The One That I Want

by Marilyn Brant

I grimaced. “It’s probably too late to attend. I’m sure I missed the RSVP deadline.”

  The other teacher regarded me thoughtfully and thumbed through a few screens on her iPhone. “Nope,” she said brightly. “The RSVP deadline isn’t until Tuesday.” She flashed her phone calendar at me and grinned. “Register for it this weekend, and we can go together, if you’d like. It’ll be more fun that way, don’t you think?”

  Her enthusiasm and warmth was infectious, and I found myself not only agreeing but, surprisingly, feeling a burst of happiness at the idea. There was a different energy here with this crowd than with most of my teaching colleagues (Shar excepted). I liked being seen in a new light, not as “poor Julia Meriwether Crane, whose husband crashed his car and died on impact.” I liked that I’d just made a new friend, too.

  Of course, I couldn’t think about teacher training and my Franklin College days without thinking of Ben Saintsbury. I’d only dated a handful of guys as an undergrad, but my longest and most intense relationship had been with Ben. And it had ended badly. Like “Agony of Defeat” badly.

  I cringed remembering. I wondered if he’d be there and, if so, how he’d react to seeing me again. Or how I’d react to seeing him.

  But I decided not to think about it. Ben’s potential presence aside, the reunion was scheduled for Saturday, July tenth—the first weekend after I had to take Analise to camp. I needed to plan activities for myself during her month away or I’d go batshit crazy.

  The group’s conversation turned to other things. A few of the guys brought up baseball, a topic that had many fervent fans, male and female alike. I listened, smiled a lot, and worked on finishing my one glass of merlot (it wasn’t bad), as the discussion wove through other Chicagoland sports teams, sites to take in while down in the city, the horrors of home appliance breakdowns, and the best/worst of the summer movie flicks.

  “Oh!” a well-dressed woman sitting near Shar exclaimed. I studied her casual but perfectly coordinated outfit and her gentle features, and found myself wishing I could project the kind of self-possessed, confident air she gave off. “That reminds me—”

  “Billy?” a clear voice called from across the room, interrupting the lady and effectively halting conversation at half the tables in the wine bar. “Bill Dennon?”

  “Hey, Kris!” the slightly balding Cubs fan across the table from me called back. “So good to see you, man. Heard you were back in town.”

  The guy was walking in from behind me, so I felt it would be rude to turn and look. It wasn’t until Bill announced to the group, “Everyone, meet my old traveling soccer buddy, Kristopher Karlsen,” that my head snapped around to stare.

  Oh, hell, no!

  It couldn’t be. Not the same Kristopher Karlsen from high school. Not the hot, athletic senior who’d crushed my teenage heart when he graduated a year before I did and, immediately, broke up with me. Not—

  “Who’re you calling ‘old,’ Billy?” the man striding up to us said with a laugh. He and Bill shook hands.

  Yep.

  The very same Kristopher Karlsen.

  My first outing with the Quest group and this was what I got, huh? Some kind of crazy walk down memory lane, just when I most desperately wanted to move forward… I felt a bubble of near-hysterical laughter rise up in my throat.

  Kristopher waved in a friendly but somewhat unseeing way at the cluster of individuals in front of him. Not really focusing, I could tell, on any of our faces. His attention was on Bill and reminiscing about their old sports friends from the surrounding suburbs and a handful of their regional soccer tournaments, which was fine by me. It gave me a chance to study him.

  Blue jeans. A perfect fit.

  A Polo shirt and expensive leather loafers that contradicted his attempt at casualness. He was too studiously relaxed to be genuinely so.

  His brown hair was shaved close, a militaristic buzz cut, so different from the longish look he’d favored during our high-school years.

  Muscles that were weight-lifter toned. Not huge, but larger than I recalled.

  His dark eyes—complete with those long, black eyelashes—fit my memory of him exactly, though.

  It wasn’t until Bill invited him to sit down with us that Kristopher’s gaze locked on mine. He pulled up a chair directly across the table from me, those dark eyes never leaving my face.

  “Jules?” he mouthed.

  I nodded.

