One box for a disease not my own.
One uninformed choice.
A lie of omission on Adam's behalf.
I wondered if he even knew.
I was HIV positive.
An Unexpected Reunion by Jeff O'Handley
I held my hand up, palm toward me. With a sharp snap of my fingers, the envelope appeared. It was an easy trick, and it never failed to impress Randi Zimmerman's kids. The kids weren't with us, however; Randi was a much tougher audience. She continued twirling linguine around her fork, as if envelopes appearing out of thin air were an everyday occurrence.
"Was that your decision?" I placed the envelope on the table, slid it toward her with one finger.
"Was what my decision?"
"The typeface, the color."
It was the same font and color scheme used on our senior prom tickets. Tickets I bought but never used.
Randi's chin jutted out. She used to cut her way through the halls of Pershing High School with that chin, and a scowl that could peel paint. Back then, her face was all chin, sharp angles, and cold blue eyes. Twenty-five years had softened her features, maturity had softened her disposition. Still, once in a while something brought back that old look, and apparently I had found that thing.
"It wasn't my choice, but I was outvoted. You're coming, right?"
"Are you kidding me?"
A thin vertical line appeared between her eyebrows. I used to joke that I could drop a dime in there and make a phone call.
"You didn't even open it."
She sliced the envelope open with her thumbnail, pulled out the card, and held it up for my inspection. Fancy script flowed across the card, listing the time and place of my 25th high school reunion. Below that, block-printed along the bottom margin in red, the words: 'YOU ARE COMING.'
"You're dreaming. Nobody wants me there. And besides," I continued, overriding her expected protest, "the only people I'm interested in are people I already see: You. Mike. Doug. Maybe Dave. I'm not so sure about him."
Dave Hammond was one of my best friends in high school, but we weren't on solid footing anymore. He wrote me some dutiful letters while I was upstate, but he could never quite figure out what to say once I came home. I understood, but it stung.
"For your information, a lot of people ask about you. And yes, in a good way." She reached for my hand, but I pulled it away. "It's been twenty-five years, Chris. People are willing to let it go. Why can't you?"
"'Let it go'? I killed—" I looked around the restaurant, but the nearby diners continued sipping their wine, buttering their bread, and paying us no attention. I lowered my voice anyway. "I killed James LaValle. How am I supposed to just let it go?"
The line between her brows was big enough for a quarter now.
"Did you mean to do it?"
"No."
"Are you sorry you did it?"
"Yes."
"Everyone knows that, Chris." She leaned over her plate of linguine, her blue eyes bright despite the dim light. "You've been out five years now. You've got a degree, you've got a job that's a lot more worthwhile than mine—what are you hiding from?"
I stabbed at a piece of steak. It was thick and juicy, but my appetite was gone.
"I'm not hiding, I just don't want to turn the reunion into a sideshow." I put my fork down. "Thanks for thinking of me, but the answer is no. I won't be doing anyone any favors by going, that's all."
"Not even you?"
"Especially not me."
* * *
Unlike Randi, Mike Noonan knew better than to press me about the reunion. He asked once if I wanted to go; I said no, and he let the matter drop. He flew in on Thursday. I took Friday off so we could go to lunch and spend the day together.
He sat on the sofa in my little apartment, grinning in that crazy old Mike Noonan way. His once bushy hair was shaved down to the nub, his neck had gotten wider than his head, but that smile was the same, and it was damn good to see. The last I'd seen him was right after I'd gotten out. He made a trip back east just to see me.
"What are you missing while you're hanging out with me?" I asked. The reunion committee was making a big production out of things, with all kinds of activities planned.
He rubbed his chin. "Bowling, I think."
"Bowling? Are you shitting me?"
"They're really going to the well, huh?"
"I can't believe Randi went for that. She must have blown all her political capital getting me on the invite list."
Mike snorted. "It's a wonder she didn't get impeached from the committee." He slid his phone out of his pocket. After a minute or so of poking at the screen, he looked up. "Ready?"
