Sam smiled at the woman sitting at the registration table and pointed to his name on the card that carried an unfocused black and white photo of him when he was 17. Looking around at the others, names vaguely recalled popped out – they were in alphabetical order, but he didn’t see it, not under her name. He was rolling a half dollar over his knuckles, a trick he’d learned as a kid, and stopped when he saw others looking at him, squeezing it tightly into his palm.
Sam wondered why he came. In and out, he thought. It was a stupid idea in the first place and damn the group on Facebook that found him.
The woman looked at Sam, as she was looking at everyone, trying to recognize or remember. She didn’t want to stare, but looked at Sam wondering if this man was old enough to be with group. As Sam pointed she looked towards the bar, where a large man was laughing too loudly at nothing in particular; her husband was already on his fourth beer. Thank god, they poured it into a red plastic cup. She die a thousand deaths, if he guzzled another one, especially in front of this crowd. She turned her eye back to Sam when her husband dribbled some beer on the belly that was trying to escape his too tight shirt and had to force herself not to roll her eyes.
“Sam Wainwright,” he said leaning over to pick it up. She quickly got to it before he did, check his name off a long list, and put the card into one of those plastic sleeves with a pin on the back.
“Sam Wainwright? Well I’ll be. We were in Mr. Dudley’s biology, 10th grade. I’m Janet Swenson. Remember me?”
Sam made the nearly frozen smile already on his face wider, deliberately, opening his mouth and quirking his head. “Janet, oh my goodness, of course! How are you? Sorry, unfair question. You look great. So what have you been up to for the last 25 years…tell me in less than a minute.”
She laughed, “Two hsusband, first one divorced, two kids, added 15 pounds and I still live here, in Delmar. Went to SUNY, got my master’s there too, and I work in the State’s Teacher Retirement System. In HR. And you?”
Sam held his smile though his cheeks were beginning to ache with the effort of holding back a laugh – 15 pounds he thought, 35 pounds if it’s an ounce. Doctors have an eye such things. “Same here,” he said
Her smile evaporated as she looked at him, not sure if she’d been teased or insulted. “Come again?”
“Goofing on you, Janet. I’m sort of in between things.” Her smiled returned with a “Have a great night. You look wonderful” as she looked behind him to the next person. He walked away as she nearly screamed, “OH, Sissy I’d recognize you anywhere,” and hugged a very round woman wearing an out of fashion pantsuit.
Sam remembered Sissy well, as a cheerleader and gymnast – one of the popular girls who’d slept with most of the football team or so rumor had it and was the first teenager he ever heard of who had to join AA after she hit a horse driving her father’s car. The horse was innocent; it had been in a field eating grass when her car barreled through a fence. Sissy had had a two bottles of Colt 45 and a chaser, or two, maybe three, of Jagermeister, as had the boy she was driving who probably didn’t feel any pain when he went through the windshield.
He walked around the flourescent lit conference room the hotel had made into a party hall with its prefab round tables surrounded by folding chairs, cheap flower pieces in the center, and equally cheap decorations on the walls, including the large “Welcome Bethlehem HS Class of ’78 Reunion”, made of construction paper, put together by the Reunion Committee; that is, those who had peaked in HS and still lived nearby.
Sam wandered around, looking for familiar faces, but not having overly fond memories of those years he didn’t strain himself. A dozen people came up to him though, head’s turned sideways to get a better look at his name card and photo. Most smiled, nodded their heads in acknowledgement and continued on doing the same thing until they found someone better they recognized. There were many screams of ‘oh my god!’ on recognition, hugs, laughter, tears. Sam looked as well, not entirely sure what he was looking for, and meandered; a Perrier with ice and a lime in hand, a faux cocktail that he nursed to make others think he fit in.
“Sam Wainwright? My goodness you haven’t changed!”
The smile on Sam’s face had never left him in this sojurn, and it stayed on as he saw in thankfully big and bold letters the name, Mike Algernon, on the card. The template smile grew into a genuine grin. “Sonofabitch! Algernon.” Sam was able, sort of, to hold the smile to his old friend who was sporting a salt and pepper beard, an advanced case of male pattern baldness, and his once high height hidden in the folds of a wheel chair.
