"All The Odds Are In My Favor"

I knew this girl who loved Cabaret.

We had a class together in college. It was 20th Century American Drama, which always struck me as silly because before the 20th century, the United States didn't produce much original theater, other than Vaudeville, and that's not exactly fully scripted before the company went on stage. I mean, the US had to discover its own unique sort of prose and poetry before it could move properly into drama, and we didn't find either prose or poetry until the late 1850s and they didn't really blossom until after the Civil War. Hell, the US had to have a critic stand up and ask where the American poets were and who was going to be The Poet to lead the writers of the US out from under the shadow of Europe and into the sun so it could become its own being. Lucky for him, and us, there was a poet who was both conceded enough and good enough to stand up and say, "Hey, I'm over here, brah." But the playwrights took longer even. They had to find places to stage their visions and backers who were willing to produce the plays and actors willing to perform. With all that outside money and influence involved, it's hard to not just write what you know will sell. It happened, though, but not much before the 20th century came to pass I think if there had been a 19th Century American Drama class, it would have lasted three sessions: 1) Introduce class and hand out syllabus. 2) Discuss readings. 3) Turn in final paper and take only test on readings. You probably wouldn't get much interesting insight on the readings, either

Anyway, we had a class together, but that's not where we met. Not really.

We met in the hallway outside the classroom.

I, being me, never knew what to do between classes, especially if I had an hour or more to wait. Other people probably went and bought a snack or met friends or lounged around on some patch of shady grass or Frisbeed the time away, I didn't, though. (I was so popular that I wasn't invited to the New Year's party that was thrown in the house I lived in by a friend I'd know since we were sophomores in high school that included lots of old friends. Yeah, I was that popular.) I'd go to building my next class was in and if there was a class in the room I'd plunk myself down on the floor in the hall across from the door. Usually, I was by myself until ten or so minutes before class started, but the second day of this class, about five minutes after I sat down, a girl sat across from me.

I was reading. I don't know what, exactly. Sometimes I read something for fun. Sometimes I was doing the reading for the class before class. And sometimes I'd read stuff for the class that I just left. She pulled out some big text book that I knew wasn't for the class we shared and started highlighting. I went back to my reading. Eventually, others came and we all headed into class.

The next class I got there first again, but when she got there she pulled out the reading for our class. After a while, she asked me what I thought about some character and I blah-blahed for a bit and then said that something, I don't know what, reminded me of Cliff from Cabaret.

She looked up, and for the first time looked me in the eyes. "You know Cabaret?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's a great movie."

"It's my favorite," she said.

"Movie?"

"Anything. I mean, I love Liza, but that show. God." She looked off, sort of above my head and to my right. "The songs. Christ. It's just amazing."

"So, you've seen it?" I asked. "I mean the play? With all the songs? 'Cause I've only seen the movie and I know they cut a lot of 'em."

"I've seen it," she said, looking at me again. "We performed it at our high school."

"Really? In high school?"

"Yeah, we had this great drama teacher."

And we chatted on for the rest of the hour. Not about school, but about a play and a movie that we both enjoyed. When we got into class I sat where I liked to sit and she sat next to a guy who was, and probably still is, much prettier than me. It was okay, though, it's not like we were friends.

Then next time she got right down to it and asked me my name and major. After I told her I asked her what her major was, as is the proper procedure in this kind of college conversation.

And so, we started talking. Soon the talking turned away from school related stuff and toward other things. I probably learned more about her than she did about me. I often listened more than I spoke; it's just the way that I am. I learned why she choose her major and what she'd rather have been doing. What kind of men she liked. Her drinking habits. Her occasional job. Her current job. About the guy she was sort of/not quite dating, but they stayed up one night to watch the sun rise and he both tortured and titillated her. Where she wanted to be five years after graduation. Where she expected to be five years after graduations. And there was more.

It's not like she did all the talking. She listened to me talk about my family and friends. I told her about what I hoped to do after college. She's the only person who knew the beats of the novel I wanted to write. And other things that I didn't often speak easily about to anyone. It was okay with her. Safe.

After a few weeks, I understood why she liked Cabaret so much. She wanted to be Sally Bowles. She wanted the freedom that Sally appears to have. She wanted the ability to shut out everything that didn't have to do with her immediate wants. She wanted to be away from all the things that bothered her and be surrounded by pretty things and pretty people. Her problem was that she couldn't ignore the world around her like Sally could. She noticed changes in the world and took many of them to heart.

Some days, another girl from the class would show up and sit across from me, next to the one who liked Cabaret. When that happened, we didn't talk anymore. It was okay, though, it's not like we were friends.

One day, she talked a lot about her job. She was a waitress at a cafe where all the waiters and waitresses sang for the diners, mostly stuff from musicals because that's what the diners knew. She told me that the head piano player, who was also the guy in charge of all the music, tapped her to sing "Maybe This Time." There a light in her eyes that I'd never seen before in the weeks since we'd met. It was the first time I'd seen her truly excited over anything. It made her beautiful.

Six sessions from the end of the classes, I decided to ask her out to go for coffee or a movie or even a drink, which I didn't do. Five sessions from the end, I chickened out. Four sessions from the end, I caught her after class to ask her, but before I could, she let me know how much she appreciated me and in what way, and while she meant it as a compliment, a nice thing, it didn't feel that way to me, though. It still doesn't. I didn't ask. And for the last three sessions, I spent my hour elsewhere.

After the final, the next time I saw her was six or seven weeks into the next quarter. She spotted me as I crossed from the quad to the sidewalk by the library and called out. I walked up to her. She told me about the day the piano player turned to her, smiled, and nodded and she first sang "Maybe This Time" in front of an audience. She succeeded beyond her own expectations and I was excited for her. We stood on the corner blocking foot traffic for forty-five minutes, just talking. In the end, I gave her my phone number because she said we should get together and just talk some more.

She never called. It's okay, though. It's not like we were ever really friends.