"Sure."
We walked out of the apartment into a classic Long Island summer afternoon: hazy, hot and humid. Mike worked up a good sweat on the way to his car, a low-riding sporty thing as red as a hooker's nail polish.
"Does Colleen know you're driving this babe magnet?" I asked, referring to his wife.
"She won't know if you don't tell her."
I pulled open the door and lowered myself into the rich, leathery smell of new car. The dashboard had as many dials as the cockpit of a 747. Tinted glass couldn't quite keep the summer sun from heating the car's interior to almost unbearable levels.
Mike started the car. "It's going to take a few seconds for the A/C to get going," he said, "so I brought something to cool us down."
He twisted around, grunting with the effort, and pulled a small cooler out from behind my seat. I heard the unmistakable rumble of ice and bottles shifting around as he set it on the console between us.
"There you go." He popped off the lid. A six pack of beer sat on a bed of ice. "The Booze Cruise lives," he said, with a wicked grin.
When we were young and foolish and certain nothing bad could ever happen to us, we spent most Friday nights driving up and down a two-mile stretch of Hempstead Turnpike between Bethpage and East Meadow. We put on scores of miles each night, drinking beer, listening to the radio, and solving the world's problems—most of which focused on girls and how to get them. It was a wonder any of us lived to tell the tale.
"To friends," he said.
We toasted, the clinking bottles calling forth happy memories. I took a deep drink, enjoying the tongue-numbing cold, the hoppy taste.
"There's nothing like cheap, cold beer on a hot summer day," I said, one of our mantras from back in the day.
"Amen, brother."
I took another drink, then noticed Mike staring at me, a sober look on his normally cheerful face.
"What?"
"Nothing." He put the car in gear, but remained at the curb. "Are you okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be? Things are good." I stared through the tinted windshield at the sun bright street. "I've got a good job and a decent place to live, my folks are healthy, I'm still healthy."
"And you're free."
"And I'm free."
I took another swallow. It didn't quite push down the lump that was trying to block my throat, so I took another. The bottle suddenly felt rather light. I shook it, heard a single drop of beer plink against the glass.
"Jesus, they must be making these things smaller than they used to." I stuffed the empty into the cooler and took out a fresh one.
Mike said, "Do me a favor, and keep it out of sight, all right? And don't spill. This is a rental."
"Don't worry." I tucked the bottle between my knees. "My self-preservation instincts have been sharpened like you wouldn't believe."
"Too bad we're watching out for cops and not shivs."
I laughed as he pulled away from the curb. Sometimes, people who know I'm that Chris Burke get skittish around me, afraid to say anything that deliberately or accidentally refers to my past. I don't like people tiptoeing on eggshells around me; I tend to get defensive. Mike never tiptoed, he stomped, and I appreciated it.
It was damn good to see him again.
* * *
We made it to the restaurant without incident. Mike's paran
oia didn't stop him from finishing his own brew. I didn't finish my second beer. The last thing I wanted was to fall asleep by four in the afternoon.
"Here we are." Mike wheeled the car to the right, scanning for a parking space.
The restaurant was an Italian place on the end of a plaza that was also home to a nail salon, a laundromat, and a tae kwon do place. There were no parking spots available in front, so he turned the corner. A postage stamp-sized lot behind the building was also full. We parked on a side street half a block up, but at least it was shady. I braced myself for the expected blast of heat. Mike was busy with his phone, thumbing out yet another message. He saw me looking and angled the phone so I couldn't see the screen. "Colleen," he explained with an embarrassed shrug. "Sorry."
"Doesn't she trust you?"
"Not when I'm with you. She's heard all the stories."
"How can you remember any of them? You always passed out first."
But I was the one feeling the effects of two beers on the ride over. Bright sunlight bounced off chrome and glass. It stabbed at my eyes, made me feel woozy. I squinted in the glare as we passed the packed lot.
"I've passed this place a million times and it always looks empty," I said. "Are you sure we're going to get a table?"
