I didn’t see her for a month after that. As I said, we rarely saw each other on campus as we focused on our respective studies. Then one day, I was sitting on the campus grounds enjoying a very pleasant spring afternoon eating an apple as I peered into my iPad at some materials a professor posted online.
My concentration was broken as a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see Lila towering over me. Her sour glare did not bode well for me.
“Hi, Lila, how are you?” I ventured my cordial gambit.
“I told you not to follow me. How dare you do that! You are just like every other man I ever known! You can’t trust a damn single one of you!”
I sighed as I continued to listen to her steady denunciations and declarations against the entire male gender of the species. Finally, she began running out of steam.
“Lila?”
“What?” she demanded.
“Since that day, I fixed your flat, have you seen me in your neighborhood?”
“… Well, no.” she responded.
“Have I mailed you anything? Sent you flowers? Sent you any kind of gift?” I was getting warmed up. “Have I tried to call you or contact you in any way? Have I gone through the student directory to send you an e-mail? Have I tried to friend you on Facebook, or follow you on Twitter? Have I shown any inclination that I wanted anything else to do with you? Stalked you in any way?” I asked.
“As you might now suspect the answer is no. All I ever did was try to be friendly to you and you’ve shot me down every time. That’s fine. I helped you just because I thought you needed help when I changed your flat tire. I only followed you for the same reason. I don’t know if I could ever trace my way back to your residence. I didn’t have and I DON’T have any ulterior motive and I’m sorry you think otherwise. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to read this.” I turned my attention back to my iPad.
She started walking off.
“Lila”
“What, Mike?”
“You still have my umbrella.”
The next day I discovered my umbrella wrapped with a red bow pinned against my windshield wipers along with an unsigned card saying, ‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch to you.’ I looked around the parking lot, but I didn’t see Lila. I decided to look at this as a sort of detente, not as any indication of attraction. We were now in our junior year. The semester dragged on until one day I was interrupted again by Lila.
“Hi, Mike. Do you have a minute?”
“Hi, Lila, what do you want?” My suspicions were raised by this unusual turn of events.
She hesitated, “I heard you took Professor Adam’s class in Commercial Transactions.”
“That’s right, Lila.” I waited for her to continue.
“Did she assign your class an essay analyzing business models using a treatise, “The Solution to Hodge’s Conjecture by the Varonsky’s Shift by Dr. Ben Stevens and Dr. James Reed?”
I inadvertently began laughing as I recalled that nightmare of a class, trying to make sense of the equation formula so far above my head.
“Yeah, somehow, I pulled a C plus out of that class, but don’t ask me how!” I exclaimed.
“Well… that’s just it. I am asking you how. I’m taking the class as a business elective. It’s too late to drop the class, and next year I’m loaded down with core classes of my major. If I flunk this class, it will mess up my grade point average, I will have to wait an entire year to retake the class since it’s only offered once a year!”
I disdained the opportunity to say, ‘It sucks to be you’. to her. Instead, I just nodded and said, “I can see where that would be a problem for you.” Damned if I didn’t use my next breath to automatically say, “What can I do for you?”
While I castigated myself mentally, Lila latched on to me as a potential savior.
“Professor Adams has the reputation of being the hardest grader at the university. She once flunked out an entire class! Had I known what I was getting myself into, I would’ve got another elective but it’s too late now.” Lila groused.
“If I flunk, that means I’ll have to wait an entire year and risk re-flunking the same class! I’ve only budgeted enough money for one more year of school. I can’t risk not graduating. Can you help me?”
Sure enough, my fucking ‘help the damsel in distress’ gene kicked in again and I heard myself say, “Sure, Lila, I’ll pull out my essay for you, and if you have any questions just give me a call.”
As it turned out, there were a lot of calls. Some would last for nearly an hour as I tried to help Lila struggle through the complexities. To take her mind off the problem, we would lapse into other topics and slowly became aware of what similar tastes we shared.
One night, she invited me over to her place to help her study. “Let me give you the address,” she said.
“Don’t worry, Lila, I remember your place.” I said.
“I thought you said you couldn’t remember how to get to my place.” I could only imagine the gotcha grin she had over the phone.
“What can I say, Lila. I lied.” I heard her chuckle as I turned off the phone. When I got there, I noticed her apartment was decorated in Early American Collegiate Poverty. She was nervous and defensive as we settled in to study and I tried to explain to the best of my abilities what Professor Adam’s was looking for in her assignment.
After an hour, Lila slumped to the floor and groaned, “I’ll never understand this shit!” I slid off the couch as well and sat beside her.
“Lila, you got to understand only maybe 10 people in the whole world understand this shit. Dr. Adams is just pretending that she’s one of them. Just take three business model examples; a successful model like Wal-Mart, an unsuccessful model like Blockbuster Video, and make a hypothetical business model and show how you would approach your business stratagem using the treatise.”
I continued, “Make an argument, provide some data, cite plenty of sources and you’ll pass the assignment and the course and you’ll never have to worry about this, ever again.”
With a rueful smile, she griped, “Easier said than done!” She wadded up a sheet of paper and lobbed it at my head playfully.
“Hey, if you’re going to throw stuff at me, you ought to at least feed me,” I protested.
“You can have anything you want as long as it’s Ramen Noodles.” she said.
“Really, that’s all you’ve got?” I asked.
“That’s all I can afford; between rent, bills, and tuition, I’m on a strict budget, which is why I have to pass this course,” Lila answered. “That way I can get a good job and start my life.”
“Can’t you get help from your patents and ease off the pressure?”
Lila teared up, “My parents died when I was two, in a car crash. My uncles and aunts decided that it would be easier on them to put me in foster care. They did file a wrongful death suit supposedly on my behalf but they were the guardians of the estate. All that money got spent and I’ll never collect a dime from any of them.”
“The foster parents I had were in it for the State’s money. They saw I was feed and clothed and went to school, but there were never any luxuries. I have been legally on my own since I turned eighteen. In reality, I’ve been on my own my entire life.
“At least, I got lucky and wasn’t abused like a lot of kids are,” she sniffled.
As I moved to her to hug her, I understood why she had always projected such a hard shell. She had to have some mental armor just to make it on a day-by-day existence. We just sat there as she softly sobbed away the night.
Things advanced in our relationship at a comfortable pace for her. I didn’t want to move too quickly and risk harming our eggshell thin friendship. Her confidence in the assignment materials grew, the questions lessened and more personal items were substituted in their place.
I watched as she ran up to me across the campus yard, “Mike, I passed!” She waved a thick bound report over her head as she collided into me for a fierce hug. I looked at the report, “A minus! See, I knew you’d figure this stuff out!” I smiled at her.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she exclaimed, “How can I ever make this up to you?”
Well, that’s simple, Lila. Just go out with me.” I commented, holding her, watching her face.
The frown lines automatically appeared. Her hesitation told me that I wasn’t going to get my wish. “Mike, can I do anything else?”
The pain of the rejection must have been clear on my face. She added, “Mike, you have to understand…”
“Lila, am I that reprehensible?” I interjected, “Am I that ugly or boring or stupid… Well, I must be stupid!” I answered my own question. “For going on three years, I just wanted to take you out on a date and you’ve refused me. For some reason, I thought the time we’ve been spending together made you realize that I’m not a bad person.