It Happened on Maple Street

“No.”

“Did he tell me to call him?”

“No.”

“Did he say he’d call me?”

“No.”

“Do you think he’s okay? Maybe something bad happened.”

“I think he changed his mind, Tara.”

I thought so, too.

And for the second time in my life, Tim Barney had broken my heart.

The dorm room was the same. My twin bunk was still over there by the windows. The comforter was still beige and mauve with splashes of white. My two-foot-tall Raggedy Ann doll still graced the covers.

I was entirely different. The last time I’d slept in that bed I’d dreamed of Tim. Even before I’d fallen asleep. I’d poured out my heart to him from those covers as well during the two months I’d written to him.

We’d had our problems, but he was my Tim. We were destined to be together.

That’s what I’d known the last time I’d been in that third-floor dorm room with the cold brick walls and commercially tiled floor.

Standing in the doorway, alone, the first one back to the suite after the break, I wasn’t sure I could enter.

Tim was in that room.

Tim was no longer in my life.

It was really over. He’d made his choice, and it wasn’t me.

I heard voices in the stairwell. Someone laughed. The sound was getting closer. I couldn’t bear to be laughed at. Or find laughter to share, either.

I couldn’t smile and say that spring break had been great. Or even okay.

I took a step. And then another. I closed the door behind me. I crumbled. I cried.

And the next week I signed up for every single social activity offered on the campus of Armstrong University. Someplace—among the people, God, the choices, the beliefs and studies and opportunities—I had to make a life for myself. I had to find a life.

Spring Sing was an annual event. An alumni weekend fund-raiser consisting of a theme and musical acts that followed the theme. All of the social clubs, Armstrong’s answer to sororities and fraternities, competed with their attempts at musical theater and production. The show went on for two nights, Friday and Saturday, and was always, without fail, sold out.

Awards were given—top place was monetary. And the social-club members, who spent the money on service projects, really cared about winning.

My club, together with our brother club, had hired a choreographer and had been practicing every night for weeks.

“You ready?” The voice belonged to James, my social club’s big brother—the male who attended all of our meetings to lead us in prayer. The tall, dark-haired man had brown eyes. And a mustache. He played tennis. If there was any resemblance to Tim in him, I chose not to see it.

“Yeah. My ribs are taped.” My social club sisters said he liked me.

I probably liked him, too. In an innocuous sort of way. I was experienced now. My heart was no longer raw and open and available.

“You want to practice one more time?” He was whispering from our vantage point at the side of the stage. The other twenty kids in the same matching blue-silk skirts and slacks and tops stood around us in various curtain breaks in the wings.

“No,” I said, biting back the irritation that was solely a result of prestage jitters. I was a member of a family of entertainers. I could do this.

“You want to go out for a soda afterward?”