Excerpt: Nothing's Right--But Everything's Fine

Part Two—Jenna
1976

Jenna tugged impatiently at her frizzy brown hair. Annoying little wisps kept sticking to her sweaty face and getting in her eyes as she shoved them back yet again into the red bandana tied kerchief style around her head. She bumped and pulled the huge suitcase backwards up the stairs of her dormitory to the second floor, where she was to share a suite with five other girls. It was a sweltering humid day in late August and the dorm smelled like Clorox, chocolate chip cookies baking and vaguely of marijuana, which Jenna decided hopefully, I’ll take as one good sign.

When she got upstairs, her mother was making her bed. “What the fuck”, it’s not like you’ve ever made my bed before, why today?” thought Jenna, frowning and deeply annoyed with her mom as usual. She wished her parents would just leave instead of hanging around here pretending to be something they weren’t. Interested in her life, yeah right, since when she thought bitterly. She heard the girl next door crying softly as her mother tried to comfort her and Jenna felt embarrassed and a little jealous of the type of loving symbiotic relationship she had never had with her own mother.

For as long as she could remember Jenna had felt like an outsider in her own family. She was sensitive and a bit of a rebel at least in her parents eyes. The rest of the family was given to much teasing and banter that Jenna felt was not in good taste and actually quite hurtful. When her eyes filled with tears she was admonished as ‘not a good sport’ and the family laughed and walked away afraid she thought of deep emotion.

Her parents were staunch conservatives in all areas and they expected their children to follow in their footsteps. Jenna just didn’t buy into it, the Republican party, the church going, the god fearing, it all seemed so senseless so fake. Jenna didn’t like being a ‘sheep’ she blazed her own path and her parents were as baffled as she was often wondering how such a child had wound up in their family.

But Jenna knew exactly how she had come to be. Her biological father was just like her. Unfortunately she almost never got to see him and Jenna blamed her mother for that. At the same time Linda blamed her daughter. She could not fathom why Jenna still help onto a ghost, a phantom of her own imagination. Joey, Jenna’s biological father was a jerk, simply a sperm donor in Linda’s eyes and Jenna was much better off without him.

Jenna knew her mother had been hurt deeply by her biological father, Joe but she only acted angry. Linda would never ever show an emotion like hurt. She was angry out of all proportion thought Jenna. Jenna and Mary, the two products of that brief union were also supposed to hate their father for some unspoken infractions so perhaps because of that, throughout her childhood her father had loomed larger than life-almost god-like in the recesses of her memory.

When Jenna was eight years old her mother divorced and then quickly remarried. The little girls had happily accepted the ‘new’ daddy, Uncle Gary and loved him immensely. He made mommy happy and they were like a real family now playful and together. When mommy was happy Jenna felt safe and that hadn’t happened in a long time. But as the family grew to include two more children, children of new daddy, Jenna began to feel left out. Her parents pushed her away almost as if she was her biological father in the flesh and treated her as an intruder. Soon she stopped trying to fit in and eventually lived just on the fringes of the happy little family awaiting the day she would escape them and begin her own life.

“Uh, mom, dad, I have to go get my I.D. card and schedule and stuff, so you should probably get going.” She was so excited to be at college and she wanted them out of there as soon as humanly possible. Her room mate was rolling her eyes signaling and waiting Jenna knew, to get high. Then they’d go check out the campus properly stoned, and hit the “Welcome Back” concert a huge banner announced at the entrance of the dorm. “Pure Prairie League Today!” the banner promised and Jenna was fairly bursting with excitement. But first she had to get her parents out of her room!

“OK, ok Jenna. We’re leaving” laughed her step-dad. He understood her better than mom, and knew she desperately needed to get started on her own. He knew Jenna intellectually accepted him as her ‘real’ father the one who had been there, made Christmas and taken the family on vacation. He was also the reason Jenna was even going to college always insisting on good grades, proper English and good manners. He also tried to shield her from some of her mothers more violent tantrums and Jenna loved him for all of that.

Looking at his adopted eldest child Gary smiled fondly. It seemed to him, that Jenna had always been a grown-up in a lot of ways. The eldest of six children, Jenna had baby-sat frequently and been forced by circumstance to be a ‘little mother’ from a very early age. She had always seemed to embrace each new situation, each experience with open arms and enthusiasm. From kindergarten to high school, several school changes, uncountable friends and boyfriends, she easily changed direction and got swept away with the fun of it all. And today was no exception, no tears, no worries. Jenna was totally in charge and ready to rock and roll! She quickly hugged and kissed her parents and without much more ceremony, they were gone.

