It was just before midterms during fall semester of my senior year when I sat for lunch at a rare empty table in the crowded student union snack bar. I could have used my meal card, but I craved something other than the bland, tasteless, over-cooked fodder that passed for food in the cafeteria. So, I spent my last dollars on a cheeseburger, fries, and a cola. Fortunately, I'd get my meager pay check the next day and I'd have a few, too few, dollars in my pocket again. The cacophony of the snack bar faded away when I buried my nose in an engineering text while distractedly eating the fries before they got cold.
Two students sat down across from me. Their conversation quickly blended into the background noise. I had no reason to look up at them and I'm sure they expected me to pay them no heed. I read until a loud crash caused me to look up in the direction of the noise. Two students had collided, launching the contents of their trays in several directions. A coed sitting nearby let loose a stream of obscenities when she got a bath in soda.
I returned to my fries and my reading until I heard a gasp followed by 'Sam? Is that you, Stammy?'
My head snapped up when I heard my old nickname. A nickname no one at school had ever heard. One which I only heard on those rare occasions when I saw kids I grew up with. I had a pronounced stutter whenever I talked to a girl. It was less pronounced when speaking with adults, non-existent when I was with male friends. Tommy Clement, in a rare moment of brilliance, had come up with Stammy, combining Sam and Stammer, to tease me after I faltered through a conversation with Paula Buttina, a pretty girl that made me exceptionally nervous. Stammy became what close friends called me.
Two women were looking at me. I didn't know the blonde. The other girl looked very familiar. But her familiarity didn't fit the setting. Everything about her presence was out of context. I couldn't make an immediate connection. She had wavy, shoulder length auburn hair that framed a pretty face. Her sapphire blue eyes were so bright it almost hurt to look at them. Her wide smile said she was clearly happy to see me. I remained clueless.
'Sam!' she repeated. 'It's me, Kerry Lucas!'
Hearing her name caused a flood of memories to assail me. Both lunch and the engineering text were no longer of interest. I hadn't seen Kerry since her family had moved away just before we began sophomore year in high school.
We met the first day of seventh grade. I followed her with my eyes from the moment she entered homeroom right up to when she sat at the desk to my left. Her mass of red hair was unique in a roomful of blondes and brunettes. She had bright blue eyes. She was exceptionally tall, taller than me, and very thin. She had big feet that made her a bit clumsy, traits we shared. She smiled readily when she saw me looking at her. She introduced herself and asked my name. I muttered out an answer which she got me to repeat, loud enough for her to hear the second time. The homeroom teacher arrived just then, ending our initial introductions.
I snapped back to the present when I realized Kerry was talking.
'How are you? What are you doing here? When did you get here?' she asked in rapid succession. After a moments' hesitation, her expression darkened, 'Why didn't you answer any of my letters?' The hurt in her voice was palpable.
I answered the last question first. 'I answered every letter you sent,' I responded defensively. 'Why did you stop writing?'
'You did? I stopped writing after a few months because I never got a letter from you. Not one.' Her face clouded in anger for a moment. 'I'm sorry, Sam. My father must have intercepted your letters.'
That would explain it. Kerry's father, Master Sergeant Lucas didn't like me. No, that wasn't fair. Master Sergeant Lucas hated me. My having no interest in military service didn't help. Kerry and I became friends only because her mother, Dr. Lucas, liked me and ran interference. The big, hard-ass Marine was defenseless when his wife got after him. The fact that Kerry's father traveled extensively, keeping him away from home, didn't hurt.
It turned out Kerry and I had matriculated the same semester. But with over twelve thousand incoming freshmen, never running into each other was only a little surprising. She was premed. I was engineering. Core requirements often meant hundreds of students in large lecture halls.
Kerry took my unused napkin and wrote on it. It had a phone number and an off-campus address when she gave It back. 'I have to run to class. Call me, Sam. Call me tonight.'
'Wait a second!' I called to her before she got away. I tore a piece of the napkin off and wrote down the number of the phone on my floor, my dorm and room number. She stuffed it in her shirt pocket, kissed me on the cheek and hurried off. She never introduced her friend, who just waited impatiently. I put the napkin fragment in my wallet.
I returned to my lunch and textbook, then went to class. After class, I went to my room. I stretched out on my bunk to do some reading but drifted off to sleep. When I woke up the sun was low. If I didn't hustle, breakfast would be my next meal. There was a knock on the door just as I got out of my bunk.
'Phone call, Sam,' the voice yelled through the door. I opened it and followed Rob down the hall to the phone next to his room. By the time I got to the phone, I had convinced myself seeing Kerry had been a dream.
'Hello,' I said into the phone, expecting to hear my mother, who tried to call a couple times a week.
'Weren't you supposed to call me tonight?' the feminine voice on the phone asked.
'Kerry?' I asked, doubting my own ears.
'Of course,' she said.
I reached into my back pocket and took out my wallet. The napkin was right where I had put it. 'I was going to call after I had dinner,' I lied, though I'm sure I would have called eventually. 'I was just headed to the cafeteria'.
'You actually eat that stuff?' she laughed.
'Only when absolutely necessary, like when desperate to stave off starvation,' I joked.
'Why don't you come over here for dinner. It won't be anything special. But it's gotta be better than the cafeteria. I think we've still got some beers in the fridge.'
It was a long walk to the address on the napkin. I could have covered the distance on my bike in about fifteen minutes. But it was gone, stolen the first week of the semester. I had no money for a cab or even the bus.
'I'm not sure I can get there in time for dinner, Kerry. Someone stole my bike in September, so I'm on foot.' I said. 'Can I get a rain check for a time when I can leave earlier?'
'Still riding a bicycle?' she asked rhetorically. 'I'll pick you up in your dorm parking lot. Twenty minutes?' she said.
'Okay. See you then,' I said to a dial tone.
I went back to my room, changed out of my rumpled clothes, brushed my teeth and hair. I was pacing the parking lot with ten minutes to spare.
A faded red VW bug pulled up and beeped at me. A dented right rear fender hung loosely and flopped around when the car braked to a stop. Kerry was driving. The car was already moving when I closed the door.
