I wish I had some good reason to give her, but the truth is all I have, and it sounds so stupid and small when I hear it come out of my mouth.
“I think I felt mostly embarrassed. I mean, I was living so far away, and it wasn’t like e-mail and all that was a part of our lives when I left.”
“And you always hated all technology,” Lynne says pointedly. “I thought those word processor typewriters in school were going to be the end of you.”
“Yes, I confess. I actually went to college with my mom’s old Selectric and managed to avoid all things computerized until the last possible moment. I had a flip phone until about two years ago when it died and my boss made me get a new iPhone on his family plan. I’m old-school.”
“You’re a dinosaur,” Lynne says, as the waitress brings our second round of French 75s.
“Hey, I didn’t exactly see the two of you frantically searching for me either . . . My mom is in the same house with the same phone number I had when we all talked every night. If you had really wanted to contact me, it wouldn’t have been hard.” Deflection seems the best way to go here.
“She’s got us there,” Teresa says.
Lynne puts her hand up. “Okay, look, we are grown-ass women. We are all going to name it and claim it. We were lazy bitches and got swept up in our lives and work and time went by and then it seemed too much effort to try and get back in touch. It was never for lack of love, just lack of initiative. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I say, relieved.
“Agreed,” Teresa says, grinning.
“But now we are all back together, can we please not let a damn decade and a half disappear on us? Because, as we have been reminded tonight, life is short and fucking precious,” Lynne says.
“Girls’ night? My house? Next week?” I ask.
Lynne pulls out her enormous iPhone. A few clicks on the screen with her impeccably polished nails, and she nods. “I’m good any night except Wednesday.”
Teresa checks her own phone. “I can do Tuesday or Thursday.”
“Thursday it is,” I say. I’ll have time during the day to prepare a bit before Ian’s coaching session, and after it I’ll get home in plenty of time to pull dinner together. “Let’s say seven.” I give them my address, ask about any dietary restrictions, and we toast the plan with the tart, fizzy cocktails.
“The Three Witches, together again,” Lynne says, using the nickname we gave ourselves when Mrs. O’Connor cast us as the three witches in Macbeth at the end of our first semester with her.
“Never to be parted,” Teresa says.
“Watch out, world, the coven is complete,” I say, and we toast and laugh and sink back into the deep chairs, and suddenly we are eighteen again, being fancy at a downtown hotel, full of the confidence that comes when you are part of a group, and you love them and trust them and know they have your back and keep your secrets and that as long as you are together, nothing bad can happen.
? ? ?
I get home just before ten and let Simca out in the backyard for her evening toilette. I don’t have the energy for a real walk tonight—all these hours in tall heels after a full day of work have my poor feet, used to abuse, screaming in pain. I shimmy out of my skirt, hopelessly creased into a million wrinkles around the top, and then wrestle my ample hips out of the Spanx that were the only reason it even zipped up. I pull on a pair of jersey pajama bottoms and one of my dad’s old concert T-shirts that he saved from his years as a rock aficionado, this one from Beatlefest in 1980, signed on the back by Harry Nilsson, who was there to promote an end to handgun violence and signed the shirt for a ten-dollar donation. My dad took the shirt to a local tailor and had the signature embroidered over so that it could be washed but not lost. It’s one of my favorites, and I only wear it on special occasions. Tonight, full as it was of emotion and memories and happy and sad, feels like an appropriate night to have Dad and Harry with me.
Simca follows me up the narrow staircase to the big attic. Bungalows like mine were designed with sort of easily removable roofs, and stairs to the attics instead of ladders. The attics, which are usually well insulated, have underlayment flooring instead of bare joists, so that as families grew, the roofs could be raised up or dormered to create a second floor of living space. Someday I would love to make a great master suite up here for myself, but in the meantime, it is terrific storage. I walk past all my luggage, the tubs of summer clothes, boxes of notes and books and things from college and culinary school, and there in the corner is a small Rubbermaid tub labeled LPHS. I grab it and head back downstairs.
Suddenly starving, I root around in the fridge to see what I have lying about and find the heel of a meat loaf I made a couple of days ago when Brad mentioned he was craving meat loaf sandwiches. It had suddenly sounded good to me too, so I made a small one for myself. In the breadbox, a couple of slices of the brioche loaf I made last night when I couldn’t sleep; a little smear of spicy Korean gochujang paste on the bread; some thinly sliced cucumber salad, a little wilted in its rice-wine brine but still crunchy; and the meat loaf. I take my sandwich, a canister of potato sticks that I bought in a fit of nostalgia the other day, and a bottle of Coke, and head for the living room. I put the plate on the coffee table and the tub between my feet on the floor, and eat with one hand while I go through the box of memorabilia. Folders of old papers, report cards, envelopes of photos . . . I find what I’m looking for in the very bottom, the yearbook from 1995, our senior year.
Lions’ Pride.
I eat and flip through the pages. How young we all were. How dated and embarrassing our hair and clothes. A picture of me with Mrs. O’Connor, me on crutches from right after my surgery, my Olympic dreams dashed. Me and Lynne and Teresa sitting on the hill by the little amphitheater in front of the school, wearing matching Ray-Ban sunglasses. Lynne sported a “Rachel” haircut and a small plaid miniskirt with a cropped sweater, over-the-knee socks, and penny loafers. Teresa wore denim overalls over a thermal long-sleeved shirt, with a boys’ oxford shirt tied around her waist and Doc Martens. Her curls an enormous mass. I was in black leggings with a huge plaid flannel shirt and clunky bright blue wingtips with no laces. We look like extras from the Clueless movie set.
As I turn the last page, a piece of paper falls out of the back of the book. I pick it up.