'Ben, I feel really uncomfortable here!" Annie shouts as the cars whiz by her and the wind makes her ears sting. But Ben is far away and doesn't hear. Annie starts to run and makes up her mind that this will be the last time she follows Ben on one of his quests for the perfect side-of-the-road find. Some of his past "finds" Annie would have preferred left as "losts" -- the old sweatshirts, the running shoes and the rest of the junk that clutters his dorm room. A bizarre Ben doesn't consider it junk.
Ben doesn't wear a big bushy beard either, and Annie knows he doesn't own a patched wool coat or splitting leather boots. And indeed it is not Ben suddenly standing before Annie on the side of Highway 95. Annie starts to run a lot faster.
A month passes. The roadside encounter with the destitute man had scared Annie and made her so angry with Ben that she'd wanted to deflate his car tires so he'd never stop on another highway again. Instead, she took self-defense classes where a leathery-looking instructor gave advice for situations Annie never believed she'd really be in. Annie felt guilty that she wasn't a better self-defense student. Annie felt guilty about a lot of things.
"When in a crowded place you find yourself being followed by a strange man," the instructor said with a seriousness Annie considered over the top, "you need to yell loudly and firmly, 'This man is not my husband!' " Though such a ludicrous statement made Annie want to giggle, she soon found herself formulating versions better suited to her own life.
When Ben was talking too loudly or blabbing to their English professor about another exciting object he'd found on the side of the road, Annie would want to cry, "This guy is not my boyfriend!" But he was. He was the guy she'd met four years ago in their freshman dorm who made her laugh, impressed her and then infuriated her. Ben had once told Annie he was an expert on Native American dance. She'd believed him until he started frolicking around the room in a circle and wildly flapping his arms. She threw a sock at his face, and then she fell in love with him. He did weird things like rescuing trash, but he also did wonderful things. Still, even before she'd enrolled in a self-defense course, Annie had protected parts of herself from Ben. She felt guilty about that.
When tears were running down Rebecca's face at dinner, Annie would want to announce, "This girl is not my friend!" Rebecca was Annie's roommate, and Rebecca always cried when she ate. She had crocodile-tears syndrome, a nerve disorder that causes the afflicted to cry while eating. When Annie stopped to think about it, such a thing was ridiculously embarrassing. But more often than not, Annie would just hand Rebecca extra napkins and keep talking.
It wasn't that Annie didn't like Rebecca. Rebecca was a good friend. But Annie knew that "good" was just a word she purposely hadn't defined and that she lacked a reason for not wanting to spend time with Rebecca. She felt guilty about it a lot.
Sometimes, when Annie looked in the mirror, she whispered, "This person is not me." Just very quietly to herself. Then she'd wash her face and brush her teeth. Annie always flossed. There was something she enjoyed about the feel of the waxed string between her teeth.
Something Annie did not enjoy were meals with her father, though she hopes tonight maybe she will. Annie's dad is a professional backup singer. When Annie was younger, she pictured her father traveling to work in a limousine and wearing sequins while singing into a big microphone, but really he drives a Honda and wears blue jeans and stands in a crowded sound booth all day. He's worked on a lot of albums and given Annie a copy of every single one. She doesn't listen to them....
PART 2
Annie is bringing Ben and Rebecca to dinner and, wary of impromptu stops along the highway between
home and school, she's driving. The June sun shines hard through the windshield and Annie feels
guilty about spending the month in summer session. For an instant, reflected light blinds her and
causes her to choke, but then Annie hears her two passengers arguing about who it is singing some
song on the radio. She looks away and wonders if maybe it's her father's voice buried somewhere in
the harmonies.
He welcomes them in warmly -- Annie has brought Ben and Rebecca over before. They walk through the
house to the patio and Annie crinkles her nose. She thinks that the rooms' smell never changes; she
inhales deeply and repeatedly as the silverware clinks and the food is dished. It is almost too
thick, Annie thinks, this smell, even outside in the twilight and open air. And then she thinks
it's not just the smell that smothers -- it's life that suffocates and bothers. She wants to go
throw up so she can brush her teeth, floss and be rid of the feeling that fills her spaces.
Annie's voice, desperate, is about to seep out when her dad clears his throat. The clinking and
chewing around the table pauses.
"You know," he says, rubbing his hand along the contours of his fork before looking at his daughter,
"I think a life is a song, and by letting yourself be bothered by single notes, you miss the music."
He looks sheepish for a second but then sets the fork down on the table.
"So I guess I'm saying," -- he is saying it, and Annie heard it -- "is that notes are necessary.
Don't make them bother you." How her dad knew Annie doesn't know. What he said -- how he said it
-- very well could have been cliched, but instead it simply is right. Annie was wrong to think
people and things in her life were bothersome, and she knows it now. She knows that for an
eternity she'd turn her back and purposely saw nothing, and that now her eyes, open and shining,
are seeing wonderful somethings. Surrounded by them Annie is breathing and the air is clean in her
lungs. "You know," she begins to say to her companions, but when Annie looks at Rebecca and Ben
and her dad she realizes everyone does know, and it's not important anymore.
The night moves on, slowly and happily. Annie is comfortable and when she laughs out loud, the
sound whistles cleanly through her teeth. Inspired, Ben starts to croon the John Denver ballad
Annie has always said she hates, but there is something about seeing the three of them singing
-- Rebecca with her tears caused by dessert or happiness or maybe both; Ben with his horrible rock
star impression made worse by the recycled roadside sweatshirt he's swinging above his head; her
dad with the huge smile and the soaring melodies -- that changes Annie's mind. About the song and
about what bothers her. She stops feeling guilty because these people are her notes. She can heard
their chords. The music belongs to her.
It's Annie's music that echoes in the summer evening. It is Annie's breath that cuts sharply
through the humid air and her teeth that glow in the fading sun. And so amid the crocodile tears,
the antics and the harmonies, Annie shouts, quietly, to herself -- "This girl is my friend.
This guy is my boyfriend. This man is my father. This woman is me."
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Meet this year's winner
As the Grand Prize winner, Elisa Lenssen, 18, of Ada, Ohio, receives a $2,000 scholarship. This fall the Lima News reader and Ada High School yearbook editor heads to Grinnell College in Iowa, where she' ll continue her writing. Sponsoring teacher: Lyn Davis.
As the Grand Prize winner, Elisa Lenssen, 18, of Ada, Ohio, receives a $2,000 scholarship. This fall the Lima News reader and Ada High School yearbook editor heads to Grinnell College in Iowa, where she' ll continue her writing. Sponsoring teacher: Lyn Davis.