Collective Choice - Book One

By Fred Shorten

Through a series of apparently random occurrences, Jessica becomes entangled in a world of which she had only seen glimpses; a new reality filled with non-human beings. Her new employer and love interest brings her fully into a an existence beyond the standard concepts of good and evil.

She had little time to understand, let alone adjust to this world before she had to fight for not only herself but the free will of all of humanity.

Jessica must now choose her fate, accept her destiny and save humanity or follow her heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387858910

Book preview

Collective Choice - Book One

Collective Choice

Copyright

Collective Choice

First Edition

Copyright © 2016 Fred Shorten

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-387-85891-0

This work is licensed under the Creative

Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

License. To view a copy of this license, visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/

or send a letter to:

Creative Commons171 Second Street, Suite 300

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Preface

To say I was scared to death would be an understatement. In countless ways this was truly death. When I complete this I would no longer be human. I expected I would still be me, but also not me.

I started my walk into the bedroom. Every step I took was a step closer to my death. I knew this was the only option and my mind was firmly made up. However, my body had a visceral reaction, it fought the end of its existence. My body fought me. Every step I took required more effort to cross the very short distance. Somewhere deep inside me I was yelling, pleading to stop – to turn around, to choose life. I knew that option was gone the moment I had understood my trials. Death was my only choice.

* * *

I believe most of us have heard stories of Angels. We may have learned about them first in Sunday school as children or from books or movies. These stories usually have the same premise. God created angels before he created man but did not give them free will. More importantly, one angel did not follow God’s plan towards the betterment of mankind. With this choice to defy God, the angel was cast down and became the devil. The question is, how could an angel who had no free will ever defy God in the first place?

I have often wondered where these stories originated and why such a contradiction was never addressed in the accounts. This was not idle speculation for me. I am by all definition an angel and the only one who was created with free will. Now I had a choice to make. One path would lead me towards my destiny to save humanity, and in the process lose who I am. The other would be to defy what I must become and stay with the man I love.

Would I be an evil angel if I chose not to follow the path set before me? I didn’t feel evil, yet by many definitions I could be the devil.

Chapter 1: Two Pages

I sat cross-legged on my bed surveying the chaos. I had the contents of the box scattered across my bed with some spilling over onto the floor. Absolutely nothing was put away despite my best intentions. This brown cardboard box contained more than an assorted collection of stuff, it contained my childhood memories. My mother dropped this box off for me the other day. She had retired from her job and was in the process of selling our old house. In about four months she would be to be one of the millions of older people who live out their retirement in Florida.

The home in which I grew up was in the process of being packed up and cleaned. All our memories were being scrubbed and sanitized out of the house. Soon, everything that made this simple structure a loving home would be gone. What remained would be just a house, a blank structure for someone else to write their own memories. Whoever buys the house will start filling it up with experiences and start a collection of things that would fill their own cardboard boxes. Logically, sure, I understood this completely. But a part of me still hated the idea of my memories being boxed up to make room for someone else’s. I wanted to say out loud - Not Fair! I knew that I was just being childish and nobody cared whether I wanted anything to change or not.

I hadn’t lived in that house with my mother for a few years now, although I did visit her periodically. It was only a short drive from my apartment to the house. In a few months I wouldn’t be making that drive any more. Visits to her would have to be well planned out in advance. I would have to arrange for time off from work, buy plane tickets, and so on. No more deciding at the last minute to just stop by Mom’s. It was not like I did that a lot right now. No, it was more that I could if I wanted to.

All this stuff I moved my hands through was mine, but it was mine from my childhood. It belonged back in my childhood, back in my childhood home - not here with me today. That may have been one of the reasons I couldn’t seem to find places for any of it in my apartment. I don’t particularly care for change. Unfortunately, change happens no matter how much you try to prevent or ignore it.

I sat there for a while, going through the box. I was torn between looking for spaces to put all this stuff and absorbing the experience of each item. Each object held memories for me, some very good and some the worst of my twenty five years. Sighing, I started looking around the room for places to store things – there were not many places in this small apartment.