  He scanned my eyes, my lips, my chest, then returned to my eyes again and broke into a warm smile. “What group is this, Billy?” he asked his friend. “Work colleagues?”

  “Singles’ group,” Bill supplied.

  Kristopher stared at me in shock. “Really? You?”

  Half the table was now looking at us with speculation, but Shar was the first to speak. “How do you two know each other?” she asked.

  “High school,” Kristopher and I said together.

  An amused smile played at the corners of Shar’s mouth. “Did you two date or something?”

  “Not seriously,” I said.

  “Oh, yes!” Kristopher said at the same time.

  Shar’s smile broadened. “I don’t think I’ve heard this story,” she told Kristopher then thumbed in my direction. “Julia and I only met about five years ago.”

  Kristopher beamed one of his gorgeous twinkly grins at my friend and then at me. “Julia and I dated for months. But then, well, I graduated, and she never wrote to me or anything. Forgot about me the second I left town.” He gave a pitiable shrug.

  “What?” I cried. “You broke up with me. You said you needed to ‘focus on your sports.’ That you had ‘no time for girlfriends’ when you had your ‘true loves’—soccer and football.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You did!”

  “No.”

  I crossed my arms, livid. “Yes.”

  “Really?” He squinted at me. “Was I that dumb?”

  He caught me off guard and, in spite of myself, I laughed. He laughed, too, and my indignation, along with about nineteen years of residual resentment, melted away in the span of just a few heartbeats. “Yep.” I nodded.

  He covered his face with his palms then peeked through his fingers at me. “What’s the statute of limitations on stupid high-school jock behavior?”

  I pondered. “Um…two decades?”

  Kristopher feigned wiping his brow. “Whew. Got it in just under the wire. I probably owe you lunch or at least coffee and a muffin. Something to make up for being a dick when I was eighteen. How ’bout next week, if you’ve got a little time?”

  Wow, that was skillfully done. So. Smoooooth. I was impressed. I’d had no intention of agreeing to a date with anyone, and yet…

  Well, this was different. Kristopher was an old friend. It wasn’t really a romantic type of engagement.

  With the exception of Shar and Bill, the others had gone back to their conversations so, thankfully, I didn’t have too many people witnessing my fumbles with setting up a (sort-of) date for the first time in twelve years. It was awkward, but I agreed to coffee and gave Kristopher my phone number, which he dutifully punched into his cell so we could arrange a time and day to meet later.

  Shar nudged me when he wasn’t looking and whispered, “See? Not so hard, is it?”

  I made a face at her and shrugged.

  Finally, the party was beginning to break up. I was mentally congratulating myself on making it through the evening when the very sweet, well-dressed woman—Elsie was her name—wolf whistled. “Wait, people!”

  Everyone halted.

  “I’ve been wanting to tell you this good news all night.” She paused for effect. “You know my friend Rosemary, the one who works at the Knightsbridge Theater in the city, right?”

  Most of the group nodded, seeming to have met Elsie’s friend or, at least, heard about her.

  “There’s a dress rehearsal for their upcoming summer production, ‘The Bachelor Pad,’ this Thursday at six-thirty i
n the evening, in advance of next Friday’s Opening Night,” Elsie said. “And Rosemary reserved a block of seats for us.”

  Despite the noise in the wine bar, an audible spike in sound came on the heels of those words, and a couple of the women actually squealed.

  I squinted at them. I mean, tickets to a play were always nice, but wasn’t this taking theatrical enthusiasm a bit far?

  “But that’s not all,” Elsie continued enthusiastically. “Rosemary also got us passes to meet the cast, just as she did for that steampunk musical last year—”

  “Steampunk musical?” I hissed in Shar’s ear.

  She nodded. “It was bizarre. Tell you more about it later.”

  I grinned and brought my glass of wine to my lips, draining it of its final swallow.

  “—including a special Q&A session with the director, Zachary Leeward,” Elsie added, “and with the star of the show, Dane Tyler.”

  I choked on the last drops of merlot, coughing so hard that Bill reached across the table to hand me a fresh glass of ice water, Shar patted me on the back, and everyone else stared at me worriedly. Except for Kristopher. He shot me a knowing look.

