Card with a Heart

A light rain pattered on the roof. I was reading in my big chair. My wife was upstairs cleaning some of the clutter that had accumulated in the attic. We recently became empty-nesters when Maddie went off to grad school at Stanford. Matthew and his wife lived near Chicago.

I had helped move some of the old furniture we no longer needed down to the garage so my wife could get to the boxes of papers. I left her going through the boxes, happily pulling out big piles to sort and mostly put into the recycling bin.

I heard a muffled cry. "Oh my God!!!"

"Are you ok up there?"

My wife came down the attic stairs and I saw the small envelope in her hand. It had yellowed with age, but I still recognized the curves and flourishes of unmistakably feminine handwriting. She came up to me with a huge smile, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me for a long time. I opened the envelope and smiled. My mind flashed back thirty years...

*******

The summer break before my sophomore year at the University of Illinois really took a toll on me. I was working swing shift at a pottery near Peoria that made liners for slow cookers. My sleep schedule was all fucked up but I needed the money for college expenses. My merit scholarship had been reduced for the fall term for reasons I was never able to discover; it couldn't have been my grades, I pulled a 4.6 my freshman year. My parents were working class people without much money so I felt obligated to contribute what I could.

At least I got to see my girlfriend Leanne when I wasn't too tired. She was a year younger and had just graduated from high school. She had come to see me at school twice during my freshman year, staying in a mutual friend's single dorm room.

I was beginning to have some doubts about where this was going though. First, Leanne was a stubborn little thing. Compromise was not her strong suit. In retrospect she was a bit of an entitled narcissist. Her stepdad liked me ok, but her mom once told me, "I've resigned myself to the fact that you'll be the father of my grandchildren." What an absolute bitch. I hoped that was not foreshadowing what Leanne would be like twenty years down the road. Leanne's younger sister Ellen was a flouncy blonde, and some unsavory rumors trailed in her wake. I had the feeling that she liked flirting with trouble, so I kind of steered clear of her.

The whole thing crashed and burned one day when I borrowed Leanne's car. I thought one of the tires looked a bit low, so I opened the glove box to look for a tire gauge. Instead I found a pile of handwritten pages. In them Leanne compared me unfavorably as a sex partner to one of her teachers, a younger guy with curly hair who I'd met, and had seen smoking pot in his apartment.

I was livid. I confronted Leanne after driving her to my house. No one else was home. Her story was that they only "made out once," but I could see from her face and from what she had written that was a steaming pile of shit. She was shaking and crying, knowing how she had fucked up. Literally. Then she went into bitch mode and said it served me right for snooping.

I told her that we were through. She left my class ring and went out the door sobbing how she had wanted to be the mother of my children. Fat chance of that, I thought, if I had to wonder if they were really mine.

*******

With the bad breakup hanging over me, I didn't exactly start the school year in a good frame of mind. I had changed roommates when I could no longer stand the sanctimonious SOB I had roomed with the previous semester. The final straw was one night when my older brother's girlfriend, one of those truly pure ones who you knew was saving herself for marriage, came to my brother's room because she couldn't sleep with the loud party going on in the girls' dorm.

I ran into my brother in the hall, but as he opened the door to his room he quickly shushed me. "Penny's on the floor." I saw she was wrapped up in a bundle of blankets and pillows. He explained about the party. I nodded and he went in and closed the door softly. I knew Tom was giving me the straight story. It would be just like Penny to not take my brother's bed. She was always considerate to a fault.

Anyway my asshole roommate cornered me the next day, saying he knew that Penny had stayed over in my brother's room and that I "needed to talk" to Tom about it. Since I already had the full story I didn't appreciate him sticking his nose into it. Even if my brother and Penny had been fucking, which they obviously weren't, it was still none of his goddamn business.

Tom got himself an apartment that fall, so his former roommate and my old roommate decided to room together. That was one problem taken care of. Now Tom could have Penny over any time without any snide comments. One of our friends had some academic trouble and had to take a semester off. He was in ROTC and had lost his scholarship for not keeping his grades up. His roommate Doug agreed to room with me. So all of that kind of worked out. It looked like this was finally my time for a clean break from events of the unpleasant past.

