It Happened on Maple Street Page 10

  “Chum wants me to go bowling with him and his girlfriend and his friend from college on Friday night. He wants time alone with his girlfriend and can’t leave the friend with no one to talk to.”

  “What?” He’d known something was up, but he hadn’t seen that coming. “He wants you to go out with another guy?”

  “No! It’s not like that! He just wants me to go so the guy won’t be a third wheel.”

  “No way, Tara,” he blurted. “I’m not letting you go out with another guy.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “I can’t, can I? Just watch me. You aren’t going on a date with another guy.”

  “You’re right! I’m not! That’s what I’m telling you. I’m doing my brother a favor. I don’t even know the guy. Don’t want to know the guy. I’m not going to be alone with him. I’m paying my own way.”

  “Call it what you want, it’s a date.”

  “You can call it a date if you want to, but you’re the only one who thinks so. I can’t let my brother down, Tim. He doesn’t ask me for much, and he really needs my help. It’s the only way he can come home. He hasn’t seen his girl since Christmas, and he thinks he wants to marry her. Besides, I really want to see Chum.”

  He didn’t hear reason. Maybe he didn’t want to. All he knew was that he was losing Tara, and the idea panicked him.

  At the same time, he didn’t want to be with a girl who didn’t want to be with him.

  “Fine. If you’re going, then we’re not seeing each other at all this weekend. I won’t share you.”

  “Well, that’s your choice.”

  She’d called his bluff.

  I couldn’t believe that Tim was being so obstinate. He knew Chum. And knew how much I adored my older brother. He knew that I’d walk through fire for Chum. And that I missed him a lot.

  I’d walk through fire for Tim, too. I’d been sitting in it with him for months now. Most particularly those six weeks that I was afraid I was pregnant. But maybe he didn’t want me walking through fire with him. Maybe he just wanted to make fire with me, burn us both up, and then move on.

  I didn’t hear from Tim at all on Friday night. I went bowling. I didn’t do well. And I didn’t care. I talked with my brother’s friend. I got to spend a little time with my brother. His girlfriend didn’t say a word all night—at least not to me.

  And I went home. Chum left to take his girl to her house, and because my parents were already in bed, I brought his friend in to the family room, to sit with him until Chum got back and then the two guys were going to play pool or something.

  I talked about Tim. About how much I loved him, and about how little of his inner feelings he shared with me.

  The guy was nice. He listened. He told me that if Tim loved me, I deserved to have him say so. He warned me about guys who just wanted one thing from a girl. He said most guys just used girls. And that I had to be careful.

  And then he leaned over to kiss me. His lips touched mine and I pulled back, my chest burning with guilt. I hadn’t done anything but pull back and still I felt as though I’d betrayed my deepest heart.

  But there was one thing I liked about that kiss. It didn’t do a thing to me. Nothing. I didn’t feel anything anywhere in my body—except shame.

  No fire. Not even a spark. No feelings down below.

  Nothing like I felt with Tim. I wasn’t a bad girl. I wasn’t loose or sexually crazed. I felt the things I felt with Tim because I was in love with him. He was my Tim. My soul mate.

  My soul mate who didn’t call me on Saturday. He’d said I wouldn’t see him all weekend, but surely he hadn’t meant that. He’d calm down. He’d see that he’d had nothing to fear. He’d call.

  Even if he didn’t see that he had nothing to fear—even, he believed the worst—he’d call just because it would drive him nuts not to. Because we didn’t go all weekend without talking.

  He didn’t call.

  My brother left Sunday morning, and I spent the entire day waiting for Tim to call. I tried to do homework. I tried to read. Nothing worked. I was heartsick. By Sunday afternoon I picked up the phone to call Tim, but I put it back down. I wasn’t going to go chasing after him.

  Maybe he’d been ready to get rid of me. Maybe this weekend, the thing with Chum, had just been an excuse for him to dump me.

  Maybe he’d met someone else. Maybe he’d spent the night before making out with another girl in the bed on Maple Street. Or in the back of his car on a country road.

  I’d see Tim at school the next day, and I was going to have to do something to get his attention. Something to find out once and for all if he had any feelings for me.

  But I wasn’t going to cause a scene. Or be one of those girls who hung on a guy after he was done with her.

  I wasn’t going to cry. Or beg.

  His class ring pushed against my breastbone as I hugged my hands to my chest, and I knew what I had to do. If Tim had gone out on me because he’d determined that helping my brother meant I’d gone out on him . . .

  I’d tell him I thought I needed my ring back. I’d put the seriousness of our situation right in his face. I’d force him to talk to me about us. I was taking a huge risk. I knew that. He could just call my bluff and give me my ring back. If he did, I’d have my answer once and for all.

  But he wouldn’t. I knew that. He’d ask me why I was asking for my ring back. And I was going to let him have it. I was going to tell him that I was in love with him and he better get on the stick and find a way to tell me how much I meant to him.

  I wanted to talk about getting married someday.

  And then I’d tell him I’d been afraid I was pregnant.

