Week Eleven
Before you continue reading, I recommend paying a visit to last “week’s” post here. As I introduce you to what, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, has become my most unbelievable encounter yet, I hope you’re up to date with my revelations preceding this interaction.
In short, like a 5-month-old baby seeing its reflection in a mirror and trying to lick it’s open mouth, I didn’t recognize myself. The goal of this blog was to highlight encounters with special people who would turn out to be, in just about every way, unlike me. But with each additional pore shriveled in the neon aqua ambiance I had made my frequent vice, I began to realize my presence in the hot tub, and in a larger way, the Complex, had become a topic deserving its own judgment, criticism and snark.
And then, in probably one of the most clear examples of Divine providence in my life, I was given exactly what I needed to remind me who I am and why I started this. Do you ever recognize when that happens in your life? How life seems to dole out just the right thing at the right time? I notice the phenomenon often when I learn a new word, and then almost immediately they use the word on a CSI episode; as though fate wanted me to learn what “blunt-force trauma” meant just for this moment.
The phenomenon works in the reverse as well. Sometimes life reminds you you don’t know something you thought you knew. For example, you can feel very confident in your “worm” at home. Compared to everyone else in my household, I’m good at the worm. I live alone. But misplaced confidence in your “worm” will almost always yield life’s provision of an opportunity to showcase your “worm” where you will learn, very quickly, that you’re not as good at the worm as you thought. Somehow, always, life knows what you need.
Life really knew what I needed when I met Tebow.
Tebow Mambo
Do you remember my friend’s Annie and Hannah? I met them the night Bridgette and Rick offered my young brother a fireball shot. If I’m being very honest with you, and I always am, I don’t remember them very well either. I kind of tuned out during that part of the blog. I remember one being an actress, the other being a musician. I couldn’t really tell you which one was which…a game I also play with my contacts every morning.
They remembered me, though. And of course they remembered my beloved; my Canadian Fiancé out in the world, abroad to solve the world’s…business…things. I decided if I were to end the lie (or a fib; a fib is better) ever, to do so with another lie-fib would be the best route because lies always produce more lies. I’ve seen that episode of Full House.
“We’ve broken up,” I told the girls.
Their reactions were as kind and superficial as one would expect them to be in the instant. We chatted for just a few moments. I somehow drummed up the memory that one of them was close to graduation.
“Yeah! Just a few weeks now,” Annie reminded me, “It’s been really stressful. Our big showcase is next week and the rehearsals are really intense.”
Annie proceeded to tell me about the range of characters she’d be playing during the showcase.
“A rape victim, a woman tormented by evil spirits, a Puritan woman accused of being a witch and a ten year old girl in a 5th grade sex ed class,” she listed.
“That’s gotta be hard,” said I.
“Well, I’ve taken sex ed before, so I already knew all the stuff,” she replied, missing my comment’s intention the same way I missed that farewell episode of Cake Boss.
Enter Tebow.
A woman who I originally assumed was in her mid-forties joined us in the jacuzzi, despite the neighboring jacuzzi’s emptiness. As it turns out, I’m unsure of her age now, and while it’s irrelevant, I only include that here to add to the mystery that surrounds Tebow. She didn’t immediately, and now that I recollect the event, ever, tell us her name. Instead, she plopped into the hot tub and observed. She had a large plastic cup full of what she “swore” was only apple juice and was adorned with a large pajama shirt and gym shorts in the hot tub unlike the scant two pieces most other lady-folk wear in there.
As I do my best to remember the brief conversation we, and then only I, had with Tebow, I’m frightened to discover that, to the best of my memory’s ability, the conversation began with Tebow butting into it.
“Which one?” she asked me.
“Pardon me?”
“You like the pretty one, huh,” this time, stated.
“I’m sorry, what?” The girls laughed uncomfortably. They gave me a “save me” face. I hadn’t seen someone look so afraid and helpless since I saw a guy in a neck-brace get stuck in a revolving door.
“Which of the girls do you like?” Tebow asked. She had a wicked grin.
“I like them both. They’re my friends.”
“Which one do you want to kiss?” she clarified.
“Neither. They’re my friends,” I reminded her.
“But one is prettier. Which one is prettier?” she asked.
“They’re both pretty,” I responded.
“No they’re not. You have a preference. Which one would you have sex with,” she smiled.