The girls' dorm was a separate building that shared a big lounge area and the dining hall with the guys' dorm. A couple of other girls from Penny's floor started hanging out with our little group for breakfast. That was kind of nice. Julie was a zaftig girl with curly dark hair. Her roommate Vicki was a petite thing with straight light brown hair down past her shoulders, a nice slim body, and lovely blue eyes. It turned out that Julie had a thing for Doug, but Doug was severely crushing on Vicki. It was one of those weirdly fucked up triangles that happen in college life I guess. Anyway Vicki was always pleasant to Doug, but you could tell she wasn't encouraging anything. Today we would say that Doug had been friend zoned.

With a new roommate and a bunch of friends to hang out with, I was gradually getting over the disaster with my ex. At first when people at breakfast asked me how I was doing, I would answer "Fine" in a tight-lipped way. When my mood improved over time I would sometimes make a little joke and say "Crappy," when it was obvious that I was actually in good spirits. One morning I made my little joke as I sat down. The open seat happened to be across from Vicki.

She looked over her coffee cup at me. Those blue eyes bored right into mine and I felt the pink rising in my cheeks. "I don't get it," Vicki said. "You come down here some days in a lousy mood and say you're fine. Today you seem on top of the world and say you're feeling crappy." She was talking directly to me, but not loud enough for the rest of the table to pay any attention.

I mumbled something inconsequential. Why was the hottest girl in our group doing mood checks on me, anyway, I wondered. Soon the conversation went in another direction, much to my relief.

I found myself chatting with Vicki more over breakfast in the weeks that followed. She was really a pretty smart young lady in addition to being very easy on the eyes. I didn't say that I felt crappy any more. She didn't seem to care that I wasn't that tall or that I wore nerdy wire rim glasses.

The dining hall didn't serve dinner on Sundays and our group often went out for pizza or burgers. One Sunday Vicki and Julie knocked on our door to ask if we wanted to go get pizza. Doug hadn't made it back to the room yet so we were just hanging around waiting for him. Vicki was wearing a white shirt with a loosely knitted blue sleeveless sweater over it, which looked pretty cute on her because it matched her eyes. She recounted a conversation with her mom: "I told her how much I like this sweater because if I wear it without a bra, the guys can all see my nipples!"

We all had a good laugh at that. I had never heard Vicki say anything that suggestive before, and I was acutely aware that I was the only guy there to hear it.

*******

It was getting toward the end of the term so everyone was trying to finish assignments. One night on the way out of the dining hall Vicki took me aside. "Mike, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Of course."

"I'm working on a major paper for one of my classes and I'm a bit worried about it. Do you have some time tonight to come up and look it over? I know you write well and I'd really appreciate some help."

"Sure, Vicki, what time?"

"How about 8:00?"

"See you then."

This was in the days before coed dorms were a thing. All male visitors to the women's dorm had to sign in and out with a monitor who sat outside the elevator next to the lounge. It was an open secret that some guys stayed over with their girls sometimes. The monitors changed between daytime and nighttime hours so nobody really made a big deal about it. I showed up exactly at 8:00 to find Vicki waiting for me.

We went up in the elevator. She was on the 12th floor, the top floor in the building. The girls' dorm was a tower, while the guys' dorm on the other side of the common area had four floors in a square around an open courtyard. She told me again how she appreciated me helping her with her paper.

Vicki had set up at a small table in the lounge. She had her handwritten draft and her typewriter. She had already typed a couple of pages to get a head start. I sat across from her and read through the draft while she continued to type. I noted that it was much less noisy in her lounge than in the guys' dorm, so we could really work as other girls chatted quietly around us. A couple of girls stopped by to say hi, and Vicki introduced me to them.

Somehow she could actually hold a conversation with me as she typed away. I saw that she was a much better typist than I was. I read through the draft, marking a couple of awkward sentences and misspelled words. I thought one paragraph might read better by moving the sentences around. I didn't need to bleed all over the paper because it was overall in pretty good shape and flowed well. She was definitely a smart young woman.

