Scrabbled

“Well, I said, stuffing a last bit of toast into my mouth, and turning toward the door, “I guess Caleb isn’t going to… Oh, Hi, Caleb.” I said, my heart beating much more rapidly than I would have hoped, “The notebook is right here,” I said, pointing, ” and there is plenty of food. I have to go get dressed to take Jenny to practice. We should be back, at 10:30 or so, OK?”
I didn’t wait for his answer, and I don’t think he had one. When I had turned he was standing with the door and his mouth wide open, staring at me in all my glory. Not, at least, staring at the ground as he had in my dream, but still, he hadn’t seemed capable of speech. I did my best to walk to the stairs, and turn back toward them casually, but I am afraid I must have looked like I was fleeing. And, truth be told, I was, rather. Caleb was still staring at me, though, and he didn’t seem like he was annoyed by the view, anyway; however much he might laugh at me later.
I went to my drawer and, after only a seconds thought, grabbed the sports bra and shoved it on, following it with the same shirt and skirt I had worn in my dream. I had had good luck there, why not try them here?
“You ready?” I said to Jenny when I got to her room, grabbing a brush and working frantically at her hair, and then braiding it while she painted her face. It really did look ugly to me now.
“Almost,” she said, stripping off her pajamas and grabbing her blouse and skirt and shoving them on. I helped her on with her socks and shoes, and she grabbed her purse.
“Oh, shoot, I forgot my purse,” I said, running back to my room.
The backpack stood, staring at me from the corner, and I shoved my purse in it and ran downstairs, not even looking into the living room as I raced out the door.
I adjusted the seat (very carefully) and drove off toward the center.
“What on Earth has gotten into you, Bobbi?” Jenny asked, her voice excited.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked her.
“Making him read your journal, and then…” She collapsed in giggles, “you should have seen the poor boy!! He won’t sleep for a week!! His eyes were bugging out of his head!”
“Run in,” I said to Jenny, who was still giggling furiously, as we pulled up to the music hall, and after she dashed off, I went to park the car. What had gotten into me? Having a dream was fine, but going all undressed to breakfast as a result?
All that dream stuff had been just crazy. I hadn’t even understood much of Caleb’s explanation. The ‘guy’ part of me had kind of reveled in it. Probably liked to read sci-fi, like Caleb… all into multiple universes and butterfly hypothesis. Getting ‘sent back’. What nonsense. But, for a dream, this had been a powerful one. I felt like I could almost think like a boy. I knew about all sorts of things that no right minded girl should ever know… like how to stand at a group of urinals with other boys… the ‘boy’ in me had thought about that while in a girl’s room once. What nonsense.
Oh, well, sufficient unto the day, I said to myself, and, grabbing my backpack went into the hall.
This time I would study my lines. I kind of liked the way, in my dream, I had learned so much before I hit class that I felt like I knew everything. Especially since I was the lead in the play.
I sat down and was deep into memorizing when I heard a voice say, “Studying?” and I leapt right out of my chair, staring at him.
“You!” I said, for it was Jervis. Clad in a button down blue short sleeved shirt with some logo on it, and jeans, it was Jervis.
“Whoa!” He said, leaning back, “Did I startle you?”
But I had no answer for him and, script in hand, went into the women’s room, almost at a run. This was way, way too weird. My heart was pounding out of my chest. What was he doing here? I had thought he was some dream invention of mine, some evil… something. But here he was. Was he Suzy’s brother, as he had been in my dream? Had I actually met him before?
I could not go back out there. Not for another, I looked at my watch, the rehearsal would get done about 10:15, I was staying in here till then.
It must have seemed odd to the various girls that came in and out that I was sitting on the chair in the girls room reading, but I was not going out there. I hoped my purse was all right. I grabbed a girl, “Look, could you do me a favor? Bring me my backpack, it is…”
“I saw it,” she said, “Red and blue, right?”
I nodded and she brought it right back. “Some guy out there wanted to know if you were all right. I told him it was a girl thing.”
“Thanks,” I said. But she looked at me,
“You are all right, no?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s a guy thing,” I said, and she giggled and finished up.
I read more, and then looked at my watch and walked out. “Hey, you OK?” He said, hurrying up.
I held up my hand, “Don’t talk to me,” I said. “Leave me alone.”
“But what did I do?” He asked. One of Jenny’s group, a boy almost half Jervis’s size, came over,
“Hey, she said to leave her alone, dude.” He said.
“Whatever!” Jervis said, and stomped off.
“Thanks, Tommy,” I said.
“He’s a jerk,” Tommy said.
“You know him?”
“Sure. He’s Suzy’s brother, but none of us like him. She’s OK, but he’s something else.”
Wow. So my instincts had been right, anyway. I must have met him sometime and blocked it out. “Jenny,” I said, as she came out hand in hand with Suzy, “Jenny, over here.”
“I will be out in the car!” Jervis said, and stalked off, leaving the two girls staring at him.