I was easily distracted, looking around me. I liked my bedroom. My queen size bed took up almost the whole room. A battered chest of drawers covered part of the window. Regardless, this was my place - my apartment and my bedroom. I didn’t have a lot of things or people in my life, so I treasured even this small and imperfect space.

My eyes skimmed over all this stuff and moved slowly to my desk where they rested on my closed laptop. It sat there accusingly, waiting for me to go over and turn it on. I really should have answered its call, but I didn’t want to. Sure, I should have used this morning to look for a more professional job. With a bachelor’s degree, I really should be something more than a waitress. But I stayed seated on my bed, I didn’t make a move towards the laptop.

If searching were getting me somewhere I might have actually put more effort into it. I’ve been job-searching for what seemed like forever and there just wasn’t anything out there. The routine was always the same. I would send out a few follow-up e-mails to see if there were any openings in the few major companies in the area. Either I wouldn’t receive a reply, or if I did, it would be some standard letter that said thank you for your interest in our company and if there is anything in the future that we find matching your skillset, blah, blah, blah - essentially, go away.

No, my laptop was just fine sitting there collecting dust. Besides, I had all this stuff Mom brought over and I had to do something with it all. I could not leave it like this. Again I started looking for places to put it. Again I became distracted but this time it was by my diary. I kept picking it up and putting it aside. I wanted to ignore it like I was ignoring my laptop, but I didn’t have that much willpower. I picked it up again, my old puffy green plastic diary with a butterfly stamped into its worn cracked cover. I held it in my hand remembering the birthday my mother gave it to me. My first day as a ten ear old and I felt so grown up. I remembered the rush of pleasure I felt when I tore open the blue wrapping paper. A diary meant my life was important, that I had something to say. It all seems so silly now, but to my ten year-old mind the diary was my rite of passage, my first step into adult-hood.

My memories of that birthday were unusually vivid. The first thing I did was color the butterfly on the cover with markers. The reds and blues are gone now, faded to pink and brown by the passing years. Fifteen years had changed many things, my mother, that old butterfly cover…and me.

I didn’t need to search for either of the two pages I wanted to read. If I just held the diary gently and spread my hands open, it would open to one of those two pages. I made a game of it, like a coin toss. May 10th or August 12th? Both days were equally important in shaping who I was to become. Which page would it open to in my spreading hands? I haven’t done any scientific test, no double blind study. But if I had to guess, I would say May 10th would win over August 12th.

I let the diary open in my hands. May 10th again, an entry I have read and re-read more times and I could count. It was just a few sentences written in pencil that had long since faded. No fancy swoops and swooshes a little girl might add - no little hearts dotting the I’s. No, it had nothing like that. I was much too grown up for that kind of kid writing.

I traced each pencil line with my finger, moving along with each formed word. Touching these words brought me right back to those childhood days. Back to that very day, back to that very time before I became who I am now.

That time in my life, that ten-year-old time before this entry on May 10th, was good and pure. I didn’t have to pretend to be normal; I was normal. This diary entry describes the beginning of my change – change into something different. Like many things, you don’t realize their size until you see them from a distance – a physical distance or in this case a distance of time. The slipping away of innocence was what I saw in this diary.

This entry documented the first time I saw the dots. Dots was not a very descriptive word for what I experienced. If I were writing about them now, I would call them specters or apparitions. Almost anything would have been better than dots.

That morning started out like many other mornings, me trying to get ready for school and Mom trying to get ready for work. The life and death issues of a ten year old had to be faced. I had to decide what to wear for the day since I was old enough to choose my own outfits. This was a big thing for me.

Ma, where’s my green sweater? I yelled from my bedroom.

Did you check the bottom of your closet, Jess? My mother yelled back.

I’ll check. I had a tendency to take my clean folded clothes and just dump them on my closet floor. That was much easier than separating them, hanging some, and putting the others in dresser drawers. Everything on the closet floor was much better.

Found it! My words were muffled as I pulled my favorite sweater over my head. I had to tell my mother that I found the sweater. Mom, I’m sure, would not have been able to function properly until she knew that my sweater crisis was over. She may then proceed with her day knowing that all was well in the world. It was amusing now how I believed I was so grown up and yet the world did still revolve around me. Luckily, I have outgrown those self-centered tendencies - for the most part anyway.

