Fluffy

by Julia Kent

  The kind of person I imagine when I envision reunions.

  “We live in the Bay Area. I'm the communications director for an online genetic-testing company, and Sanni is product line manager for a tech company that helps NGOs with refrigeration for public health initiatives.”

  “Wow.” It occurs to me, as the seconds roll by, that they're going to ask me what I do for a living. I knew that would happen, coming to a high school reunion, but so far, this will be a first. I've run into Alisha, Ramini, Osgood, Fletch, and been looked over by a few in Alisha's crowd, and yet–this will be the first time anyone's–

  “What about you, Mallory? What do you do for a living? Raye's talked about you ever since the reunion invitation came,” Sanni says warmly.

  “I remember you chose Brown over Harvard and that was so inspiring,” Raye adds with a touch of awe.

  –asked about me.

  Me.

  We come to these celebrations of anniversaries–and yes, a high school graduation certainly falls under that umbrella–not simply to mark the passage of time. Look at me, we say when we attend. Acknowledge me, we demand when we accept the invitation.

  Validate me, our presence insists.

  For some people, that need to be seen is physical. External. For them, it's the crowd who looks, acknowledges, and validates.

  For others, it's their own inner teenager who peers with wide, naïve, idealistic eyes, rough edges and bleeding heart frozen in time, needing to see the change in the adult self so she can catch up.

  So far, every person I've seen tonight has fixated on Will, other than Fiona and Perky, and they don't count because having them pay attention to me is like asking your mother if you look pretty when you're thirteen. They're constitutionally required to.

  Rayelyn is the first person tonight to acknowledge me as important.

  “I–I'm in design, actually. Spaces. Homes and occasionally offices. I work for Will Lotham's company now.”

  Rayelyn's expression is extraordinary. “The Will Lotham?” The past comes roaring back into her face, my famous crush indelible in her memories of who I am.

  I can't help but laugh. “Yes.” Then I sniffle.

  Immediate concern radiates from her. “Is something wrong?” Sanni mirrors the compassion, which only makes controlling my emotions that much harder. Rayelyn was my ever-constant friend in all extracurriculars. We were the academic geeks who really enjoyed running a newspaper, sacrificing Saturdays for speech and debate tournaments, writing essays and studying content questions for Academic Challenge. We advocated for pep rallies to acknowledge academic competitions, and aside from Fiona and Perky, I spent more time with Rayelyn than anyone else in high school.

  So why is it that until now, I hadn't really thought of her?

  A twisting inside me, my skin and blood catching on pieces of memory, makes my nerves jangle, a preternatural knowing pouring into me. As Raye and Sanni watch me expectantly, I blurt out, “Why didn't we stay in touch, Rayelyn? I mean, Raye.”

  She fights emotion on a face that is clearly not accustomed to doing so. I'm asking a question that pulls her back ten, fourteen years and it's obvious that the Raye–not Rayelyn–before me is all adult when she's not here in her hometown, being yanked back into a time when she couldn't be who she is.

  “I don't know. I wondered, too, Mal. You left for Brown and I went to Marlboro and then UC Berkeley. I met Sanni there at the first graduate student union meeting.” She squeezes her wife's shoulder. “When I heard about this reunion, I didn't want to come.”

  “Same here,” I tell her, meaning every word. “But I'm local.”

  Sanni laughs. “We're about as non-local as you can get and still be in the same country.”

  “My sister lives in the Bay Area. She works for a financial start-up.”

  “Hasty?” Rayelyn asks, her voice dropping. Years of hearing me complain about my older, domineering sister haven't faded, I see.

  Another shaky laugh comes out of me, gaining strength as the conversation continues. “Yes, that Hasty.”

  “You have a sister named Hasty?” Sanni asks, curious.

  “Short for Hastings.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you ever come out to see her?” Rayelyn asks. “If you do, please reach out. I'd love to reconnect. In fact, we're here for a few extra days.” She looks around, head turning toward the booming music in the event space. “This is fine, but a quiet coffee shop with good pastries would be even better.”

