Chicken Soup for the College Soul

by Jack Canfield

  Every once in a while I pass an Aramis counter in a department store or smell someone wearing that potent scent and I think of Jillene Jones. The name still rolls off my tongue. I wish her well and hope she found that special peach-shirt-wearing, sushi-loving, treadmill-running, Aramis-drenched, bowling metal-head to love.

  Dan Clark

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  I Dare You!

  On the first day of my second year at California State University at Sacramento, I saw the most gorgeous guy! He was standing alone in line at the cafeteria and looked out of place. Turning to my friends, I said, "I have to meet him!"

  Challenging my spontaneity, my friends reached into their purses and came up with money for a bet. They then dared me to run up to him, pretend that I knew him and convince him that he knew me. Smiling, I turned and was off to meet the cutie pie.

  "Dan, Dan!" I yelled as I ran up to him. "How are you? How's your mom?" He just stood there looking at me. I could tell that he was shy. I liked him immediately.

  "I'm not Dan," he said, looking a little confused.

  "Sure you are!" I countered. "You lived in Sierra Hall last year, third floor! You were Bob's roommate."

  "No, I lived off campus last year," this sweet man replied, still not getting it. I turned and started to leave, and he began asking me a series of questions: "Do I know you from my mom's allergy clinic?" (I hate shots.) "Were you in the parrot class I took last summer?" (I like birds only slightly more than shots.) "Do you eat at Taco Bell? I work there.'' (Never.)

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  "Well," he said, "I know I'm not Dan, and I didn't live in Sierra Hall." He reached out his hand to mine. ''My name is Tim, and I'm pleased to meet you anyway."

  He invited me to his fraternity party that night. I composed myself and informed him that I did not go to fraternity parties. But as I watched him walk away, I had second thoughts. That afternoon, I took the money that I'd won from the bet and bought a black miniskirt. I was going to my first fraternity party.

  When I arrived there, I was a little nervous. Would he be there? When I got to the front steps of the frat house, I looked up and saw Tim sitting at the top. He looked at me and smiled.

  "I was hoping you would come. I've been waiting for you." I sat down next to him and we started talking. We talked all that nightand for the next three nightsuntil dawn. Four months later, he asked me to marry him. Four years later, we tied the knot. This year, we celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the day we met.

  Some nights when we are snuggling together, I'm reminded that I found my soul mate on a dare. Now and then, my husband asks, "Am I Dan or Tim tonight?" Having a special place in my heart for both of them, I always laugh and reply, "You decide!"

  April Kemp

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  The Love I'll Never Forget

  The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that the world is transformed.

  J. Krishnamurti

  My Minnesota hometown is a farming community of eight thousand people, tucked into the northwest corner of the state. Not a lot that is extraordinary passes through. Gretchen was an exception.

  Gretchen was an Eickhof, a member of one of the town's wealthiest families. They lived in a sprawling brick place on the banks of the Red Lake River and spent summers at their vacation home on Union Lake, thirty miles away.

  But there was nothing snooty about Gretchen. In sixth grade, she broke both legs skiing and for months had to be carried around by her father. After that, she taught herself to walk again. In high school, she tutored students less able than herself and was among the first to befriend new kids at school. Years later, she told me she had also been the "guardian angel" who left cookies and

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  inspirational notes at my locker before my hockey games. She moved through the various elements of high-school societyfarm kids, jocks and geeksdispensing goodwill to all. Gretchen, the Central High Homecoming Queen of 1975, was clearly going places.

  I knew her only well enough to exchange greetings when we passed in the halls. I was a good athlete and, in the parlance of the time, kind of cute. But I was insecure, especially around females. Girls were mysterious creatures, more intimidating than fastballs hurled high and tight, which may explain my bewilderment one midsummer night in 1977 when I bumped into Gretchen at a local hangout. I had just finished my freshman year at the University of North Dakota in nearby Grand Forks. Gretchen, whose horizons were much broader, was home from California after her first year at Stanford.

  She greeted me happily. I remember the feel of her hand, rough as leather from hours in the waters of Union Lake, as she pulled me toward the dance floor. She was nearly as tall as I, with perfect almond skin, soft features and almost fluorescent white teeth. Honey-blond hair hung in strands past her shoulders. Her sleeveless white shirt glowed in the strobe lights, setting off arms that were brown and strong from swimming, horseback riding and canoeing.

