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I met Chris at the Student Union. We both used to study there between our 9:30 and 11:30 classes.
I had seen him on campus before. He was always wearing this yellow sweatshirt and giant headphones. The kind of headphones that say, “I may not take my clothes seriously. I may not have brushed or even washed my hair today. But I pronounce the word ‘music’ with a capital ‘M.’ Like God.”
So I had noticed him before. He had Eddie Vedder hair. Ginger brown, tangly. He was too thin (much thinner than he is now), and there were permanent smudges under his eyes. Like he was too cool to eat or sleep.
I thought he was dreamy.
I called him Headphone Boy. I couldn’t believe my luck when I realized we studied in the Union at the same time.
Well, I studied. He would pull a paperback out of his pocket and read. Never a textbook. Sometimes, he’d just sit there with his eyes closed, listening to music, his legs all jangly and loose. He gave me impure thoughts. (...)
There we were. In the Student Union. He always sat in the corner. And I always sat one row across from him, three seats down. I took to leaving my 9:30 class early so I could primp and be in my spot looking casual by the time he sauntered in.
He never looked at me – or anyone else, to my relief – and he never took off his headphones. I used to fantasize about what song he might be listening to… and whether it would be the first dance at our wedding… and whether we’d go with traditional wedding photography or black and white… Probably black and white, magazine style. There’d be lots of slightly out-of-focus, candid shots of us embracing with a romantic, faraway look in our eyes.
Of course, Headphone Boy already had a faraway look in his eyes, which my friend Lynn attributed to “breakfast with Mary Jane.”
This started in September. Sometime in October, one of his friends walked by and called him “Chris.” (A name, at last. “Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.”) One Tuesday night in November, I saw him at the library. I spent the next four Tuesday nights there, hoping it was a pattern. It wasn’t. Sometimes I’d allow myself to follow him to his 11:30 class in Andrews Hall, and then I’d have to run across campus to make it to my class in the Temple Building.
By the end of the semester, I was long past the point of starting a natural, casual conversation with him. I stopped trying to make eye contact. I even started dating a Sig Ep I met in my sociology class.
But I couldn’t give up my 10:30 date with Headphone Boy. I figured, after Christmas break, our schedules would change, and that would be that. I’d wait until then to move on.
All my hope was lost.
And then… the week before finals, I showed up at the Union at my usual time and found Chris sitting in my seat. His headphones were around his neck, and he watched me walk toward him. At least, I thought he was watching me. He had never looked at me before, never, and the idea made my skin burn. Before I could solve the problem of where to sit, he was talking to me.
He said, “Hey.”
And I said, “Hi.”
And he said, “Look…” His eyes were green. He kind of squinted when he talked. “I’ve got a 10:30 class next semester, so… we should probably make other arrangements.”
I was struck numb.
I said, “Are you mocking me?”
“No,” he said, “I’m asking you out.”
“Then, I’m saying yes.”
“Good..,” he said, “we could have dinner. You could still sit across from me. It would be just like a Tuesday morning. But with breadsticks.”
“Now you’re mocking me.”
“Yes.” He was still smiling. “Now I am.”
And that was that. We went out that weekend. And the next weekend. And the next. It was wildly romantic.
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