"Everyone's getting their nails done. Hurry up, I'm roasting here!"
The restaurant interior was blessedly dark and cool. I stood just inside the door, soaking up the aroma of tomato sauce, garlic, and warm bread while my eyes adjusted and the afternoon heat was carried away by the air conditioner.
Mike walked in like he owned the place. A heavyset man who looked like an extra from The Godfather stood behind the bar, setting drinks on a tray for a pretty girl in a white shirt and black pants. She said to us, "You can sit anywhere you like. I'll have your menus in a moment." I glanced to the right, at the main dining area. Three couples occupied three tables. There were more drinks on the tray than people.
"Uh," Mike said.
The girl's dark eyes flicked from Mike to me. "Oh," she said. "Are you here for—"
"Yes."
"Oh, okay. Right. Just go on back. I'll, uh, I'll be with you in a minute."
Mike started forward but I grabbed his arm.
"Hold on, what's going on?"
"Nothing," he said. "Come on."
I fixed him with my hardest hard-guy stare, the one honed over eighteen shitty years in prison.
"What's up with you?" Mike said. He waved his fingers in the air between us like a cheap magician at a kid's party. "Is your 'spidey sense' tingling or something? "
"Yeah, something like that."
He took a step toward me and lowered his voice.
"You're not in prison anymore, Chris. Your senses are screwed up, that's all. There's no beat down in the yard coming, no riot in cell block 9. I just asked for a table in the back room, just so we're not interrupted. You know."
I knew. With the class reunion upon us and news outlets starved for stories, some editor thought it would be great to do a 'where are they now?' story about what was once billed as 'The Crime That Stunned Long Island.' One of the local cable news outlets jumped on the bandwagon, too. I refused to participate, but it didn't matter: my face—and James LaValle's, of course; we were forever a matched set—had been splashed around the TV, the Internet, the papers, and I found myself on the receiving end of The Look more often than I liked. The Look was what happened when someone either recognized me outright, or knew that they knew me from somewhere. I could see them puzzling it out, their mouths twisting as they tried to figure out where they had seen me before. I did my best to make sure I wasn't around when they figured it out.
I hesitated. The beer, the transition from hot to cool, from light to dark, had fuzzed my thinking. Something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Fine, have it your way," Mike said, throwing his hands up in surrender. "If that's what you want, we'll sit out here."
There were plenty of empty tables, but it was a cozy room, with too little space between the tables, and no booths to disappear into.
"No, you're right. Let's go in the back."
Mike led me to a set of double doors in the back. He paused, one hand on the knob.
"My folks come here a lot." His voice thundered through the restaurant. If his objective was to keep a low profile, he had just blown it.
"You want to say that again?" I said. "I don't think they heard you in the dojo."
He pushed open the door and stood to the side. I stepped past him.
"SURPRISE!"
The word crashed over me like a tidal wave. It rose out of a sea of faces that moved in, crowding me, reaching out with clasping hands. Prison reflexes kicked in—I clenched my fists and flexed my knees. Blood thundered in my ears. My eyes were everywhere at once, looking for both the quickest way out and the most threatening target.
"Easy, easy, easy" Mike said in a low, urgent voice in my ear. My arm twitched; he came that close to eating my elbow. I held it back, barely, as I realized: This was not a beat down in the shower, this was my high school reunion.
"Back up, back up," Mike boomed. He stepped past me and cleared the way, escorting me like I was Elvis in Vegas. Voices and faces coalesced, became recognizable even after twenty-five years. The crying, pear-shaped woman was Donna Melnyk. The craggy bald man was Peter Willis. There was Sheila Ritchie and Dawn Hulbert and Gary Feldman. They came to me one at a time bringing hugs, kisses, and kind words that I barely heard. Despite the graying or disappearing hair, the weight gain (or, in Sheila's case, weight loss), and my best attempts to forget them, I remembered each and every one of them. Mike stayed close, a firm hand on my shoulder, steering me through the crowd. Behind them all stood Randi. She watched me with her intense blue eyes, and when she saw that I wasn't going to run away or freak out, she allowed herself a smile.