That day proceeded with the time-honored routine I had with my mother, shouting back and forth about how late it was and how the bus was coming. Another morning filled with overwhelming crises’, all successfully averted. I made my way to the bus stop just in time, plopping breathless into my usual seat on the bus next to Mary, my fourth grade bestie. School wasn’t too far from our block. We really could have walked but only sixth graders and up were allowed to walk or ride their bikes.

Just as we were getting off the bus at school, I saw them for the first time.

Look at that, I pointed out to Mary. I moved my arm in front of her and waved my finger, pointing at the specks of light floating a few yards away.

What.

Those dots.

What dots, where?

There, floating just past the steps, I pointed to the double wide set of concrete steps that led from the bus turnaround up to the walkway in front of our old brick school building.

There ain't nothing there, Mary shrugged.

No, there. See them? They’re moving around the boy in the red jacket.

Him? Mary said pointing to the boy I had just pointed out to her.

Yes, him. Geez. Red jacket. See? I pointed again, getting a bit annoyed at her stubbornness.

I don’t see nothing, Mary assured me. I walked over to where the dots were but they were gone by the time I got there. That was weird. I wondered what they could have been. Mary hadn’t seen them so offered no help in solving this mystery.

Mary teased me about them after homeroom and before our B block. She accused me of seeing things that weren’t there. She still claimed she hadn’t seen them.

At lunch I tried to talk to Mary about them again.

You’re cracked, she said, stealing a couple of my fries. Completely nutso.

No, I’m not. Come with me and I’ll show you.

Nope! I’m not getting sucked into your nutso world, Mary said.

We were well past the greasy fries and into the dried out carrot sticks before I could talk her into sneaking away with me before D block to go see if the dots were back. She was a bit reluctant at first, likely because she hadn’t seen them in the first place, also the front of the school was strictly off limits to students. Kids could play after lunch in the back of the school but not the front. It was probably a safety thing. The front of the school was closer to the road.

After we finished eating, instead of leaving to go outside by way of the back cafeteria doors, we left through the central corridor doors. The corridor led past the nurse’s office and past the main office.

Almost at a run, Mary and I made our way out the front door and down the walkway to the steps where I saw the dots earlier. We made it without being caught. That was a good thing because I didn’t think Mary was all that invested in this little adventure of ours. I was so hoping they would still be there - then she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen them.

Nothing! No dots, no anything! I looked to see if there was anything there that would explain what I had seen. I needed to prove they had really been there. I was looking for burn marks on the concrete steps, holes in the ground, anything. I was frustrated, how could there be no sign of them at all. Even something, anything would have made me feel justified in involving Mary in this little adventure. Then I would have been able to say ‘I told you so’ in the face of her sheer skepticism. But it looked like Mary may have been right all along – they didn’t exist.

At that point, Mary had about all she could handle and insisted we return to the cafeteria before we were seen. I agreed, so we made our way back without a single teacher catching us.

After the last bell, Mary and I waded through the crowd of kids, as we always did, to our bus. I really expected to see the dots again. Even though they weren’t there at lunchtime, I still hoped the dots would put in an appearance. This seemed like reasonable logic to me at the time. Without knowing what they were or what made them appear, there was no way to know whether they would appear again. I was disappointed. No dots. I walked slowly down those very same steps towards the yellow school bus not talking to Mary – I hated that she was right and I was wrong. My mother might know what the dots were. I decided to ask her later that day.

Mom, can you wash my sweater. I want to wear it tomorrow, I asked.

Sorry Jess, I’m not doing another load today. You will have to wear something else tomorrow, said my mother.

But Mom, I want to wear it. I tried to convince her how important this was.

You will have to wear something else, Jess my mother insisted. A few minutes of begging and pleading got me nowhere. Mother’s, I concluded, just didn’t understand important stuff like this. Then I remembered what I wanted to ask her.

Ma, do you know what dots are? I asked.

Dots, what do you mean Jess.

You know, dots, I explained. Specks, floating around people sometimes.

Could have been mayflies, it is the time of year for them.

