Love's Learning Curve (4 page)

I’m envious that she’s able to lead this double life so effortlessly and never has to worry about getting caught or causing trouble for her parents.  However, even if the roles were reversed, I’m not sure it would change anything.  Morgan is braver than I am.  She’s a risk taker, but most importantly, she’s fun.  She knows how to get everyone in a room to pay attention to her.  That could be annoying if she weren’t so amazing, but people love being around her.

It’s no wonder our friendship leaves people to question how she and I could be as close as we are, but we are.  I suppose the saying opposites attract works in best friendships as well.

 “Ah … we’ll see.  Depends on how the night goes, I suppose,” she mutters dismissively, her attention returning to her phone and her selfie charade on Instagram.  Even with her vague answer, I know that tonight I’ll have the room to myself.  Morgan will have after-party entertainment tonight in the company of whichever hottie she chooses, leaving me to think about another thing I’m clueless about.  Shaking my head, I grab my iPhone and earbuds and walk toward the door deciding to brush off the envy as it pertains to Morgan.  It’s not her fault that my life is not as simple as hers is.

 “Enjoy your night, if I don’t see you before you leave ...”  I look at her and wait for her to snap the next picture before she glances up with a smile.  All hints of her earlier disappointment are gone like lightning in the night.  “Make good choices,” I sing as she joins me finishing the statement in unison, another of my mother’s Sandra-isms that has become our own little inside joke.  But it’s something I always tell her before she embarks on the adventures of college life while I stay behind with my nose in a book or studying.  Secretly, I’m living vicariously through her.

God- I’m pathetic.

The noise on my way out smacks me again in the face, and I attempt to rush through the craziness as Ashley corners me.

Ashley, my little sister in the sorority, is more like me than anyone else in the house.  She’s short and adorable with her quirks and slightly nerdy appearance.  I truly love Ashley.  She and I have spent countless hours together sitting across from one another at the coffee shop studying.  And by studying together, I mean mostly ignoring each other and only really chatting when the caffeine runs low and we have to break for refills.

Ash heavily focuses on her academics, but somehow, she seems to make time for the social aspects of college as well.  She wants to follow in the footsteps of her father who is a renowned neurosurgeon.  This girl works tirelessly to achieve an almost perfect GPA so she’ll have her pick of the best medical schools in the country.  Even though I know she really only wants to go to Johns Hopkins University where her father is an alumnus.  She’s a daddy’s girl; she idolizes her father, and she moves mountains to make him proud.  I’m pretty confident she won’t have any issues getting into any medical school, but she’s building her academic resume just to leave no question. 

“PLEASE tell me you’re going for a quick run, and you’re coming back to get dressed for the party,” she asks.  Before I even have a chance to respond, I see disappointment written over her with her scowl. 

“Sorry, Ash.  I have a paper due next week.  I’m taking advantage of the quiet house tonight.”  I scurry past her with her right on my heels as I’m reinitiating the plan for a quick escape.  I’m plotting how to turn a quick run into a four-hour tour so I won’t have to endure the judgment and pleading from anyone else before they leave.

Unfortunately, I’m not off the hook with Ashley because even though my steps are quick, she’s right on my trail.  “Char, don’t even try it.  I already know you are almost completely finished with that paper, and you’ve been through all your class syllabuses time and time again.  You have the time to come out and have fun with us, so you’re refusing for a completely different reason.  At least, be honest with yourself about that, okay.”

I don’t have it in me to make excuses for why I don’t attend parties to my sorority sisters again and again, but Ashley’s different.  The excuses won’t work on her because she’s the only one in this house who cares about her grades as much as I do and makes that a priority over everything else.  She also knows that even if I didn’t open a book for two weeks, I could show up to class and be fully prepared for all assignments or exams and still do just as well.

“Ash, I can’t do this.  Please?  You know I hate disappointing you,” I say when I’ve finally reached for the handle of the front door.  I turn to her just before opening the door hoping that she’ll read my pained expression and let it go.  She nods her head, and thankfully, she lets it go just as I turn the handle and walk out of the house.

