-door cute, the kind of girl guys dream about. I think she might have had on a touch of mascara last night, but she wasn't wearing any makeup this morning, and just looked fresh and clean.

We were just making small talk for most of the morning, when she said, "Mark, I've got to tell you, my parents are coming to pick me up this evening after class. I've got to go home for the weekend." I had guessed that something like this was the case, and I responded, "Would you like me to meet your parents?"

"Oh, no, not yet! My dad would lock me away in a closet if he found out that I had a boyfriend."

Oh, my God, she just called me her boyfriend! I was about as happy as I could be over that one, and it took a bit of effort to stay cool. "They'll have to find out sometime, Jen."

"I know that they will, and I'll want to introduce you to them, but I have to figure out how to do this. I know that I'll have to talk to my mom first."

"Of course, I absolutely understand."

The rest of breakfast was uneventful, as was the walk to class. I gave her a quick kiss when she got to her classroom, and was rewarded with a bright smile and a slight caress of my hand. Fifty minutes later, and I was tearing out of my classroom, and rushing down the stairs to meet Jen as she was getting out of hers. If any of my friends had been seeing this, they'd say, "Dude, you've got it

bad!

" A really cool dude would laugh that off, but I wasn't a cool dude, and anyone who said that to me would be right!

"So, when does your family pick you up?"

"My dad will get here right around four, and we'll leave right away, to beat the rush hour traffic out of Lexington. If we wait until five, it's just murder going out Winchester Road to the Interstate, and dad really hates big city traffic."

Jennifer hesitated a bit, and I could tell that she was a bit concerned about something. "Anyway, I kind of blew off homework last night, because

some

one decided that he wanted to take up my evening," - she smiled while saying that, a very un-Jennifer turn of phrase - and I've got to catch up before dad gets here. Plus, I've got to get back to looking the way he expects me to look. Rachel put this nail polish on me, and it doesn't wear off. I'll have to get some polish remover."

"For your toenails, too? Yeah, I noticed. The sandals look good on you." That made her blush a bit!

"Oh, I don't have to take the polish off my toenails, because I'll be wearing socks and shoes all weekend. If I keep it on, it'll remind me of you."

"I don't need nail polish to remind me of you. I promise that I won't forget last night and today." Hmmm, that might have been a bit too sappy. "But I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day, so that you can get caught up on all of your stuff. Can I call you Sunday evening, or should I wait until Monday?"

"How about breakfast again on Monday? Monica and Rachel and I have some stuff to do Monday afternoon, and Monday is usually the day my professors load us up with the most homework." I knew that Jen was right about that, but it also made me nervous. Was she backing off a bit, was she feeling that I was rushing things too much? I could tell: I was about to start overthinking this.

Friday evening came, and I was back in my apartment, trying to figure out what was going on in my world. I couldn't really concentrate on studying, and I really did need to study. I figured that it was time to clean my apartment, because maybe, just maybe, Jennifer would want to come over sometime. The apartment was small, with one really tiny bedroom, just big enough for a double bed, with a small night table jammed along the side. It had a transom window that didn't look outside, but actually looked into the hallway. I suppose that was some sort of code compliance requirement from the 1920s, when this place was built. The bathroom did have a window to the outside, and I was lucky: I had a corner apartment, with windows on two sides rather than one, and on the third floor, the top floor, so there was no one walking on my ceiling. The place was plain, with old hardwood floors, and the small, white hexagonal tiles on the bathroom floor.

I cleaned he bathroom, swept the floor, and then something I had never done, I

mopped

the floor. "You know what this place needs?" I said to myself. "I need to wax this floor."

I went down to Mr Rose's basement office, the apartment manager, on the chance he might be there, and lucked out: he was in, even on a Friday evening. "Mr Rose, do you by any chance have a floor buffer and some wax I could use?" I think that he nearly had a heart attack, right there, that someone would ask that.

"Gosh, son, there's an old buffer in the back here, if I can find it, but I don't think that it's been used in twenty years." He took me back into the mechanical room, past the boiler for the radiators, and pulled it out, a heavy, old, black buffer, with pads on it that looked like they had never been used. There was some Johnson's Paste Wax back there as well, a can that had a quarter inch of dust on it, and had never been opened.