  Or . . . he’d tell me that I needed to calm down, he’d tell me no, he wasn’t giving me my ring back. He’d tell me that if I wanted it, I’d have to get it myself, which would mean getting physically entangled with him, and we both knew where that would lead.

  Where we both wanted it to lead. In bed with each other.

  Hugging his ring, with the yarn still firmly intact where it was going to stay, I went to bed early that night.

  And cried in the dark.

  It was Monday morning, March 14, 1978, and Tim stood outside of Tara’s English class, waiting for her to appear. He was leaning up against the cement-block wall in the hallway thinking about what to say to her.

  He’d missed her all weekend.

  And he was still stinging over her date—favor or not.

  She came around the corner, wearing her typical blue jeans and sweater. He tried to read her expression, to determine her mood as she came straight toward him. She wasn’t smiling.

  He didn’t smile either. “Hi,” he said, playing it cool.

  “I think I need my ring back.”

  The words rang so loudly he felt like she’d shouted them. Like everyone around them, going to and from class, had heard what she’d just said.

  He was shocked, taken back.

  He was the one with the right to be mad. She was supposed to be apologizing.

  Maybe he’d seen it coming. Maybe not. He’d expected her to break up with him someday.

  He had no idea what to say.

  But if he didn’t get out of there, he was going to lose it. He had to do something quick.

  “Okay.” He pulled her tiny ring off his little finger and dropped it in the palm of her hand.

  She stared at the ring. Just stared at it. And then, without another word she pulled his ring off her finger, yarn still in place, put it in his outstretched palm, turned around, and walked away.

  He watched until she was out of sight.

  I fell apart. There was just no pretty way to describe me after Tim. I tried to pretend I was okay, to keep up appearances. I was a Gumser, after all. There was protocol.

  At some point my parents intervened. They’d determined that I had to get out—away from home. I was too much of a recluse. I spent way too much time with my nose in books. It wasn’t healthy. I had
to learn how to live in the world. Survive in the world.

  But not too far out into the world. Not to begin with. It was decided, with Chum’s help, that starting in the fall of 1979 I’d transfer to Armstrong University.

  During his last years of high school Chum had joined a pretty strict church. One I’d never heard of. Before that he’d refused to go to church at all, so my parents, while disappointed that he wasn’t going to church with the family, were glad that he was going. Armstrong was affiliated with his church—supported by it. Students attending the university were required to live on campus, to keep a strict curfew, to attend chapel every day, take a Bible class every semester, and go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. They were allowed only four absences a semester from any of those obligations.

  Girls were required to wear dresses to class and to church, and dancing was prohibited. So was necking. Any girl exhibiting any impure behavior would be expelled.

  If I went to Armstrong, I could be a good girl again. I’d fit right in with my need to be a virgin before I got married.

  And maybe, if I worked hard enough, God would forgive me for my indiscretions with Tim.

  I’d been singing in the adult choir at my church at home for years, the only kid in the choir. I was active in my youth group, had taught vacation Bible school the past couple of summers. Getting closer to God appealed to me. Maybe He’d fill the gaping hole in my heart.

  I agreed to go to Alabama with Chum.

  Agreed to sell my little blue Manta.

  I packed my things without complaint. The truth was I was glad to go. To find a new life. The old one hurt too much. Everywhere I looked were memories of Tim.

  Of the things I’d done with him.

  Obviously I’d romanticized the entire encounter. What to me had been acts of love had only been acts of sex for him.

  He was what I’d been warned about—an eighteen-year-old hormonal boy whose pants ruled his heart and mind.

  I didn’t know whether I’d lost him because I wouldn’t have sex with him, or because he’d grown tired of fooling around with my body. I just knew I’d lost him.

  Armstrong wasn’t what I expected—first and foremost because right before Chum and I left for school, he announced that he wasn’t going back. He’d proposed marriage to his girlfriend—also a member of his church—and they were going to move to Columbus, Ohio. He was dropping out of college, but he promised my father that he’d enroll at Ohio State the following quarter.

  I didn’t want to miss a semester of school. I had no choice but to go to Alabama without him.

  I was so homesick those first few months that I wanted to run away. The rules stifled me, made me feel as though I didn’t fit in as I longed for the freedom I’d known at home.

  But eventually, after attending daily chapel and going to Bible class, I started to draw closer to God. To understand how little my drama mattered in the big scheme of life. I volunteered at an orphanage. And joined a service club. I did jail ministry and sang in the school choir. I grew to like the strictness, made friends, had some fun times with girls in my dorm—and started to heal. Tim was still there. In my heart. In my thoughts. Even in my dreams at night.

  But God was slowly starting to fill the emptiness deep inside me.

  As Christmas drew near and I knew I was going to be near by Tim again, I sent him a card. Just a friendship card this time. But I wanted him to know I was thinking about him.

  I wanted him to know my door was open.

  I didn’t hear back from him.

  Tim picked up the card for the hundredth time. He’d put it in the box with the other cards and letters she’d sent him. Right next to the pink yarn he’d taken off his class ring. And the pair of glass-horse earrings she’d left in his bedroom one night.

  I miss you. Tara had written, nine months after she’d devastated his life.

