Reunion

by Therese Fowler

  No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy. These days she lived that line, though it had given her trouble when they’d first been rehearsing the play. “The remedy,” Ms. Fitz, their director, had explained, “for the reason for their sighs. Oliver and Celia are desperate to sleep together, so their solution is to marry the next day and scratch that itch, so to speak.” What Amelia and Anthony plotted was a remedy for the pretty ribbon-wrapped life her father insisted should be her future—a future that didn’t include anyone remotely like Anthony. No intellectuals of any kind (“Too much thinking, not enough doing,” Harlan Wilkes was known to say). No tall, lean, black-haired young man with curls framing his heart-shaped face, a face that made one think, Italian, or possibly Jewish, or, depending on one’s familiarity with the wider world, Jordanian. Anthony could be any of these, could play all of them—that, Amelia thought, was part of his brilliance on stage.

  Kim Winter, his pale-skinned, ginger-haired mother and one of Amelia’s favorite teachers, had lent only her hazel eyes; the rest of Anthony’s features owed to his father’s contribution, the only thing the man had contributed before running out on his wife and unborn son, claiming that he’d made a mistake with marriage and a bigger one with fatherhood. Fortunately, Anthony inherited his mother’s capacity to soldier on—which is not to say Kim and Anthony were unaffected. When Anthony got moody he sometimes talked about how he would show his absent father how well he could do without him, how his father’s rejection was no loss but rather a favor, as useful to him as the Andalusian heritage responsible for their looks.

  His mother, native to upstate New York, where Anthony had lived until he was ten, was part Russian Jew, part Irish Catholic, part Canadian Quebecer, with a dose of Iroquois added in a few generations back. Heritage mattered, but it was not and should not be allowed to become everything. “On est tous dans le même bain,” she often told her French class students, Amelia included. We are all in the same boat. She also reminded them that “Borders are arbitrary, man-made things.” And then there was the one Amelia liked best: “Question authority.” That was the kind of adage Amelia needed, to help give her the courage to live her own life.

  Anthony’s mother was popular with the Ravenswood students, who signed up for her art or French classes even if they weren’t especially talented in either subject. Amelia, en route to school for first-quarter parent-teacher-student conferences last year, had told her parents this. “It’s not that she gives easy A’s or doesn’t assign homework. She’s just … cool.” This was a few weeks before Amelia met Anthony, at a time when she’d only heard him spoken of, sometimes in unfavorable tones. He’d started there as a junior, when Ms. Winter got hired on, and so he was a mystery to those who, like Amelia, had been there forever. Her fellow students weren’t sure how to classify him; he didn’t fit into any of the cliques. Not a jock. Not a prep. Not a stoner. Not goth. He was said to be smart, but quiet—not nerdy, though. More like the kind of guy you’d see in an Apple ad. His eyelashes were so thick and dark that even an innocent glance could seem sultry. The students couldn’t peg him, so they disparaged him—the girls halfheartedly because, after all, he was hot; there was no other word for it. When Amelia finally did see him, love him, meet him, she categorized him simply as Anthony.

  Driving home from the school after conferring with Amelia’s teachers, Harlan Wilkes had said, “Nothing against you, Ladybug, but I don’t see what’s so special about that Ms. Winter.”

  “She seemed very nice,” Amelia’s mother said. She turned to Amelia, who was riding in the backseat. “I noticed she doesn’t wear a wedding ring.”

  “She says she’s keeping her options open.” Amelia admired Ms. Winter’s positive attitude about being single and hoped it would rub off on her. Yes, Amelia had been only sixteen at the time, and a long way from having to face spinsterhood (if they even called it that these days), but she was fairly convinced that no man would love her once her faults were known. She thought she’d do well to accept that fate. Some things just weren’t attainable by determination and hard work.

  Her father said, “Keeping her options open? At her age?”

  “She’s not that old. You’re older than she is,” Amelia said.

  “And I’m married, and have been for twenty years.”

  “Well, I think she’s great.” That night Kim Winter had been dressed in wide-legged aubergine trousers and a cream knit turtleneck, with a vibrant watered-silk scarf tied around her neck. Amelia admired everything about her, including her style.

  Her father said, “Sure, she’s ‘great,’ if you think ‘great’ is being a single, middle-aged art teacher and making, what, thirty grand a year.” He glanced at Amelia over his shoulder. “And you wonder why I’m pushing you to go to school for business.”

  She didn’t wonder. She knew he simply didn’t understand. His world, the business of selling import cars, was not about art or beauty or magic. He indulged her interests, true, but only because he viewed them as extracurriculars, no different than her running track, or joining Drama Guild and French Club. She would have to wait until she was on her own, independent, and then she’d live the life she wanted. She’d be privileged to end up like Ms. Winter if it meant she was doing the things she loved.

