The Sweater That Didn't Happen

                              The Sweater That Didn’t Happen

           Audrey, 18, at an all-girls school, had her mind on boys all the darn time, Audrey determined she’d have to find something to fill her nights besides fantasies about imaginary boys. Bev knew how to knit, said it was easy and she’d teach Audrey. Knitting wasn’t easy for Audrey. Her fingers froze on the needles. She couldn’t concentrate. Knitting wasn’t fun. It was a chore. The little potholder Bev started her with looked like someone with a bad cold had used it for a hanky.

           Audrey had fallen for Pete last month, December. He’d, along with about 100 other guys, had come to the all-girls junior college to meet girls. There was a tea and cookies party in the ninety-year-old gym for the purpose of boys meeting girls and girls meeting boys. The goal for the girls was to be invited to Dartmouth by a boy for what was called Winter Carnival Weekend. What the boys’ goals were, no one at the all-girls school knew.

           Audrey met Pete at the party which was more like an awkward meeting in an orthodontist’s waiting room. She, as the sayings go, caught his eye across the crowded room. Not only was the room crowded it smelled like sweat. The boys wore crewneck sweaters with starched blue or yellow Oxford cloth shirts and khakis. The girls wore woolen slacks and pink or lime green cashmere or lambswool sweaters. Woolen coats hung on hooks throughout the area. Old pipes hissed. The combination of wool and the bodily bouquet of late teen and early 20s humans made for a distinct odor of players just coming off a hotly contested tennis match in an indoor tennis court in January.

           He nodded. She nodded back. And then they strolled toward one another. The word of the time to describe what a girl of that era called a boy she was attracted to was cute. Since Audrey was five feet and nine inches tall, it was, to her, unthinkable that she’d ever, ever, what she called be seen with, a date who was not at least six feet tall. That criterion was indisputable. During the seven second walk to meet him, Audrey practiced what she’d say. It came out of her mouth okay, she thought.

           “Hi. I was thinking you look like my cousin Ernie. He goes to Princeton.”

           “Hi, I’m Pete, Dartmouth. We all are Dartmouth here. Care to get out of here, walk around. Hot in here. Freezing out there, but right now freezing is better than hot.”

           “Sure,” Audrey said. “Sure thing.”

           This meeting was love for Audrey. They wrote. He called. They said they’d meet over Christmas vacation. He lived in Connecticut. She lived in New Jersey. He said he’d drive to New Jersey, meet her parents and they’d “take in dinner and a show in the city.” She said that would be “neat.” Her mother said she’d make up the guest room for Pete. When he left the next day, she told him she would knit him a sweater. He said that would be “outstanding.”

           Now she sat in the dorm’s lounge with Bev and what seemed like miles of yarn. Bev said a sweater was easy, but she’d said that about the potholder. Audrey said she didn’t believe it but would “give it another shot.”

           Winter Carnival was in February and it was now mid-January. Pete called every other night since they’d been back at their schools. They talked about their courses, about what Pete called “the stupid war in Korea” and about the plays they wanted to see on spring break. Surely, she thought, he’d soon be asking me for Winter Carnival.

           The teal-blue crewneck sweater was taking shape. With Bev’s help, she finished the front. It looked to be too big. Bev said she had a shaper, and they’d use it to fit the sweater when it was done. Audrey worked on the sweater’s neck for a week, and still couldn’t get it right. The hole was too small for even an infant’s head. Bev fixed that.

           Valentine’s Day came with a card from her father and her brother. Nothing from Pete. The next weekend was Winter Carnival and not a word about it from Pete. Some of the girls in her dorm had been invited and asked Audrey about Pete. Audrey shrugged and said she didn’t know, but maybe Pete had invited someone else, that he hadn’t called in a week.

           She still hadn’t finished the front of the sweater and there were the sleeves which, she thought, were going to be too, too much. And why hadn’t he called in four days and why hadn’t he invited her to Carnival? And what about the plays they were going to on spring break? He’d never given her his phone number. It occurred to her now that maybe there was a reason. She could call Dartmouth and ask how to reach him, but she doubted they’d give out a student’s number. She knew he lived in a fraternity house but couldn’t remember the name of the fraternity. Those places were all Greek to Audrey.

           Then it was Winter Carnival weekend. Five girls on her floor had been invited and were all atwitter about their clothes and what Audrey called trifles – hairdos, jewelry, what soaps to bring, those sorts of things were what they talked about, on and on.

           For the first time in her life she felt dumped. There had been Bobby in second grade, but she hadn’t been dumped by him because he didn’t know she was all pitter patter about him. This was the real thing – she was being dumped by Pete at Dartmouth who hadn’t even the courtesy to call and tell her he’d invited someone else or that he was no longer interested or maybe sometime they could be friends. She’d said the being friends line to boys in high school.

           She called her parents and told them she’d been dumped and it hurt and she had this sweater about half done. Her father said he’d be proud to have it. She said she’d worked so hard on the bleeping sweater only to be dumped by the guy who’d never wear it. After all the hours she’d spent. After the terrible time with the collar, she almost gave up. Her mother said she didn’t think Pete was her type.

           Bev said it had happened to her twice in the last four years, being dumped. This had not made Audrey feel better.

           What did make her feel better and what she did was take the sweater parts, roll them up into tight balls. She put the tight balls into a paper bag, went out into the frigid air and buried the bag in the snow in the back of her dorm.