Mike put a cold beer in my hand, and I was grateful, not because I needed the drink, but because I needed something to hold onto. Had it been a can, I might have crushed it. These fifteen people had once been part of my everyday life, but I had cut them off, certain they would never want to see me again. Not after what I had done. And they were proving me wrong. For years I had anchored myself with the certainty that everyone would hate me. That afternoon, my belief system crumbled out from beneath me, left me feeling untethered, adrift, like a lost balloon floating over the zoo.
The next hour or so passed in a haze as they showed me pictures of husbands and wives, partners and children. They told tales of life events, great and small; of parents who had passed on; and of children, some of whom were heading to college. I sat and grinned like a pumpkin carved up by a dentist who'd been sniffing at the laughing gas and said nothing of myself except, "I'm doing fine."
* * *
Drinks flowed. The pretty girl and the Godfather extra brought in chafing dishes stuffed with ziti and chicken rotini and eggplant parmesan. A big bowl of salad. Garlic bread. I don't remember getting on line, I don't remember eating, but I must have, because I found myself sitting at the table with a tomato sauce-smeared plate in front of me. Mike was holding court at the other end of the table, laughter rising around him as he recounted a story I had heard a million times, a story I had, in fact, lived through.
Gary Feldman sat next to me. He had started shaving his head at age thirty, he told me, when his premature hair loss became too great to ignore.
"I have to ask," he said. "Did you get that—" he nodded at my right arm, where an ugly scar snaked its way from elbow to wrist—"well, you know."
I pushed back and crossed my arms, left over right, trying to cover it up. The scar was why I normally wore long sleeves, but it had just been too damn hot, and I hadn't been expecting to be the center of attention.
"Boating accident," I said.
"What?" Gary blinked two or three times, then he smiled. "'That was no boating accident.'"
I relaxed, figuring he'd get the hint. Most people did. Gary, however, was not
most people.
"Seriously." He leaned in and dropped his voice to library volume. "Did you get stabbed?"
My smile vanished. I stared at him, and this time he got the hint, but it was the wrong hint.
"Holy shit—you did, didn't you? Wow." His eyes got big and round. "I've got to ask you something. How…I mean, how was it?"
"How was what?"
My voice was as cold as the beer in my hand, and that seemed to get through to him. His face paled and he drew back.
"Nothing, never mind."
But I couldn't 'never mind.' Not now. Something rose up in me, something hot and bitter, something that wanted—needed—to come out, and would not stop until it was.
"No," I said. "You had a question. Ask it."
"It's nothing. I was—"
"You were what? You wanted to know something. 'How was it?' you said. How was what? Prison? Getting stabbed? Or killing James?"
Gary's eyes darted left and right, looking for an escape, and he mumbled something into his hand. I knew I should let him go, but as I stared at him, his balding, forty-something year-old face faded away and I saw nineteen-year-old James LaValle grinning at me instead. James LaValle, his eyes red-ringed from his lunchtime doobie; James LaValle, his long brown hair hanging down around his pimpled face like limp, greasy drapes; James LaValle, matching my stride in the hallway, asking me about my stint in juvenile detention: "How was it? Did you take it in the ass? I bet you did. I bet you liked it."
I gulped a mouthful of beer and slammed the bottle down. Foam gushed over my hand.
"Is that why you're here? You want to know if prison is like The Shawshank Redemption? You want to know if I got fucked in the ass? Is that what you want to know?"
Gary shrank away from me. He looked small and scared, just like he did in high school when James tormented him. I wasn't the only one who suffered at James's hands.
"Chris!" Randi was in my face. "Chris, stop it!"
I came back to myself, realized I was standing, my hands balled into fists. My friends all found other things to look at: they inspected the ceiling for leaks, counted sugar packets, eyed their watches. They had given up an afternoon of bowling to be here and now they wouldn't look at me—and that was worse than being stared at.
Winter's Regret Page 4