Didn’t seem like mayflies.

Mosquitoes then, Mom said. But it does seem a bit early for them to be out.

It was more like the specks that go up from a Girl Scout fire. Only they weren’t going up and they weren’t from a fire.

There was a fire at school? my mother said, paying much more attention to the conversation.

No, there wasn’t a fire at school.

I certainly hope there wasn’t, she said, still a bit concerned.

No, Mom, I said just like a fire, LIKE. I remember thinking first Mary teased me about them and now Mom just wasn’t getting what I was trying to say. The dots were flying around a kid before school started, I said.

That does sound strange. Let me know if you see them again sweetie, my mother said, trying to be comforting.

I still didn’t think they were mosquitoes or mayflies but I let it go at that. It really wasn’t that important, or so I believed at that time. Although I must have thought there was a little something to it because I did tell my very grown up diary about them

I wrote:

I wish we could walk to school, I can’t wait until sixth grade. Saw dots at school. Mary said she didn’t see them. The boy that had the dots flying around him didn’t notice them either.

That’s all I wrote. I knew they weren’t flying insects as my mother had suggested. I described them to mom as kind of like fire embers but they were even more mesmerizing than a fire because my dots seemed to dance in many different directions.

Days passed and I nearly forgot all about the dots. I had no further sightings. I even started to believe they might have been flying insects or maybe they really were just in my imagination.

That changed four days later, at Jenny Franklin’s birthday party. Funny how I remember her name after all these years. On the morning of the party, I woke up happy. I remember thinking what would really have made the party better was if the party were for me and I were the one getting all those presents. It is funny looking back on my ten-year-old self, at the time I thought I was so mature and yet I was envious of Jenny getting presents for her birthday.

We were at the party for about an hour when Jenny’s mother told everyone to come over by the tree. It was time for the piñata. The only problem was, none of the children could break it open. Jenny and many other girls tried. It was not until Jenny’s dad hit it a few times with the wooden bat that the candy flew out. Some of that candy really sailed, as far as three trees away. As I watched the candy fly, I saw them again. The dots.

Dots, look everyone, by the tree, I pointed.

Look, they are coming this way. Most everyone took a break from scrambling for candy to look at me.

Right there, I pointed. Inexplicably, I was starting to panic. Couldn’t they see them? Only nobody seemed concerned.

Look out! I screamed at a girl with glasses perched on her large nose. They're coming right at you!

Well, they were, the dots were going right for this girl at the party. I had to do something. I ran to the girl and pushed her right out of the way of the oncoming dots. Yes, right down on the ground to save her, and save her I did, only a few dots managed to hit and pass right on through her. Except for some dirt and grass stains on her cream colored dress, she was fine. The dots didn’t apparently harm her at all. I did a good thing. I congratulated myself for having saved that poor girl from danger. I tried to help her get up off the ground.

Whatcha push me for and why you yelling? the girl said obviously mad at me.

The dots were after you, I explained.

You’re stupid. There were no dots.

You could have been hurt, I said justifying my pushing her. I didn’t see the irony of that until much later. I was the one who hurt her, not the dots. The dots she couldn’t see or feel.

All she said after that was I hate you, as she brushed herself off and ran to her mother. Her mother glared at me. All of the mothers looked at me like I had done something wrong.

But they were coming right at her, I tried to explain to the mothers and children assembled. But I received only silent accusations.

Moments later my mother gathered me up and we left the party. We left before cake and ice cream and before the presents were opened. We left before I could disrupt the fun anymore. There was no mention of my trying to save that girl, no ‘Good job Jess.’ No, my mother didn’t congratulate me at all. I didn’t think of myself as a hero or anything that noble. But a simple thank you from the girl would have been nice. Or later in the car on the ride home, my mother at least could have pointed out I did something nice for the girl. She did, however, point out that I pushed the girl for ‘no reason.’

No reason, no reason! I protested, There was a reason - the dots.

You pushed her because of your dots? my mother asked.

Of course I did. They were headed right for her! If I didn’t push her, a whole bunch more would have hit her. As is she was still hit by a few of them. Why couldn’t she see or feel them? I explained.

