Chapter 7

Robin waited in the lobby of our dorm while Mickey went back to the room to change his clothes and to get me. While she was waiting, she casually walked around, reading the bulletin boards and just learning a little about the campus. She could not help but see the numerous copies of the ad that had featured Caitlin in her prom dress, some with added hand written comments such as "Erik gets the gold" and other similar tags. There was even one panel that some enterprising guy had actually copied from the evening news footage and had posted three pictures of Caitlin and I together.

Robin was still standing there looking at that picture grouping when we walked around the corner.

"Isn't she beautiful? And that dress is to die for. It had to cost a fortune."

"Yes she is," was my only response.

"I'm not sure if the dress makes her more beautiful or if it's the other way around," Robin continued, still looking at the three news photos.

"I'm quite sure it is the latter," I said, still not acknowledging my involvement.

Finally she turned away from the photos, and Mickey introduced me to her. We were half way out the door when she turned around and ran back to the pictures again.

"That's you in the pictures!" she cried. "That's really you. Oh my gosh. WOW. Is she really that beautiful."

"More so, and not just from her looks, either." I spent the next thirty minutes telling Robin all about Caitlin.

She told me that when the newspaper ad first appeared of Caitlin in the dress, every one of her friends tried to find out more about the dress and the person in it. It drove some of them crazy, especially the ones that follow fashion design and stuff because she was a brand new model that no one had ever seen and who was absolutely stunning. To people that follow the fashion industry, not knowing this was apparently a calamity.

Robin spent the rest of the dinner talking about fashions and the fashion industry and materials and fabrics and who knows what else. Both Mickey and I stopped listening about ten minutes into the meal. Afterward, we dropped her off at the motel and Mickey told her that we really needed to get back to studying for finals.

"Erik, I think that picture just saved me from many, many hours of pain." Mickey just shook his head. "How can anybody talk for that long about a dress?"

"I don't know, Mick. She was cute, but no match for you intellectually. You need to be more selective, buddy."

"You're right about that!" He was still scratching his head about her.

"But, hey," I teased, "at least now you can say you know all about material that has been cut on the bias, whatever the hell that means!!"

That was the last time either of us ever heard from Robin. I assume that she spent the night in her motel and then headed back to her school to tell all of her friends that she now knew the entire story of the girl in the yellow dress.

In the middle of finals week, I received a job offer to be an intern at a small company on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. It was a resort community, and housing was at a premium. I decided to stop there on my way home to look for some place to stay. Since I was only looking for a small apartment, and would rent it for the entire summer, I got lucky, finding a one bedroom place that actually had a small kitchen, not that I knew how to cook.

With that good fortune, I headed home to attend Caitlin's graduation ceremony. Every parent in attendance was proud of their child, but none more proud than Mr. and Mrs. McDermott. After much deliberation, Caitlin had decided to major in physics and would begin college in the fall. She had completed so many of the basic courses already that she would enter as a second year, second half student.

We spent the weekend together, attending graduation parties for her and her friends, and sleeping together in her room with her parents blessing. By Sunday evening, I was on the road, headed for my summer apartment, and my first real job in engineering, even if it was only as an intern. But the summer passed quickly. Caitlin did come up and spend a few weekends with me, and once she even brought Hanna and her boyfriend with her. Before I knew it, I was back in the dorm and Caitlin was 300 miles away at a new school.