NEW MEMORIES

His father managed to drag him out of the house that afternoon after relentlessly pestering him all through the day. They took a long stroll around the neighborhood, then made a stop at Mrs. Baker’s candy shop in the business district of the community. He had many memories from the time he worked there during his high-school years, and his father was determined to remind him of as many as he could recall of those he had been involved in making.

It was his first time visiting in years. Once upon a distant time, he had deeply loved Brownsville. When he was in high-school he abhorred the thought of living away from the community. It was home for him. It was home for his family. It was home for his closest friends. It was the only place he knew and loved, and he derived great pride from being surrounded by true patriots.

That quickly changed when his biochemist mother returned from her assignment abroad with a strange illness. Their lives changed dramatically after her return. His father had had to resign his employment to focus on caring for her and the family. He had had to take his job at the candy shop more seriously because the family needed every penny it could get. His sister had had to take charge of him when their father started to spend more time with their mother at the Military Hospital.

The rapid change popped the bubble he’d been living in, and each passing day wringed out the love he had for Brownsville. When his father arrived home with news one evening, disoriented and broken, it was the final blow. When the admission letters started pouring in, he chose the one farthest away from Brownsville and never looked back.

Ten years had drifted by since he made that decision. As he looked around Mrs. Baker’s candy shop and uncorked his bottled-up memories, he found himself smiling. Spending so much time away had healed his wounds, so he could afford to look back on the memories with a fondness that became alien to him after he moved away.

***

He had been standing by the counter, listening to his father chat with Mrs. Baker, his mother’s best friend, when someone moving past the window overlooking the street caught his eye. He immediately disengaged himself from the conversation and moved towards the window to investigate further.  

From what he could see, she had scarcely changed. Tall. Lanky. Hair bundled into two buns on opposite sides of her head. He recognized the spring in her step. He recognized the sway of her hips. He recognized the fullness of her backside.

She had entirely occupied his thoughts after they graduated from Brownsville High School, but life and its vicissitudes had gradually brushed her into the background as more pressing issues came to the fore.

For the first time in years, he felt sensations that only she could evoke. He felt a tingling in his palms as they began to flood with sweat. He felt constrained by his shirt and the jacket that sat atop it. He felt a dryness in his throat, which refused to budge despite the large amounts of saliva he began to swallow. His eyes latched onto her and refused to let go. His heart called out to her by beating harder and faster. His legs stayed rooted to the spot, to afford his eyes time to feast.

It had been ages since he’d seen her. She had all of a sudden disappeared into thin air. He wondered if she was still the girl who caused him to drench his tuxedo with sweat as he walked up to her to ask her for a dance. He wondered if she had changed, and how. He decided to find out. 

***

He picked a red rose from the bunch lined up neatly on the display outside the shop. There was so much he wanted to say, there was so much he wanted to know. Over the years, he had probed the internet in search of her, picking up all potential clues and examining each one closely, but they all led to dead ends. It had been much easier to find mutual friends of theirs, but no one had been able to give him any concrete information.

He followed her on the opposite side of the street, all the while hoping she would turn in his direction so he could signal her to stop. When the traffic lights permitted the movement of vehicles and brought her to a stop, he saw his opportunity. 

He sprinted across the street and as he neared her, he called out, “Candace, how are you doing?” he was surprised at the sight of a transparent plastic mask around her lower-face. 

She pushed away a strand of her frayed hair from her pale face with a bony finger, and said, in a soft voice, “Hello!” Although he could still see evidence of the girl he had once known, gone was the cheerleader who’d actively cheered the school team to victory. Gone was the bookworm with a look of curiosity in her eyes. Gone was the voice that kept him company on nights when sleep reported late for duty. The girl before him had a slightly hunched and shrunken frame. She stared at him through tired eyes and had to make a conscious effort to keep herself balanced on her feet. “How are you doing?”

When she fiddled with a cylinder inside a bag hanging off her left shoulder, his eyes darted in its direction, and there, he discovered the origin of the transparent cord connected to the mask on her face. His eyes followed a stream of white gas all the way up the cord to the mask on her face, then he watched her consume it all in one deep breath. She had a look of satisfaction on her face when she returned her full attention to him. 

He decided to stick with his plan, so he thrust forward his hand and handed her the rose. “This is for you.”

Her face burst with life for a few microseconds, but her condition quickly bullied it into submission. “This is very kind of you.” She delicately raised the flowers to her nose and breathed in deeply. He didn’t know if she could actually smell it through the mask, but he was happy to see a smile on her face. “How can I help you, sir?”

“I’m Andre Wilson.”

She nodded gingerly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Andre Wilson. Have we met before?”

He hadn’t been expecting hugs and kisses, but he hadn’t been expecting the blank stare either. He had spent too much time searching for her to let the chance encounter go to waste, so he prodded further. “We were both at the Brownsville High School back in the day, we had a few mutual friends back then. We even shared a dance at the school prom.” When he didn’t see any signs of recollection, he added, “It has been a while though.”

She nodded. “Yes it has.” She looked up thoughtfully. “I can barely recall half of the things that happened high school. But I know we kids were up to no good most of the time.” They both chuckled. “How time flies.”

“Yes, indeed. Time does fly.” The traffic light turned red again, so he said, “Where are you heading to this cool evening?”

“I’m off to the grocer to get some ingredients for dinner.” She said, gesturing with her head at the store on the other side of the street.

“I’ll walk with you then.” He said, definitively.

She shook her head nervously. “I don’t want to be a bother. I appreciate the rose, but I don’t want to hold you back from your plans for the evening.”

He shook his head. “I don’t really have any plans. I was just taking a stroll with my dad. We can pick him up on our way back.” He stood his ground.

She exhaled. Wearing a look of frustration, she said, “I see your mind is made up.”

He shrugged, and said, with a cheeky smile, “That’s the consequence of forgetting how good a dancer I was at the prom. You have to make new memories with me to replace the ones you forgot.” He took the first step onto the zebra crossing and motioned for her to follow him. “Come along! If we don’t move fast, we’ll have a late dinner. I prefer having my meals early.”

She beamed at him and raised the rose to her nose again. As she took her first steps towards him, she said, “New memories?”

 “Yes,” He smiled. “New memories.”