Ashley has become a friend over the last year.  Even though we don’t sit and share our deepest, darkest secrets or sit around campfires singing “Kumbaya,” we have a lot in common, and I enjoy hanging out with her.  She knows party life isn’t my thing.  Even if I haven’t broadcasted the specific reasons, she’s a super smart girl.  I’m sure she can put two and two together.

Most of the girls in the house never expect me to attend anyway.  They’ve just asked to be nice.  Sorority life and the status of it is something expected of me since my mother was a legacy member of this same sisterhood.  It was a requirement for me to pledge, and they couldn’t really refuse me even though I would have been fine with not being a part of it.  I love the idea of sorority life and sisterhood, but let’s be honest; I’m not really a participant in much of the social aspect anyway.  This is just a mutual arrangement with unspoken conditions that I’m able to be a part of the organization and present, but I’m not really.  At least, I get to room with Morgan and have made a few friends, like Ashley.

I shuffle through my playlist searching for my running music as I stretch on the lawn in front of the house.  It’s a beautiful day. The weather is perfect for a dusk run.  I needed this anyway.

When the beat of Ed Sheeran’s “Don’t” comes pumping through the speakers in my ears, my adrenaline spikes and fuels my need to feel the soles of my shoes hit the pavement.  I start slowly down Greek row; this route and my routine are ingrained in my system just as everything else is.  I’m typically a morning runner, but it’s nice to change things up sometimes.  The street is alive; it appears every house is full of the same excitement as ours.  Prep for this evening’s event is in full swing everywhere.  I run harder while the questions of how I can live in this world and be so far removed from it cloud my brain.

It’s hard to feel adequate in the group of people who surround me, especially when I see Ashley juggle academics and a social calendar.  Even being out of my family home, my life still doesn’t feel like my own.

I was never able to choose my own friends until I left home, and even still, I can count those I’d consider real friends on one hand.  I’ve absolutely never been able to choose a possible boyfriend or show interest in anyone.  Heck—I’ve never been on a date that my mother didn’t arrange.  I’ve never been to any type of party that didn’t begin with a cocktail and include every one of my parents’ friends and associates who were at least three times my age.  Even if they would occasionally have their children in tow, it still doesn’t count since it was mostly adult parties.  The reminders of missed opportunities to be a real kid fill me with anger.  I’ve already missed out on so much, and it will likely just keep continuing into my adulthood if the record shows anything.

In high school, I took cotillion, a co-ed class where social etiquettes and formal dances were learned in preparation for the debutant ball.  For me, it was just another requirement my mother deemed necessary to match her ideals of what a young lady in today’s political society should do.  Regardless of her reasoning for making me attend, I was excited.  It was something new; a chance for me to interact with new people and possibly make new friends she would approve of.

I think back on my first day walking into the ballroom of our country club with Morgan after spending a couple of hours getting dressed, choosing the perfect dress, curling my hair, and actually wearing makeup.  What a shocker to find that I was surrounded by the very same people who I’ve known forever, the same country club kids who were born into the legacy of the club.

I was a bit disappointed until I saw Colby Matthews, the boy I’d had a crush on since middle school.  He was the son of a senator and someone I’d been introduced to and had interacted with at many political functions.  He was dreamy with his wavy blond locks and bright blue eyes, dressed as if he walked straight out of a J Crew catalog.  I wasn’t the only girl with a secret crush—even Morgan liked him, but she wasn’t as secretive about it as I was, especially since I didn’t even disclose that information to her.

 The final event at the course end was the dinner and dance that everyone looked forward to.  I couldn’t wait since my parents hadn’t allowed me to attend the school dances, and the idea of dancing with a boy, if anyone actually asked me, felt like fairy tale business.  I just knew that was going to be the moment I’d get asked by someone, and my mother would be okay with it.  I imagined for weeks that maybe whoever he was, he would have been holding onto a secret crush on me.  Maybe it would progress to a mutual like, and we would be boyfriend and girlfriend in real life.  I mean I felt like I was a pretty average girl and likable enough.  It wasn’t too far-fetched of a dream.

