Too Late to Say Goodbye

"Well, if you're laughing while you call him your boyfriend, maybe you need someone who'd be more serious about you," I said. She started to smile but the smile quickly faded and her eyes closed and she pursed her mouth.

"He's kind of twice your size," she said.

"So what," I said.

"And he's kind of standing right behind you," she continued. I turned around and looked up at him.

He was pissed. I smiled and handed him a beer. He glared at me and then popped the top off of it by wedging the edge of the cap against a table top and then pounding it with a ham-like hand. He swigged the beer and then burped loudly. He drained the entire beer in two gulps, each with a resounding burp that obviously impressed his friends.

"Why're yuh hanging around my girl?" he asked angrily. "I should..."

"You do know that's rude don't you?" I asked, interrupting him. "Don't you have any manners? This is a party after all."

"Whuh?" he asked.

"I got you a beer," I said. "It's only polite for you to get me one."

"Sorry," he said sullenly, then moved off to get me a beer.

I shook my head as the he wandered off to get me a beer. "I'll be seeing you around," I told her. She smiled at me again. "If he can't find a beer for me, give him this one." I handed her the second bottle and left the party.

In the coming months, I spent a lot of time with her. Lori was sweet, soft spoken, loyal, beautiful, and an all-around nice girl. Why she stayed with Todd was a mystery to me. He didn't appreciate her and he also cheated on her and often. Todd was as big as house and moved about as quickly. He was a lineman on our football team. Like a lot of the athletes in college, he had dreams of making it to the pros.

Women were all over him on the off chance that he did make it. Todd, for some reason simply couldn't say no to pussy. He also had a weakness for blonds. So here he was, in a relationship with one of the most beautiful women on campus, but he'd risk chucking it all for any chick with straw colored hair that happened to stroll by. I once saw him stand Lori up so he could sneak behind a building with a woman that had to weigh about two hundred pounds.

The odd thing about it was that Lori had the weirdest outlook on life that I'd ever seen. She was smart. She was witty. But she was taking the easiest most moronic classes the school offered. She didn't even have a major. One evening, when she'd called me to keep her company while Todd was off cheating on her, we talked.

"I guess you think I'm stupid or something," she said. "I sit here talking to you night after night and you're too polite to say anything about it, but we both know that he's out there cheating on me. I guess I come off like some tragically stupid woman for waiting for him."

"I don't think you're stupid at all," I said. "I do wonder about some of the things you do, but I've never thought you were stupid. And I really don't mind him cheating on you." She looked at me strangely.

"Why not?" she asked. "I thought that we were friends."

"That's the problem," I said. "I want us to be more than friends. And I don't mind him cheating on you because it gives me more time to spend with you and I hope that the more time you and I spend together it will start to become obvious that I'm better for you."

"What things beside me waiting for Todd mystify you?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well the classes you take," I said. "You're pretty smart, but you're taking mostly remedial classes with no actual direction or degree program targeted." She smiled.

"I'm not a career woman," she said. "I know it's not the nineteenth century but I just want to be the best housewife I can be." I looked at her strangely.

"You think there's something wrong with being a good wife and mother?" she asked.

"No, but I have two questions for you. If all you want to be is a housewife...why are you here at all? And the second is, if you want to be a housewife, why aren't you taking home economics or child rearing classes?"

"Well, we've had a plan ever since we got together," she said. "Todd is going to be a professional football player. They make millions of dollars. The problem is that to do that he has to do well in college football. And to do well in college football he has to be in college. So from the start, I've taken the exact same classes that Todd takes so I can help him with the work. It works the same way it did in high school. He gets great grades on his assignments, but he flunks most of the tests. The professors figure that he simply doesn't test well or has some sort of testing anxiety. They give him extra credit assignments and he squeaks through with a C minus which keeps him on the team. Then he goes to the pros, we buy or build our beautiful mansion and live happily ever after."

"Yeah, with him screwing the maids, the neighbors, your kid's teachers and any other female he sees who has blond hair," I said.