They hugged. Algernon even kissed Sam on the cheek, shedding some tears in the process.
“Mike, the chair, the hair, tell me.”
Algernon wheeled closer and Sam knelt diplomatically to be at eye level. Algernon told his story with humor and resignation. He joined ROTC in college, after his father died and his mom couldn’t pay tuition, and was there when the US invaded Grenada. “You were wounded? They didn’t report on much fighting there. Jeez.”
“There was no fighting,” said Algernon. “Not wounded. Stoned. There was nothing to do but we found a shit-ton of rum and a few bushels of grass. Went swimming with some locals and took a deep dive in a shallow pool.” He laughed loud in practiced fashion to take some edge off the topic.
“I’m sorry, man.”
“It’s had its benefits. Army got me as fixed up as much possible, I met a lovely nurse who’s now my wife, went to law school on their dime and work on disability cases so can’t complain too much. Right?”
Sam smiled at Algernon’s story, resolve and attitude and remembered why he liked him in high school.
“Is your wife here? I’d like to meet her. Man, it’s good to see you.”
“She’s around, but she’s very smart so probably back in the room reading a book. It’s dull enough if you were in our class. I can’t imagine having to be a friendly dolt on someone’s arm saying…’So nice to meet you, tell me something about Mike when he was a kid. Oh really, he walked then? Isn’t that precious.’”
The two went on like this, laughing about old times and new, and getting stares from people looking at the guy in a wheel chair having the nerve to laugh. In the midst of one particularly hilarious story – the one about Mike cutting a hole in the wall looking into the girl’s locker room and getting a tampon pushed into his eye – he stopped short and said, “Did you see Laurie? She’s here.”
Sam stood up, looked at Mike, and looked around. “No. where? How’s she dressed? How long ago?”
“Whoa. Still, have a crush do you? Kind of a long time ago, like a few minutes. She was wearing tight jeans, I think. Kind of too casual, but she looked great. She got these glares from some women. You know, like jealous.”
Sam stood, turning left and right, “I don’t want to be rude…”
“Par for the course douchebag!”
“Takes one to know one dickwad. I’ll catch up with you, I just want to see her before she goes.”
“Go on, I’ll be making the rounds,” said Algernon, deftly pivoting on his back wheels.
Sam moved quickly through the crowd, almost politely scooting past the women crooking their head over to see his nametag and squeezing through the throngs. He moved like a bobble head to look over, around, under and passed people he might have known, maybe even liked once. Had she gone, he worried? Could Mike have been mistaken? What if she’d been here and left?
And what, he pondered, if his anxiety was all in his head? They’d been friends, what, 30 years ago. Good friends. More than that. Teenagers though. Kids. That’s it. What was he thinking, he asked himself? Why was he all nervous, excited? Stupid. Stupid. “Christ,” he thought. “I feel like I’m in high school again.”
Was it a coincidence that the reveries around had grown louder, the laughing freer as the empty glasses and cups on the tables accumulated? A woman he didn’t know stumbled into him, spilling much of her glass on his shirt. “Whoops, sorry handsome! Now who are you? Sam Wainwright? Oh, yeah, you were one of those smart kids.” She stumbled again when two women came up on either side, took her arms, and said, “Jeanie, let’s get you a cup of coffee,” giggling as they looked at Sam and then to his HS photo and then back up at Sam eyes wider.
He took a napkin off one of the tables patting dry his shirt. “Don’t worry,” said a voice behind him. “Black wool turtlenecks hide a lot of troubles.”
“Hello Laurie,” he said, and as if in some cheap sci-fi film he felt himself falling back to his senior year. “It’s, umm, gosh, you look, great.”
“As do you Dr. Wainwright. As do you. I gather you’re looking for me?”
“You saw Mike Algernon”
“No, but if I’m here looking for you then chances are rather high you’d be here looking for me. Don’t tell me if I’m wrong; it’d would break my heart.”
