Both Sides Now

by Shawn Inmon

  Something kind of important happened to me during those weeks between being laid off at DeGoede’s and starting school, invisible to everyone but me. It felt like I had to split myself in two and begin to choose what to show the world and what to keep inside. The problem was, I loved Shawn and I missed him so much, every day. I couldn’t let that show at home, or I would get in trouble for showing too much attitude. My friends would listen sympathetically for a while, but it got pretty old for them too. So, I decided I would keep what I really felt to myself and show a happier face to the rest of the world. It was easy to start doing that, but so, so hard to stop.

  School started again in September, and I went out for the volleyball team. One advantage of a very small school—which I would not have had in California—was that nearly everyone could participate in sports, band, and whatever other extracurricular activities existed. I liked playing and feeling like I was part of a team. Games were my best times to forget how down I felt most of the time. During one of our games, Dad showed up and talked to my coach. He told her I had to come out of the game and go with him, right then.

  As we were walking to the car, I asked, “Is Mom OK? What’s going on?”

  “Your Mom’s fine, but we’ve got to go somewhere and we didn’t want to leave without you. Your Mom will tell you more when we get in the car.”

  As soon as I got inside, Mom said, “Your cousin Lori has run away from home. She says she’s getting hit at home and things are too bad for her to stay there, so we’re going to go pick her up and bring her home to live with us.”

  That’s the way things are sometimes; change happens so fast. One minute I’m in the gym, ready to dig out a spike in a volleyball game, and the next minute I’m on my way to Sumner to pick up my niece to come live with us. You’ve got to roll with the changes.

  It wasn’t bad having Lori at our house. It was nice to have someone my own age always around to talk to, and I trusted her. I tested her first by telling her something small, but when I found out she could keep a secret, I told her more. Eventually, I figured out that she had my back and I could tell her pretty much anything.

  Even so, there was competition between us. Lori was really skinny, and I felt like I was fatter than I wanted to be, even though I only weighed about 115 lbs. Also, where I was shy and had a hard time talking to people, Lori was outgoing and made new friends easily.

  When she first got to school, she had a boyfriend named Roy who was from Sumner, where she used to live. Even though that was an hour and a half away, he still came down to see her quite a bit and usually brought a friend or his brother along. When he did, we would usually all go out on a double date. It made Mom happy, because she thought that meant that I was getting over Shawn. My ability to hide my true feelings was improving.

  When we double-dated, we would go to the bowling alley in Mossyrock or to a movie out town. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help but compare those dates to what it was like when Shawn and I went out. There was nothing wrong with those boys or what we did, but I never felt anything like that sense of connection I always felt with Shawn.

  About that same time, my English teacher, Mr. Bartee, assigned us all to start writing a journal. He said it didn’t matter what we wrote about; it only mattered that we wrote. I didn’t like the idea at all at first, but once I started I couldn’t seem to stop. I filled whole notebooks with what I was thinking about. I figured Mom was probably reading them, so I started writing stuff that wasn’t true but that I thought she would like. I wrote about hoping to go out with different boys and things, all of which was fiction. For the first four months of school, I didn’t go out with anybody other than those meaningless double dates with Lori.

  I didn’t know if my parents had meant it when they said I could never see Shawn again, but ever since they had forbidden us from seeing each other, they seemed content with the situation. For whatever reason, my feelings for Shawn and the way we acted together stressed them out.

  By November, Lori had decided that it was a pain having a boyfriend who lived almost 100 miles away, and she started going out with Chip Lutz. That worked out great, because I was friends with Chip, and Mom and Dad didn’t seem to mind when we all hung out together.

  After they had been going out a few weeks, Chip had a great idea. He had heard that the Commodores were going to play in Seattle. Because he and Shawn were still really good friends, he had the idea that we could tell Mom and Dad that we were going to see the Commodores. Then we could meet Shawn somewhere in Seattle and all of us go on a double date.

  When Chip suggested it, I asked if he had talked to Shawn or not, and if he still wanted to go with me. Chip looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you kidding? He agreed before I even got the words out of my mouth.”

  Since I hadn’t talked to Shawn in three months, I was glad to hear that he still wanted to go with me. I was afraid that, after seeing all the college girls, he didn’t want anything more to do with me. The thought of having the chance to spend a whole night with Shawn sounded so wonderful that I couldn’t believe it.

  This would, of course, mean directly disobeying Mom and Dad. I didn’t think it was right that I couldn’t see Shawn, and I didn’t understand it, but it scared me to think about going against their wishes. Truthfully, I was scared about what would happen if we got caught. When I thought about it that way, though, I knew I had to do it. They had already banned us from seeing each other forever, so they couldn’t make that any worse. What else were they going to do to me?

  Shawn told Chip that he wanted us to be in Seattle early in the day so we could spend as much time together as possible, but I knew that if we left too early, that would make Mom suspicious and she might not let us go at all. Finally, we agreed that we would leave about 2:00 and get to Shawn’s place in Seattle about 4:00.

