The Reunion

I stand by the crystal bowl brimming with tangy fruit punch, watching the gardener stuff the shriveled tree into the wheelbarrow and drag my college years away. The area where the towering banyan tree once stood, looks like a bald spot on the otherwise sprawling greenery of the North Campus.

Reminds me of the hairstyle many of my ex-classmates now sport.

Why the school administration decided that the evening of the Reunion of the Class of 2010 was a good time to uproot a 100-year old tree that had withered due to some fungal infection, escaped me? But who am I kidding, I never understood why the admin people did what they did; not then, not now.

I look around at the people milling about in groups, their low chatter floating my way, echoed by the imposing architecture of the Central Library. At times a boisterous laugh or an over-enthusiastic hello would rise. Earlier, two boys in rumpled tuxedos had tackled each other to the ground in greeting. Once a frat boy, always a frat boy; I suppose. Sometimes, people would wander over to the snacks table, where I had set camp. I doubt they recognized me, even though my messy bun and cat-eye glasses had remained a constant throughout the last decade.

At least now, the cliché mean or awkward teenage behavior had been replaced by the uncaring and cursory politeness of adulthood.

I wonder why I had even bothered to show up here. It’s not like I had had many friends or acquaintances in North Campus where Prof. Sandrianna’s Women’s Studies classes were conducted. It hadn’t been a requirement for my major in Screenwriting (most of my classes took place in the ancient Sylvia Hall) but I had enjoyed it nonetheless; perhaps it had been the pull of the modern North building, or maybe the incredible teaching and course curriculum.

Yes, Women’s studies had been a breath of fresh air, from the start especially for someone coming from a conservative family background. But there was something else which had always brought me back there, semester after semester – I should rephrase myself, it had been a certain someone.

A certain someone, I had hoped to run into at this very soiree. I scrounged the crowd, wishing to spot insanely high-heeled boots, wacky dyed hair or lipstick so red, it would make an apple blush.

“Oh my god, do my eyes deceive me or is that Dani Lyn at a social event?”

I met the startling blue eyes of the speaker and frowned; confused and pissed, even though the words did hold a slice of truth. Apparently, the modestly dressed woman failed to notice my annoyance as she quickly wrapped in a delicate hug and ‘la bise’-ed me.

Very prim and proper.

I quickly tried to remember my college days and wondered who I had been close enough to, to warrant such a greeting. Most of my friends had been from writing majors and were the sort of people who were so deeply immersed in their fictional worlds and laptops that they would get allergic reactions to gestures like these.

“Silly, It’s me! Alexandra.”, said the woman with an expectant smile.

Alexandra? Who on earth was Alexandra? I didn’t know any Alexandra? Wait, a second. Was this her? Was this Alex??

My brain could clearly not keep up with my thoughts and so, it cleverly responded with, “No, you are not.”

For years, I had imagined how I would reunite with my first love. I had played scenario after scenario in my head and practiced variations of the same lines in my head. Bumping into each other at the check-out line in the grocery store, running into her while I got my daily dose of coffee or maybe even a surprise meet-up on the red carpet once we had both followed our dreams. Our college reunion, had also been a possibility.

The scene hadn’t really mattered, what would follow had. Eyes widening with recognition, running into the other’s arms, an instant connection like the years spent apart had never mattered, had never happened. A friendship being reestablished, maybe something even more.

Never in a million years had I imagined that my first words to her after ten years would be denying her identity.

She blinked. I blinked. She burst out laughing.

Yes, that laugh I remembered. The joyous giggles, reminiscent of bubbling champagne. It had been so infectious, it still was. It was the sort of laugh which made you throw your head back and join her, the sort of chortle which made you forget your troubles while it lasted.

Uhuh, so this really was Alex.

“Oh wow, I am so sorry. I really didn’t recognize you. You look nothing like I remember”, I gasped out, muscles still smiling.

“And you look exactly like I remember. How do you still survive with that hairstyle?”

I shrugged with a chuckle and handed her a glass of the spiked punch. It was ironic, seeing the last time they had had something like this together, was within this very campus, and very not legal.

Alex – or was it Alexandra now, shook her head politely, “I don’t drink.”

Ok, this was new. Was this the same lady who had introduced me to ‘god’s greatest creation, if ‘he’ ever existed – alcohol’ as she had phrased it? If allowed, she would surely have married the beverage and claimed she didn’t need anyone else as long as the wine bottle would remain her lifelong partner (God, I still remember that drunken night in disturbing detail)

I rushed to smooth over the patch of awkward silence which had followed, “So what have you been up to? Please tell me it’s conquering the world with your siren-like voice.”

A soft whisper, “You remembered….” A slight headshake.