Jess, she didn’t feel them because they are not real, my mother tried to explain. They are just in your imagination.

Only, they were real. I knew they were real.

At first, I firmly held on to my belief that what I had done was justified. In time and with my mother’s insistence, I finally agreed to offer an apology to that girl. Although I still believed I helped her, I did understand that pushing someone wasn’t a good thing to do.

The only problem was, I never saw her again. She stopped attending school around that same time. A while later I heard she got very ill. I never found out what happened to her.

I tried a couple more times to convince my mother that dots existed. She didn’t believe me. The final time came about a month later. She and I were shopping at the corner store, a small grocery. I spotted the dots floating around by the end of an aisle, near the Campbell’s Soup display.

See Mom, they are right there. I showed her, pointing to a group of a half dozen dots moving around, clearly visible.

Jess, I don’t see anything. There’s nothing there, my mother explained.

I learned, perhaps not quickly enough, that the more I talked about the dots, the more concerned my mother became. I heard her telling one of her friends that she would take me to a doctor if I continued to see things that weren’t there.

This conversation shocked me. My mother believed I was crazy and she would have to take me to a doctor to have him ‘fix’ me if I kept seeing things that weren’t there. I knew I saw something real. Why wouldn’t anybody believe me?

I certainly didn’t want to see any doctor and besides we didn’t have money to pay for doctors. I had to avoid being sent to a doctor for my sake and for the sake of the family.

I decided at that very moment in time to lie. I even kept the truth from my diary. Although the butterfly wouldn’t betray me, I couldn’t be so sure my mother wouldn’t read the pages.

I started making my rules about this time.

Rule number 1: never tell anybody about the dots.

Rule number 2: don’t look at the dots when they appear.

This marked my start of my being different than other people. It also signified my loss of innocence. I could no longer fully trust even my mother.

* * *

The other page in my old diary I’ve read almost as many times as the dot page was the page I wrote the day my mother told me I was adopted. Thinking back now on the conversation, what I remember of it, my mother did a really good job explaining my adoption. She didn’t say I was adopted, she said she was my adopted mother. Subtle, sure, and it was not something a ten year old would have noticed. I certainly appreciated the distinction now and how difficult that conversation must have been for her. I remember how she tried to be as gentle with me as possible and I love her even more now because of it.

The date was August 12th. The afternoon was again much like any other. I was sitting on my bed drawing in one of my coloring books when my mother came in.

Jess, I have something very important to discuss with you.

Yes mom, I replied

You are now old enough to be able to understand this. I really wish your father were here to help me with this one, my mother went on to say.

I miss him too, I said. I didn’t really remember him enough to miss him. I think I more missed having a father around than missing him specifically. He died when I was very young. The day he died is one of my earliest memories, mostly because of my mother crying. She never cried, so it made an impression. I don’t know if I truly understood what she meant when she said he would never be able to come home again. I was only three or four years old at the time.

The only other memory I have of him is when we were running in some field trying to catch butterflies. I think that was why I liked my diary so much, because it had a butterfly on the cover.

You know I love you very much and so did your father, mom went on with what she was trying to tell me. Nothing will ever change that, nothing ever.

Yes.

You came to your father and me as an infant. I’m your adopted mother; not your biological mother.

That was all I could recall clearly of the conversation. The rest of our talk that day was a blur. Most of my memories of the questions I asked, and answers my mother could tell me, were from the talks I had with her in the days that followed. Questions such as who were my birth parents, why was I given up for adoption - essentially, who am I? Unfortunately, my mother didn’t have many of the important answers. I was about six months old when she and my father took me in. My birth date is an approximation. She didn’t know who my birth mother was or why she gave me up for adoption.

Those questions seemed important to me at the time. Over the years and with a bit of maturity I came to understand I those answers were not as significant as all of the things I did have growing up, a mother who loved me, a safe environment in which to grow up, food, clothes, and even a favorite green sweater. However, in those early days, I felt very lost, betrayed by a biological mother I knew nothing about.

That August 12th diary entry was not much longer than the entry about my dots. I was mad at the entire world. My diary entry went like this.