“I wouldn’t have sex with either of them. Not because they’re not pretty, but because I don’t do that sort of thing.”
“You would for one of them. Which one?” She was cackling.
At this point, I was annoyed with Tebow. Granted, I had admitted myself into an awkward situation by moving into the Complex in the first place and somehow deciding the jacuzzi would become my territory. But this was a frustrating experience. There didn’t seem to be anything I could say to divert Tebow from asking these uncomfortable questions.
I’ll admit, one of them is prettier. Me. I’m the prettiest.
But I knew what Tebow was doing. She recognized confidence and pride in one of them and insecurity and timidity in the other and she was preying on it. A bullying technique Tebow was using, attempting to cause a brief but considerable rift in their best-friendship with me at the center and cause. I hadn’t been involved in this much drama since seeing that mime choke to death.
I remembered I had a powerful tool in my arsenal. Lying.
“Yeah, Tebow, I just ended a long engagement to someone I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, so I’m not really thinking about having sex with anyone. Not either of them. Not you. Not anyone.”
Her smile drooped.
“And you know, I’d really appreciate if you didn’t use me to pit these two nice women against each other. That’s no good.”
“Are you gay?”
Come on, Tebow. I tried to give you a break.
At this point, the ladies must have been thinking the same thing the manager at Hometown Buffet once told me before having me escorted out; enough is enough. They got up and left, leaving me and Tebow to cap the night.
“See you made them feel uncomfortable,” I informed Tebow. She was surprised. She gave me a hearing for a few minutes as I explained why the entire conversation thus far had been so awkward and, to my great surprise, she apologized. Her apple juice made her soft.
Within a few moments, Tebow and I were on good terms and she was telling me about her job. Tebow is a clothing designer to the stars. She’s had some pretty major clients and has earned quite a bit of acclaim for herself, I later discovered. Despite her off-kilter appearance, her “apple juice”, total lack of social-awareness, and slurred speech I’ve neglected to comment on thus-far, Tebow is by far the most successful and legitimate (in career at least) person I’ve met at the Complex.
Remember when I began this post by telling you Tebow’s was the most unbelievable of my encounters? I know you’re reading my lack of snarky commentary in this post and assuming I’d hyped the thing for a few clicks. Believe me, if I knew of a way to hype this thing to get even a few clicks, I would have tried a long time ago.
Here’s why Tebow was unbelievable:
It was originally unbelievable to me that Tebow was exactly who she claimed to be despite her frustrating, awkward and penetrating introduction into our evening.
It was unbelievable to me that in nearly a year of living at the Complex, after dozens of conversations with strangers, seeing several Barbie & Ken looking “actors” and aspirational youths, Tebow was the most legitimate and apparently stable career success story from the place.
It was, and still is, completely unbelievable to me that she was only drinking apple juice.
Just like my filled out subscription forms to the Synthetic Cheese of the Month Club, there is something here I’ve yet to address. Tebow. The name.
Before I left that evening, Tebow directed me toward her website. She spelled it several times before I was able to navigate there successfully. Apple juice, huh.
When I arrived at home, I had almost totally forgotten about it, and only remembered as I was drifting to sleep hours later. I pulled out my phone, typed in the web address and witnessed what I can only describe now as an out-of-body experience. There was the same Tebow I had only just met. Not in pajamas, not in an apple-juice induced fog, but made up like a princess, glowing in glamorous gowns and cocktail dresses, cuddling up to stars she had designed for. The best way I could describe it would be like watching Grease in reverse. Sandy goes from this edgy badass woman to this virginal Angel thing.
I can’t say I like Tebow. For most of the “friends” I’ve made doing this project, I’ve been able to find some positive spin to my encounter or some silver lining to their oddities. Cowboy’s hospitality, Bridgette and Rick’s Generosity, Bachelor #3’s attempted happy ending massage…but for Tebow, I found myself dissatisfied and sad. I felt bad she was still living at the Complex despite her success. Sure, maybe she wanted to. But I also felt bad that she made my friends Annie and Hannah so uncomfortable that they felt the need to leave. I was helpless to make them feel better and I never saw them again.
Tebow’s presence did serve a purpose though. Not only did it remind me of my first bizarre encounters at the Complex and re-inspire my blogging…but it also set the stage for my final encounter; the encounter that changed it all and became one (among many) perfect justifications for leaving the Complex behind…