  What did that mean? She missed him?

  That she wanted to catch up for old times’ sake?

  That she cared?

  That she wanted to get back together?

  He’d met someone. A teacher. Emily wasn’t Tara. But she was nice. And funny. Most important, she told Tim all the time how much she cared about him.

  He looked back at the card, wondering what to do. He couldn’t let his guard down, that was for sure.

  He thought about writing her back. And then changed his mind.

  But he didn’t stop thinking about her. A couple of days after Christmas, when he figured Tara would be sure to be home on break from her fancy Alabama college, and with Emily’s blessing, he drove to Huber Heights.

  He had to see Tara. To find out what that card had meant.

  He gave her no warning. And no chance to tell him not to come.

  She’d said she missed him. Elation at the thought made him soar. Not that Emily knew that part.

  Emily also didn’t know that he’d get back together with Tara in a heartbeat if Tara wanted that.

  But what if Tara didn’t want to get back together with him?

  And what about Emily? She was from Eaton. Was part of his world. They had a good time together. Cared for each other.

  Tara must have seen him pull up. She was at the front door when he got there.

  “Hey!” she said, standing there staring at him.

  “What’s going on?”

  Her mouth was open. She looked kind of blank. He couldn’t tell if it was a good blank or a bad blank.

  “Are you going to invite me in?”

  “Oh,” she stepped back. “Sorry, come on in.”

  He did. She stood there, watching him until he felt like a bug under a microscope. And then she smiled. A huge smile that ripped at him.

  She’d taken that smile away from him. Out of his life.

  “It’s really good to see you.”

  “Yeah, I know. I still look good.” He was kind of proud of the smartass remark. And a bit sad about it, too. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good. Okay. I like school. How about you?”

  “I met someone,” he said, putting it right out there. “I’m not sure about it yet, but it might turn into something.”

  “Does she know you’re here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her face fell. Good. Maybe now she knew how he’d felt when she went off bowling without him.

  “So what was that Christmas card about?” he asked. They were still standing in her foyer. She seemed to be home alone.

  She shrugged. “I was feeling sentimental. Thinking about you. I couldn’t let the holiday go by without saying Merry Christmas to you. I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I care.”

  “If you say so.” His way of letting her know she wasn’t going to hurt him again.

  But then why was he there? All he’d had to do was ignore her card to let her know that he wasn’t open to her anymore.

  “So Tara, how’re things down south? Sounds like you picked up a bit of an accent. Not turning into a briar like us Preble County folk, are you?” Why was he doing this?

  She laughed. “You aren’t a briar, Tim Barney. Not even a little bit.”

  She was killing him.

  Why didn’t he just ask her what he’d come there to find out? She cared for him. Great. As a friend, or something more? Was there still hope for them as a couple?

  “You signed your card, “Lots of love.” What did you mean by that?”

  “It didn’t mean anything specific. I was thinking about you and when I think about you, lots of love comes to mind.”

  What in the hell did that mean?

  They moved into the kitchen. Sat down. He asked about her classes. She asked about his. He made the tennis team again and would be playing all spring. She told him about service projects.

  “I didn’t see your car in the driveway. Is it at school?” It had always been parked in the roundabout out front.

  “No, we sold it when I left f
or Armstrong.”

  “Do you and Chum drive back and forth in his car?”

  “Chum got married in September.”

  “That was quick! He wasn’t even engaged!”

  “I know. He just dropped it all on us in August. He married the girl he came home to see last March.”

  He listened to her responses but couldn’t really focus on her answers. He wasn’t asking the questions he really wanted to ask. So he wasn’t getting the answers he needed.

  But if he asked her if there was still a chance for them, she’d think that he needed her. That he wasn’t over her. She’d feel sorry for him. And send more mixed messages. And he’d never get on with his life.

  He shouldn’t have come.

  He stayed a couple of hours anyway. He and Tara probably talked more on that Christmas holiday night than they had in all the months they’d been together.

  “It’s weird, you know,” she said at one point. “Everyone at Armstrong is always telling each other they love each other. It’s a love-in-Christ-type thing—you know, we’re all God’s children, all brothers and sisters in Christ, but they just come right out and say “I love you,” on a regular basis. My girlfriends tell me, even teachers will tell you, but I just can’t do that. I try. But I don’t tell anyone I love them except my family. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel the words, but I just . . . I don’t know . . .”

  Her words trailed off and Tim, whose heart had just about come unhitched from his body, spent the rest of the evening cutting up with her to avoid making a complete and utter fool of himself. Tara was too nice to hurt him on purpose. If he asked her for hope, she’d give it to him just because she was so nice. He didn’t just want her to care about him. He wanted her to think there was no one on earth but him. And there was no way a girl like her, with her worldly future, would ever be content with someone like him. If she was as in love with him as he needed her to be, she’d have told him so when he’d asked what her card meant.

  When he finally stood up to go she walked with him to the door.

  “I have to ask you something,” she said, standing with him in the darkened foyer.

  “What?”

  “What we did together, the physical stuff, did it mean anything to you?”