I wrote:

This is the worst day ever. I found out today that nobody loves me. My real mom tossed me away as a baby. I was picked up by my now mom like food in a paper bag from the store. Everybody hates me so I hate them all back even bigger.

I spent many hours in my bed in the days, weeks, and even months following that conversation, creating different ways I could have found out I was adopted. I made up many different lives for myself, many different origin stories. Usually my imagination turned me into a princess or an heiress and my real mother, a queen who never meant to give me up. It was all a mistake, my being abandoned and I was loved by my biological mother.

I can honestly say I was very mean to my mother for a long time after that revelation. I accused her of not loving me. I told her that my ‘real’ mother was my birth mother and that she wasn’t my mother. I said anything I could think of to make her feel as bad as I felt. I now give my mother a good deal of credit for having been able to put up with me as well as she did during those terrible days. I honestly don’t know how she was able to stand being with me.

As time washed away many of the sharp edges of those feelings, I came to understand the value of the life I had. I truly was provided with a gift that I would never ever be able to repay. The love I received and continue to receive from my mother is very precious to me. It is not something I’ll ever tell her. I’m not sure why but heart to heart conversations with Mom were very uncomfortable for me.

Those are the two entries in this old diary that I can’t seem to put aside. They swim around in this muddled up brain of mine, moving me from the present to the past. They hold me firmly there, not letting me escape. I don’t even have the chance of escaping or the hope of being paroled on good behavior. I guess it is a bit like the future; there’s no avoiding the future, as there’s no escaping the past.

Chapter 2: College Friends and Luck

I placed the diary beside me on the bed. The passage about the dots entering my life and that simply awful conversation with my mother made me glad childhood was over. I would never understand some people wanting to go back in time and relive their youth. No amount of money would make me willing to relive my childhood. I appreciated irony, I realized reading and re-reading those two diary passages were, in a sense, reliving my childhood. But there was a difference. Touching a painful memory every once in a while was a far cry from remaining in the memory - remaining in the past. I also believed touching the pain helped me appreciate the friends I gained and the life I created. Although not perfect, my life was so much better than my childhood days.

From the time of the dots and my behavior at that birthday party, I was without question the most unpopular girl in school. It was impossible to maintain friends when everyone believed you were either a troublemaker or crazy. No mother would allow her child to play with me. I was never invited to anyone’s house or to any birthday or holiday parties.

I tried to be friendly. I tried to have people like me. Nothing worked. I desperately wanted, needed friends; I had nobody except my mother. During those years we became in many ways closer than a mother and daughter should have been. We were closer and at the same time remained very distant because I couldn’t share my truth with her.

In the years that followed my seeing the dots, my isolation from all my classmates and the entire town became nearly universal. Everyone made me feel invisible. People didn’t speak or even acknowledge me. In time, I coped by living more in my own mind than in the world around me. It was the only place I could be myself.

My life finally changed one day when I was eighteen years old. I walked home from school, my senior year, as I did every day. Only this day was different. When I entered the front door of my home I noticed a letter for me sitting on a small table by the stairs, where we keep all unopened mail. I picked it up, my hand shaking. I was too afraid to open it. What if it said no, what if it said I wasn’t good enough? What if it told me I would be stuck in this town for years to come, living with my mother - my only friend?

When I couldn’t stand not knowing a moment longer, I opened the letter.

Dear Ms. Blake; Congratulations. I am pleased to inform you of your acceptance to…

I got in! I would be going to college away from this crappy town with these disingenuous people. I would be free. More than just free, I had a chance to start my life over again in a place where nobody knew me. Nobody would see me as the crazy girl. I could fit in. Better than fitting in, I could stand out. I could be someone special, someone that people liked. I planned on being the person I always wished I could have been growing up, someone different from who I was.

Although the college was in a city barely sixty miles from where I grew up, it was still far enough away that I could start a new fresh life. I made a promise to myself right then and there, I would never live in this town again. I kept that promise, only going back home now and again to visit my mother.

I lived in the dorms until my junior year when I moved into this apartment with one of my college friends. A friend at that time anyway. She stayed here with me for four months but only paid rent for two of them. We are no longer friends.