  In the year that had passed since that evening, nothing had changed in her father’s way of thinking. Amelia’s thinking had changed, though, and once she turned eighteen in February, she would tell her parents in exactly which ways. She’d reveal her plan to move with Anthony to New York City, where they would both, if they got in, go to New York University for drama, and at the same time pursue Broadway careers. She longed to tell them now; it pained her to keep her feelings and her plans a secret. She knew, though, how they would react, and so the best strategy was to delay until it became a fait accompli, an unchangeable fact.

  Amelia saw Anthony’s aging Mini Cooper trailing Brandt Wilson’s new Infiniti, and shut off her car’s engine. Cameron McGuiness, her most faithful friend since their first days of kindergarten, spotted her from across the lot and waved. Cameron knew not to stop to talk in the morning, knew the few minutes Amelia would have with Anthony before class were a precious commodity. Amelia leaned her head against the leather-covered headrest and sighed. Summer could not come soon enough.

  Given his way, her father would see her married off on the Saturday following her college graduation (from any top Southern school, but preferably Duke) in a huge white wedding that included, of course, a ridiculously expensive white dress that would be complemented by an engagement diamond so heavy that she’d struggle to raise her left hand. A ring that would have been presented to her some tasteful number of months earlier (meaning, more than nine) by a twenty-first century version of Barbie’s Ken. Ken would wear a tux he owned, bought with his substantial income working in some first-rate white-collar field. There would be no Broadway career, only Broadway tickets—a torturous scenario to Amelia, who imagined the gut-wrenching envy she’d experience sitting in the audience watching other women live out the dream she’d been too softhearted and obedient to pursue. Her future could so easily have gone that way, if not for Anthony.

  Amelia’s smile, which had faded with the negative thoughts, reappeared when she saw Anthony walking toward her car. He, with his luxurious hair, his full lips, his quick wit, his quiet assurance, was her savior. He’d made her believe not only that she should claim her future for herself when the time came, but that she truly would. Her father did not own her. No man did. Whatever she would do, wherever she would go, it would all be on her terms.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Anthony said as Amelia opened her door and got out. She smiled. The thrill of him, of his love for her, her and not someone else, someone whose childhood had not been spent hiding a shameful flaw, delighted her. He looked at her mouth in that butterfly-inducing way he had, a kiss without contact. Safety first, they often joked with each other. Officially, publicly, they were nothing more than good friends who
shared a common love for theater, sushi, and music. Officially, they were too busy to date—anyone, at all. “Plenty of time for that later,” they always said.

  Amelia imagined the kiss (his soft lips, the heat of his mouth), and said, “Can’t we just run away?” She looked toward the Upper School, its pale stone edifice dazzling white in the morning sunlight. Teenagers streamed into the building, dressed in the uniform colors of navy and white and gray. The students were given some sartorial leeway: skirt, pants, or tailored shorts; collared blouse, button-down, tasteful knit shirt or golf shirt; crewneck, V-neck, or cardigan sweater—and in any combination of blue, white, or gray (except no white on the bottom between Labor Day and Memorial Day). But really, Amelia felt that requiring uniforms in the first place was a kind of tyranny. Free expression, that was what she longed for. Free expression of every kind.

  “Who needs this?” she said. “We can get GEDs in New York.”

  Anthony gave an exaggerated serious nod. “Right, sure, the NYU admissions office won’t see any difference.”

  “They shouldn’t,” she said. “If only we could stay there, after evaluations.” They both had to audition as part of their application to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. They’d set their appointments for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when they would be traveling to Manhattan with the Drama Guild. It was a chaperoned trip, but because they were seniors, they had blocks of free time to shop or roam or, as the case might be, fit in a morning at NYU. Anthony hadn’t needed to hide his plan from his mother, and Amelia envied this. What good were all the privileges she’d grown up with when none allowed her to be genuine at home? How good it would be to live every day honestly.

  “Seven months till graduation,” Anthony said. “We can make it. Then nobody can bitch at us about being irresponsible or ruining our futures.”

  “You don’t know my dad.”

  She had told Anthony all about him, of course, and Anthony had met him, briefly, a time or two, but she wondered if he thought she exaggerated. Harlan Wilkes the businessman, the offspring of Robeson County trailer-trash teenagers, a man who had pulled his own bootstraps up so high that no one in central North Carolina could think of imported automobiles without also thinking of his name, was known as bighearted and generous, fair and honest in all his dealings. And he was those things. He was also implacable, at least when it came to setting boundaries and providing guidance to his one dear, indulged, protected child. He fully expected Amelia to sail the course he’d charted for her. For the majority of her life, she’d let him expect it; despite her dreams, she had expected it of herself. Until Anthony.