  None of us had much money, and buying the tickets and gas to get there and back took what little we did have, so there was nothing left over to stop and eat on the way. Mom helped out by packing us a lunch that we could eat on the way—tuna fish sandwiches and cookies. We ate them, but by the time we were halfway to Seattle my stomach was so nervous that I wished I hadn’t.

  Looking back on it now, I don’t know what I was so afraid of. Mossyrock was 100 miles away from the concert and it wasn’t like Mom had spies all over Seattle. I guess it was a combination of a guilty conscience and an unreasonable fear of getting caught.

  The plan was to meet Shawn at his rooming house, but once we got to Seattle and the University District, none of his directions made sense. We got lost in the tangle of one-way streets, and the more lost we got, the more stressed out Chip got. We drove around for a long time just hoping to find any of the streets in the directions, but we were obviously going the wrong way. After about an hour of wandering aimlessly around the fringes of UW, we finally gave up and found a gas station with a payphone.

  Chip dialed the number and asked for Shawn. There was a long pause. Chip was starting to dig around for more quarters in case he needed them when he finally said, “Oh, hey. We got lost. We can’t find you.” After a pause, he said, “We’re at a 76 gas station on 45th Ave. We’ll just wait here for you, so hurry.” Another pause, then: “Yes, of course she’s with me.”

  After he hung up, he turned around looking confident. He flashed a typical Chipper smile and said, “As soon as I told him you were with me, he said he was already halfway here. I think he misses you.” That made me feel a little better.

  In just a few minutes, Shawn pulled up in a car I didn’t recognize. Before it even came to a full stop, he was out the driver’s door and hugging me. For just a minute, everything faded away except for the two of us. When he pulled back to look at me, I was a little surprised. It looked like he hadn’t had a haircut since I had seen him last. His curly hair was even more out of control than normal. I liked it. I got into the car with Shawn, and Chip and Lori followed in his car.

  “Were you expecting the Sin Bin? It’s been out of ac
tion for a couple of months now, so I’ve been hoofing it everywhere. This belongs to a friend of mine. I’m sure he won’t mind that I borrowed it.”

  “What? Didn’t you ask him?”

  “There was no time. He was sleeping. You were standing in the freezing cold at a gas station and I had to come rescue you. He won’t mind. He’s a friend.”

  Shawn drove us through a maze of twists and turns. After a few miles, I realized we hadn’t even been close to finding him. I wondered how long it had taken him before he could maneuver through all the streets that looked exactly the same. He seemed different, a little more confident, more adult.

  He turned down a side street and found a place where we both could park. He pointed up a little hill to a white house crammed in with a bunch of other houses.

  “Home sweet home. The guy who owns it is tighter than a miser and doesn’t want to pay his own mortgage, so he rents all the rooms out to poor college students like me. I live in a cozy little room in the basement and share the house with six of my new best friends. OK, actually, my room isn’t very cozy, but it is in the basement and I do like my roommates. They’re good guys.”

  As soon as Chip and Lori got parked, Shawn led us up a hill and into a side door of the house. He gave us a quick tour of the upstairs, then took me down to his room, leaving Chip and Lori in the living room.

  When he opened the door to his room, he said, “I know we don’t have much time, but it’s important to me that you have a picture in your mind of where I am when I’m writing you letters or just thinking of you, because I do a lot of that.”

  The room wasn’t very big—about the size of my bedroom at home—but it had a bed, a dresser and a desk, and it was clean. On the dresser was the same little record player he had always had, with the 45 of Always and Forever playing, just like when we had walked into his house on Damron Road after Prom.

  As soon as we were inside, he took me in his arms and pulled me to him. His face was almost touching mine, but he didn’t kiss me. He just looked in my eyes and didn’t look away. It felt like he was asking me a million questions without saying a word. His blue eyes were serious and maybe a little scared. The confident person that had driven us through the city streets was gone.

  “Dawn Adele, I know I haven’t seen you in a long time, but I want you to know that nothing has changed. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Shawn. Just the same.”

  It was true. As soon as I saw him and was close to him, I knew that nothing had changed. I knew I had missed him more than I had admitted to myself. He smiled and kissed me, long and slow, like he really meant it. I had missed that, too.

  We didn’t stay downstairs long because Chip and Lori were standing alone in a stranger’s house. We collected them from the living room and with Chip driving and Shawn navigating, we made it safely to the Seattle Center Coliseum, where the Brothers Johnson and the Commodores were playing.

  It’s funny. I had grown up in Southern California, not too far from Los Angeles. After having been in Mossyrock for three years, Seattle felt a little overwhelming with all its tall buildings, non-stop traffic and landmarks like the Space Needle. That feeling didn’t dissipate when we walked into the concert. I had never been to a concert before, and the Coliseum was packed to the rafters that night. There were probably thirty times as many people there as lived in the whole town of Mossyrock. Shawn held my hand and acted like he had been there before, so I tried to relax.

  There were no assigned seats, but most people seemed to be wandering around on the floor and there were a lot of seats left. I thought we would probably all sit together, but Chip and Lori wanted to try to get right up in front, and Shawn and I didn’t want to fight the crowds, so we split up and found a seat toward the back but centered on the stage.