"No," she said. "He's just sowing his wild oats now. Once we get married, he'll stop." Even as she said it, we both knew that she didn't fully believe it. It was just something she was hoping would happen. Maybe it was what he'd told her would happen.

"You deserve so much better," I said. Something passed between us then as we looked into each other's eyes and the next thing I knew, we were kissing. It was the hottest most passionate kiss I'd ever had. And just as I started to really get into it, she pushed me away.

"No!" she said.

"Lori, you need to start trying to find someone who loves you for you. You deserve someone who won't put you second to screw some whale because she has yellow hair and tits that could fill a bucket," I said. "And you don't even have to look very far to find him. He's right here, standing in front of you."

"So you'd rather just screw dark haired women huh?" she asked. There was a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

"Lori, this isn't about sex," I said. "I've never made a single move on you."

"Then what the fuck is it about?" she snapped. "Why is it that I've told you that I have a boyfriend, but every time I turn around, you're there beside me? What is it about?"

"If you don't want me there, all you have to do is say so," I said. "Just say the word and I'll be gone. I'm there because...Lori, I love you. I have from the first second I saw you at that party. I know my situation is as hopeless as yours with Todd, but that's what love does to a person. It makes you hope...for just a chance. Even when the person you love is wrapped up in a person that's all wrong for her and doesn't deserve her. You just go on hoping that..."

"That what?" she asked.

"Forget it," I said. "I've had enough humiliation for one night."

As I left, she called me back. "Mark...I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?" she asked.

"That's the problem with love," I said. "Somehow it just seems to make getting your teeth kicked in feel good. See you tomorrow."

And that was the way my college career went, or at least the last two years of it. I spent the whole time mooning and moping and hoping, over a woman who intended to marry another guy. Along the way, I passed up several sure things. I'm not a troll. Over those two years I had lots of opportunities to hook up or even have relationships with other women. But most of those women suffered from the same deficiency. They just weren't Lori Pitowski.

Strangely enough though, things worked out in my favor. At Christmas time of that year, before Lori went home, she gave me a Christmas present. It was only a bottle of cologne, but she told me to wear it for her. If it had smelled like skunk shit, I'd have worn it proudly. Even stranger was the end of the school year that year. When we met for the last time before going home, I hadn't really considered things. I was excited about all of the things I'd do during the summer. I had already decided to work at my family's manufacturing plant so I could put the things I'd learned so far into practice. But I was going to go camping and do a lot of other things that I liked doing as well. I was just ready for a break.

Lori didn't seem to be as excited about going home for the summer. But the last time I saw her, shocked me. We were only going to be apart for three months, but she didn't want to let go of my hand.

"Don't wear my cologne for any other women over the summer," she told me.

"I won't ," I promised her with my heart bursting.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she said. I thought I saw tears in the corners of her eyes.

"It's only going to be three months," I said. "I want to see what kind of engineer I'm going to be. So I'm going to work hard and bring a lot of money back, so we'll be able to do even more fun things while you wait for Todd in the fall."

"That's just too long," she said.

"It'll go by before you know it," I said.

"Dammit, Mark," she said. "I think I love you too. Why the hell does life have to be so hard?" She started crying and slipped something in my hand and then ran away. I was so floored by her telling me that she loved me too, that my brain had simply stopped working. After she left, when I looked down at my hand I noticed that she'd given me a slip of paper with her phone number on it. "Call me," it read.

And I did. Back in those days, state to state calls were expensive. I think that I spent about a quarter of the money I made that summer on long distance calls to Missouri. I later found out that I spent more time talking to her that summer than Todd did and he lived right down the street from her.

When we returned to school in the fall, I got the biggest surprise of my life. I'd just settled into my dorm when there was a heavy knock on my door. I opened it and found Todd standing there. I don't think he tried to block out the sun but he did anyway. Having Todd trying to fit into my doorway was like standing in front of an eclipse.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked.