  Though not much of a dancer, Gretchen moved to the music enthusiastically, smiling dreamily. After a few dances we stood and talked, yelling to each other over the music. By the time I walked her to her car, Main Street was deserted. The traffic light blinked yellow. We held hands as we walked. When we arrived at her car, she invited me to kiss her. I was glad to oblige.

  But where hometown boys were concerned, Gretchen was as elusive as mercury. As passionately as she returned some of my kisses that summer and the next, for her, I was part of the interlude between childhood and the more

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  serious endeavors to come. I, however, was dizzy for her and had the bad habit of saying so. Each time I did, she pulled away from me. These were college summers, not the time for moony eyes and vows of undying devotion.

  One night in 1978 when Gretchen and I were together, out of nowhere she spoke the words that guys in my situation dread above all.

  "Tim," she said, "I think we should just be friends."

  I told her I was tired of her games and was not as much of a fool as she thought. I stormed away. By morning, I had cooled off. I sent her some roses that day, with a note offering an apology and my friendship.

  Gretchen and I started dating again about a month later. But this time I had learned my lesson. No more moony eyes. I could be as detached and aloof as the next guy. It worked beautifully, except that after a few weeks Gretchen asked, "What's wrong with you?"

  "What do you mean, what's wrong?"

  "You're not yourself," she said. "You haven't been for a long time."

  "I know," I said, and let her in on my ruse. For the only time I remember, she became angry. Then she proposed a deal.

  "You be who you are," she said, "and I won't go anywhere, at least for the rest of the summer."

  It was a bargain I quickly accepted. She was as good as her word.

  Those weeks seemed golden, a bit unreal. One time as we said good night, I discarded the final wisp of my caution and told Gretchen that I loved her. She only smiled.

  I came back from college to see her off to Stanford in mid-September. While Gretchen packed, I absently shot pool at her father's table. When she finished, we took a last walk around her family's horse pasture in the gathering September chill. I thought how dramatically our lives

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  were about to diverge and was saddened. But more than anything, I was thankful for the fine, fun times we had spent over the last two summers.

  Gretchen planned to find work in California next summer. For her, the serious part of life beckoned, and I knew what that meant.

  "Good-bye," I said as we stood at her front door.

  "Don't say 'good-bye,' " she replied. "Say 'see you later.' "

  A month later, the last of the autumn leaves were falling, but the sky was a cloudless blue, the air crisp and invigorating. Classes were done for the day.

  The telephone rang the second I stepped into my dorm room. I recognized Gretc
hen's friend Julie's voice on the other end of the line, and my heart soared. Julie was to be married the following month, and maybe Gretchen would be returning home for the wedding after all. But hearing the uncharacteristically quiet scratch of Julie's voice, I knew before she told me that Gretchen was dead.

  The previous morning Gretchen had collected one of her birthday presents from a college friend: a ride in a small plane. Shortly after takeoff, the craft lurched out of control and pitched into a marsh. Gretchen and her friend were killed instantly.

  "Gretchen's parents wondered if you would be a pall-bearer," Julie said.

  "I'd be honored," I heard myself reply. The word sounded strange even as it left my mouth. Honored? Is that what I felt?

  I left my dormitory and walked aimlessly. I am told I sought out a campus priest, but eighteen years later I have no memory of that. How does a person grieve? I wondered, unable to cry.

  The night after the funeral, I sat with my high-school buddy Joel in his Chevy Vega outside the restaurant where Gretchen's mourning friends planned to congregate.

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  Seeing him was the beginning of both my pain and my consolation, for as Joel spoke of Gretchen, his voice briefly failed. That tiny catch in my old friend's voice dissolved whatever stood between my sorrow and me. My torrents of grief were unleashed.

  The next morning, Joel and I joined a procession from the Eickhofs' lakeside summer house into the nearby woods. Gretchen's sisters took turns carrying a small urn that contained her ashes. It was cool and sunny, and the fallen leaves crackled underfoot.

  We came to a lone birch tree, its magnificent white bark standing out among the surrounding maples. Scratched into the trunk were the names of Gretchen, her father and her younger sister, as well as a date many years before.

  Someone said a prayer. Gretchen's father placed the urn in the ground below the birch. Above us, wind rustled through newly barren branches.

  I was among the last to leave. I emerged from the woods that day into a different world, where memories of first love linger but summers always end.

  Tim Madigan

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  Heartbreak 101

  I like to think of myself as a real risk taker. Just yesterday, I crossed the street when the Don't Walk sign had already begun flashing. The day before that, I ate dessert before dinner. You might say I live on the edge.

  Well, actually, you probably wouldn't say that.