Sam shook as the cool drink spilled on his touched his skin.
A small group of partygoers doing some sort of line dance as they sang words that sounded vaguely like Spanish and every so often a “hey macerena!” swung by bumping into as many people as they could and shoved Sam into Laurie. He grabbed her shoulders, apologizing, as they both laughed. “I can’t imagine why I never went to high school dances,” said Laurie. Sam said, “Now you see what you were missing.” She looked at him, quizzically, saying, “I think I knew.”
“So, fill me in. What’s it brought for you?”
Sam started the spine story of his life; from college and medical school, to Jenn, her death, his drinking, his not drinking, the stint in the Peace Corp to find himself and getting more lost, to drinking again, then not, and then really not and, now, in a better place. Actually better places.
“I’m traveling. A lot. Wandering. And here I am. Trying to find memories I lost, maybe never had. Or I guess trying to go back and see myself like I was and figuring how I got here. “
“Most here are trying to go back as well. Not to discover, but to live it again. Maybe show how they’ve grown up.”
“Or not.”
“Definitely or not.”
“Are you finding yourself then?”
“Still looking! And you? Married, kids, where do you live. Tell me all!”
“I’m married. 25 years, but we’ve been together forever and a day. We have a daughter, a junior at NYU. “
“Home?”
“I never left Cambridge. Sally and I run a gallery of sorts; women artists. And own a feminist bookstore.”
“Sally? Sally’s your partner?”
“My wife. Oh my, Sam, I thought you knew.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t know. I mean, after school I didn’t stay in touch and I….”
She laughed, “I was hardly in the closet then! My, I was rather out. I’m sorry I’m laughing but I….”
Sam laughed too, which came out across a series of hiccups being swallowed, and played with the coin he always kept in his pocket that read one step at a time…he thought about that line now, needed it. Had he been oblivious to her being almost out of the closet? He racked his brain for clues.
“Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water?”
“No, I swallowed the wrong way. You caught me off guard. You don’t look like, I mean, I swear I didn’t know…”
“A lesbian? What does a lesbian look like Sam? Oh come now.”
“I didn’t mean it THAT way, I just meant, I mean, I think I…would you object if I just removed this foot from my mouth for a second and kick myself in the ass with it?”
She laughed, a hearty, laughed and pinched his cheek. “You’re thinking about our night together?”
“I, well, it had crossed my mind.”
“I hadn’t thought about that night in years. Yes, well, I was young, curious about guys. I may have had doubts. Or maybe I was just adventurous. And I did like you. You were so sweet. I mean if I were straight I’d have gone for guys like you. Were you a virgin?”
“Sort of, yes, I guess so. I mean, yeah, yeah, of course I was. What am I saying? You never do forget your first time.”
“Now I do feel awful.”
“ I think maybe I’ll get myself a drink.”
“Oh please, you don’t mean that.”
“It’s fine. I’m only teasing.”
“Here’s a secret. So am I!”
“Huh?”
“Divorced. My daughter is really at NYU. My ex – Alex – is a lawyer in Boston. Or was. I think he was disbarred for insider trading, but I’m not in touch with him, nor is our daughter. Or her friend he seduced. I do live in Cambridge and have since college.”
“You bitch! I almost choked to death.”
“I’ve been stalking you. All that social media stuff. I wasn’t going to come to this, but when I saw your name I changed my mind.”
“Why didn’t you get in touch?” Sam asked.
“The same reason you didn’t I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose. I just forgot why.”
“Funny that. So did I,” said Laurie.
“Did I mention how wonderful you look? How great it is to see you?”
“Not enough. Right back at you.”
“No, not enough for me either. Oh wait, my next trip is Cambridge! How could I forget that?” said Sam.
“That’s great! What brings you?”
“I’m note sure. I hadn’t thought about it until this very moment. Any ideas?”
“None come immediately to mind, but I’m sure we could figure something out.”
“I could cancel,” he teased.
“What on earth would you do that?”
“Well, only if we couldn’t get together,” he said.
“Ah,” said Laurie, brushing a hair off his shirt, “As if that’s going to happen.”