  Yeah, of course he’d remember that.

  “Are you okay?” Elsie asked me.

  I gulped down half the water. Oh, God. Of all the actors on the planet—Dane Tyler. Here? REALLY?

  My teen world had just materialized out of thin air, like that freaky phantom ship that came from absolutely nowhere in Pirates of the Caribbean. My gut twisted weirdly, and I could barely breathe. “P-Please go on,” I managed to whisper.

  She smiled. “So, if any of you want to go to the performance, and I know you do, let me know now, and I’ll email the list of names to Rosemary in the morning.”

  Elsie was right. With the exception of one accountant guy, who had an out-of-town business trip next week, and a very disappointed single mom, whose kid was playing in a baseball tournament Thursday night, everyone else signed up to go.

  Including me, at Shar’s insistence. And including Kristopher.

  My old high-school boyfriend leaned over the table and said with a laugh, “Well, isn’t that something? Maybe, if you ask him real nice, he’ll recite your favorite lines from your favorite movie to you.”

  “Ha,” I said weakly.

  “Which lines? Which movie?” Shar asked.

  Before I could reply, Elise jumped in and pointed to Shar and then me. “You two want to ride down with me?”

  Shar answered for both of us. “Oh, yeah!”

  Although I managed to stop tripping over my own tongue and was able to thank the kind woman, I didn’t succeed in making more than a few last bits of small talk. All I could do was blush furiously and think to myself, in the fevered squeaking of an adolescent schoolgirl, OMG, I’m finally going to see Dane Tyler in person! Maybe even talk to him!

  In just one evening, three distinct memories of men from my past played out like a warped summertime version of A Christmas Carol in my mind. Haunting memories of relationships that I’d had or had lost or had wanted—sometimes simultaneously and always more powerfully than I’d expected—were reeling through my brain on a continuous loop, braiding my emotions with the mental film footage.

  Before my best friend could ask me any more questions I didn’t want to answer, I hugged her goodnight and raced into the evening, forgetting until my feet hit the pavement and I collapsed into the driver’s seat of my car that I wasn’t, in fact, lost in time.

  That I wasn’t living out some high-school fantasy.

  That I wasn’t a vulnerable young woman, helpless in the face of fate.

  I started the engine, replayed those last three thoughts again, and shook my head.

  Like hell I wasn’t.

  Chapter Three

  A few days later, Brooke and Lindsay were at our house, watching some Nickelodeon show with Analise in the family room while I was cleaning. I’d vacuumed. I’d dusted. And, now, I was flipping through a stack of papers and junk mail, preparing to de-clutter.

  I’d unearthed the letter from the university after Friday night’s wine-bar adventure. Read the whole thing this time. Couldn’t miss seeing Ben’s name on the bottom of it. If I’d had any question about whether or not he’d go to the reunion, reading his name alongside those of the rest of the planning committee confirmed the former. He’d be there.

  I ripped the letter in half and tossed it out with a coupon for Steiger’s Gas Station, which I knew I’d never remember to use, and the flyer about a local politician’s booksigning, which I had no interest in attending.

  Didn’t matter in any case if I kept the Franklin College letter or not. I’d already RSVP’ed. Tempting as it was to back out of going, I’d promised Vicky I’d drive to the reunion with her. I didn’t want to let her down.

  As I sifted through some old magazines and a stack of paid utility bills, I could hear random but happy shrieks coming from down the hall. Some were eardrum piercing, but I didn’t mind. Not the way I used to. Once upon a time, I might have gently reprimanded Analise for that, but not anymore. It happened so infrequently. Yvette’s daughters brought out the silliness in her again, and Analise liked and trusted them. A lot. I was going to encourage their growing bond with all the strength I had.

  Last fall, the other girls had lost their beloved grandfather, Yvette’s dad. To their credit, they were somehow able to transfer their understanding of their grief to the way my daughter must have been feeling. Their empathy, in their youthful but fully honest way, helped pull Analise along through those very dark first months.

  I couldn’t help but feel eternally grateful to Yvette for that, too. She’d been particularly sensitive and supportive during the entire ordeal—not just to my daughter but, also, to me. Not a surprise, really. She’d been a sweet and compassionate person even in high school.