  Warmth floods me. “In jeans and t-shirts.”

  Rayelyn looks down at our high heels. “Yes! And flip-flops!” Reaching into her purse, she says, “Let's exchange numbers right here. I'll call your phone. What's your number?”

  I recite it, she taps. My phone rings. I ignore it. The modern version of exchanging business cards.

  Then she reaches out for a hug, laughing. Her embrace feels like the past coming into my present and hugging me. “This reunion is pushing all my insecurity buttons,” she confesses.

  “Everyone told me I had to come,” I murmur in her ear.

  “Everyone?”

  “Persephone, Fiona, and Will.”

  Astonishment floods her face. “They're all local?”

  “Will just moved back.”

  “Are you two together?” A restrained glee infuses her words, as if she wants to be happy for me if the answer is yes, but isn't sure if asking the question at all is acceptable.

  “No,” I answer truthfully just as a deep, slightly out-of-breath male voice says from behind me:

  “Yes.”

  One corner of Sanni's mouth goes up in an intrigued smile while Raye blushes hard, looking over my shoulder as I turn to find–surprise!–Will standing there, eyes soulful, hands on his hips, the yes hanging in the air like a golden snitch I just have to reach up and pluck.

  “Hi, Rayelyn,” he says to her.

  “Will,” she smiles, not correcting him with her preferred name, eyes bouncing from me to him over and over as if she's decoding a secret message that has an answer she thinks she knows.

  I, on the other hand, have no idea what is going on.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Mallory and I have some very important unfinished business,” he says to Raye and Sanni, pulling me away with gentle firmness that is as impossible to resist as it is paradoxical.

  “May I have this dance?” He starts to lead us toward the dance floor.

  “What? But I want to talk to Raye and–”

  “Dance. Dance with me, Mallory.”

  “Why would I dance with you?”

  “Because you're my date and because I took dance lessons for my sister's wedding and don't want them to go to waste.”

  “So now I'm a pity dance?”

  “You're not a pity anything.” Carrying beyond the two of us, his voice has an insistent finality to it. As if he knows exactly what's happening and is trying to help, the DJ is playing Ed Sheeran's "Perfect." Will's right hand goes to the small of my back and his left hand takes my right one in his, our bodies making the awkward transition from two people with differing agendas to one couple moving in concert.

  Except I'm not melting into him the way a true dance partner would.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs as we turn in a circle, the DJ's lights blurring and forming a strangely distant rainbow between patches of darkness.

  “What? No. I’m fine.”

  “What Osgood said is not fine. What Alisha said is not fine. Nothing about this night is fine.” The words skim over my heart, the touch light and protective.

  “No. It’s not. But I am fine.”

  His hold on me tightens. That hand flat against my lower back is awfully possessive as he pulls me closer. The thin fabric of my skirt is loose against my thighs, and boy, can I feel the coiled power in his legs.

  I’m feeling something else between us, too, and it’s turning me on.

  I can’t. I can’t. Will was sweet to invite me to this reunion, but what j
ust happened is proof that nothing really changes. I mean, I’ve changed. I’ve grown. I’ve analyzed and reflected, but while I’m an adult now, I’m really not all that different than I was ten years ago.

  If anything has changed, it’s my attitude.

  I don’t care.

  Clarity has a funny way of showing up when you need it most.

  Seeing Rayelyn didn't cause a sudden, life-altering realization, but it confirmed what I already know: I get to decide who I am. Not this crowd. Not my parents. Not Will Lotham or Perky or Fiona. Me.

  I always have.

  I just let a lot of psychological clutter get in the way.

  Time to clean house.

  The music winds down, the slow melody turning into the opening chords of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer."

  Ah, irony.

  I start to pull away, realizing it's true.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care that Will’s wolf pack group of friends from high school is stuck on standards that never mattered in the first place. I don’t care that half the people in here have graduate degrees and spouses and kids and houses and I don’t. I don’t care that my life’s trajectory has taken me way out of the arc of expectation. I’m not a machine. I’m not an object. The surface of any given scene isn’t all that matters.

