Vignette - Kate

If you haven't already, you should read the intro first. This colour indicates the text is directly excerpted from my journal.

This one starts the night of Jan 15, 1990; the school dance had just wrapped up; as I was part of the dance decorations committee, I also had to stick around to clean up after the dance was over. I went to catch either the 105 or 162 bus to head home when at that same bus stop was a classmate of mine and these two other girls; Kate and Sarah. A few moments later one of my better friends, Chris, joined us. Chris, Kate and Sarah were all waiting for the 162 as that would take them home, while I could have taken either; so a 105 comes and then goes, I stay at the bus stop with the others.

Eventually, Chris went and stood on a fence because the floor of the bus stop shelter was too cold, and this left the 2 girls and I relatively alone. This gave them a chance to interest about me.

So they asked me some questions, which is the easiest thing for a conversationally stymied person to handle - it is easy to answer questions.

Another 105 bus came and went and Chris swore that if a taxi were to pass by, he would flag it and we would all go, and this is what happened; the taxi dropped them off at their homes, and brought me to Vendome to get home. All of this is to introduce how I met Kate.

On Wed Jan 31 there was a ‘Coffee House’ style event at my school, inviting students from the girls schools to join also. This was a pre-cursor event that preceded the carnival.

The Coffee House event was held in the gym and at a certain point I found myself hanging out in the office that is adjacent to the gym with windows on the gym.

Kate joined me and we spoke about things in general. About 10 or 15 minutes after that she spotted some of her friends and she told me how her friends were envious of her that she had so many Loyola friends, and that she should introduce them. So she went out of the office and brought her friends in.

We all chatted a bit, “we discussed ski day and past ski experiences and we spoke about other things also.”

The event came to an end, I said goodbye to the girls and went to help clean up and set up for the next event that would take place in the gym the next day. When I left, twenty minutes later, Kate was still waiting outside, not for me explicitly, but for someone to go home with, so I offered and we decided to walk all the way to her house. Once we got there we just stood in front of the house for a little while.

Throughout this time of walking and standing we spoke, well, actually, she spoke. She talks a lot, not that I mind. We spoke philosophically, hypothetically and quite tenaciously. She complained how often she was always being picked on; she often says things which leave her very susceptible to being insulted.

We got to her house at about the exact time that a train was leaving, and the next one was to leave in two hours, so I had some time to kill. This is what I wrote in my journal when she asked me what my plan was: I answered with some futile attempt of verbalization and then I asked her if we could walk some more, she said yes.

She offered to take me out to supper; she went in to drop off her school bag and got a 20$ bill and so we headed out. We took the metro a couple of stops and went to a fast food resto and she starts checking her pockets in her coat and her pants and her shirt and her sleeves and can’t find the money; neither of us have any money, so She looked as if she was about to cry, so I put my arm around her and guided her out of the restaurant.

We proceeded towards Windsor Station, and on the way she spoke of how things like this always happened to her, and that they never happened to anyone else.

She hadn’t been to Windsor Station before and was impressed with the space of it, so that helped her move on from what she had been feeling. It was about 21h20 when we got there, so we putzed around, talking, until she caught a metro and I took the 22h train home.

All in all it was a very pleasant evening, I surprisingly managed to keep the interest of Kate for two and a half hours, even where she could have just gone home, but instead, accepted my suggestion to walk with me further.

What I should have asked at the end of the evening: Can I see you again? Mobile technology might have helped here; if I had gotten her mobile number while we were walking (or earlier); after the evening (because I didn't think of it during) I could have texted her to talk about meeting up again.

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