  My mom tells me I started walking when I was eleven months oldand then changed my mind and decided to go back to crawling for a few more months. Too many chances of falling when you're on two legs, I guess. In high school, my friend Jill (a girl who pierced her belly button before anyone else) tried to teach me to smoke behind the football field. I took one puff and threw up. True, it was gross, but mostly I think I puked because I felt guilty and scared of getting caught.

  See, I'm chicken. And until I got to college, I'd always maintained that being chicken worked in my favor. I was in control. By playing it safe, nothing really bad ever happened to me.

  But by the time my parents left me in my dorm room at the University of Wisconsin, I was ready to say goodbye to them and to the old me. It was time to start living fear free. This was the first time I'd ever really left home.

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  I decided that when opportunities arose, instead of crawling under my covers, I'd be wide awake for them. I was going to loosen the white-knuckle grip I had on my life and start taking risks.

  Starring in my new role as The Girl Who Takes Chances, I decided I would have to get used to making the first move. So I approached the funky girl in the zoology lab with purple hair and glitter eyeliner and asked to be her partner. Soon thereafter, she became my best friend. Instead of studying together, Liz and I held late-night séances to contact the spirit of our zoology professor. He wasn't dead, of course; we just thought maybe his unconscious would give us the test answers. On Saturday afternoons, we would take a bus to a town we'd never been to and wander around, exploring thrift shops and discussing what we had in common. We each had a brother named Steve; we both hated coconut.

  My friendship with Liz gave me confidence thatin my previous lifewould have made me squirm. I joined the campus hiking club, which may not seem particularly daring, but I'd never done anything like it before. It wasn't tightrope walking, I told myself, but it did pose a few dangers: unexpected thunderstorms, getting lost in the woods, mosquitoes. It was something new and a little bit scary (like having to wear ankle-high hiking boots in case I stepped on a snake), but I was brave.

  However, it wasn't until I walked right up to a cute guy and introduced myself that I realized I had practically become a different person. Well, not exactly. I was just doing my homework. On the first day of Psych 101, the professor told us to do something we'd never done before. So I went to a local coffee shop and asked the finest guy there if I could join him.

  "It's an assignment," I said, smiling, as I slipped my insanely clammy hands into my pockets.

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  He looked at me like I was crazy, and then he laughed and pulled out the chair next to him. David turned out to be smart and funnya philosophy major who also watched Party of Five. We ended up talking until the coffee shop closed.

  If that were the end of the story, then the moral would be simple: Take risks, seek new experiences, meet awesome friends and a hot guy, be happy, the end. Except, as I learned in my freshman creative-writing class, a good story never ends where you think it will.

  The day after we met at the coffee shop, David called and invited me to do laundry with him. At first, I couldn't decide if this was cool and quirky or just a pathetic excuse for a date. (And yes, the idea of debuting my underwear totally freaked me out.) But somewhere around the spin cycle, I got hooked. Here was a guy who knew his knits from his delicates and wasn't afraid to admit it.

  After that, the Laundromat was a regular event. He and Liz got along great, too. I'd introduced them in October, and by Thanksgiving, the three of us were hanging out together regularlypulling all-nighters at the Denny's near my dorm, even making plans to get our heads shaved together. (David was the only one who actually did it.)

  One night in early winter when I had too much studying to do, David and Liz went to an Ani DiFranco concert. A few days later, David couldn't stop talking about how cool Liz was. ''We had the best time!" he raved.

  "Should I start worrying about leaving you two alone?" I asked.

  "That's sick, Lauren," he answered quickly. "You're a real sicko."

  But two days after Christmas, David dumped me. By New Year's Eve, he and Liz were an item, ringing in their romance at a Thai restaurant near campus that David and I had discovered. I was immobilized on my parents' sofa

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  back in Milwaukee with Dick Clark, a bowl of popcorn and a king-size box of tissues to keep me company. I was even wearing David's University of Chicago sweatshirt because it still smelled like him.

  I'd become daring, and suddenly life hurt worse than I could believe.

  I was miserable. It was my fault, I thought, for getting close to new people so quickly. For my best efforts, as I saw it, I'd been betrayed, rejected and doubly dumped. These were not things that happened to me in high school. These were not things that happened to mature college students who were in control of their lives.

  I seriously thought about transferring. And then, after several weeks of moping in my dorm and many, many Hostess cupcakes, I thought about something else: Brave people don't limp off to another school after they've been wounded in battle. They grab their swords (and their cupcakes) and move on.