  I am deep ripples in a glacier-carved lake. Most of these people only care about what that lake’s shining surface mirrors back to them.

  Pulling away slightly, I make sure I can see Will’s face. His eyes are unfocused, and he’s watching me with the most bewildered look. As we lock on each other, his attention, well...

  Deepens.

  And then he goes out of focus as he moves in.

  Is he doing what I think he’s doing?

  The brush of light stubble on my jawline makes me start and pull back, nerves like skittish horses in a thunderstorm. I’m so alive in his arms, but stuck in the past on the inside, my heart marshaling my internal troops for a long, steady march into the present.

  I’m so many different people, all living memories in disparate times.

  “Mallory,” he says, pulling me closer until I can’t see him, my glasses making him blur. His scent is so delicious, soap and light cologne, his ever-present scent of lime and mint. The low, anguished tone doesn’t really match the music, and now our feet are barely moving in spite of the insistent beat. I swallow, hard, as all the people inside me suddenly join together as one, fully present, here and watching.

  This is it.

  This is real life.

  And you know what?

  I really don’t care.

  “I really don’t care,” he says, like he read my mind. His lips are against the soft skin below my earlobe. I shiver.

  “Don’t care about–” I hold my breath until I can’t take it anymore. “–me?”

  “Don’t care about Osgood. Or Fletch. Or Ramini. They’re all assholes.” His nose rubs against my hair and he inhales slowly, a savoring kind of torture that turns every inch of my skin into fire.

  “This isn’t some teen movie, Will. Kissing me in public isn’t going to save the day.”

  “No, it won’t. But it will definitely feel good. I’m about to kiss you because I want to feel good with you. I want to make you feel good. And I’m pretty sure that when we kiss, we’ll feel even better.” My hands belie my words as he speaks, the folds of his shirt between my fingers, the tight stretch of the fabric drawing him to me.

  “Is that how kisses work? They’re exponential?” I ask, my voice shaking but full of jokes I don’t mean.

  “I imagine they are, with you. Now shut up and let’s find out.”

  The space between us folds and he’s kissing me, his mouth so perfect, the connection natural and good and how did I ever live without being in his arms? Twenty-eight years without this magic is twenty-eight years of being flat in a world that turns out to be four-dimensional. I didn’t know.

  I thought I knew.

  But I really didn’t know.

  If people notice, I’m not aware of it, spinning and spinning inside. All the parts of me that have wanted this man for so long cling to him. Fingertips dig into his shoulders, brushing against the ends of his dark hair at the edges where they touch his neck. My breasts flatten against his chest as his mouth moves against mine, arms caging me in like this is his one and only chance to kiss me across all the random chances and infinite combinations of our souls being in the same place at the same time under the perfect circumstances.

  And instead of waiting, he's just invented one. Taking the kiss means breaking a spell we didn't know had been cast against us.

  Our magic is stronger.

  17

  A rush of whispers fills my ears, like millions of feathers being dropped onto a field of daisies, the brush of one distinct surface against another so different, making a friction that is like a seventh sense. His lips are on mine, then his tongue makes a gentle entrance, a quiet, heartfelt move that crosses the gap from Let's explore to Let's get real.

  His taste is on the tip of my tongue, which is moving against his, my hand that was on his shoulder sliding up his neck, the powerful warmth of his skin heating my blood. Music swirls around us, the DJ's light show the closest we can come to the stars in the sky, my entire world collapsing into all the places where Will touches me.

  The music goes quiet but Will doesn't stop. Our kiss deepens, bodies swaying. As time passes I become acutely aware of people in small clusters, some ignoring us, some whispering.

  “I don't know how that happened,” Gemma says to my left, her voice distinct. It always had a Valley Girl aspect to it, anachronistic and nasal. When I met women who'd actually been raised in that part of California, I found myself wondering how Gemma and her sisters had such a stereotypical voice from another place, but at this moment, as Will's pulling back from the kiss and I'm dazed, it's the last thing on my mind.

