Next Friday, I went home with Lizzie for a sleep-over. Michael would pick us up early the next morning for the drive to Princeton. We sat cross-legged on her bed, pretending to read The Catcher in the Rye. Reports were due in class Monday morning. I was already a big Salinger fan, but had come to him kind of backwards, through his later stories.
My mother, trying so hard to be a part of a culture she wasn’t born to, had subscribed to The New Yorker ever since I could remember. By the time I was eight, I had graduated from the cartoons and “Goings On About Town” to “Talk of the Town” and the short stories. In early May, I read one titled, “Zooey”. In it, Franny and her brother have this long conversation about life and everything, and I began to see her as a spiritual mentor. Back then, the magazine had no table of contents, and the author was not named until the end of the story. Once I saw “J.D. Salinger” there, I knew I had to read other stuff by him, so Catcher became my new best friend. I felt more than ready to whip off a 500 word report Sunday night. I’d much rather share my anxiety about the debate tomorrow than read it again.
“You know, I told you about talking with Mike Harrison last week?”
“Uh hummm…” Lizzie mumbled, still trying to follow Holden Caulfield on his nocturnal Manhattan peregrinations.
“I just don’t get him, really. I mean, it was easy to talk with him and all, and he seems pretty deep and very quick. But I don’t know if I got any feelings from him, you know what I mean?”
“Well, maybe he’s not a phony…”
“No, I’m talking about Michael, not…”
“Look, Janie, you may be the smartest girl in school, and you’ve read this book a zillion times, but I’m trying to get into AP English next year, so I have to get an “A” on this report. I can’t fake it like you can.”
That hurt a little bit. I didn’t think I “faked’ anything in school. Things were easy for me, true, but I still had to actually do all the work. I spoke up in class, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say and write. But I decided to keep my feelings to myself, both about Lizzie’s jealousy and my anxiety over Michael.
On the way to the regionals, Mike seemed distracted, so Lizzie and I, both in the back, just kept quiet. We parked in silence, and he bolted out of the car. Carrying his lectern, he cruised on ahead towards the school doors. No gentlemanly opening of the door this time.
Lizzie hollered, “Hey, wait! Where are we going?” This seemed to wake him up a bit. He stopped at the double doors, looking puzzled.
“I think we go in here…oh, there they are,” he answered.
Miss Foley, Beto, and the rest of the boys were huddled in the foyer, right next to a trophy case under a school banner.
She smiled at us, “You ready? You have your cards? Bobby and Mike are in Room 218 for the first round.”
The day was a blur of sitting, timing, waiting, and cheering when each of their three wins was announced. But I never really got a chance to be alone with Mike. He was always either up in front performing, leaning over in deep conversation with Beto, or getting instructions and a pep talk from Miss Foley. It was only on the way back that he seemed to open up. Or at least was open to listening to me open things up.
“So you guys won! That means you’ll be kind of like the favorites in Columbus next week?”
He seemed a bit sheepish, unsure. “I think we’re going up Friday night. We’ll be staying at some hotel, close to Ohio State – that’s where they’re having the debates.” He hesitated, almost embarrassed, and went on in a softer tone, “Miss Foley said they don’t allow spectators, so I guess that means no time keepers?”
I was surprised at how crushed I felt, almost like he was the one rejecting me. I didn’t know what to say. All I could think about was losing a very big chance to spend more time with him.
Back at Lizzie’s, I brought this up. “I am so … I don’t know … disappointed doesn’t have enough emotion in it…mad that we don’t get to go to state.” This was a new feeling. I was being left out even though I both deserved and wanted to go.
We talked about this on and off all the next week. By Wednesday, we had a plan, to write them a “Good Luck” telegram the night before. For the next two days, I mulled over how to word it s just the right way, using the time-honored form of telegram-ese. Just as it came out of the teletype, mistakes and all, here is how it read:
MISS HARRISET FOLEY, FT HAYES HOTEL
COLUMBUS OHIO
DOESNATIONAL ALLOW TIMERS? WEC LOVE YOU
JANIE AND LIZABETH
In my mind, this was code for: It’s from me (my name came first), I want to see you again, and I’ve got feelings for you. The message must have gotten through. Although addressed to Miss Foley, Mike ended up keeping the telegram, which he showed me 4 years later as he was packing for his move from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. Those years in between – that’s our love story