by Ann Michaels
professional and just a little bit sexy. Closer to the day, she booked-in to have her hair done: to eradicate those wiry grey strands: to obtain a youthful and expensive gloss. She felt, almost like a teenager again.
Facebook Friends
It was very late one Friday night in April, 2009, when Richard logged into Facebook and noticed that Therese had finally surfaced, and joined their Facebook school group. His heart began to hammer and he felt suddenly transported back to that callow youth, he had been at eighteen. His reaction was crazy, he knew that. But he thought: it seems like the feelings of our past, can hold us hostage into our future.
Although he and Therese soon became Facebook ‘friends’, Therese, also, became friends with many others and she rarely posted anything, except for the occasional picture of her dog, or, something about some woman’s novel, of which he knew absolutely nothing about. And so, when the reunion was announced in 2014, he really knew very little about Therese’s life, at all.
The next morning, though, he changed his routine; he pulled himself from bed early and took a run around the park and fantasied about telling Therese how he was now an Associate Professor. He imagined her being impressed. He’d have to buy some new clothes.
The first thing that anyone noticed about Kerry’s Facebook profile was an avatar of two dogs, with silly hats on. Unlike many other gay people, she stayed under the radar. Kerry had so much respect for those people who put themselves out into the breach, as an activist, and champion for gay rights. But she couldn’t do it. Not yet.
Growing up Catholic in a working class suburb had had the effect of making Kerry very wary. Her inclination was to conform to the norms and expectations around her. When she could. In her younger years, she had seen effeminate looking boys stomped on and beat up by gangs of boys, straightjacketed by a stereotyped masculinity: the Town Mall was where the lynch mob hung out. As for females, like her: they seemed not to exist. They were driven underground into hiding, and driven to deceit and camouflage. And she, also, was not ready to break cover: even now.
But Kerry was going to the reunion; she was looking forward to seeing her old friends’ again, as lately, she had been thinking a lot about them. She hadn’t seen Richard for years; she wondered where Marco was in the world, and Sonja, she remembered with great fondness. As for Jesse: she had been searching for him for years and thought that he might have adopted a stage name? Recently, she had tracked down Jesse’s father on Facebook, and was waiting for a message back. Sometimes, she even thought of Therese.
.
Tonight’s The Night
The day had been a roaster, but now a sea breeze softened the edges of the evening, allowing Sonja to feel delicious breaths of air on her bare arms, through the open car window. She was wearing her new, purple, sheath dress and she glanced down quickly at her beautifully flat stomach: all that dieting and exercise had paid off.
Sonja parked her car, a compact VW Golf, in the pub parking-lot, and weaved her way through the other cars, careening on her Jimmy Choo pumps. As she came around to the front of the building, Sonja became aware of an animated figure, hopping about and waving at her, through the large, glass window. It was Kerry! Kerry bounded outside, onto the hot footpath, and excitedly leapt about, talking and helloing at top speed. Sonja pulled Kerry into her arms and gave her a hug: so happy to see her old friend, after all these years.
As Sonja and Kerry stepped inside the pub, they were enveloped by the soft darkness, perfumed with the fertile smell of hops. From behind them, Marco appeared like a vision: handsome as ever; expensive looking, smooth, elegant and stylish. They hugged happily, and then, advanced toward the back room, where a small crowd of their alumni were: talking, laughing and remembering. You could feel the swell of emotion, bouncing off the walls.
The next hour was very moving and intense, as they found old friends; old enemies and remembered people, who they had dismissed, or hardly thought about since school.
There would be so much to think about later, when the night was over. How some people showed the scars and wounds of a difficult life; how others had hardly changed, except for a bit of greying hair and a wrinkle or two. There were formerly thin people who were now obese; one or two formerly overweight students had transformed into taunt bodied fitness fanatics. And, at least one high school dropout was now very rich and successful, indeed. There were so many stories right here in this room, of: success, failure, joy, sadness, illness, health, marriage, divorce, love and hate. Some of these stories, or revised versions of them, were swirling about the room; stories released in relief, finally, to someone who understood, who you had been, when you were young.