In the weeks leading up to the final dance, my imagination went a little wild with who would make that teenage dream a reality for me.  I even went as far as to imagine my first kiss.  As the other girls began receiving elaborate invites to the dance and began planning their wardrobe and coordinating colors with their dates, I was still waiting.

One day when I came home from school, I found my mother giddy with excitement.  She was bubbling over with news, and she made me sit down as she prepared to make an overzealous announcement.  I can remember it like yesterday.  “Charlotte, you’ll never believe who I spoke with at the luncheon today.  Are you ready for this?”  I wondered who could possibly make my mother this excited about life.  Angelina Jolie?  This was out of character for her, and it made me a little nervous, but I was happy if she was pleased and not picking me apart.

I was excited about her news hoping it would be someone famous.  I waited for her to make a cup of tea and sit to tell me.  It was a rare moment when my mother had news she was happy to share with me.  I actually thought for a moment that the tides were turning now that I was growing up, and we could have a relationship more like the one Morgan and her mother shared, which I was green with envy over.  Oh … how wrong I was because the first thirty seconds into the conversation, she shattered me.

“It was fate.  When I ran into Katherine Matthews today, and we were chatting about the cotillion dance, she told me that Colby didn’t have a date to the dance because he just wasn’t interested in any of the girls attending.  So he was planning to go alone.”  I never expected to be Colby’s date choice and that in and of itself was a little sad, but it was okay.  I figured that out already, and I knew I wasn’t the prettiest girl in the sea of options.

Then she continued, “And his mother and I agreed that it would be just darling for the two of you to attend together.”  Just.  Darling.  “I can see it now, the children of South Carolina’s political powerhouses.  It’s newsworthy.  We’ll even submit the photo to the newspapers.  It’s
just perfect
for publicity.  Aren’t you beside yourself with excitement?” she finished.

With her announcement went any chance that a boy, any boy, would ever like me for me.  It would always be arranged dates for publicity.  Political Dating 101.  Publicity first.  True love or even genuine
LIKE
, never.

I was never officially asked to the dance.  I never even spoke with Colby about it until the night of the actual dance when he arrived to pick me up, and we had to endure a professional photo shoot arranged by our mothers.  We said very little to each other the whole night.  Everything we did was staged for publicity photos.

Every other event that required an actual date from that point forward was handled the same way.  My dates were always carefully chosen and arranged by my mother for me, not with me.  I never chose.

Escorting me was considered a favor to our parents, his and mine.  We never had any mutual interest.  There could have possibly been chemistry under different circumstances, but the arrangement sucked all the joy out of it.  My chosen escorts were all handsome, high-class gentlemen, but it was known that I was off-limits for anything other than appearances.  We had no dinner conversation or getting to know you period, and definitely, no moves were made to steal kisses.

My knowledge of passionate moments begins and ends with romantic movies and romance books.  At twenty-one years old, it’s sad to admit no boy has kissed or touched me.  My mother never took the time to arrange that for me, unfortunately.

Running helps me escape and get out the sometimes-overwhelming anger that lives deep in me from the years of missed experiences.  All because my parents conceived me to look the part, to show they were family people.  How insane is that?  Most people plan families because they feel a need to nurture and love.  Not my parents.  Ronald and Sandra Baker planned a family to further his political career and appear to outsiders as a ‘Typical American Family.’  Insane.

When “How to Breathe”
by Matthew Mayfield comes on, which is usually my cooldown song, I realize I’ve been running for an hour.  But with my frustrations and anger still exuding from my pores, I know I’m far from ready to wrap up the best form of therapy for me.

Run until your body aches and you can’t think about the hell of your unfulfilling life. Run to chase away the never-ending expectations. Run. Run. And run some more then just keep running.