Page 20 of Proof
“What?”
“In college, Brendan and I had a science professor who looked like an alien. You know, an almond-shaped head and big eyes. She always wore bizarre earrings. During class, Brendan drew this on a napkin from the student center.” She handed it to Cullen. It looked like E.T. wearing chandelier earrings.
“Funny.”
“Not so funny when I burst out laughing, and Dr. Woodmere wanted to know, ‘What’s so funny, Ms. Bodman?’ I apologized and hoped she didn’t want me to share it with the rest of the class. I’d have been thrown out.” Luna peered at the drawing again. “I have to say, it’s a good likeness of her!” She chuckled, but then her mood abruptly changed.
“Oh my.” She lifted a glossy booklet from the box.
“What?” Cullen asked.
“The program from when we went to the Kentucky Derby.”
“Oh yeah. You went with that same guy Brendan . . . Nelson, was it?”
“Yeah. Brendan Nelson.” Luna’s voice was hushed.
“You alright?”
Luna snapped out of it and placed the program in the box. “Yep. Fine.” When she reached into the drawer again, she pulled out several yellow ribbons. She sat and stared at them for a moment.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“You remember that retreat I went on my senior year of college?”
“Yeah. It was a bunch of you from a writing class. What about it?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “We all just joked that we felt like hostages, so on the last night, we went into a big box store and bought a bunch of yellow ribbons and tied them on everyone’s cabin door.”
Cullen looked perplexed for a moment, then remembered what yellow ribbons stood for. In the ’70s, the symbol of support for a missing loved one was popularized in a song called “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” by a group called Tony Orlando and Dawn. He began to whistle the tune.
“Oh, please stop! You know neither of us will be able to get that song out of our heads for the rest of the day!” Luna slapped her hands over her ears. Cullen began to sing the lyrics just to annoy her.
“Ugh!” Luna tossed the remains of her past into the box and scurried out of the workshop, singing “La . . . La . . . La . . . I can’t hear you . . . I can’t hear you . . .” Wylie followed, but not without a look of confusion in his big brown doggie eyes.
Luna made her way back to the café and set the box on the table. She had an uneasy feeling. A rush of memories came flooding through her mind. Memories of a love long lost. Or was it a crush that got crushed? She began to replay the last two years of college in her head.
* * *
Luna and Brendan met during their junior year, when they shared the same psychology class. The class was divided into groups of two in order to work together on a hypothesis, each having opposing theories. It was a debate of sorts, but on paper. They had most of the semester to work on the project, and then each team would present their summation to the rest of the class.
The purpose was to understand the mechanisms of theory. Psychology was a growing discipline, and it was important to know who the players were in its development. Carl Jung vs. Sigmund Freud represented the most notable difference of theory. One of the class requirements was that the students do their research within the university library. It was an in-person collaboration, and the students would set their own schedules. That, too, was an exercise in planning and development. Luna had hoped she would be paired up with Brendan. He was funny and smart and willing to share information with his peers, rather than hoard it like many other insecure young adults.
The two immediately clicked. It was their sense of humor. Without saying a word, they could give each other a look and burst out laughing. After the third “shush,” the librarian threatened to ban them from the building. Brendan turned on his charm and pleaded with the skinny guy whose glasses were held together with first-aid tape at the bridge. Luna kept staring at the ground. She could not imagine how Brendan kept a straight face. She felt a little guilty, because the reason they’d been laughing was because of the librarian’s glasses. He appeared to accept Brendan’s apology, turned on his heel, adjusted his already skewed glasses, and marched away. Luna had to keep biting her lip or else they would have been flung outside, into the quad, and permanently expelled from the building. The two made a pact they would refrain from hilarity until after their two hours of research were complete—then they could howl all they wanted at the student center.
It became a thing. They met at the library once a week, did their research, and then grabbed something to eat. It was the one night of the week Luna looked forward to. The friendship hadn’t developed into anything serious, except they were seriously good buddies. Luna was quite comfortable linking her arm through his when they walked across the campus. Some people thought they were involved, yet there were never public displays of affection except for the occasional arm-bumping and leaning into each other’s personal space. Luna knew there were whispers, and if she overheard anything, she always set the record straight. The dilemma arrived when Luna thought she might be developing a crush on Brendan. Not good. But what could she do? She surely wasn’t going to make a move on him, but sometimes her instincts told her he might feel the same way. Still. She wasn’t going to push it. There was too much at stake.
But when Brendan started dating a junior from a nearby university, Luna was crestfallen. Why her and not me? Because you never said anything. Oh, am I having a debate with myself? No, it’s an argument. She was going to ask Cullen for advice, but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Romance. No, she would have to bite the bullet, accept reality, and move on. She promised herself she would never let an opportunity pass her by again.
Regrets. They were the worst. A lack of boldness and not taking the opportunity; a felt connection and again not taking the opportunity. It was true that the biggest regrets in life weren’t the things you did; they were the things you didn’t do.
But being human, one often breaks promises, especially those we make to ourselves.
* * *
Luna thought about her promise to herself, and sure enough, she had broken it more than once. If nothing else, this short trip down memory lane had been a good reminder, and it gave her an appreciation for Cullen’s apprehension about telling Chi-Chi how he felt.
Cullen startled her with a knock on the café’s doorframe. “Find anything worth keeping?”