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| the beginning of a new story |
| 05.18.04 (1:56 pm) [edit] |
Part I
Tell them lies and they will believe you
When you’re honest they will deceive you
If you love them they will just leave you
But if you play them they will be with you
(We could have all written this!)
It’d be a nice beginning if she had sat next to the boy in their first college class—we’ll call it Latin American philosophy 101. Or better, instead of sitting, she’d recline in her chair and splay her legs on top of the table in front of her. The professor wouldn’t ask her to sit up straight or put her feet down because, well, he couldn’t argue with her beauty. And the boy wouldn’t stop looking because, well, he couldn’t contemplate her beauty.
She was small and skinny, they noticed, like most of the girls they preferred, and sleek and seductive, they knew, like all of the ones they fell in love with. And her lips were like… "Rose petals that need to be kissed," the boy would later write, or "A songbird that inspires me to sing," the professor would later say.
For weeks, the boy and the professor didn’t notice that this girl’s intelligence rivaled her beauty… or maybe, that this girl’s beauty rivaled her intelligence. But it wasn’t either of their faults: she veiled her intelligence almost as well as she flaunted her body.
Her persistent classroom questions (not her answers) eventually gave it away. She said things like, "Bolivar is the liberator and founding Republican of Latin America… yet he was known to give unilateral orders to kill and torture diplomatic opponents. Is that Republicanism… or is it Authoritarianism?"
The professor, like the boy next to her, would be stumped. How could a girl with such sensuous curves ask such cogent questions? And though they imagined that there must be a catch, that she couldn’t be so perfect, they still so quickly fell in love.
"I want to ask her to coffee, or a moonlight walk, or even a romp in the sack," the boy wrote.
"But I can’t do it, because I’ve done it before," the professor said to a friend.
The professor, unlike the boy next to her, knew better. He was in a position of power, and consequently, he was powerless to take advantage of the girl. He had slept with a student once before, and the penalty hadn’t been worth the pleasure. He was determined to contain his fire.
It was a shame. This particular girl was turned on by smart, passionate, and powerful people… like her professor. But that story wasn’t meant to be.
So we turn to the boy who wasn’t very smart or powerful… We learn that he never followed through on asking the girl out either, and we wonder why. So we look to his journal. "I feel so passionate," it says. "But a girl like that would never go for a boy like me." And we understand that feeling because, well, we all feel that way sometimes.
So does the story end here before ever really beginning? Of course not. This wasn’t the real beginning. I just thought it would have nice if things started this way… tender and innocent.
The truth: this boy and girl, we’ll call them Greg and Tatiana, met inside their university health center. They were both freshman and somewhat anxious. He was waiting to talk to a psychiatrist about his anxiety, and she was waiting to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
They traded introductions in the waiting room, and they didn’t say much after that. But they didn’t need to. He was already in love (with her), and she was already nervous about the test.
Greg’s anxiety problems diminished with medication and therapy over the years, and Tatiana was nervous about the needles, not the results. She had been safe, she knew, but she wanted to be sure.
And though their first meeting was less than ideal, they smiled and exchanged greetings a few days later when they passed each other as while walking to class. He was hesitant to stop and say more because, he imagined, she might see through him. She was hesitant to stop and say more because, she too imagined, she might see through him.
(In those days, pretty girls tended to be wary of talking for too long with strange boys. They knew that boys were always falling in love for the wrong reasons.)
They attended a small and secluded liberal arts college. So they inevitably saw each other around campus. And because she was polite, by nature, and he was in love, by nature, they greeted each other whenever they saw each other on the street or in the gym. Eventually, they had smiled and said hello so often that they forgot how or even where they even met. It was as if their beginning—brief and slightly awkward, but very real—had never really existed.
Had they consciously forgotten? Or did forgetfulness just accompany the passage of time?
She forgot because she had no reason remember. She’d met many people since entering college, and he was just a face in the crowd.
He forgot because he loved hopelessly, and as we know, when one loves hopelessly, as he did, even imperfect beginnings become perfect. For instance, he still imagines that it all started in a classroom.
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posted by: anon (reply)
post date: 05.24.04 (5:32 pm)
Love the structure of this beginnning of a story - the "this is the way it shoulda happened" then "this is the way it DID happen" kinda thing. Esp. the way you lull the reader into thinking that the way it should have happened was the way it did, and then sprang the change, reminding us that you started the story with "It'd be a nice beginning if..." Very cute!
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