A quiet chuckle. A defeated chuckle. “Well, if you count yelling at my juniors to boost up sales, then yes.”

“Please tell me you are joking.”

“Such is the burden of the General Sales Manager of Zendia Inc.”, followed by a brittle smile that spoke of a decade of unpursued dreams and broken hearts. “What about you?”

“I am the head writer of this show called ‘Twice Flipped’”

“Twice Flipped? The coolest show of the year? That’s you? Sheesh, woah man. That’s insane.”

Cue the awkward cricket noise.

Back in college, if you had asked anyone where the others would be in ten years, most would have responded with Alex ruling Broadway, and probably Hollywood. She was one of the chosen few who had been so sure of what they wanted to do, where they wanted to go. That girl was born for the stage, the thrill and exhilaration of watching her perform still give me goosebumps and I have been in close quarters with many acting and singing powerhouses. Nobody would have thought that shy and quiet Dani, with her nose permanently buried in a book, would be the mastermind behind the show which was now riding a raging wave of success at the awards season, equally beloved by both critics and fans.

Time for another topic change, quick.

Luckily, we both were masters at that. As a teen, it had served as a perfect deflection tactic, but now I wonder if that had prevented us from really opening up our hearts to each other.

The first time, I had met her was in Women’s Studies class. She had a quick mind and a sharp tongue, which clashed with my own strong-headedness and firm opinions. Our first conversation had been an electric debate on the historical roots of feminism, leaving us both wanting more. A cup of coffee and a long conversation later, I had a new friend.

I remember our earlier months of knowing each other as wild and free, a true celebration of a college friendship. She had pushed me towards the unknown, given me, a taste of adventure, and I was addicted. Our first kiss was all smashing stones and blinding colors. Everything we shared was a sensory overload, feelings cranked up to a hundred. We wore our hearts on our sleeves and went all in.

Or was that just me?

Memories are a fickle thing; even more so when they are those of a writer. Perhaps my mind over-romanticized it all, making up stories and conjuring feelings that were never there. Or maybe I didn’t want to remember it for what I truly was; a train wreck of a first love, joyous and angry and wild and free, doomed from the start.

She was like a kite soaring without a care in the open skies and I was like the spool, always there to ground her to reality, to bring her back when she went too far. I don’t remember when I had let her go, I have no memory of when she had floated away. But sometime later, the winds had stopped blowing and she had crash-landed.

I wasn’t there.

We speak of our lives, the past and the present; the regrets and the triumphs, the heartbreak and the high. Never once do we mention the promises we had made to each other; the hushed whispers and loud declarations made under the shade of the same banyan tree I had seen being carried to its grave, earlier this evening. Vows of living our dreams, travelling the world together and loving each other till the end of time.

Senior Year, she had kissed me under those hanging branches and told me we would do the same, ten years from then. Except by then, we would be married. A week later, she had walked away from my life in a flurry of promises and see you soons.

“Do you remember our tree?”

She looks in the opposite direction of the bald spot and nods unconvincingly. “Of course, I remember our pine tree.”

She is rubbing a band on her finger. A glittering wedding ring.

“Who’s the lucky girl?”, I question.

“My husband’s name is Johnathan.”, she replies, unsmiling.

I have had enough. She introduced herself as Alexandra when she had always despised her birth name, she was now a sales analyst, when she had hated all things business-related, she had chickened out of all her auditions, she dressed like a typical soccer mom when she had once owned the most ridiculous, extravagant closet I had ever seen, complete with insanely colorful wigs and bleaches.

And she has a husband. I understand that love is a fluid concept, but it was hard for me to believe that the girl who had been so unapologetic about her romantic preferences in the past, now refused to even accept that she had once loved another woman.

“Everyone experiments in college.”, her eyes look away.

In shame and remorse, I hope. She did not remember so many things of the past, our shared past like she was trying to erase a whole phase of her life. I don’t know this lady in front of me. She isn’t my Alex.

I had wondered if those old feelings of infatuation would return when I saw her again, but now I know for sure. As I look at her dull face, once, so expressive and teeming with emotions (she had called it her acting weapon), I fail to recognize the features and the expression.

Thinking of the recent F.R.I.E.N.D.S reunion, my mind bitterly supplies, ‘So no one told you life was gonna be this way.’

Drowning the last of my drink, I wish Alexandra a quick goodbye.         

I look back once as I exit the gates of the campus at the motley gathering of people I had once called friends, now no different than the passing strangers. Or perhaps we had always been that, never friends but strangers, who had bumped into each other at some point in our lives. Like balloons, touching one moment, bouncing away the next.

At least I can cast them aside from my thoughts for now. That is until I have to bring them back, like a dusty photograph left forgotten under the bed, at our 20 years reunion.