That summer between high school and college, I had such hope for the future - perhaps for the first time in my life. I embraced the possibilities, all the possibilities. I was so excited for that first day of freshman orientation. I spent weeks getting myself ready for that day. No, not just weeks, more like a lifetime preparing. I was ready to start a new life, ready to step into the shoes of a different woman.

Speaking of shoes, I purchased several new outfits. I picked clothes and shoes that were much different than what the old me would have worn. These clothes showed the world I was a sophisticated woman, witty and clever. They said to all who would see me in them that I was the kind of woman every man would want to date and every woman would want to be. Yes, my clothes said all of that. I was Jessica ‘woman of mystery and wonder’.

It was ridiculous of course, even laughable now. But I did try to pull it off. One week before classes started, I arrived on freshmen orientation day in my twelve year old rusted grey Honda with the crack in the dashboard and a door that made a loud creaking sound when it opened and closed.

It was not easy to pull off rich and sophisticated when you didn’t have the money to back it up. But that didn’t stop me from trying. I had something almost as good as money, I had a plan. Well, my plan for acting sophisticated and worldly didn’t even last one full day.

On the first day of orientation I parked far enough from the main campus building so nobody would see or hear my old car. I stepped out of the car and I locked the door as I always did, pushing the knob down on the door. I looked around to make sure I had not been observed. When I was convinced the coast was clear, I closed the creaky old car door. Only thing was, my keys were still in the car, still in the ignition - and the engine was still running. So there I was, dressed perfectly walking up to the new-student orientation booth on the front lawn. My approach to the school was just as I had imagined it. Only, unlike in my fantasy, I had to ask the person at the booth if they knew anybody who could help me get my keys out of my locked running car.

When the chuckling died down, also not part of my fantasy, one of the student volunteers found a coat hanger and helped me break into my car. All along the walk to my car and his breaking into it for me, I tried to sound mysterious and sophisticated. I sounded worldly for about five minutes before I was back to being me - just plain old me. I couldn’t pull off woman of mystery.

I found out that being someone completely different was impossible to maintain. Since no one knew me here, I could show the people I meet the real Jessica. Sure I would always have to hide the dots and other parts of myself, but mostly I could be the real me.

Since I was going to be living on campus, I thought joining a few clubs would be the best way to make new friends.

I’m pleased to say I did just that. I met my two closest friends, Sally and Bill at one of those clubs. I walked into the first meeting of the photography club and noticed there was only one table that wasn’t full and had only two people sitting at it. The woman had curly blonde shoulder length hair. She was not heavy, but had rounded features. I assumed she was also a freshman like me. Her face was scrunched up and her arms folded across her chest. She appeared to be doing everything she could to avoid eye contact with the man sitting beside her.

The man was reasonably good looking. Not in the sense of having girls fawning over him, but OK looking. He was wearing glasses that really didn’t complement his face and it looked like he was trying to grow a beard and not really succeeding. He would look better if he had been clean-shaven. They both seemed to perk up the moment they realized I was heading over to their table. They were probably waiting for someone, anyone to enter their little duo to help referee the fight.

The thought hit me that they looked like two people sitting in some lawyer’s office, waiting to sign their divorce papers, required to be there, but clearly detesting each other. I knew I had to sit at the table with these two people as it was the only open table, but my goal was to find a way during the next club meeting to move to a different table.

I found out later that Sally and Bill had just met a few minutes before I entered the room. Bill had mentioned to Sally that he was expecting the club would be taking fashion photographs, pictures of female models. Sally was not very amused at being paired up with someone she saw as a womanizer. She told me she only signed up for the club to meet people, much like I had done. She had only lived in this area for a few months. She moved here to live with a cousin of hers after her father died from cancer the previous year.

We only stuck with the club for a few weeks since none of us had ever done photography or even liked it. It made no sense that the three of us chose to join that club. I think our meeting that day was fate or kismet or just my special brand of luck. I believe we were meant to meet.

Although I didn’t try to be a woman of mystery around these new friends, I was not going to show them who I really was. I made sure they never learned I was crazy, that I saw things no one else could see.

I was able to keep the dots