Learning the Ropes

A simple misunderstanding brought us together on a warm Friday afternoon in September.

My roommate, Alex, and I were kicking a ball around on a plush grassy area in the city park across the street from our dorm. Alex sent me a bouncing pass that I returned with a looping ball over his head. He turned his back to me, took two quick steps, jumped and executed a perfect bicycle kick to shoot the ball back over his head at me. 

I was impressed and surprised. The ball came back quickly, to my left. I kept my eye on it. I wanted to catch it before it went into the street. I ran backwards, then lunged to reach it with both my hands. I yelled to Alex:

“Hey! Beautiful!”

As I caught the ball, I heard, “Hi! Hey yourself! Nice catch!”.

I brought the ball back towards my chest and regained my balance. Then I looked up and saw her. She was tall and curvy. She was walking towards me on the sidewalk that bordered the park. 

Hers was a serious walk. When she moved, her running shoes struck the ground with purpose. When she moved, her hips meant business. She was wearing light blue shorts and an orange tank top covered with an open lightweight white cotton long sleeve blouse. 

She had a worn, medium-size brown leather backpack on her back. Her right hand was holding a laptop. Her hair was dark, short and curly. The curls moved with a tight bounce as she passed me, turning her head to look at me through her large frame sunglasses.

She smiled, waved at me, and kept on walking.

I stood there, with my mouth open, unable to speak.

Alex and I had scored a two-bedroom suite in a newly completed dorm through the student housing lottery. Our unit was on the top, on the tenth floor. It had a bathroom, a kitchenette with a sink, a microwave, and a full-size refrigerator, and a small living area separate from the bedrooms. No need to share a bedroom or to use a communal bathroom like freshman year. For us, the two-room suite was a luxurious upgrade from the mostly cinder-block building where unsuspecting first-year students were housed.

As sophomores, we were starting to learn the ropes. Avoid early morning classes. Avoid classes that meet three times a week. If nothing else, avoid Friday classes at all costs. It’s better if the weekend starts on Thursday night.

That first year had been tough for both of us. 

Alex made the university soccer team. Our school didn’t give athletic scholarships, and Alex worked at the main library twelve hours a week to have spending money. He was a talented player, but, between practices, games, and the library job, the time commitment was too much for him. His grades suffered. Alex decided to give himself more time to concentrate on his studies and didn’t go out for the team sophomore year.

I had tried out for the team, too. That’s where I first met and became friends with Alex. Unlike him, I didn’t have the skills or the stamina required to play at that level. I lasted in practice for one week. I hit the wall when the coach had us doing eighty-yard sprints at the end of the fifth day. I knew I couldn’t continue. 

It was a good thing. I signed up for too many classes, overoptimistically thinking that I might be able to graduate early and have a smaller student loan bill. It was hard, and I came close to burning out.

“Hey! You going to keep staring at that girl or are you going to pass the ball back?”

I had been mesmerized, in a semi-catatonic state, when Alex said that.

I dropped the ball and kicked a slow roller towards him, saying, “Had enough. Think I will just go back to the room and do nothing for a while.”

Alex received the ball, started juggling it with his feet, and asked me, “Got any plans for dinner? The guys from the team asked me to meet them for burgers. No game tomorrow. Think they want to talk me into coming out. Want to join?”

“No thanks. Burgers sound good, but I think I might just pick something up at the store. Enjoy. See you later.”

There was a grocery store run by the university adjacent to our dorm. It wasn’t big, but it had a good selection of the basics – basic food and supplies for students, that is. 

After getting to my room, I used my laptop to check email. Nothing interesting or urgent. I watched some TV and goofed around with my phone. A low-energy, boring hour went by. I decided to go to the store, taking a couple of reusable bags with me.

I grabbed a small shopping cart and threw the bags in it. I added a package of Ramen that I could prepare in the microwave, a bottle of sweetened iced tea, and a bag of popcorn. Then I made my way to the small section of fresh produce. 

I was tossing an orange into the cart when I heard her voice. She said, “Do you handle fruit as well as you do a soccer ball? Name’s Ann, by the way. “

She was leaning on a shopping cart. The backpack and the laptop were gone. Stylish eyeglasses replaced the large frame sunglasses.

I laughed. This time, I was able to speak. “Hi, I’m John. Nope, not very good with fruit.”

Ann looked at my basket and quipped, “Looks like you’re a gourmet cook.”

“Ab-so-lu-te-ly,” I said. “Anything in a package having microwave directions. Mostly, Ramen.” I pointed at my building, and asked, “You live in the new dorm, too?”

“No, I live in Fouts Hall, one of the two old dorms down the street. Not as nice, but I like it. Tall ceilings. It’s comfortable. I have my own room. I’m just grabbing a few things from this store. It’s a nice location. Don’t have to walk far.”

“Looks like you have snacks, fruit, candy, and drinks. Nothing for a real meal.”

“I’m meeting some friends for a barbeque and party tonight. It’s a yearly event the faculty has for new doctoral students.”

“You’re a grad student? I thought Fouts was an undergraduate dorm.”

“This is my senior year. But I started with a bunch of kids who are now doctoral students. Had to take some time off.”

“Whoa! You’re much older than I thought”, I said. Then I apologized. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay, John,” Ann answered, giggling. I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Again, sorry. My bad. Hope you have a good time.”

