In the Wake of the Past

Reruns of the Simpsons were just kicking off when the iconic theme was interrupted by my cell phone chirruping from my pocket. I took a quick peek at the number, which I didn’t recognize, and clicked the ignore button. It got me thinking of the old days, before caller identification, when every call that came to your house was a gamble. Nowadays, we were easier to reach than ever, and harder to get a hold of. My phone buzzed and chirped again. Same number, and they hadn’t left a voicemail. I answered this time, thinking that maybe it was some kind of emergency, maybe Hailey calling from a different number if her cell had died.

“Hello?” I ventured cautiously.

“Jeremy? Is this Jeremy Weaver?”

The man’s voice was hesitant, a little shaky sounding, as if he were nervous.

“May I ask who’s calling?” I said politely, still unsure if it was a telemarketer or some other unwanted caller.

“It’s James. James Haverford.” There was a beat of silence. “From Kennett High School?”

“Oh!” I said, startled. My brain was doing mental acrobatics, trying to place the name with the context. It clicked after a moment; Jimmy Haverford, a fellow Kennett Wasp, class president of our senior year, and someone I hadn’t thought of in the twenty-odd years since we had graduated. “Holy cow, Jimmy, how the hell are ya? Sorry, it took me a second to connect the dots there.”

He chuckled dryly, and the quaver of nervousness seemed to lift from his voice.

“No problem,” he said. “It’s been twenty-five years, I think I can forgive you for a moment’s lapse. I’m doing just fine, and how are you?”

“Great,” I replied truthfully. “Married, kids, house in the ‘burbs. American dream, you know?”

He laughed again, and it sounded genuine. “Hey that’s good to hear, Jeremy. Listen, you’re probably wondering why I called. I’ve been trying to round up our graduating class, maybe try and plan a reunion. You might know, we haven’t had a proper one since our ten year. I figured it might be nice to see everybody again.”

I let out a low whistle. “Sounds like quite the project. How many have you reached?”

“Quite a few, actually. Got about a hundred or so that have committed. Getting down to the bottom of the alphabet now. Just you, Dana White, and Kassidy Zerhoff left.”

The last name sent a ripple of cold across my upper back. “Well,” I said, “I can save you a bit of time on the last name. Kass died a few years ago. Car accident.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. It dragged on for a moment, until finally I had to clear my throat.

“Oh,” he said softly. “Oh my. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, not knowing what else to say. I was privately thinking that it was inconceivable that he hadn’t heard the news. Kassidy had been the most popular girl in our class; bright, beautiful, with a seemingly limitless zest for each and every facet of life. Her death had been a terrible blow to me. Kass and I had dated for a brief but lovely time a few years after we had graduated, a relationship that both of us dove headfirst into and barely came up for air. Fast forward nearly a year, and something changed. A dark cloud seemed to have come over her, and the person that she had been slowly drifted away, and no matter what I did, I could never coax the reason out of her. We ended up splitting up, and time moved on its irrevocable course. Her funeral, dotted as it was with familiar faces blurred by years, was as close to a high school reunion as I ever wanted to be, and I avoided any and all contact with my former classmates.

“Well, Jimmy,” I said slowly, just wishing now for the phone call to end, “I appreciate the call, but I think I’ll have to decline the invitation.”

“Ah. I understand.” He sniffed, and gave a little cough. “It was good talking to you, Jeremy. If you change your mind, come by the rec center on the first of October, I’ve got it rented out for the night. Keg beer, Marco’s pizza. I’d love to see you.”

“You got it Jimmy. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime. Thanks for the call.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Oh, and Jeremy?”

“Yeah?” I said, pausing as I put the phone down.

“I go by James now.” There was a click, and the line went quiet.

I sat for a while watching the cheerful colors of my old favorite cartoon in silence. Jimmy’s call (there was no way I could get used to calling him James) had rattled me. No matter how much of the past fades into the recesses of memory, something is always there to reach out and yank you back unexpectedly.

