Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience(7)

I tried to play it cool. I tried to focus on the sprawling display of temples and churches and statues, scribbling notes and attempting to commit an endless procession of dates to memory. But, naturally, my eyes would slide around the room, aware that Dave was somewhere nearby. Studying for this midterm had gotten very exciting, and it had nothing to do with the temples or statues.

I found Dave, on the final night of that week, standing in a group before the medieval cathedrals. Someone was stumped as to how to determine the differences between Romanesque and Gothic. Dave explained how to identify the lightness and the height that differentiated later Gothic from its predecessor, Romanesque. He rattled off a few significant dates and locations that marked turning points in the architectural trends. We all looked at him. “Whoa, that guy is smart,” some fellow student muttered under his breath. Yeah, I thought, I guess he is.

A few of us gathered that Friday night after the midterm in the dorm room of our mutual friend Peter. We played cards and drank beer and celebrated the fact that the big test was behind us. Dave had a lacrosse scrimmage on Sunday, so he was on a forty-eight-hour rule of no alcohol and could not drink that night. He hung around with the rest of us for hours, laughing and joking. At the end of the night, when he asked if he could see me safely back to my dorm building across campus, I did not play it cool. I gladly accepted his escort as well as the accompanying good-night kiss.

What took me by surprise from the very beginning of our college courtship was just how much I admired and respected Dave. I had never known someone so staunch and unwavering in his commitment to excellence. I had done well in school my whole life; I knew that I was a curious and conscientious person, someone who worked hard and did well, but he made me want to kick it up a notch.

Not only did I admire Dave, but I really liked him; when I spoke to Dave, I felt that he understood what I was saying. He understood me. It was as if we had always been the best of friends—a feeling of being known and a feeling of comfort that comes from speaking honestly and being heard. We laughed at the same jokes, we played off each other, and we quickly developed that ease of exchange that comes from a natural and mutual understanding.

By the end of the semester, as Dave and I were each wrapping up the English papers that were due in our respective classes, it was clear to me that he was a better grammarian than I was. “Would you have time to proofread my paper?” I asked him one day toward the end of the term. He agreed, taking the care to provide thoughtful and thorough notes on how he felt I might improve my paper. When he handed it back to me I stared at my paper, his comments, and then at Dave.

“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Are the edits terrible?”

“No,” I answered. “They’re really good.”

“Oh,” he said, sitting up. “Well, good.”

“I’m supposed to be the English major here, and you are correcting my English paper.”

“Yeah?” He shrugged.

What riotously unfair genetic contest did you win to get so good at so many things? I wanted to demand. But instead, I said: “I’m just…impressed. You know, sometimes when people are recruited because they’re really good at a sport, as you are with lacrosse, then that is their priority. And schoolwork is sort of…I don’t know…secondary. You manage to do all of this, and do it well.”

“You know I wasn’t recruited to play lacrosse, right?” he asked.

“What? No, I didn’t know that.”

“I tried out for the lacrosse team,” he said.

“You’re a walk-on?” I asked. “But…but you’re a starter. As a sophomore. I figured lacrosse was your life. Or, at least, your priority.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I almost didn’t make it at all. I was terrible freshman year. Coming from the Midwest? I had no stick skills, compared to these guys who grew up in the lacrosse cultures of Maryland and Long Island, playing in travel leagues since they were young. I knew nothing. Coach just liked me because of how hard I worked and how fast I could run.”

“Really?” I asked, my whole idea of Dave Levy shifting before me.

“Really,” he said. “Freshman fall, Coach had to cut a handful of people. I was surprised every time I made it through a round of cuts. Finally, we’re getting to the final round of cuts, and just a few of us walk-ons are still around, vying for the last spots. One morning we have a timed run out at the fields. The run is going to be no problem.” I nodded as he continued. “So the morning of the run, my roommate turns off my alarm clock without telling me, and I sleep through the run. I wake up, see the time, and panic. All my teammates have already left campus for the fields. I have no ride out to the track. I have no way to make it to the run. I am going to get cut.”

“But”—I bristled at the unfairness of it all—“couldn’t you explain to your coach that your roommate turned off your alarm?”

Dave looked at me with an indulgent smirk. “Blame it on my roommate? You really think he’d go for that?”

“But it was the truth!”

“No excuses,” Dave said. “You miss something as important as a timed run, you’re out.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I hitchhiked, begged a stranger for a ride out to the fields. When I got there, the last group of guys was getting ready to do their run around the track. I hopped the fence and fell in with the second heat of runners when Coach’s back was to me. I smoked the run. Coach never would have known I almost missed the entire thing.”