I spent a good part of Saturday waxing and buffing the hardwood floor in my apartment, and I had to say, the floors looked really good. I dusted every surface, washed down the woodwork, and cleaned the tiny kitchen within an inch of its life. I didn't know if Jennifer would ever come to my apartment, but if she did, I wanted it looking good.

Yeah, I had it bad!

Sunday morning came, and I was still thinking about Jennifer. I decided to do something I hadn't done since school started: I would go to Mass. The Newman Center on Rose Street served as the Catholic chapel for the campus, but I had never been there. I tried to remember: the sign out front had the times for Mass, and I think that there was one set for 9:00 AM. Jennifer was a devout Christian girl, from some very conservative Protestant denomination. I had wanted to ask her what denomination it was, but that question seemed a bit more personal than I wanted to ask, and it might raise the question of where I went to church, and bring up the fact that I hadn't been to church since last May. I had even blown off Easter last Sunday, and that was an absolute no-no in the Catholic Church! Mass was at 9:00, and the priest was decidedly young. I had to skip Communion, because I hadn't gone to Confession, but I still felt a lot better after Mass. The homily was about the sanctity of marriage, and maybe that was something I really needed to hear, because I could already tell: I was falling in love with Jennifer Matthews!

Jennifer's story

My father never noticed anything different about me, but mom did. I had found some nail polish remover of Monica's, and cleaned the polish off my fingernails. I ditched the Aigner sandals that Rachel had given me, and had on my old black-and-white saddle oxfords. I wanted to keep my jeans on rather than change into a skirt, and used the excuse that I needed to launder all of my clothes. There were washers and dryers in the basement of Blazer Hall, but it was never easy to catch them empty, and I usually took my laundry home on the weekends. Friday evening meal was a quiet affair, with simple farm fare, but mom's cooking was, as always, wonderful. I think that if all we had to eat was a pair of old leather boots, mom could make them taste good.

Saturday was chores day for me, and I had the great pleasure of mucking out the horse stalls. Dad was tinkering with the old 1946 International Harvester tractor he had, and got it running, belching out black diesel smoke. I had been thinking of Mark while I was cleaning out the stalls, when mom came in, and caught me smiling.

"Jennifer? Smiling while you're mucking out the barn?"

"Oh, mom, it's just that even doing this is so much more homelike than living in that dorm." Yeah, it was more homelike, since this was my home, but, in reality, I had just lied to my mother! "I mean, the girls in the dorm are nice and all, but they're kind of like strangers to me, they're so different."

Mom acted like she bought it, but I wasn't certain. "And is that why your hair looks different?"

"Different? I haven't cut it, if that's what you mean."

"No, I mean the texture."

"Oh, that! My hair was getting a lot of tangles, and Monica gave me some of her cream rinse to use. It makes it a lot easier to brush out my hair, and it does seem to be softer and shinier."

"Hmmm." With that, mom turned around and left, but I was pretty sure that she had seen right through me. If she asked me, how was I going to answer any questions about boys? Fortunately, she let it drop.

Sunday morning arose, and it was gloriously sunny and warm for mid-April. I laid out my best Sunday-go-to-meeting dress, and then headed for the bathroom, for my morning bath. I passed mom in the hall, and she looked down at me and, oh my gosh, I was barefooted, and she could have noticed my polished toenails. The polish was clear, but it had a definite shine. If she did, she didn't say anything, but there was no nail polish remover in the house for me to clean off my nails.

Sunday service was long, as it always is. This morning's sermon was about John Chapter 8, and the woman caught in adultery. The pastor noted that Jesus forgave her sin, but also commanded her to go and sin no more. Then he noted, "Husbands, this woman could not have been caught in adultery without the complicity of some man! Jesus forgave the woman, who was presented for punishment, but let none of you forget: there was a man involved, and he was as guilty as she!" Was our pastor looking right through me? Could he see that while I certainly hadn't slept with Mark, I was considering getting birth control pills in case our relationship did go that far?

Church was over at noon, and we headed back to the farm. Chores are always light on Sunday, but Sunday dinner, which we had early, at around 3:00, so that I could get back to the dorm, is a big deal, and I had to help mom in the kitchen. Her voice was low, so it wouldn't carry, when she asked me, "Jennifer, is there something you need to tell me?"

"What, no, mom, everything's fine."