I had been very close to attending the ten year reunion. Close as in shoes on, walking out the door in a carefully chosen set of clothes, but then I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Old-looking, I thought, even at the time, though I was not even scratching at thirty. I was carrying last night's hangover in the bags under my eyes, and I realized that I couldn’t go through with it. Though Kass and I had split a few years prior, I felt the undercurrent of dread in my gut turn to a riptide at the prospect of seeing her. I wasn’t even sure if she would be there, but the mere idea of it scared me away. I had seen her at a gas station a good while after we had broken up, and had had to do a double take to make sure it was her. Her hair, once spun gold, was dark and matted; her skin was pale and her eyes looked worn and tired. She was getting in the passenger side door of a beat up truck driven by a guy I didn’t recognize, and I had buried my face in my phone until the rumble of the truck had died away. I was ashamed at my cowardice and my inability to face her. With that memory burning in my mind, I had kicked off my shoes and sat back on the couch and opened a beer.

My recollections were interrupted by the sound of the front door closing. Hailey peered around the corner into the living room. I gave her a wave and got up to help her with unloading the groceries.

“Kids asleep?” she asked.

“Out like a light,” I said. “Tim was a bit of a struggle, but after a few pages he zonked out.”

She laughed. “Just like his momma. You ok?”

“Yeah. Just got a weird call tonight. Guy from high school.”

She stopped unloading the bags and turned to look at me. “What did he want? Is everything alright?”

I gave her an exaggerated grimace. “It’s the 25 year reunion coming up.”

She mimicked my look. “Good God, you are old. You should go.”

I flicked her gently on the arm in retaliation. “You think so? Sounds depressing.”

Hailey twisted her mouth thoughtfully. “It could be. Or it could be fun? Some of those people probably have some pretty wild stories, I bet. I would go, if it were me.”

I shrugged, and went to put the vegetables in the crisper. “I’ll think about it.”

I did think about it, for a few days at least. In the end I just moved it to the back burner of my mind and by the time a week had passed I had nearly forgotten about it. The heat of summer dwindled and the maples that lined our road erupted into brilliant reds and yellows. Tim started soccer practice and Kat started kindergarten, and Hailey and I threw ourselves into the activities of their life, and tried to keep our home life balanced.

September passed in a flurry of leaves and chill air, and it was October before we knew it. Something minute changes as September clicks over into October; a gentle melancholy sweeps over me, each year without fail. By this time Jimmy’s call and the subsequent memories it unearthed had been nearly forgotten. Hailey had sent me on an errand to pick up pumpkin carving supplies and a few other odds and ends, and I was on my way home when I passed the rec center. I was trying to figure out why it was so busy on a quiet Tuesday in October, when I remembered Jimmy’s invitation. Maybe it was curiosity, or the nostalgia I had been feeling all day, but I found myself turning off Main into the mostly full lot. I had the bag of carving tools next to me on the seat, a perfect excuse to leave whenever I felt like it. I texted Hailey and gave her a heads up, and I got out of the car. I smiled to myself as I walked in, thinking back on my failed attempt to go to the ten year; how much thought I had put into what to wear and how to look and how to act, and now I was waltzing in in paint-stained jeans and a ragged old flannel I’d had probably since I’d left Kennett High. Something that came with age, I guess.

Eighties music washed over me as I entered, drifting through the annex from the gymnasium. A small table was set outside the gym, and Jimmy was standing behind it, holding a red plastic cup filled with foamy beer. He caught sight of me, looked puzzled for a moment, then his face lit up. He carefully set his cup on the table next to a vase of flowers and rushed over to greet me.

“Jeremy! I didn’t think you were going to make it!” he cried, shaking my hand enthusiastically.

“I didn’t either, actually,” I said with a chuckle. “I was just on my way home and saw the rec center all lit up and remembered that it was happening. Can’t stay long, I’ve got to get back and carve pumpkins with the family…”

