The Reunion

She wasn’t much good at cleaning. She could straighten things out, make the place appear neat and tidy, but she lacked the ability to actually scrub out the dirt. Well, she didn’t really lack the ability, she lacked the desire. Plus, she always felt when she did a task to the utmost that it was never good enough anyway so why bother? She was sure to miss something.

She dusted off the surfaces she could reach and the periphery of surfaces that she couldn’t and then pulled out her Eureka Mighty Mite canister vacuum cleaner that had only one wheel. The other had fallen off and she couldn’t figure out how to put it back on so she tossed it and now she had to awkwardly drag the crippled machine across her small apartment, clumping along as it followed her like a lame dog. If she went too far, the plug would fall out of the socket and she had to go back and reinsert it. It was all a pain in the ass, really. It made her realize why she rarely vacuumed and she certainly couldn’t do it when Poocha was around as she was terrified of the vacuum cleaner and would hide for hours.

Poocha was the cat she lost a year ago. She had loved Poocha so much. She was sure that there were still remnants of her all over the apartment, a reminder of her little angel in fur form.

She didn’t move the couch but she stuck the vacuum hose in the back and underneath hoping it was strong enough to suck in all the dirt and hair. She took off the pillows, put them on the side and did a cursory sweep with the end of the hose over the couch leaving little streaks which she then smoothed out. She rolled the awkward vacuum over the rug and once she began to sweat, she stopped. Too much exertion for little results. She would Swiffer the wood floors to make them appear shiny. And then she would be okay with her effort, maybe after she straightened out some books and piles of paper that were lying around and threw out some old newspapers.

It’s not like she needed to fool Becky into thinking she was neat and clean. She lived with Becky for a short time and Becky certainly knew her tendencies to leave dishes in the sink, crumbs on the floor, to disregard dust piling up, to not put books back on the shelves and all the other things that a neater, more conscientious person would do. But she wanted to present her apartment as something welcoming and maybe even present herself as a changed woman in some way. She wasn’t sure which was the case but she was getting anxious. Becky would be there soon and really, the place was beginning to look like the reality of it, that she had just done a quick touch up as opposed to a thorough cleaning. She could see the spots that were neglected. She had a lot of stuff, stuff she had picked up at street fairs and in thrift shops, stuff she thought she needed until she took it home and forgot about it, stuff that she thought significant to her personality but realized had nothing to do with her interests, and lots of stuff that had to do with cats that people had given her. And they were scattered all over, on the bookshelves, on tables, on the floor in corners. Statues, quirky sayings, and books. She couldn’t resist buying books. Even if she knew she would never read it, she always fancied that she would someday. So she had many of the classics sitting around, waiting for her to crack the spine.

She stood in the middle of the room and tried to figure what Becky would look at, maybe she could neaten up those spots, but she gave up. How could she know?

She took the Swiffer mop out and rolled it over the wooden floors. The pads turned black pretty fast and she had to keep replacing them till she ran out of the ten pack. How did she not realize the floors were so dirty? They didn’t look that dirty. How long had it been since she cleaned them? She couldn’t remember. She rarely cleaned for herself which seemed strange. But it kind of made sense too. I mean, she thought, why bother when you are the only one seeing it, living in it? Although her shrink would see it differently.

“You should do it for yourself. You’ll feel better,” she had said about her losing weight. I guess that applied to a clean house as well.

It was quarter past 6. Becky would be there at 7pm. She was never late. She would have the doorman ring the buzzer and she would be at her door as soon as the slow elevator took her up to the 6^th floor.

She realized that she needed to make herself look presentable. She needed to take a quick shower, put some decent clothes on, comb her hair, maybe put a bit of blush on to liven up her cheeks. So she convinced herself that the apartment looked as good as it ever would so she could tend to herself.

She dragged the vacuum back into her cramped closet, almost rolling the one good wheel over her foot, and then she hopped in the shower. She was thinking about Becky, about the last time they were together, maybe 2 years ago. How they had gone out for a cocktail and almost simultaneously realized that they had pretty much outgrown each other, or at least chosen such different paths in life that they could no longer relate to each other’s lifestyle. Even the humor they once shared was strained. They had been so close and now Becky was married and had two children, lived in the suburbs, had a SUV while she still lived in her small apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan and took mass transit. Most of her friends were single and although she didn’t go out every night, the city was expensive, she did do dinner and movies and concerts and shows. Becky was a homebody mostly, a mom, a cook (she was a terrible cook when they lived together) and all her friends were couples and moms just like her.

And her husband, Don, didn’t even know that Becky and her had been lovers for years. Becky hadn’t told him, which seemed strange. She thought, it was so long ago, how could it have made a difference in their relationship? And aren’t you supposed to base relationships on honesty?

