Homemaker Chronicles

In the previous bit of our story, I was wondering if Todd would ever actually ask me to sing with him in our school’s pageant. I was so nervous just thinking that he would walk up out of the blue and pop the question.

But he never did…

However, in January of my senior year Todd called me up to see if I would sing with him in our yearly Beauty Review Pageant!  He sounded nervous and like he would do anything to get off the phone, but I was already prepared to say “yes” to whatever he asked.  The weight of “will you sing with me at Beauty Review” didn’t really hit me until we actually started practicing the next week.

We only had about two weeks to come up with a song, learn how to sing it, practice it relentlessly and perform in front of the entire student body and their parents.  Oh yeah, and it would be airing on a local television for the next few weeks afterward too.

So there was that.

Our very first practice was at a friends house.  That same friend that asked me to drive he and Todd home after registration when Todd fell madly in love with me. That same friend Todd hung around on the weekends with and sported his cowboy hat.  That same friend that I had a crush on in the seventh grade because he looked like Zack Morris with the wave of blond hair.  That same friend who lived just down the road from what I would later learn was Todd’s house.

You know the one.

Todd and I met at our friend’s house and sat across the room from each other in awkward silence. It wasn’t well lit in that upstairs loft room, so I couldn’t see Todd’s face very well.  Plus the light from the window was so bright in comparison to the darkened room.  I tried to look around and notice other things in the room to avoid having to look at Todd’s face, but that darn window light was blinding me.  The silence dragged on forever as Todd and I sat staring at opposite walls waiting for our friend to come in and save us from ourselves.  Thankfully, he finally entered and broke the deafening quiet.  He was also willing to mediate.  Whew!

“Okay, let’s get down to business.  Did you have a song in mind, Angie?”, he asked.  I could totally tell he was eating this up.  It was him that did the match-making…I could feel the giddiness oozing from his big bright smile as he asked me.

“I don’t really have anything in mind.  I was just asked to be here, Jacob”, I said cleverly.

What a stupid answer! “I was just asked to be here”.  HOW UTTERLY STUPID!

I recall drifting off in my own head, “Todd probably already thinks I’m a big fat dufus, but it doesn’t matter because I have a boyfriend three hours away at college.  Ah oh, I hope my boyfriend doesn’t find out about this completely innocent gig!  Oh my gosh, what IF he finds out?  How can I prove that I have been more than loyal to him.  Unlike his sorry self that cheats on me all the blasted time.  Why am I with him again?”.

Jacob interrupted my logical line of thinking with the same question to Todd, “Hey bro, tell me you have a song…”.  I remember Todd looking like a deer in headlights- he sat there so quietly on Jacob’s bed.  Yeah, he didn’t have a song either.

Very productive is what we were not at that first meeting.  Maybe for the next “rehearsal” we would be though.  For that was the day I would visit Todd’s house for the first time.

That winding road that led me out to Todd’s house felt like driving all the way to Canada, but when I finally arrived it was his sweet mom that let me in.  Todd must have grown a conscience the minute he saw my headlights in the driveway which was when he decided that he needed to clean his room.  I mean I can’t think of a better time to start cleaning up to impress a girl than when she is pulling up into the driveway!

Seriously?  He couldn’t have done that over the last three hours since school had been out?

Looking back, maybe he did that on purpose so that his mom could draw me in with her great cooking.  Fell for it I did!! I walked right in, said hello, was offered some food, and sat right down at the bar to scarf.  It was the best stew meat and potatoes I’d ever had, and ever since had…I’ll never forget that!  I don’t remember the conversation specifically, but I do remember Kathy’s hospitality, sweet smile, and mouth-watering food…hang on…

Let me just run get a snack really quick and I’ll be right back!

I’m baaack!  Homemade coconut cream pie outta do it, and now I can concentrate.   Okay, fork in hand, and back to my story.

Kathy, Todd’s mom, was so soft and gentle with her words and so attentive to me.  I remember thinking that she would make a great mother-in-law, except that she was ripped to shreds and skinny as a rail.  I felt a little intimidated by her muscles and I refused to stand by her for fear of being compared.

But before I could think too much deeper into the future, Todd emerged from his room and greeted me with a flashy smile.  My heart jumped when I saw him, but I managed to refrain from melting and I followed him to his room.  Finding my way to the couch while Todd got his five-disc changer ready, my palms started getting sweaty.

Was I nervous?  Why?  This guy was just a friend and this was just a gig.  No biggie!  I had sung a hundred times before and had many rehearsals in the past.  This was no different.  Except that it was a very cute guy, who I knew was interested in me, and there was something so suave about him…a cool meekness that I wanted to figure out.

Snap out of it, Ang!

He had picked out a song…what could it be?  I was still busy daydreaming when the slow music began filling up the room.  Todd introduced it to me, speaking in a soft voice and walking to his bed that sat adjacent to the couch, “have you heard of this song by Bryan Adams and Barbara Streisand- ‘I finally found someone’?”.

I listened for a moment.

“No, but I’m sure we can handle it, right?”, I said with a nervous chuckle.

Oh my gosh that was the cheesiest song I had ever heard in my life!  Go look it up and listen…it was ridiculously cheesy!!   Which is why we “needed” to practice every night for an entire week.  To no avail.  We still couldn’t get that song down.  I don’t think either of us cared because it was only a means.  Maybe if we had done a little more practicing and a little less flirting we might have actually gotten somewhere with it, but it was too hard to concentrate what with all the fun we were having.

Continued next week…

~Angie

Homemaker Chronicles