The Butterfly Effect

For Piñata: A Personal Essay Show (July 2007)

I was what you would call a “good girl” growing up. I was the girl who never snuck out of the house or drank or had sex. Yeah, that girl. Everything I didn’t do was out of fear. Fear of disappointing my parents or teachers or of getting into trouble or getting hurt. It started with “wanna to go TPing?” NO WAY. And went right through to the frat boys, “No, but have you met my roommate, Laurie?” You know those plastic bladders from inside a box of wine? Well this girl used to carry a full one with her to parties in order to avoid paying for keg beer, so she was usually pretty much up for anything. I however was not, “no” just seemed to roll off my fearful tongue. My junior year of college while studying abroad something happened that changed the way I approached my life, a decision was made in the heat of the moment that set me on a different path entirely. This is not one of those stories wherein something major happens. One has even argued that in fact nothing happens. But as the flap of a butterfly’s wings may ultimately cause a tornado thousands of miles away, so too did this uneventful event change me forever.

After spending a couple months at my Art History seminar in Rome I explore Northern Italy on my own. It’s heavenly really, not having to negotiate with anyone, or compromise. I’m not interested in mixing with other travelers and I bask in my solitude. This however is short-lived and halfway into the second week my love affair with myself is wearing dangerously thin. I’m really looking forward to seeing my friends when they join me in Amsterdam. Brussels is my layover between Italy and Holland. I spend the morning at museums and the afternoon horribly lost so by the time I get back to the hostel I’m exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open while trying to follow the World Cup match on TV. I’m moments away from peeling myself off the couch when, one-by-one, a steady stream of young men crest the top of the stairs. They are like a group of messy angels, all dressed in white shorts and polo shirts in varying states of disarray. There are grass and mud stains sprinkled among them, fallen knee socks bunched around ankles, a few carry large wooden paddles and every single one of them makes eye contact with me as they hit the second floor landing. Tall ones and shorter ones and skinny ones and muscle-y ones, a dozen in total, all of them around my age. One of the blondies elbows his buddy and makes his way over, leans on the back of the couch and asks in a charming English accent “what’s the score?”
I surprise myself by answering correctly “Holland is up two-zero.”
“Cheers.” He pushes off and heads to the showers with the rest of them. My breath is shallow, my heart is beating fast. I smile at the older German guy sitting on the other side of the room as if he’s my best girlfriend and we’re going to start giggling and jumping up and down. He rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the television. When they emerge all clean and fresh smelling from their rooms, I’m back on the couch. This time with combed hair, an application of deodorant and a smile. The tall guy with a mop of light brown curls invites me to join them for a drink in basement bar. It looks like a Wham video, lit entirely in black light. I learn that they too are heading to Amsterdam and shots of tequila are doled out.

What followed remains only a series of mental snapshots all debaucherous montage-style:

Cheers!
Shouting over the bad techno music.
We’re laughing.
They’re begging me come with them.
They’re chanting my name
I blurt out the word “YES!”
High fives all around.
My train ticket is ceremoniously ripped up.
I’m in a conga line wearing a sombrero.
CHEERS!

It’s still dark out as my bag is tossed in the back of their white van and we’re off. When my memory finally regains normal speed we’re pulling into a truck stop a couple hours outside of Brussels. I get out to stretch my legs, staring out at the windmills that dot the field beyond the parking lot. I can’t believe I agreed to this, it is so not Gretchen. I’m the responsible one, I’m the good girl, remember. A good girl would never get in a car with a strange man, much less twelve of them…and now these guys are going to overpower me and do horrible things to my lifeless body. Then they’re going to cut me up and throw the pieces out of the sliding van door at random intervals. My family will never know what happened to me. I mean what am I thinking?! I’m thinking that I’d have regretted letting them go without me, regretted not saying “yes” and for once in my young life I let myself say it. So what if I’m going to die? Toby, a Clark Kent look-a-like, leans against the van next to me and assures me they are all nice guys, and that I have nothing to worry about. And for some reason I trust this stranger so I silence my inner death cries and climb into the van.

We’re back on the road and it’s loud. All of them - Toby, Pete, Reg, Foxy, Mike, Ed, Dave, Martin, Jeremy, Sammy, Ollie and Jake - are shouting along in unison with a cassette tape of a British comedy duo. I can follow very little of what is going on but Pete explains that it’s something like the American “who’s on first?” but much funnier because it’s about…cricket. Of course, I mean, what else would the Cambridge Cricket Club be listening to? Toby is right, they are all gentlemen. Okay, almost all of them, and the other two are harmless, they’re just trying to get a rise out of the American girl. I just happen to be sandwiched between these two…and they’re naked. Ed and Dave stripped down to nothing, trying to get a reaction out of me and think they are a bit put out when I barely bat an eyelash. Instead rest my hands on each of their bare thighs. Now they are kind of stuck here in their nakedness. It may seem silly, but I’m damn proud of myself. Sure, I took my first big leap with a van-load of English dandies, I mean a cricket team from Cambridge University, can you imagine a less menacing group? Maybe next time I’ll go bungee jumping with the Oregon State hacky sack club. Even so, I said “yes” and all it cost me was a non-refundable train ticket from Brussels to Amsterdam. They insist I stay with them at their hotel, and even double up on rooms so I can have my own. I mentioned that they’re gentlemen, right? My mom loves telling people this story, however in her version I go to Amsterdam with a rugby team from Oxford, which would have made for a much different story, I’m sure.

I returned to my familiar “no thanks” when they ask me to postpone meeting up with my friends so I can go back to Cambridge with them for a few days. Sweet, sweet boys. I think back to those three days in Amsterdam and it’s true, they were pretty uneventful – getting stoned at coffee shops, ogling at the windows in the red light district, laughing over pints of Heineken – much like everyone else’s trip there. I didn’t even smooch any of them. But for me it’s not about the time we spent in Amsterdam, it was how I got there and learning that it’s a good thing for a good girl to occasionally say “yes.” If it weren’t for that lesson who knows where I’d be, certainly not up on stage in Los Angeles. Shit, you know what? I bet I smooched one of them I would’ve learned the lesson that would have made me famous by now.