  My eyes shift toward her, anyhow. She's standing with Alisha and a woman who is likely Erin, another cheerleader from back in the day. Erin is hugely pregnant and looks miserable.

  “Some people trade down, I guess,” Alisha says, giving Gemma a sympathetic pat on the wrist.

  Then they both look straight at me.

  Raye and Sanni happen to be at the bar, right next to them. Raye overhears everything, face flushing like she always did in high school, emotions all over her face, eyes wide and narrow at the same time.

  Will stiffens, fingertips digging into my back with possession. As his heat fades from me, body turning toward his past, a low sigh filled with determination coming out of him, I pivot and leave.

  This time, for good.

  Rushing out of the room, I practically trip over Perky, who is sitting on the floor, ass against the wall, high heels strewn about her bare feet like adoring fans around a guru. Manoosh Baer, an exchange student from eleventh grade, is next to her, their heads huddled as they scroll through a series of pictures on her phone.

  “Eep!” I let out, barely avoiding falling on her.

  “Maaal!” she calls out, her voice making it clear she's really availed herself of the cash bar. “Where ya goin'?”

  “I'm done, Perk.”

  Instant sobriety makes her abandon poor Manoosh, who looks crestfallen. Running toward me as I fling open the double doors to the parking lot, Perky shouts, “WHAT DID WILL DO TO YOU?”

  “HE KISSED ME!” I scream back.

  All the outrage she's mustered on my behalf hovers over her head like a demon who suddenly has no mission. “What? He what?”

  “HE KISSED ME! ON THE DANCE FLOOR! IN FRONT OF PEOPLE!”

  “And you're... mad at him?”

  “YES! No! I don't–it's everyone else, Perky! It's the assholes! ALISHA IS AN ASSHOLE!” I scream.

  “Well, duh.” Manoosh has joined us, standing next to Perky in his suit, tie askew, hair a mussed series of gorgeous waves, big brown eyes aware and curious.

  For some reason, his response cuts
through everything. I start laughing so hard that my belly cramps, one ankle turning in as my legs can't support so much emotion. Someone's red Corvette provides me with instant stability as I lean against it, giggling my way to tears.

  I should never have come to this stupid reunion.

  “See? Even Manoosh knows the truth!” Perky screams, hysterical with that effect alcohol has on someone who rarely drinks. Then she adds more quietly, “He was only here for a year and he saw through them. The ones who changed are fine. The ones who stayed exactly the same are so brittle, Mal. They throw stones and hammers because they're terrified you might have the tools and use them first. They have to crack you to feel relevant.”

  “Will kissed me on the dance floor, Perk. And I heard Alisha tell Gemma he traded down.”

  Blink.

  Blink.

  Blink.

  Even Manoosh takes a step away from Perky, whose sudden calm is like the eye of a tornado.

  “I hope she enjoyed those four-hundred-dollar extensions, because they're about to be ripped out at the roots and turned into a merkin I'll apply to her Brazilian-waxed pissflaps with Krazy Glue,” Perky declares, turning toward the building and sprinting so fast.

  Manoosh gapes.

  “Someone needs to stop her,” I tell him. “You or me?”

  “Damn it,” he mutters, taking off, grabbing her by the waist just before she reaches the main doors.

  It's kind of a relief to have someone else managing my best friend, the fireball.

  But it also feels really good to know her outrage is on my behalf.

  Every step toward my car–uh oh.

  Damn it.

  There is no “my car.” I came here with Will. In his car.

  I crack. Right there on the asphalt, barely finding my way to a small island covered with fresh mulch and flowering hostas. My ass finds the cement parking berm and I collapse, knees open, spiky high heels wobbling on the uneven pavement until they settle where they belong, angling my legs into the position that causes the least pain, leads to the least tension.

  Leaning back, I let the mulch touch my shoulder blades, dig into the back of my hair, the grounding with the earth affirming and gritty. My tongue presses against the roof of my mouth, fitting into the curves of my teeth. As I move it, I realize how hard I'm pushing. Unconscious pressure inside my body, applied by another part of my body, causes me physical pain.