  I didn’t really know who the Brothers Johnson were, but when they did Strawberry Letter #23, I recognized it. It was a strange feeling, watching a band perform a song that I had heard hundreds of times on the radio. That feeling was intensified when Lionel Ritchie and the Commodores came on stage. Shawn and I had danced to a lot of Commodores songs at Hollywood Hollywood, and it was so strange to actually see them singing Easy or Three Times a Lady.

  I really loved the concert and the music, but the longer it went on, the worse the knot in my stomach got. I hadn’t seen Shawn in months, and now I knew that every song put me that much closer to not seeing him again for a long time. I didn’t think that I could get away with pulling something like this off very often, and I had no idea if or when we could be together again.

  When the Commodores had done their last encore, we ran into Chip and Lori on the floor right in front of our seats. There was a huge push to get out the doors, and we got carried along like driftwood on a high tide. Eventually, we popped outside and saw that it had been snowing the whole time we were inside. There must have been five or six inches piled up everywhere. If you were used to the snow, that probably wasn’t enough to be a big deal, but no one in Seattle is used to the snow. Drivers were slipping and sliding everywhere.

  Chip looked at us and said, “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to drive home in this, especially if it keeps up. I think we better call Colleen and see what she wants us to do.”

  “Hey, if you need a place to crash for the night, I’ve got a warm room and extra blankets…” Shawn said.

  I looked at him like he had lost his mind. “Oh, great idea. Let’s just call Mom and tell her that we can’t make it home, so we’re gonna sleep at Shawn’s place. I’m sure she’ll be fine with that.”

  He started to say something, realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere and closed his mouth. “Listen,” Chip said, “my brother doesn’t live too far away. I’m sure it would be OK if we spent the night at his house. But, let’s call Colleen first and see what she wants to do.”

  We found a bank of payphones outside the Coliseum and I placed a collect call home. Mom picked up on the first ring.

  “Hi, Mom? Uhmm… we just got out of the concert and it’s snowing like crazy…”

  “I know. I’m watching the weather report on the news. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go up there by yourselves.”

  “We’re fine, Mom. It’s just snowing. Chip doesn’t think he wants to drive us all the way home in this, though. His brother lives around here and Chip says we can stay with him tonight. What do you want us to do?”

  The silence stretched out. I knew she didn’t want to tell me to stay in Seattle, but she also didn’t want us to get in an accident on the way home.

  “That’s fine, but call me when you get there, and I’m going to want to talk to Chip’s brother to make sure it’s all right for you to be there.”

  When we got back to Chip’s car, there was something wrong with one of the front tires. While he and Shawn were checking it out, I started to feel sick. Everyone else was gathered around the front of the car, so I went to the back, leaned over and threw up. I hoped I would feel better after that, but I didn’t really. I just spent the rest of the night trying not to breathe on Shawn, so he wouldn’t know I had vomited.

  We headed for Chip’s brother’s house in South Seattle. It wasn’t very far, but the roads were bad and it took us a long time. Chip was a good driver, though, and eventually we got there safe and sound.

  By the time we got inside, it was past midnight and everyone in the house had been asleep for hours. I called Mom collect and she asked to speak with Chip’s brother. I put him on the phone and he seemed to be mostly listening, just saying “Yeah,” or “OK” a lot. Eventually, he handed the phone back to me.

  “OK, you can stay there, but I want you to be up bright and early and check the roads. If they’re all right, I want you on your way home first thing in the morning.”

  I hung up and looked around. The house was mostly dark and Chip, Lori and Shawn were all sitting on the couch, looking a little miserable. I sat down next to Shawn and he put his arm around me.

  Chip’s brother br
ought us a blanket, which we spread out over the four of us. Then he went into the kitchen and got a chair and set it right in front of the couch. He sat down in front of us and said, “Your mom said I was to keep an eye on everything, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

  It was so late by then that I think we were all too tired to do anything anyway, and we were all asleep almost immediately. That’s how I spent my first night together with Shawn, on a couch, wrapped in a blanket with Lori and Chip. I can’t say it was very romantic.

  In the morning, the roads had been cleared and we knew we had to get going. Shawn walked with me to the car, but he was going to be heading the opposite direction.

  “How are you going to get home?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t know for sure, but don’t worry about me. We’re still in Seattle, kind of, so there’s got to be a bus line around here somewhere. Once I find a bus, I can find my way home. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about when I’ll see you again. I don’t think I can take being away from you anymore.”

  “I know. Me too, but what can we do about it?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but this has got to stop. I’m going to figure something out.”

  I tried to smile at him, kissed him and got in Chip’s car. We sat three across the front with Chip driving, Lori in the middle and me on the outside. As Chip pulled away and headed for Mossyrock, I watched Shawn in the side mirror. He never moved, and I watched him until he got so small I couldn’t see him anymore.

  Hold the Line

  We got home from Seattle by lunchtime. Chip dropped Lori and me off at the driveway and headed for home. I didn’t know if he was in a hurry to get home, or if he just didn’t want to face my Mom. When we got in the house, she didn’t seem to be suspicious or acting funny, though. She just told us she was glad we had made it home safely, and asked us if we had enjoyed the show.