Vicki and I talked over my suggestions and she agreed to nearly all the changes. In one case she came up with even better wording on her own. She was really easy to work with, and also easy to converse with. I just hung out chatting or reading the finished pages as she typed, trying not to distract her too much. But there weren't any awkward silences. It was fun just sitting that close to her. She glanced up at me a few times and smiled, then we would be off on another topic. When she was done I finished proofreading the typescript and only found two typos, which she quickly fixed.

I half expected Vicki to just thank me and escort me back downstairs since it was now nearly 11:00pm. She put the typed paper into a manila folder along with her draft, but made no effort to end the evening. She pushed her typewriter to one side, got a glass of water, leaned over the table and just kept talking with me. We had never talked anywhere near this much over breakfast. She was really an articulate, pleasant young lady and I lost all track of time. She told me she lived in the dorm even though her parents were only a few miles away, just to get a taste of independence.

Other girls in the lounge had started drifting away to their rooms, and soon we were alone. Somehow we got onto the subject of how college life differed for guys and girls. That topic veered abruptly into Vicki telling me how one night as she was walking home across the quad some big guy clapped his hand over her mouth and forced her into one of the empty classroom buildings.

Vicki was speaking to me in a quietly intense voice now, looking straight into my eyes. She was shaking a little bit but kept on with her story. "I kept saying to him, 'Please don't hurt me.' I was scared to death and afraid to try to stop him from doing what he was doing because I didn't want him to get angry and hurt me."

"Vicki, I'm so sorry this happened to you!" I was shocked. This lovely girl was telling me that she had been raped by a guy right on campus. I put my hand over hers.

Later I wondered if she had ever told anyone else about the assault. She certainly hadn't gone to the campus police, who were notoriously callous in their treatment of female victims. They seemed to view all college girls as sexily dressed sluts who got what they deserved.

What was obvious was that Vicki really felt a need to tell that story to someone she trusted. I knew that Julie was quite a gossip so I was certain she hadn't been told about it. It was a terrible secret that Vicki had carried around locked up in her head. Then, in a sort of emotionally cathartic moment, she chose to share it with me.

Amazingly we talked for another two hours after that. I was surprised at how easily our conversation flowed, even after hearing her terrible story. It was almost as though she had never known a guy she could really talk to. Finally it was after 2:00 in the morning. Julie came out in her PJs and leaned on my back, wondering what the hell we were talking about for so long. I was not too pleased with the interruption but decided we should probably all get some sleep. Vicki escorted me downstairs to sign out and said good night, smiling warmly. She gave me a brief hug. Doug was asleep when I got back to our room.

The next afternoon Doug glared at me when I came back to the room after class. "I hear you spent quite a long time with Vicki last night."

"Yes, she wanted some help with a paper, and then we got to chatting. Time kind of got away from us."

Doug didn't say anything else. His face mirrored how jealous he was, but he thought better of getting into an argument with his roommate over it. I knew full well that it was Julie who told him about it. Great, now I was a pawn in this triangle of sexual angst and jealousy.

Since winter break was approaching the incident seemed to fade in the whirl of studying and finals. But I wasn't about to forget how Vicki talked to me for hours and shared her deepest secret.

*******

I was home with my parents and siblings for the holidays. One day the mail came and my Dad was going through the Christmas cards. He came over to me, said, "Here's something for you," and handed me an envelope that obviously contained a card. I saw the flowy handwriting and knew it was from a girl. The return address was Champaign, one of the adjacent cities where the university was, also the city where Vicki's parents lived. I took the card to my room and opened the envelope.

The handwritten note again thanked me profusely for helping her with her paper, and went on to say how much she loved talking with me and how I had been so nice to her. Also, she hoped to see me after the holidays. Her signature, "Vicki," had a heart instead of a dot over the final "i." I didn't know if that was the way she always signed her name, but I kind of doubted it was.

My parents were curious, but I just said the card was from a girl who was one of my friends at school. They didn't pry any further.