"Todd, whatever you think I've done, I didn't do," I said. "I just got to the campus today."

"That's what I'm talking about," he said. "I haven't been able to do shit since we got here three days ago. I need you to do what you did last year," he said.

"What did I do last year?" I asked.

"You know, hang out with Lori to cover for me," he said. "That way I can go out and do what I do and not have to worry about some guy hitting on her. I need to have all of the fun I can right now, because once we settle down and get hitched, my only glory will be on the field. I owe ya one buddy. Once I sign my multimillion dollar contract in the NBA, I'll break you off a chunk of change, okay?"

"Sure Todd," I smiled. "I've got your back." He turned to leave. "Uhm Todd," I called. He smiled and turned towards me. "The NBA is basketball. Football is the NFL."

"Oh!" he said. "Which one is the cars...the NHL right?"

"Nope," I said.

"My fucking brother!" he yelled suddenly. "That asshole owes me money he told me it was the NHL and it stood for "Nothing but Hard Lefts."

"That's NASCAR," I said. Todd wandered off grumbling about breaking his brother's ass.

Less than twenty minutes later, Lori arrived. A lot of things changed that last year. Lori and I spent almost every second together that we weren't in class. We spent a lot of that time making out too. Towards the end, things were definitely moving towards sex. Lori felt a lot of guilt about it so I didn't push her. But every time we parted, I had to peel her off of me. "I want you so badly," she told me. "Kissing you is better than the time I had sex with Todd. I think if we had sex it would be really great."

"You've only had sex once?" I asked. And she nodded. I shook my head.

"I keep hoping that summer never gets here," she said. "But it's going to happen. In the next few weeks they'll ramp up and have the NFL draft. Todd will get selected and then he and I will move away and I'll never see you again. I love you so much Mark." My heart is going to break. I felt the same way but in a way I thought there was a bright side. I could find my own woman and get over the nearly terminal case of blue balls she'd given me.

But things have a way of not working out, or of working out for the better.

Todd didn't get taken in the NFL draft at all. He didn't go in the first round, or the second or the third. He didn't get drafted period. His agent started calling teams and no one was interested. No one was interested enough to even fly him out for an interview. He soon lost his agent and started calling on teams himself.

He showed up at the headquarters for some of the worst teams in the NFL and was turned away. He got me to make one call for him. He had me call a team from the CFL. I finally got the president of football operations for the team from Ottawa on line.

"Hi, I'm calling for Todd Williams," I said.

"Who?" asked the guy. He hung up before I could tell him.

I got a copy of Todd's scouting report. Reading it to him was painful. Apparently Todd was big enough for the NFL, but most teams thought he was too slow and too stupid for the fast paced game. He was a college lineman who didn't have the smarts, the speed or the skill for the big league. The packet included a video that showed that for the last three years that he played, the teams that they went up against had already adjusted to Todd. He was big as a house as I've already mentioned, but he was also as slow as a house. They no longer tried to double team him. The opposing players just went around Todd. It was embarrassing. Game after game, the video just showed guys lining up with Todd and quickly running around him and through the line before he could react.

After four years in college, Todd was nowhere near any type of degree. And with his eligibility as a player all used up, he was off of the team. Todd had planned his entire life around one thing and when that one thing failed to materialize his whole life was up in the air.

Todd sank into a depression. The last two weeks of school he didn't even bother going to class. He drank himself into oblivion and did all kinds of stupid things. Lori didn't seem to be fazed by any of it.

"In a way it's a good thing," she told me. I was confused as hell.

"Todd will figure out what our next step is," she said confidently. "But in the meantime, it means I don't have to leave you. If Todd had gotten drafted, we'd already be gone and I'd be missing you badly already. So this just gives me more time with you." I looked at her strangely. From the moment we met, I guess I'd come to see her as some kind of unreachable fantasy. When she told me she loved me, I liked hearing it, but I'd never had any illusions where her heart was.