  Anthony said, “Well, okay, you’re ruining his future either way. But let’s make sure we don’t ruin yours.”

  “Or yours.”

  Amelia imagined them headlining together at the Gershwin Theatre to a capacity crowd. Anthony was not the strongest tenor as Broadway tenors went, but what his voice didn’t do he made up for with stage presence. He was a panther, lithe, sleek, sloe-eyed. In her view—a rose-tinted view, by any adult’s standards—he would have no difficulty bewitching casting directors and audiences such that their ears would be persuaded to adore both his voice and him, much the way her mother’s had been when watching Pierce Brosnan in the film version of Mamma Mia!

  Anthony said, “Seven months.”

  “Two hundred and ten days.”

  “Give or take. Come on, let’s get this one over with.”

  During second period, the entire Upper School attended character assembly in the auditorium. This month’s trait was Trustworthiness. Amelia paid little attention to the serious, brittle-looking woman standing at the podium onstage, lecturing them on the value of trust. Who among them hadn’t sat through this presentation multiple times before? More important to Amelia was her forgotten laptop, which, in her dreamy morning state, she’d left on the kitchen counter. She needed it for her fifth period Earth Science presentation, a PowerPoint project that had taken her three weeks to construct. She texted her mother, asking her to drop the computer by the school ASAP, then sat there forming sign-language letters with her left hand, photographing them with her cell phone, and sending each picture to Anthony. She spelled out Y-A-W-N, and then K-I-S-S, while around her many of the other students were behaving similarly, texting complaints or jokes or making plans for where to go for lunch. No, they were not supposed to use their cell phones or any electronic devices during school hours, but they knew they could get away with it during assembly if they gave the appearance of paying attention. Even some of the teachers took out their devices to check email or keep up with the news. The stricter teachers would confiscate electronics used during class, and the school’s policy was to hold all confiscated items until the end of the term. The school had received so many complaints, though, from parents who depended on having continual access to their children, that the policy went unenforced; devices, if taken at all, were returned at the end of the day.

  Anthony wrote in reply: “—es,” and Amelia smiled. Kisses. On the heels of his reply came her mother’s: Hi. I’m in durham for a meeting. Will try to get it to you by lunch ok? Amelia wrote back, K, thx. The girl on Amelia’s right, Bella Giordano, nudged her and hissed, “Braddock.” The Upper School’s headmaster was coming down the aisle behind them. Amelia wondered whether Anthony was right in thinking there was something romantic going on between Braddock and his mother. That, she thought, would be weird, but also nice; they’d make a perfect pair. Like herself and Anthony. Meant to be. Amelia pressed her phone between her palms and sighed. Seven months, she thought. Two hundred and ten days, give or take.

  The waiting—for graduation, but more than that, for The Future, was exhausting. Every day was like treading water while waiting for a ship she could barely see on the horizon. Time passed so slowly that Amelia would swear the Earth had quit rotating—possibly at her father’s request. Hardly a day went by when Harlan Wilkes didn’t lament that Next year at this time, you’ll be waking up in a Duke dorm room, which he didn’t know wouldn’t happen even if she did get in, or, It’s going to be way too quiet without you here, despite her spending almost no time at home already, and his rarely being there when she did.

  He wanted Amelia to be ten again, his adoring, adorable princess waving from atop the back seat of a Mercedes convertible as they inched through downtown Raleigh in the Christmas parade. He missed the pre-teen who’d been his steadfast companion in the “stable,” helping him wash and wax whichever roadster they would take out for a drive that day. There were Bugattis, Triumphs, an Austin Healey, a Bentley, a Morgan, and a 1947 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, which he would drive only early in the morning on days when the roads were dry and there was no wind. Though Amelia had no genuine interest in the cars themselves, she’d loved listening to her father’s stories of his childhood, of how poor he’d been, of how he’d dreamed of one day being rich enough to buy a brand new Chevy truck. “And now look at us,” he’d say, polishing the Wraith’s black fender into a mirror that reflected his satisfaction and her proud grin. He had been the only man in her world then.

  The phrase “Daddy’s Girl” had been inspired by daughters like Amelia, who couldn’t know that by simply growing up they were bound to break their fathers’ hearts. Had Amelia known that a tough man could be fragile too, she might have taken even more care to protect him.

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  About the Author

  THERESE FOWLER is the author of Souvenir. She holds a BA in sociology and an MFA in creative writing. She grew up in Illinois, and now lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina, with her husband and two sons.

  Reunion is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Therese Fowler

  Reading group guide copyright © 2011 by Random House, Inc.

  Excerpt from Exposure copyright © 2011 by Therese Fowler

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.