Therese and Richard clapped eyes on each other, when Therese, elegant and poised in her white, linen dress, was on her way to the bar to buy a glass of white wine. Richard was just turning around from purchasing a cider, when he saw her. Strangely, although his mouth suddenly became dry, he felt only the melting happiness of seeing an old friend, who had shared his life so long ago. Their kiss was perfunctory, and they spoke of their lives with an easy slickness; one successful person to another. Their most private selves were tightly locked away tonight, and would not be given an airing.
At about eight o clock, Kerry glanced at the clock and made a choice. She took a deep breath and told her friends about her ‘wife’ and child, as they all stood about nibbling chips and sipping drinks. Each in turn hugged her and told her that they were glad, that she has found happiness. Marco gave Kerry a special smile.
Later in the night, Sonja found an empty table, in a corner, by an old, sooty fireplace, and Therese, Richard, Marco and Kerry ambled over to join her. They spread out, lounging on the old, battered chairs and placing their glasses heavily on the table, to mark their territory. Kerry, however, did not sit down. She stood, looking sad and uncertain and said, ‘I’ve got something important and difficult to tell you, but I don’t know how to start’. Richards quipped, ‘what! You’ve got even more to tell us!’ Kerry closed her eyes and continued, ‘For some years, I have been trying to track down Jesse’. The heads of her friends’ jerked upward, like they had been stung with a live wire. They stared at her expectantly. ‘But it was only a month ago that, I finally managed to locate his father on Facebook. You might remember that his parents divorced, when we were in our last year of school…anyway…’ She stopped.
‘So why didn’t’ he come’, asked Marco softly. ‘Was it because he couldn’t?’
‘He couldn’t come, because, he died of a drug overdose fifteen years ago.’
They sat, knocked into silence, as they thought about their: clever, tortured and witty friend, who could not be with them. Ever again.
Kerry took a deep breath, hoping in her mind that, her friends would truly be able to understand, before she continued.
‘Jesse is also the father of my almost thirty year old son, James’.
Jaws dropped, eyes popped and brains went off-line.
When the group had recovered to a certain extent, Kerry fished her phone from her bag and showed her friends’ a few photos of James. She watched, as they stared at the young man, with the sandy hair, and as they traced the lines of their old, lost friend in that face; that face, that was so familiar in so many ways, and which also, too, had the mark of Kerry upon it. But it was strange to think that, this young man, James, was older than their friend had been when they knew him, way back when.
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When Richard finally left his friends’ that night to go home, he lay awake, thinking in the warm darkness. The next morning, he told his wife, Linda, all about the night and his friend, who was gone from this earth. She cried, as she remembered that speech Jesse had delivered, like a gift, at their wedding, so many years before. Then, Richard told her his idea, and asked if she would help.
When the World Wide Web and the personal computer began to trickle down into ordinary households during the 1990s, Lin
da came to life. She bought some books about coding and she began making her own websites. She did very well for herself. Linda hadn’t made millions, but she was comfortably off. These days, though, she mostly devoted her energy to her blog about organic gardening.
Richard wanted Linda to help him create a website dedicated to Jesse. And so, together, they spent months on social media, sending out messages, and tracking down and gathering any information that they could find.
Amazingly, there were people out there who had photos and videos featuring Jesse: Jesse performing comedy, telling stories, and playing in his band. And there were lots other things too. One person sent them an irreverent, clever and funny story that, Jesse had written on a paper napkin; another sent a whole cassette tape of Jesse singing and telling satirical and ribald, political tales. As the evidence of Jesse’s life and talent flowed into Richard and Linda’s life, they added it to the website, they had created. And in this way, Jesse became more famous, acclaimed and glorified, than he ever had been while he was alive.
It might have been that, a man sitting at a pub drinking a cold beer, would tell a few mates about Jesse and his antics and his songs, and how there was a website all about this bloke; or, it