She could never really sustain a relationship so she couldn’t be a true judge but she hoped, if she were to ever have something that lasted, that she would want her other half to know her past.

A couple of months ago, Becky and Don had been sitting two rows in front of her at the Broadway show Waitress. At first she wasn’t sure it was them but then she saw Becky’s perfect profile and she knew. That little sloped nose, her shiny black hair neatly tucked behind her ear. Once she realized it was them, she became so distracted that she barely watched the play although she did weep during that one song in the second act, She Used to be Mine. But mostly she kept watching Don put his arm around Becky and then take it off. Constantly. Like he couldn’t make the commitment of leaving it there or like he was distracted or bored with the show. They hadn’t seen her till intermission when she stopped them as they made their way up the aisle, much to the chagrin of the people in back of them who were trying to get by. And then they had briefly met outside after the show and exchanged cell numbers. That’s when the texting started.

Don can be a real pain. He doesn’t help out with the kids.

I think he may be having an affair.

The kids were overwhelming me today. Must be nice to be singel (sic) with no responsibility. LOL. I kind of miss that life.

Remember when we went to the karaoke place and they had to throw us out because we were too drunk? I drink wine now. I actually know the difference between wines. Can you believe it? Me…

And so forth. She answered noncommittally, with some empathy, but she couldn’t really relate. Becky asked her some stuff about her life but seemed to always say, I wish I was going to the opera, a show, meeting friends, etc so she stopped telling her what she was doing and just “listened” as Becky got more and more personal and seemed to reminisce a lot more, remembering things that she had forgotten.

And that begged the question: Why did she want to meet her now?

She got out of the shower, put on some moisturizers, got dressed (tee shirt and jeans) and blew out her hair, more drying it than styling it. She looked in the mirror. Except for some weight gain, she didn’t look half bad. She didn’t look 40; she looked younger, kind of when they were in their 20s and early 30s. Her hair was basically the same, thick and a bit wild. She still had that bright smile and that one deep dimple and her skin showed no sign of wrinkles. There was some puffiness under her eyes but that was probably from strained sleep and weird vivid dreams.

It was ten minutes to 7. She looked around to see if she at least needed to hide anything that might be embarrassing. She couldn’t see anything, maybe a book on the shelf that was inappropriate, but she couldn’t worry about that kind of minutiae. She figured Becky would find her taste in literature more amusing than offensive anyway. Like her anthology of weird lesbian porn stories.

She sat down and waited, shaking her foot as she picked up the newspaper and tried to finish the crossword puzzle. She couldn’t remember the name of the actress in Casablanca, blank Bergman. Ingmar? No that wasn’t it. She put the puzzle down. It was five minutes to. She got up, went to the refrigerator, noticed a smudge, cleaned it with a paper towel, wiped down the counter again and went back to the chair. It was two minutes to.

She suddenly felt very nervous. She realized that she didn’t want to see Becky. There was nothing there, it was awkward, it was the past. It had nothing to do with her life now. She had to pretend around Becky, pretend they weren’t lovers, pretend she wasn’t gay, pretend they weren’t completely different people, pretend she could relate to her life choices, that she cared about her kids, about Don, about soccer, about anything suburban. There was too much pressure.

She wanted to run to the bathroom, give it one last look to make sure it was clean, especially the toilet, but she also to go. Her stomach was suddenly churning but as she stood up, the clock ticked 7 and the buzzer rang. The doorman told her Miss Becky was on her way up. He always put Miss in front of every visitor. Or Mr. as the case may be. The elevator slowly made its way up. She thought about not answering the door. Just standing there till she went away. Her heart was pounding and she kept taking in little breaths.

The doorbell rang and before she answered it, she put the pillows back on the couch.

There was Becky, standing there, looking radiantly adorable like the Becky she knew. The Becky she had experimented with and then took it even further. The Becky who had let her move in with her when everything in her life was falling apart. The Becky who she had shared private jokes with, private moments. The Becky who knew her parents, her cat, all gone now. The Becky who knew her better than anyone. The Becky who she would drink pitchers of beer with and sing Rolling Stones songs, where she would imitate Mick Jagger and Becky would imitate a swooning fan, screaming and falling to her knees. The Becky she laughed endlessly with over nothing and everything. The Becky she loved.

She let her in. Becky looked around and smiled, nodding approvingly.

“Nice. Looks nice,” she said. “Good to see you.”

“You too.”

“You look the same,” she said.

“As do you.”

There was an awkward pause and then Becky put a hand on her chin and drew her face to hers. She planted a kiss on her, a real kiss, a deep kiss.

They made there way over to the couch. She realized she forgot to put the pillows back on it. She knew she would forget something.

As they sat, she said, “Wow. I didn’t expect that.”

And Becky said, “Didn’t you?”