  We’d been fringe friends at the time, not close ones, but I’d always considered her a good acquaintance. She’d preferred music to movies back then. Service projects over dating. So we’d had less in common as teens. Even so, I was pretty sure she’d shown up in my old diary entries. Among other people…

  The giggles of the three girls receded as I raced down the hallway and slipped into our bedroom. Well, no. Now it was only my bedroom. Every time I remembered things like this I felt that familiar tear at the edges of my heart. Like a tugging at the borders of a scab. But, nevertheless, I slid the decorative cardboard box out from under my dresser, knowing that the memorabilia it contained predated my adult life or even my courtship with Adam.

  I lifted the dusty lid and peered at the assortment of collectibles and sentimentalities inside. There were actual mix cassette tapes, filled with pop songs from a bygone era. There were pressed roses and a couple of corsages from dances that took place years ago. Homecoming. Prom. There were love letters—or what passed for love back in high school—from the boy who’d dominated my thoughts. And there were a handful of diaries, but there was only one of them that I reached for and pulled out of the box.

  It was smallish. This light-blue relic of my adolescence had a soft leather cover, a small key attached and dangling from the front, and a broken lock refastened hastily with some crackled, ancient masking tape.

  I brushed at the gaudy silver filigree with my thumb, tracing the scripty words: “My First Diary.” Then I flipped to the first page of my old record of my high-school days, exhaling and counting to five. Did I really need to revisit this?

  Yes.

  Unfortunately, yes.

  The first lines jumped out at me, dragging me back to another time and place: Mirabelle Harbor High School. Sophomore year. To a circle of friends: Megan Rhea. Debbie Brunmeier. Ashley Jennings. Cyndie Redding. Yvette Hampton, née Smythe. And let’s not forget, Kristopher Karlsen, that tall, cute junior, who seemed to take up most of the space in my head when I was sixteen. Or Dane Tyler, the actor that made me wish I could be cast in my very own, real-life production of Bye Bye Birdie.

&
nbsp; Saturday, January 14th

  I can’t believe I’ve been 16 for a whole week already! I love this diary that Aunt Barb sent me for my birthday—it’s perfect. Now, when I don’t want to tell any of my school friends about Kristopher Karlsen, I can still confide my private thoughts here.

  Someday, he’s going to like me. I can just feel it. Even Megan thinks so, and everybody knows how cynical she is. He smiled at me yesterday when I passed him going into the library for study hall. And he looked at me for longer than most people when he did. I think it’s a sign.

  Anyway, next weekend Debbie, Ashley, and I are going out to see the new Dane Tyler movie—Warriors of Warrenville High. I can’t wait!! Yvette and Cyndie might come, too. Maybe Kristopher and his friends will be at the theater as well… Wouldn’t that be amazing?!

  I’ll write all about it, and about everything else.

  Oh, and I did. I wrote and wrote and wrote, ad nauseam.

  Scores of pages of what Kristopher said, what he might have thought, what I think he did. And just as many pages devoted to Dane and the movies he was in, my interpretation of his acting, and the latest tabloid rumors about his love life. If I would’ve spent a fraction as much time and mental energy on my math homework, I might have gotten higher than a C- in geometry that semester.

  I flipped through the next several pages, reading snippets of what I’d once thought were highly exciting details about my life.

  Friday, January 20th

  OMG! Warriors of Warrenville High was SO good! Dane Tyler is SO talented! He played Mark Adams, a quarterback who was struggling to lead his high-school football team to victory after several seasons of failure. Of course, there were all sorts of problems with his two-faced friend on the team, and then there was this girl he really liked, Alexa (played by Daphne Styles), and he was only able to convince her he loved her after he won the game and proved that the bad teammate was lying about him being a drug addict.

  I thought Dane’s acting was just amazing. And I guess he’s even from around here! Can you imagine going to a real high school with guys like HIM in it? I’d love to know if he’s got a girlfriend in real life. TeenLife Digest said “sources” reported that he and Daphne were an item. I wonder if he liked kissing her, and if she liked kissing him. (Well, who wouldn’t?!)