First Impressions of Kristen
By: Craig Orsland
Craig rode his bike since his car was still broken down and he knew Christina was going to be there. It might be a tight fit but he knew he could get his bike in her car and she would get the whole shebang home. Matt was maybe going to be there and he was sure Taylor was going to be there too. She wouldn’t miss Teeny’s birthday for anything, even if they really didn’t get along. He expected Josiah to be a no show, so by his count that was 5 including the birthday girl who obviously wouldn’t be paying… which made her choice of restaurant particularly annoying, since Gabby’s was probably the 2nd most expensive restaurant in the circle. But that meant the meal would be divided by 4, and he would be on the hook for about $25 of it. Give or take depending on the drink consumption.
The rest of the guests arrived slowly and it was about what he thought it would be. And then Teeny arrived second to last announcing that Taylor was on her way and introducing those at the table to her friend Kristen. They were both in the TV program at Dodge so Craig had heard about her pretty consistently. She was immediately friendly and easy going so when she sat down at the end of the table near Craig they were getting along almost immediately. Teeny set about to ordering appetizers (2 queso for the both ends of the small table, which seemed excessive to Craig) while small talk around the table began to pick up. By the time Taylor showed up 5 minutes later, the table was in full blown convo mode. The dinner passed easily, while they all enjoyed the cooler October evening on the patio. Matt didn’t order anything and simply picked at the queso and Christina only ordered an additional appetizer but Craig had his beer and was feeling quite nicely. Kristen and him were shooting the shit about all the things a TV student and TV lover talk about, which for Kristen was effusive praise for the TV adaptation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Craig had never seen it, but imagined any show that could inspire that level of admiration was worth a look. Before they could finish those thoughts though, the bill arrived, and after some handwringing and stuttered excuses it became apparent that the bulk of Teeny’s birthday celebration would be taken care of by less than half the people in attendance. No one wanting to make a scene of Teeny’s nice birthday dinner festivities, payments were made in amounts that were sufficient to cover the cost without asking the guest of honor to chip in. For Craig and Taylor that meant spending twice the value of what they consumed and for Kristen who was yet 2 years from being able to legally consume alcohol, paid almost 3 times the value of her order. Craig only became aware of this nearly a year later when they were almost around to Teeny’s next birthday. In the year the came between those events though, Craig had lived in France and summered in Idaho, so Kristen and him never really connected until the start of that final year in Orange.
No-one could have predicted, though it is almost certain that Kristen had hoped, that the house on Lynn Drive would become known for the quality of it’s parties. Over the course of that school year though it went from being a house where 4 undergrad girls lived to being the place where birds nest quesadillas with Honey jack and thousands of dollars worth of alcohol were gleefully consumed by any vast number of Dodge college students and professors. It was in that environment of structured debauchery that Craig and Kristen truly started to become friends.
Saturday nights that spring were thesis screening nights, where student’s final creations would premiere to their peers and invited guests. This often called for a celebration at the conclusion of each Saturday’s gala and so without fail every weekend that spring the Lynn house would fill and the party would last until the wee morning hours. After one such screening as a hostess who cared about her guests, Kristen had prepared trays and trays of jello shots. A great variety of them were all over the counters and Craig, who had been absent from the night’s screenings due to his Apple schedule, arrived to find Kristen in the kitchen on what must have been the 4th shot of Jello and vodka she had taken that night. A director whose thesis debuted that night had decided along with her producer to throw an additional party in conflict with the usual Lynn house party, and Kristen’s concern about low attendance was such that she was using the party favors to ease the stress of an empty house. The 4th shot became the 5th until an entire tray was gone as Craig and Teeny stood observing from the dining room, sipping their drinks. It was only about 10 minutes later that the usual crowd of undergrad party animals showed up. The sirens call of the Lynn house had overwhelmed to the point that eventually the other shindig was called off and under a white flag the hosts of the conflicting gathering arrived ready to enjoy the evening.
By that point however the excessive consumption of vodka, gelatin, and food coloring had started to overwhelm Kristen, working it’s way from her stomach to her brain and less than an hour after polishing off so many jello shots, she made her way to the bathroom.
Roxanne Mobley found her on the floor of the front bathroom, which though much closer to where Kristen had been standing was not nearly private enough for her needs. So Roxanne put on her caregiver cap and attempted to assist Kristen in a move to the second bathroom, which was much much more secluded. It was going to be a job for two as Kristens vomit was coming sporadically and the time to move her would be too short for one person to navigate her through the throngs of film nerds; most of whom were well beyond their own thresholds of responsible consumption. That coupled with opening and closing of doors and guaranteeing that all of her things were responsibly moved with her meant Roxanne needed another pair of hands.
Out in the party Roxanne looked for both Teeny and Craig, and while Teeny was 15-20 minutes into a long winded rambling story about her hometown, she waved Craig in from the patio to the scene of the crime. They both went through a plan of attack. Getting Kristen up on her feet caused a bit of stir as Kristens concern about her shoes was a distraction that narrowed the amount of time they hoped to have between bouts of rainbow vomit and tears. Roxanne volunteered to carry them as a pair and like a vanguard cleared the path the 3 of them would take from one bathroom to the next. Once stationed in the bathroom where she could simply lay, barf like a unicorn and hopefully sleep, Roxanne placed her shoes back on her feet and her and Craig returned to the party.
That birthday dinner and the year that followed were the beginning of something neither of them could have truly imagined … a lifelong friendship. A friendship that would survive adversity and distance until growing to love one another as much as they had, they found that 1 year became 2 became 3, until almost a decade had grown them into family. Many such occasions of varying hilarity and severity would ensue when they became roommates that next July, on her way to becoming a sister and a best friend. Occasionally letting that entire history play out in his memory, the drunken nights, and all the ups and downs the of that 9 years, he couldn’t believe how incredibly lucky he had been to find his path run so parallel to hers.