I pulled the pillow  harder over my head. I felt just awful. Or maybe not awful, weird. Every inch of my body felt totally strange. And I was hot.

I reached down; good grief, I was wearing a shirt. I hadn’t worn a shirt to bed since before I got married. I pulled the shirt off, it must be a long nightshirt. Why was I wearing that?

I reached over for Caleb. He wasn’t there. He must have gone to work early. I opened my eyes.

It was my room. I knew every inch of it, every molecule. I had grown up in this room, I had decorated it, it was mine, every single pink touch. It was my room. My old room. Not our apartment, not Caleb’s room, my room. I looked around in a daze and I saw my notebook laying next to me on the dressing table underneath some book.

I opened it and looked at yesterday’s entry.

Why won’t he ask me? I know he loves me, I know he is desperate for me, everybody tells me so. He is just so hooked up with this ‘best friends’ thing, and he can’t get it separated from me as a girl. I still remember, like it was yesterday, the way that we were in my room playing, the way we always did. And I pulled off my shirt, the way I had done hundreds of times before, to put on some princess costume. And he saw my training bra, and he blushed and turned around.

He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t have anything, but it changed everything.  Soon after than mother began making me wear makeup, and carry a purse, and everything like that, and he got all shy on me. We had always said we were going to get married, but I have wanted him to ask since forever now, to ask Dad and then come to me… like he said he would do… on one knee. But he won’t do it.

I know I could get him to, if I was brave enough. That time, two years ago, when we snuck out and went skinny dipping, he almost asked me then. But of course he hadn’t asked Dad yet. That would have been  a story to tell our children.

If I was just less of a girly girl, I think he would find it easier. Everything was easier when we were kids together… taking baths together, jumping through the sprinklers naked. But now, I think I scare him now, all of this extra stuff. It isn’t me, but I can’t seem to let go of it

I know he would ask me if I could run around naked like River… or even topless like Tess does for Stan. But Mom wouldn’t let me. No, that’s a cop-out. She would if I asked her, especially if I told her why. All I would have to say would be ‘Caleb would like it’ and she would let me streak through the backyard. Well, maybe not that.

Why won’t he ask me?

It would be easier if I was a boy. Then I could do the asking. I want to be a boy!

I reached out for my pen, and scratched the last line out, and wrote,

Ask me you stupid moron or I will tell everybody we went skinny dipping! Call my Dad at the hospital and do the whole thing by phone. I will expect you to be there when I get back from taking Jenny to her practice, about ten o’clock. Be there you twit!

PS. I love you, but you know that, you dimwitted science fiction reading hunk. Now ask me already!! Yes! Does that help?

PPS. And I don’t want to go back to school, no matter how much Iike the play and all. I want to sleep with you tonight and every night from now on. And I don’t mean sleep.

PPPS. I love you. Please!

I had just put the pen down when a knock came at the door, “Bobbi! Bobbi, don’t forget. You promised to drive me to my rehearsal this morning!”

I leapt to the door and pulled it open, startling Jenny. “Hey Jens, come on,” I said, pulling her into the bathroom. “Listen,” I said, as I  pulled off my panties and got in the shower, pinning my hair up so it wouldn’t get wet, and then peeing gratefully in the stream of water, “two things. One, leave Susies poor boyfriend alone. And two, we are going to go shopping together this afternoon, and Caleb is buying.”

“Bobbi!?” She said, “Shopping?”

“Yes, we are getting me some new skirts, and some new bras, sports bras, and a ring, and… and cowboy boots.”

“Cowboy boots? Nobody around here wears cowboy boots.”

“I do. You can have my high heels, every one of them. Come on,” I said, running back to my room after drying off.

“Bobbi??” Jenny said, but I didn’t have any time for little sisters right then, I was too busy finding a white pair of underwear with little butterflies on them.

‘You can’t go downstairs like that!” Jenny said as, notebook in hand, I pulled her down the stairs.

“Watch me,” I said, “Hi Mom.”

“Bobbi!?” Mom said.

“Mom, I need you to do a super, super big favor for me, can you? I am going to call Caleb and have him come over and get this notebook. I am putting it right here. And I am going to tell him… Oh, just listen.”

Mom and Jenny stared at me in shock as I grabbed the phone. “Caleb? Caleb, look, I am going out in a minute with Jenny… eat Jen’s we need to go…and I am going to leave my super-special-private journal right out on the kitchen counter, where anyone can read it. Do you hear me? No, not at all. Just the opposite. I want you to sit right down at the kitchen table and read the whole thing. Do you hear me? No, this is not a joke, nor is it a suggestion, it is an order. I want you to read the whole thing, but especially the back page. Do you hear me? If you do not read the back  page, I will never speak to you again as long as I live.”

“Well, yes, you can come right now if you want to. If you hurry, you will get to see me eating breakfast almost naked. Oh, and you are taking Jenny and me to Chez Emmanuel’s  and shopping this afternoon. OK, see you. Remember, the back page!”

“So, Mom, what’s for breakfast…?”