Dear readers, welcome to the conclusion of Just like Eve (the first of the two-part conclusion). If you are joining this series now, you can read an overview, or start at the beginning, or at Jasmine's recent discoveries with her friends, or if you'd like to read the story from Davie's point of view, you can start with the first of Davie's three selections and follow the links for Davie's portions from there.
September 27, 2012, Glendale Racquet Club, Colorado Springs, CO
"Jazzy
in that new skirt, Jazzie!" Gabbie winks at Jasmine, as she enters the
yoga room at Glendale Racquet Club where the friends warm up before their mixed
doubles tennis.
"Jazzier
than I felt last week," Jasmine winks back with a chuckle to Gabbie and
Kristina, the two masterminds of the previous week’s surprise. Not only are these friends Jasmine and Mindy’s
favorite opponents for women’s doubles, but they also play Mixed Doubles Night,
where they are now. Gabbie and Kristina
had been rooting Jasmine on to independence.
Today, she is three weeks single.
That’s her term. Others call her
divorced.
After
playing mixed doubles last week, the friends made their way, as usual, up the
stairs to Glendale's sports bar, The Alley.
Located above the office and the restrooms, the Alley provides booths to
the left, tables in the center, the bar with its barstools to the right, and
three large screen TVs. When Jasmine
entered The Alley, she found the center tables pulled together into the full,
long one set up for the Mixed Doubles Night players, as usual, but the table
was not set as usual. At the center were
a bouquet of tulips and gold balloons floating above of the flowers, along with
a single balloon in black. Staring at
them, especially the black one, Jasmine wondered what the special occasion was.
Seeing
Jasmine’s confusion, Kristina put her hand on Jasmine’s arm. “Gold for power and black because it’s also
okay to be sad.”
Gold
for power? Whose power? Jasmine wondered
whether any of their favored tennis players was known for the color of gold,
and if a tennis tournament was happening that she wasn’t aware of. Or could the many gold balloons represent hope
for a win and a single black one represent acceptance over a loss?
Looking
for clues, Jasmine glanced over to the big screen TVs set to ESPN, but they were
showing two lively commentators in big earphones and quick cuts to baseball
replays. Jasmine whispered to Mindy, who
chuckled and announced to everyone that Jasmine wanted to know if the balloons
were for a tennis tournament. Did
Mindy have to blurt that out?
"No
Girl!" Gabbie grinned, "This is your divorce party!"
Divorce
party? Do people do that? Other than her tennis friends, everyone has
responded to Jasmine’s news with either sympathy or judgment, all supposing she
must be grieved over a “failed” marriage.
Jasmine doesn’t see it that way. She
learned much from her marriage, still cares about Tim, and knows she made the
right choice. Still, her emotions run
through a mixture of grief from the past and joy for the future. Her grief is less for what people think -- the
loss of Tim -- and more for the years she let her family and then her husband
draw her away from what matters most: her own compassionate and intuitive nature
that thinks
at odds.
As
Kristina handed Jasmine a gift bag, also in gold, Jasmine looked inquisitively over
to her best friend Mindy.
"I'll
be surprised as you,” Mindy chuckled, shaking her head. “I just got you a card."
Jasmine
pulled out a gold headband crown with a red star, a red sleeveless athletic shirt,
a navy blue tennis skirt, and tennis ball band for her waist, in gold. How did they find a ball band in gold? Smiling in pride, Kristina lifted a piece
of the gold ribbon she sewed on to the ball band. "See, all you'll need to do is take a
seam ripper to the ribbon, and you've got a new tennis band."
With
a hearty nod, Jasmine promised she would, and lifted the clothes up. “Wonder Woman?”
“Wonder
Woman with a real shirt, a real skirt, and not a bathing
suit,” Gabbie winked.
“And
no stars on the skirt!” Kristina laughed.
“Or
gold cups for your boobs!” Gabbie exclaimed, adding that they were keeping Jasmine
in the 21st century: classy, not a sex object.
Still,
with the crown and ball band in gold, Jasmine felt sheepish. She'll have to pass that booth of racquetball
guys, while wearing a crown and a ball band in the conspicuous color of gold?
Her friends say gold represents her power, but Jasmine has spent years in
hiding. Mocked for thinking at odds,
she’s learned silence and modesty. Was
she ready to emerge as a Wonder Woman in gold?
Seeing
her friend’s hesitation, Mindy shared with Jasmine what she most admires about
her. “You are a woman filled with
wonder. Now spin yourself into Wonder
Woman!” Mindy is blessed with a mouth so
full she still has her wisdom teeth. How
could Jasmine resist a smile that fills her best friend’s whole face? Or a gift so clever? Taking a deep breath, Jasmine coached herself
into power. You can do this, Jasmine.
Step into your power. Do as Lynda
Carter: transform yourself from ordinary to powerful. Spin yourself into Wonder
Woman!
While
walking down the stairs to the restroom to dawn her new attire, Jasmine also reflected
on her friends’ sensitivity. Since her
family and most of her other friends thought she should have only one emotion –
grief -- she had wondered whether her tennis friends would also think she
should have only one emotion -- joy. But
these friends had included a black balloon, told her it was okay to be sad, and
still helped her celebrate. They not
only let her think at odds, they also let her feel at odds.
Now, a week later,
Jasmine is grateful to be wearing the new tennis skirt, athletic shirt, ball
band in its proper color of black, and nothing in gold. She’s proud of her new power, but she also
likes another truth of Wonder Woman: the ability to step back into normal life
as a normal woman. All superheroes are
like that. Most of the time, they blend
into ordinary life, appearing as no one special, and Jasmine realizes they
probably like it that way. She does too.