“Thanks. Hey, you want to come? Or do you have a girlfriend waiting for you in your room? Someone that likes exotic Asian food?”

“No girlfriend right now. But I’m just a sophomore … not sure how I’ll fit in ...”

“Won’t be an issue. It will be fun. Tell you what – I’ll give you my number, and you think about it. I’m leaving my room around six. Just text me if you want to come. If it helps you decide, almost everybody there will be legal drinking age. There will be plenty of beer.”

We exchanged phone numbers, and she went to the front of the store to check out. I followed after I added a roll of paper towels to my cart. After I went to my room and put the groceries away in the kitchenette, it didn’t take long for me to decide to go to the barbeque.

No girlfriend right now? The truth is no girlfriend since high school, and then only one, for a short and sweet couple of months. What else do I have going on tonight?

I texted Ann, telling her I’d be in the lobby of Fouts Hall at six.

Standing out in a crowd of grad students and professors wasn’t my plan. I rifled through my clean clothes pile, looking for things that wouldn’t advertise my undergraduate status. The winners were jeans, a gray button-down shirt, and a navy-blue zip-up hoodie.

Ann met me in the lobby. She wore jeans with a red top under an oversized off-white sweater. We made our way slowly to a grassy area next to the foreign student building. It was a ten-minute walk. There were gas grills covered with burgers, hotdogs, sausages, and chicken. There was even a charcoal pit being used to roast a pig. And there were several coolers. I left Ann to take a look. A few of them had soft drinks and bottled water, but most of them had beer or some other kind of canned alcoholic beverage. 

Grad school must be okay, I thought.

I found her talking to a young couple with a baby. Ann introduced me, and I asked her if she wanted a beer or something else to drink. She replied, “I don’t like the way alcohol dulls my senses. So, just one beer, please, but make it a good one.”

I went back and asked a skinny bearded guy standing next to the coolers for a recommendation. He suggested an IPA from a microbrewery a couple of miles away. I grabbed a can of the IPA for Ann and a can of hard iced tea for myself, and headed back.

She was still hanging out with the young couple, but they had been joined by a handful of others. I handed her the IPA. Ann introduced me again, and the group made its way to where the food had been put out on long folding tables. We made our plates, then sat on folding chairs arranged around more long tables.

I sat across the table from Ann, and attacked the food that I had piled onto my plate. I sipped the iced tea and listened to her talking with the grad students. Their problems were certainly different than mine. One worried about government funding for her research drying up. Another wasn’t getting along with his thesis advisor, and was close to being dropped by the advisor. The couple with the baby couldn’t find housing that they could afford near campus. 

My worries were mostly about classwork, food, and laundry.

I went back for seconds and another iced tea. We didn’t stay long. Ann and I left when the conversation moved on to stipends and the horrors of being a teaching assistant for a first-year science class. 

Ann picked up the pace on the way back. She seemed to be in a hurry. As we approached Ann’s dorm, she asked, “Want to hang out in my room for a while, John? Great view in there.”

“Ah … okay … why not?” I answered. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was hoping we weren’t just going to be talking about grad school stuff.

Ann’s room was on the eighth floor. It had a high ceiling and plenty of space. Along the left wall there were two artsy posters hung above a desk. She had left her laptop open on the desk. 

Next to the desk was a four-shelf bookcase with two small potted plants on the top shelf. Along the right wall there was a built-in closet and a twin XL bed close to the wall. The bed was covered by a light green comforter with a floral design.

There was an arched window in the middle of the back wall. The glass for the arched part was gray and opaque. There were blinds pulled down to cover the non-arched part. There was an old, dark brown cracked leather chair under the window. 

That’s where Ann had left her leather backpack. That’s where our clothes ended up after we made sure we had protection and we gave each other the green light.

We kissed. We fell on the green comforter. Then she controlled the action. My body reacted to her moves. It was tender, and slow. Then it wasn’t. Ann’s determination in search of pleasure was the same determination she showed when she walked. 

Then it was over, too quickly. 

Ann got up and got dressed. “You should go back to your room,” she said, handing me my clothes. “I’m driving home tomorrow to pick up a few things I left behind. Want to come? It’s less than an hour.”

“What, meet your family?”, I asked, tightening my belt. I didn’t see that coming.

“Nothing like that. No one will be home tomorrow. You like Italian?  I can make you a home cooked meal.”

“I don’t know …”, I said. 

She waited for me to finish getting dressed and walked me to the door, saying, “It’s a nice drive, a chance to get out of town for a little while and see the countryside. Let me know by ten in the morning if you want me to pick you up.”

“Okay,” I said, as I left her room and went to the elevator.

I walked back to my dorm room in a state of confusion. Something wasn’t right. Something was missing. My high school girlfriend and I never got that far that fast. We never got that far, period. Maybe I just didn’t know how to make things happen. Or maybe I was just too dumb to realize when the green light was on back then. But I felt good when I was with that girl. 

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Ann. I liked her. She was … dynamite. But maybe I was intimidated.

Alex was in his room when I got back. His door was open. I waved to him as I went into mine.

He came over as I plopped into bed. “Hey John, what’s up?”, he asked as he walked in. He took one look at me and said, “You okay? You look … like a mess. And that frown on your face makes you look like you’re in deep thought.”

“Yeah, man, I’m fine. Went to a party with a girl. Had a couple of drinks.”

“And …?”

“I’m trying to decide if I like Italian food.”