I went out and bought a blank card to send a note back to Vicki. I didn't know what else I could do, I didn't have her parents' phone number. I would have been too nervous to just call her out of the blue anyway. I wrote a note saying I appreciated her thoughtfulness, especially since she did most of the work. I said that getting her card was the highlight of my winter break. I also said I truly enjoyed that we got to know each other better and wished her the best for the holidays. I kind of wussed out by not adding that I really liked her, but hoped I could convey that message in person.

*******

It took several days after the start of the new semester for the gang to re-enter the breakfast routine. I was pissed off that I had had been slotted in 8:00AM classes every day, and I had to run around getting signatures to change them to a later class. Finally I got the classes switched and came to breakfast the next day, where I managed to chat a bit with Vicki. She waved when she saw me and was all smiles. I asked her how the paper turned out and she said she got a B plus. I told her that her professor was obviously an idiot and she laughed. She got an A in the class anyway.

As we walked out of the dining hall at the tail end of our little group, I took the chance to speak to her privately.

"Vicki?"

She stopped and looked at me. "Yes, Mike?" Those blue eyes danced at me.

"I wanted to thank you again for the card."

"You're welcome. Thank you for yours, too." She was smiling her dazzling smile.

"I... uh... was also wondering if you had some free time later in the week. We... could maybe go for coffee or something?"

I was so nervous that my palms were sweating. That bitch cheating on me had made me really insecure around girls. Here I was with somebody I truly liked, had conversed with for hours, and I was still nervous as fuck just asking her to have coffee with me.

Vicki looked thoughtful. "I'm done with classes at 2:00 on Thursday. Would that work?"

"I'll be off at 3:00 that day. Do you want to meet me at Etcetera?"

"Let's meet back here and walk over there together." She smiled at me and I nodded.

Doh, I thought. She prefers not to walk around campus by herself, dipshit. At least she seemed happy about going on a date, even if it was just for coffee.

"See you then!"

"Um, I'll be at breakfast tomorrow, Mike." She was arching her eyebrows at me and trying not to laugh.

"Oh, yeah! Well, I've gotta run. I have class."

"Ok. See you later!"

*******

I didn't tell Doug that I had a date with Vicki. He had made a habit of phoning Vicki at least one night a week the previous semester. Their conversations seemed to be fairly mundane chitchat from what I overheard. However, when he phoned Vicki for the first time after I asked her out, she pretty clearly shut him down. I had the good sense not to say anything after he hung up.

Vicki and I kind of fell into a regular coffee date on Thursdays. She was really the best conversationalist among all the girls I knew. At our second coffee date, Vicki was in an upbeat mood.

"Mike, I'm pretty sure that I know what your answer will be, but are you... thinking of dating anyone else?"

"I only have eyes for you, Vicki!"

She gave me her dazzling smile. "Good, then I can tell people that we're exclusive! And so can you."

I reached for her free hand. We had a few minutes of just basking in being happy with each other. I felt so good that we could enjoy each other's company in silence just as well as in animated conversation. Vicki eventually spoke.

"Hey Mike, why don't we go to Treno's for pizza on Sunday? Just the two of us."

"Ok, that sounds like fun! The gang can do without us for a week." Treno's had a great thin crust pizza, but did not deliver. They also had live music on some weekends. It was only a couple of blocks from our dorms.

"Great! I'll treat!" She beamed at me.

On Sunday afternoon Doug said to me, "Where do you think we should go tonight, or should we get delivery?"

I looked at him and said, "I won't be joining you all tonight. Vicki and I have a date."

Doug's mouth dropped open. "You guys are... dating??"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, we've decided to be exclusive."

Doug's face mirrored his astonishment. I looked at my watch. I still had 20 minutes before meeting Vicki, but I didn't care to prolong this conversation.

"Well, I don't wanna keep the lady waiting!" I grabbed my coat and left before Doug could say anything else.

Apparently my little announcement caused a bit of a stir. Andrea, a friend of Julie's who I had met briefly in the lounge when Vicki and I worked on her paper, joined the gang for pizza that day. Penny later told me, "You guys were the prime topic of conversation on Sunday! Andrea told everyone what a cute couple you are, and that you seem really compatible. I have to say, I think you would be great together!"