Novel Treatments / Chapter 2 We Meet (Analysis)
A freshman mixer? I really didn’t want to go. It was also a dance I guess. Anyhow, it sounded dull, and besides, I had a girlfriend. Still, Jeff nagged and I gave in. I’d told him that I was pretty good at picking up girls, and he said he wasn’t, and that he needed my help. So OK, what could it hurt? I’d find a couple of girls, give him his choice, help him get comfortable, then leave him, and ditch the other girl. Like I said, I already had a girlfriend.
We got to the mixer about 8:15 or so. It had started at 7:30 and was to end at 10:00. When we walked into the Student Union there were a lot of people in the main lobby, and even more in the large assembly room.
Inside, the room was crowded, but no one seemed to be dancing. I told Jeff to pick out the girl he wanted to meet and I’d take it from there. The room had a dance floor, and there was a DJ playing records from a small stage. He must have been a Buddy Holly fan, because every other song seemed to be one of Buddy’s. Down one side of the room was a row of large floor to ceiling pillars, maybe four feet square. The first was near the door we came in, I think there were four pillars about 15 feet apart. As we walked between the first and second pillar, I saw three girls standing together talking, a good looking brunette, a cute redhead, and another brunette with her back to us so I couldn’t see her face. I pointed them out to Jeff, but he said there were three of them and only two of us. I shrugged and walked on, humming along to Buddy’s “Peggy Sue.”
We went to the end of the line of pillars and started back up the other side. I pointed out a few other girls, but for one reason or another Jeff wanted to keep looking. About ten minutes passed before we got back to the second pillar from the door. I saw that two of the girls who I'd first noticed were still there, the third was gone. It was about 8:30 and, since I didn’t want to prowl the room all night I told him, correctly, that those two were the best we’d seen. Jeff shrugged and agreed. The DJ started Buddy’s “Oh Boy.”
Even though I'd told Jeff I'd give him his choice I said, “I’ll take the redhead.” Although I didn’t know it, my life was about to become much more interesting.
I had no idea what I was going to say as we walked the four or five steps to the two girls. They both looked at us expectantly, so I had to say something. I just started talking. “I wonder if you two can help us? We were going to do our laundry today, but we couldn’t figure out how to plug in our washboard.”
Now pause here a minute, realize that these were the first words I ever spoke to the woman who has been my wife for the last 43 years. “How do you plug in a washboard?” Give me a break. Still, as a pickup line I suspect it may be unique. (I’d never heard it before, or since.) Fortunately, we were at a mixer where people came to pick up, or be picked up. At any rate, it worked. We’ve kept a washboard hanging on the wall just about from the time we were married. It’s there now.
Trying to remember a first impression back over the course of 47 years is a bit difficult, but here is what I can recall.. I'd thought she was cute when I first had seen her from maybe fifteen feet away. Up close I saw that I’d been right, she was cute. She had bronze red hair, lots of freckles, really a lot of freckles, a narrow face, and dark blue eyes. She was about six inches shorter that me, which made her 5’5” or so. She was wearing a charcoal jumper over a nicely filled white blouse. Her shoes were slip-ons with some kind of metal or glass decoration. That’s what I got in the first two seconds, then she smiled. If there really is a Cupid, that’s when he hit me with his first arrow, just a little arrow. I didn’t even feel it.
Now it’s hard to explain this, but that smile is the thing that I most remember about our first meeting. We stood and talked for maybe 45 minutes, and during that whole time I just wanted to say things which brought back that smile. I have no idea what we talked about, but I remember that smile like it was only yesterday. I’m sure Jeff and Sandy were there too, but I don’t remember them at all.
Her name was Donna, though as we talked she told me people often called her Red. She said I could call her that if I wanted to. She had dimples. They could have been registered as dangerous weapons. The one on her right cheek grows very deep when she smiles. Her eyebrows go up a fraction, her lips part just enough to show her straight white teeth, and her whole face radiates. I do know that even now, 47 years later, I still love that smile, and I still try to say and do things which call it out.
About 9:30 the girls said maybe they should start back to their dorm. Jeff and I walked them back. We, that is Red and I, were walking side by side when our shoulders bumped. I put my arm around her. She didn’t pull away, so we walked the rest of the way to her dorm with my arm around her waist. We said goodnight, I got one more smile, and Jeff and I went back to our own dorm.
All the way back to our dorm Jeff kept on about how I’d found us the two best girls in the room, which they were, and how he wished he could talk to girls the way I could. It was almost embarrassing later to hear him telling Rob, our other roommate, what I had done, almost.
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Come on now, he remembers what I was wearing the night we met? OK I think he was wearing a grey sweater, but since I talked to several boys that night, it just as well could have been one of them. I do remember him putting his arm around me. He seemed nice and his hand never wandered so there was no harm in it.
I just do not remember my first impressions of what he looked like. I mean he was OK, but my first impressions of him are of something else. Joe is funny, and that is what I most remember about our first meeting. He could make me laugh.
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Cool follow up chapter…I like that the wife gets a few words in. You make it feel as I’m listening to my own grandparents tell how they meet. Even though i complained about the time period…it’s neat seeing how teens acted back in the day..overall you’ve kept me interested and the added commentary keeps this unique.
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Comments: I read the first portion of your story, and this part to me reads much more clearer. It gets more to the point and doesn’t really tell all the “insignificant details” that don’t further the story. I also love the descriptions, like the bronze red hair. Also, Red’s voice is better established.
Suggestions: For me, the whole story starts with “How do you plug….” I think that starting your story and showing the past as memory would work and draw the readers in. After all, that is a very interesting pick up line and serves as hook line too. You also need some strong dialogue, and right now you are telling the story, not showing it. Go back and review each line and see how you can show it. Remember, every word you write brings an image to the reader. So if you say chair they get an image of a chair, but in order for them to see the type of chair you see, you need to describe it.
It was smooth… ut was there a point? (I get that all the time…=- )
But, with line:
“(I’d never heard it before, or since.)”
I’d go with italics instead of bold.
Good job, though…
You seem to have a lot of surprises in this story. At first it seems that youre a freshman going to a freshman mixer. In the next paragraph you’re the old man, telling about how you met your wife? And the last paragraph, is you, still the narrator, yet speaking from the body of a girl? Thats what I gathered from the story so far. Verrrry confusing, to say the least.
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