He scrawled my name on a blank tag and handed it to me, and ushered me through the double doors into the gym, where I was hit with a whirlwind of sensations; the smell of old sweat permeated the room, ingrained in the stout wooden bleachers and the scuffed hardwood floor. It was somehow not an unpleasant smell; it was the sweat of hard work and play, not a stale or dirty odor. That was mingled with the more enticing smell of pizza and cheap beer, emanating from a portable table erected in the corner. “Take On Me” fuzzed out of the overhead speakers, and on the gym floor were ninety or so of my former classmates. Many of them I hadn’t seen in the long intervening years between graduation and tonight, and the years wore on some more than others, but I was amazed to find that I knew most of them almost instantaneously. The sight of them did a strange thing to my vision: I simultaneously saw them as the kid I remembered and the adult that stood before me. The moment of double vision was brief, but almost vertiginous, and I nearly had to find a chair. I made myself walk over to the table and get a cup of water from the large yellow cooler, and after a few sips I had righted myself. I scanned the crowd, juxtaposing the two iterations of my former classmates. There was Bruce Davidson, no longer the archetypal example of star football player- his muscular body gone to seed, crumpled into an ill fitting sweater. Most of his hair was gone and he wore decidedly unfashionable glasses, but his winning smile still radiated the same warmth. Betsy Krolewicz had done the opposite, trading in her frumpy sweaters and knotty hair for a pixie cut and a pencil skirt, her acne long gone. She was chatting animatedly with a group of guys that certainly hadn’t given her the time of day back then. Tim Decker looked the same, only now with money. He’d gone in for tech at a young age and it looked like it suited him. I was just wondering if anyone was studying me, standing here like a chaperone by the water cooler when someone caught my eye. I should have known that she would, just as I should have known that of all the unconscious motives that had driven me here tonight, this was why I had turned in the drive. Becca Peterson was weaving her way toward me through the crowd, glasses occasionally glinting blue from the overhead dance lights, just as she had at Kassidy’s funeral. This time I wasn’t going to slip away, nor did I want to.

“You’re a difficult guy to get a hold of,” she said, by way of greeting.

“Hi, Bec.” I said, pouring her a water.

“Thanks. It’s hot in here, ” she said, looking up at me frankly. “Why didn’t you talk to me at the funeral?”

Something I always appreciated about Rebecca was that she was always straightforward and to the point. I think as Kass’ best friend, she had so often been in her shadow, and had to be direct with people so as to not be ignored. I don’t think it ever bothered her. It was a testament to how much their friendship had meant. I thought of about a dozen excuses in my head before I decided that she deserved an honest answer.

“I was scared to.” I said, looking her in the eye.

She looked hard at me for a moment, and then she softened, and surprised me with a hug.

“Are you still scared?” she said, muffled somewhat by my shirt against her face.

“Yes,” I answered honestly, gently prying her away from me. Her eyes were wet behind her glasses. “I think I’m ready, though.”

“Thank God,” she said with a weak, watery laugh, wiping a sleeve across her face. “It’s been really hard, being the only one who knows.”

I braced myself for whatever she was going to say, though somehow after all this time, the answer was coming to me on its own. In a way, I think I had known all along.

“She lost a child.” She looked at me steadily. “Your child. It was early. Not too long after she found out she was pregnant.” She stopped, watching me for my reaction. “You know how she was. It broke a part of her. The part that made her who she was. I’m so sorry, Jeremy.”

I gave her shoulder a squeeze and nodded. There was a rush of gentle sorrow that pulled at something deep within me, and then it faded. In its place was something I couldn’t put a name to, something like relief, and I felt a part of me unclench that I hadn’t known was held so tight for so long.

“Thanks, Bec.” I said, managing to control the shake that was trying to creep into my voice. “I’m so sorry I avoided this, and you, for as long as I did.”

“That’s ok. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you. And I’m sorry that it was here, of all places.” 

We stood quietly for a moment in companionable silence as “Don’t Stop Believin’” began its opening notes. She winced as the majority of our former classmates started singing together and glanced sideways at me.

“You sticking around for a while?” she said over the din.

I smiled and shook my head. “Carving pumpkins with the family tonight. I’ll see you around, I hope.”

“Maybe you will. Take care of yourself.” She flashed me a familiar grin that I hadn’t realized I had missed, and it was that smile, shining out through the years, that finally broke something within me. I realized that I wasn’t alone in the wake of the past, and I felt a rush of love for Rebecca, and sadness that I missed out on her friendship for so long. She gave a parting wave and vanished into the crowd.

On my way out, I stopped by the entrance table and asked James if I could get a list of numbers for my classmates. 

“I don’t have one here, but I’d love to meet you for a drink sometime and get it to you.”

“I’d like that,” I said. We shook hands again, and I grabbed a flower from the vase on the table, taking it with me out into the cool night air.

On the way home, I went past the place where her car had gone off the road. No matter what time of year it was, there were always flowers or trinkets adorning the cross that stood there. I had left the occasional flower in the months after she died, but the practice hadn’t lasted long. I parked on the shoulder and walked down through the dewy grass in the ditch and laid the flower I’d brought. I stayed there for a moment, my breath casting silent clouds on the side of the quiet street, and then I headed for home.

Hailey greeted me with a hug that communicated more than words can, as if she knew everything that had happened from the moment I had left the house.

“C’mon,” she said, with a gentle smile. “The kids are waiting.”