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PREFACE
Penny
Jeannie spots me as I get out of the rental car, hollering yoo-hoo the whole way as she waves her clipboard at shoulder height.
“Penny! It’s me, Jeannie! Over here!”
Okay, this is it, I tell myself. Reunion starts now. Smile pretty for everybody.
Glancing down, I check what I thought was a smile in my reflection in the car window. No, it looks like I’m in pain, which is much closer to the truth. After some minor adjustments, I declare this facial expression smile-adjacent and turn toward Jeannie just before she can tackle me in the parking lot.
“Penny Gable!” she huffs, checking her clipboard and handing me a sticker that has been carefully decorated with watercolor calligraphy.
“Jeannie Norris!” I exclaim, phony but probably not to her ears. “How have you been! It’s been ages!”
“It’s been fifteen years!” Jeannie replies, her eyes wide with dismay. “Where has the time gone! I just blinked and—poof! Middle age is right around the corner!”
I swallow. “Wow… I guess you’re right?” I mumble uncertainly.
If she weren’t so festive, I would mistake her for an undertaker.
“Well, I’m real glad you’re here!” she beams. “Just ahead right on in through the double doors and adjust course to report… That means left, ha-ha!”
“Okay! A good thing you told me!” I answer cheerily, though I can see people shuffling into the doors and probably could have followed them.
“Okay, Penny! Great to see you, but I gotta dash!”
She hurries off, leaving me with a sticker in my hand and a knot in my stomach. I take a deep breath and force my feet to move.
I didn’t go to my high school reunion. I don’t know why I would want to see people from high school anyway. Just as soon as we became adults, we all scattered like buckshot. This is college, and I have to admit I am a little bit curious about these people, but every time somebody looks at me my impulse is to avert my eyes.
It’s not that I’m not friendly, it’s just that I don’t want to be inspected. I don’t want to be held up to the light, turned this way and that, investigated for flaws.
I haven’t always made the right choices. That’s for certain. But neither has anyone else, I remind myself. Life is a series of wrong turns and corrections my mom says sometimes. Or she says something like that. Just keep swimming. Forward motion, that’s the key.
With that spirit in mind, I circle around the perimeter, keeping my eyes moving. I don’t want to linger too long on any one person and attract their attention. Optimally, I will only have to see one human being all night long.
My breath catches in my throat.
And there he is.
The crowd seems to kind of part around him, and he cuts through like a steam liner, with everyone pushed off to the side. Not that he notices. He strides through like he knows exactly where he’s going, which is the bar.
He looks totally different. In college, Clay was tall, sure, but featherlight. Bony wrists, narrow shoulders, prominent and awkward Adam’s apple. Wavy hair that cascaded past his shoulders whenever he didn’t have money for a haircut, which was most of the time.
This guy is… different.
His hair has gone partly silver, though he’s nowhere near forty yet. Must be a genetic thing. It’s still wavy, shining under the pink and blue stage lights as he strides forward.
His walk is confident, sleek. No longer skinny, now he has thick, prominent muscles that fill out his tailored shirt and trousers. I can practically imagine what he looks like naked…
Oh no, I’m not going to do that.
But I can’t help myself. The last time that we saw each other—really saw each other—we promised that we would always keep space for each other in our hearts. We made a pact that if life didn’t work out for us, we would find each other in fifteen years.
Is it possible that life hasn’t worked out for him, though? I mean look at him. He looks like a movie st
ar. He looks like a spokesperson for a luxury car line or something.
I can’t believe that muscular, confident, charismatic guy with all the women’s eyes on him was my best friend... that shy, scrawny, awkward do-gooder that I never even really took the time to appreciate.
But this time, it’ll be different.