"Jennifer Marie Matthews, you haven't had enough practice lying to be a good liar. Something is different, and you need to talk to me."

I just stood there, doing nothing and saying nothing.

"Is it a boy?"

I was busted, completely busted. "Mom, I just went out with him once. Please, don't discuss this with dad."

My mother looked at me like I had never seen her look at me before. "Fred," she said loudly, "Jennifer and I are going to the store; we'll be back in a bit." Oh, thank the Lord, she wanted to talk to me about Mark, but she was going to do it away from the house, and my father's ears.

We got into the old car, a dark red 1964 Plymouth Valiant, and headed out. "OK, Jennifer, talk to me."

"Oh, mom, you wouldn't believe him, he's just so nice. His name is Mark, and he's one of my high school classmates. He goes to UK, too, and the other day, I had an arm load of books that I was losing, and he stepped in, scooped them up, and walked me to class. Anyway, he called me the next day, and asked me out to dinner, and I went with him to Joe Bologna's, this Italian restaurant right off campus, and then we took a long walk in the moonlight, and he was just so nice, and a perfect gentleman, and, oh, I don't know, he's just so nice!"

"Can I send you back to your junior high English teacher, and get her to help you diagram that sentence? You had about six independent clauses in there!" Mom laughed at that.

"Oh, gosh, mom, I'm just a mess now. I've never dated before, never gone out with a boy, and I just don't know what to do."

"Were you sweet on him in high school?"

"No, I never really had time for that, and none of the guys there paid any attention to me. I just wasn't one if the 'with it' girls, you know that."

"Is he a Christian?"

"Mom, it hasn't come up yet, and I don't know. Probably, since almost everybody is, but I don't really know."

"You do know what boys are after when it comes to girls?"

"Yes. A couple of the girls at the dorm were helping me get ready, and Rachel, this girl who's the same size as me, loaned me some nicer clothes for my date, and after the date, she said that I ought to think about getting birth control." Oh, God, I probably shouldn't have told my mom that!

"Do you think that you need birth control?"

"Mom, Mark didn't push me for sex at all. But Rachel said that if I kept seeing him, eventually the subject would come up. Please,

please!

don't tell dad this!"

"OK, Jennifer." Mom stopped the car in the store parking lot, and we walked in. "I won't say anything to your father, at least not yet. You're nineteen years old, and have always been trustworthy and a good Christian. You know right from wrong, and eventually you'll want to find a husband. I'm just worried about you."

"Mom, I'm worried about me, too. I'm falling for him, really quickly."

"Well, you've known him for years. Is he an honest young man?"

"He always seemed so, even though I never saw him away from school. He's actually really smart, though he never seemed to study hard. He tore through all of the math and science classes like they were nothing, was always the first one to finish tests, and always got great grades. He did slack off on English and history, but he still knew his stuff."

"OK, Jennifer, here's what I expect from you. It's obvious that you want to keep seeing this Mark, and you have my permission. In fact, I'll give you some money to buy some more stylish clothes. You said that that Rachel girl had to lend you some dating clothes, and I guess that you might want to dress a little more 'college girl.' I just ask you to be responsible, and call me if you need to; you can reverse the charges. And, if you are going to keep seeing him, I expect you to bring him home to meet your family."

"Oh, my God, mom, dad will kill him and lock me away in a closet."

"If he's a decent and respectable young man, no, he won't. We always knew that eventually a young man would come to court you, because that's the way of life. You know, your father once had to court me!" Mon smiled at that thought. I'd never really considered that before, but of course they had to date before they got married!

"By the way, what's his last name? You know that I'm going to look through your high school yearbooks to find his picture."

"Stewart, Mark Stewart."

I felt so much better after talking with my mom. This was a huge secret for me, and while I really, really didn't want my father to find out about my boyfriend yet, Mark had said that my family would find out about us soon enough anyway, and my mother was able to talk to me like an adult, and as a woman. We had a nice family dinner, and when I was getting ready to leave, packing my now clean laundry, mom came up to my room, to look at my yearbooks. "Is this him?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied, keeping my voice down.

"He's a good looking young man. I see that he played football."

"He did, but I don't think that he was one of the star players."

"That's fine. It still shows that he has some self-discipline."

"I love you, Jennifer. You know that I'll always love you, no matter what, and I trust you to do the right thing."