Jasmine finishes
stretching and joins the others now milling in a circle at the center of the
yoga room. Steve glances at his watch,
casts his eyes around the circle, counting the players, and announces, “It's
perfectly seven and we have a perfect eight” – so perfectly Steve, in his
steel-rimmed glasses, who spends his days crunching numbers as an
accountant. Then he adds, “even a
perfect four mixed doubles teams.”
BD
extends his arm toward Jasmine, palm up, offering himself as her partner. He had never been so chivalrous before. Jasmine is honored, but curious. They’ve been regularly partnering together at
Mixed Doubles Night for seven months, ever since youth pastor Davie was told by
his church to quit coming after his kiss with Jasmine. BD is Davie’s best friend, in spite of and
probably because of, BD’s differences from everyone else Davie had grown up
with. The oldest son of a pastor of a
white, conservative, evangelical church, Davie had been groomed into the
pastorate himself and the culture that accompanies it. Tennis had been Davie’s escape, the one place
where he could hit hard his strokes and slam dunk his overheads. In time, with BD’s help, he even learned how
to curse, swear, and spit. BD, African
American, is a baseball player first, tennis player second, and it was at his
first sport where he had learned how to spit really good. But now, enjoying himself so much at Mixed
Doubles Night, he sometimes teases that he might make tennis his primary
sport, if everyone else learns how to spit and they buy him enough beers.
The
week after Davie’s departure, BD told Jasmine about Davie’s request that BD
step in as Jasmine’s new mixed doubles partner.
He said he had promised Davie he would, if she also agreed to it, and added
his reply over the church’s order that Davie quit coming: "You church
people are cracked up!" Jasmine was
charmed by BD’s "cracked up" assessment, appreciated Davie’s attempt
to look out for her, and took in her new mixed doubles partner gladly.
“You’re
still Wonder Woman,” BD said to Jasmine as she accepted his palm. “You serve first.” BD usually served first, and usually at
Jasmine’s request. If their Mixed
Doubles group had been competitive, BD would always serve first. The server has the advantage, and that’s why
players flip their racquets before play to decide on the serve. Your goal is to “hold” your serve and “break”
your opponent’s. In competitive mixed
doubles, the female needs to be a wonder woman because the opponents are
working hard to keep the ball away from her partner that she has her work cut
out for her. In a tight set, the first
server in doubles will serve twice, and the second server once. If the physically stronger male partner serves
first, he can more easily put those opponents on defense and hold his two
serves. But Glendale’s Mixed Doubles
Night is casual and doesn’t carry this competitive edge. All players serve first sometimes, including
Jasmine, but she’s modest and usually gives the first serve to her partner. Tonight, BD insists, and she agrees.
But
first, the two of them, and their opponents, Steve and Kristina, need to meet
at the net to flip their racquets. As
they are walking toward the net, Jasmine wishes it was Davie by her side, feels
her heart flush hot for him, and reflects on the journal she wrote on forbidden
love. Has she reached "acceptance?" If she has, "acceptance" looks quite
different than what she had anticipated. It’s not about "getting over" a
forbidden love -- she will always love Davie -- it’s about embracing the love
within herself. Now that Davie has shown
her how loveable she is and how much she can delight in thinking at odds,
Jasmine has found a joy and a love within herself even in Davie’s absence. She still longs for him, still loves him and
always will, but she has landed upon an “acceptance” that feels unlike anything
she had expected.
Like
her attire from ordinary to wonder woman, Jasmine’s longing has also been
transformed. She no longer longs as an ordinary woman who needs, but as a woman
of wonder who surrenders. Through the
test of forbidden love, where love cannot control, where love must release
every day, Jasmine has discovered a love without attachment, a love capable of
letting go, a love that surrenders, filled with wonder.
It's
a love like that poster at Gabbie’s apartment, the one that shows a strong horse
in deep brown with a mane blowing in the wind, galloping through a field on a
bright blue day, that says, “If you love something, let it go. If it comes
back, it is yours.” The type of love
depicted in that poster is considered by many to be the hardest type of
love. But, Jasmine muses, isn't there a
love that is even harder? What if the something you love you never had to begin
with? What if you have to release every
day what you never had but could? Don’t
people say, “It's better to love and lose than to never love at all”? In that case, wouldn’t the love that releases
something it could have but doesn’t be an even harder form of love?
Gazing
ahead, as if in a trance, Jasmine confirms to herself that she has learned the
hardest type of love, and it is this love that has brought her into the deepest
type, the love within herself.
Kristina
is now standing next to Jasmine on Jasmine’s side of the net, muttering, “Speak
of the devil.” How is Kristina standing
here? Didn’t I just see her on the other
side of the net, about to flip her racquet?
Jasmine had not realized how deep in thought she had been. “Oh, sorry, I guess I shouldn’t say ‘devil,’”
Kristina chuckled.
BD,
in a voice bold, deep, and victorious, fully breaks Jasmine’s trance. "It looks like we no longer have a
perfect eight!"
Jasmine
sees her partner glancing over to the corner of the furthest away back court,
raising his arm high with a thumbs up.
A
surprise is leaning against the wall, with one foot crossed over the other leg,
the casual stance of a figure who belongs right where he is.
Davie.
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Continue to Davie's Return, Part 2
Start at the beginning: Why did Noah let God drown the World?