"Don't look at me like that, Dummy," she said. "I've been telling you for the longest that I love you too. I don't understand it myself. I always believed that in order for love to be true, you can only really love one person, but I swear I love the two of you equally." I was floored.

"I know," she said. "It's confusing as hell. And I'm going to marry Todd. But only because it's the way my life was always supposed to be. My family and everyone I know, expects me to marry Todd. Sometimes it feels like if I don't marry him the world will end." Everything she said was leading me to believe that she really wasn't sure of which one of us she wanted to be with. Over the past two years, she had spent far more time with me. Todd was always running around with his buddies or out screwing some other woman. She'd really expected him to give all of that up and he hadn't. I really believed that if I started to push her, I could have convinced her that I was the better choice for her.

The problem was that as much as I'd told everyone, including myself, that I was ready to lose her when the school year ended, I was lying. I loved her so much it just didn't seem possible. And when you love someone that much, you don't try to force them into doing anything. You don't even try to force them to be with you. You just want the best for them and whatever makes them happy. So I just listened to her but I didn't try to push her either way.

I guess in my mind, I considered myself to be noble. I was, after all, hoping with every fiber of my being that she would pick me. I saw us settling down into the perfect life; with me doing everything I could to make her the happiest woman on earth. But I wasn't going to beg her or try to pressure her in any way.

I left it all up to the fates. I rolled the dice with my life and I got lucky. My number fell. And it didn't happen all at once. It was a couple of steps and bumps. The first came when she and Todd decided that instead of moving back to Missouri in what Todd considered shame, they'd stay in Illinois and he'd get a job. The problem was that Todd couldn't really do anything except play football. And it turned out he wasn't really very good at that. They got a small apartment and Todd went through a series of jobs that he failed miserably at. Todd was also still depressed and kept using what little money they were able to put aside to travel to visit NFL teams, then CFL teams and then finally the Arena Football League.

He didn't get a bite anywhere. And while he was still eating the way he had in college, he didn't have the structured workouts to keep him fit. So over the course of 8 months Todd started to look like the Stay Puff marshmallow man.

The one good thing about them staying in Illinois was that it enabled me to see Lori whenever I wanted. She never told me about their problems but she told me she loved me every day. The first time I realized that they had problems was when she told me that she'd had to take a job waitressing and that it was much harder work then she'd ever expected. She told me that they needed her income though, or they wouldn't make the rent.

The next thing I knew, I had to leave work to go and pick up a hysterical Lori. She'd called me and told me to come and get her. I'd never seen their apartment, but it was only about an hour's drive from my job.

My career was funny. It's always kind of odd working for a small family business. The way I looked at it, I wanted to know what I was worth. So right out of college, I'd taken a job with another company. Everyone in my family was immediately pissed at me. It had been assumed that I would leave college and take over the family business. I was, after all, the only one of three boys who'd actually gone into manufacturing. My oldest brother, Jeff, was a teacher. He'd gone into education because of the three of us, he was the only one who was old enough to remember our mother and the awful arguments our parents had. Michael and I had pretty much been raised by my dad's second wife, who also ended up leaving him. She visited us a lot but didn't speak to Dad unless she absolutely couldn't avoid it.

Michael had become a writer because he didn't want to do manufacturing either. Both of my brothers received a small yearly stipend from the company which pumped up their net income to the point where they didn't need anything. With my dad's health failing, my brothers had expected me to leave college and basically take over the company. I'd worked there every summer and knew all there was to know about the business. Neither of my brothers gave a half a damn about the company. They just wanted their stipend checks to continue. So when I went to work for a different company, everyone's balls were in an uproar.

Finally, it was my dad who came to see me. "What the fuck are you doing?" he asked me.

"What do you mean Dad?" I asked him.

"Look at yourself," he said. "You're one of fifteen or twenty lower level production managers here. No one even knows what you can do. Every decision you make has to be approved by three or four guys who never even see the floor."

"What's your point?" I asked.