“Wow”, drawled Lisa, Jenna’s new roommate, “That was Impressive. Cool, but not frosty, warm but not mushy, quick and neat. Nicely done Miss Jenna.” Lisa handed Jenna a frosty beer from the little refrigerator they were renting and at the same time lit a little pot pipe she produced out of her purse. The girls flopped back on their tiny beds in their small but serviceable room and sighed contentedly at the same moment. They instantly sprang back up laughing—“wow, this is so cool”! They looked at each other their eyes sparkling with anticipation. Lisa was excited, they both were. College was an amazing step in becoming an adult and both girls had waited for this moment their whole lives.

The two girls had met earlier that summer at the insistence of Lisa’s parents and discovered they were practically like sisters, only better because they weren’t! They both loved reading and writing and lots of quiet time. Their musical tastes ran pretty much the same, with a few differences thrown in for variety. They were both non-athletic, smokers, and liberal arts majors; Jenna was studying English and composition, Lisa, philosophy and psychology. They had both been worried that they’d get stuck with some preppy cheer-leader type, blond gorgeous roommate who ‘just loved’ disco dancing and belonged to the golf club! Yuck! Thank god, instead they got matched up and could skip over the horrible roommate dramas some of the other freshmen were forced to endure.

Lisa was way too cool. She had long auburn hair and wore patched up jeans and men’s flannel or blue work shirts. Brown work boots. No make-up and very tall, she looked like a model but had no idea she was even pretty. Her beautiful guitar was her constant companion and she strummed absently even while she was reading or talking. Mostly she played Joni Mitchell, or Jackson Browne type stuff, but totally unobtrusive and quite good. ‘Peaceful’ is how I’d describe her, thought Jenna happily. Lisa always had weed and got amazingly good grades even though it seemed like she was permanently stoned. She was already good friends with some gorgeous senior guys since her older brother was there too, but again she seemed oblivious to her great luck, and the guys all treated her like a little sister anyway.

The two girls were ready to party and after washing up and Jenna checking the mirror while Lisa scoffed at her vanity; they locked their room and headed to “The Rat” for “a few brews” as Lisa put it. The Rat, short for Ratskellar, was a bar in the basement of the Student Union building. In 1976, almost every campus had a bar since the drinking age had been lowered to eighteen. Jenna wasn’t much of a drinker, but for twenty-five cents a glass and two dollars a pitcher, she figured she could become one!

They walked in the temperature greeting them a good fifteen degrees cooler than the sizzling late summer day outside. The bar was already crowded and several small groups of students were greeting each other loudly with whoops of delight at the happy reunions. The two girls watched and hung out for a while, drinking and listening to the blaring disco music on the juke-box. The dark little noisy bar was not their style, they wanted to smoke and talk so they soon headed outside again into the suddenly bright evening sunshine. The sounds of rock music reached them and they fell into step with other students who were headed along the path that led to a huge tented area where the center of attention was focused.

All around them college kids were drinking and smoking and dancing and just visiting. It was one huge party! Wow, thought Jenna, this is college. Not exactly how she had imagined it, maybe a bit romantically with ivy curling gracefully up brick walls, but still cool! She felt so grown up already and she hadn’t even gone to a class yet! The two girls danced and sang and met all kinds of people who they partied with long into the night. Later, as the concert broke up they half walked half stumbled back to their room, tired and a little drunk, but happy. They linked arms and sang “Help Me I Think I’m Falling In Love With You” by none other than the great Joni Mitchell as they awkwardly made it back to their dorm room.

The next few months passed in a happy haze as Lisa and Jenna immersed themselves in their classes. Jenna was taking some very challenging courses and had to study all the time just to keep up. College was a lot harder than high school for sure! Late into the night, the girls worked at their desks, reading, talking and making each other snacks or taking trips to the Student Union for take out meal plan food. It was not the most healthy food but at least it was quick and easy.

Living together in such small quarters for so many hours a day gave the girls lots of time to reveal more of themselves to each other. Parents, friends, childhood memories, boyfriends, everything came out and was examined minutely. Lisa was a natural philosopher and a great listener who loved to hear the intimate details of every story Jenna told. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, an old blue bathrobe pulled around her she’d listen intently as Jenna chattered away. She’d watch Jenna’s face for hints to her inner feelings and she liked to analyze relationships and found connections to the past that sometimes had Jenna in stitches and other times left her pondering deep into the night.

One of the things that had her especially concerned was Johnny. He was coming to visit this weekend and Jenna was feeling a little torn. On the one hand, she was excited, she and Johnny had been together through all of her junior and senior year and the past summer. There lay the problem, her senior year. Johnny was still back in high school, and when they were both there, their age difference hadn’t seemed important or relevant at all. But now…Jenna twisted her braid around her finger and thought, he seemed so well, young! Her friends had warned her about this happening when they first got involved, but Johnny was special. She smiled thinking about their relationship, and her first real experiences with sex…