Baby its cold outside

Baby its Cold Outside.

You have six months until the high school reunion and you do not need to stress about it, yet. You mark the date on the Frank Lloyd Wright calendar, a gift from the realtor who wants you to sell your house because you are divorced, childless and you don’t need much space. But you know that you still have time to lose weight, find the love of your life, get engaged, and walk into the ballroom on his arm. You sign up, again, for an online dating site. In the seven years you’ve been divorced you have had three relationships, and none ended well.

You stow away the scary thoughts about the reunion next to the ”Learn French in Twenty-Four Hours” CDs from Rosetta Stone in the backroom closet. You go about your life until one day your work friends start talking about their high school; you get a terrible feeling in the bottom of your belly, your IBS is back, you cannot sleep, and you call your mother thrice a week. You cannot get over the fact that your ex-husband who was your high school boyfriend might be there. You know from stalking his Facebook page late at night in the depth of despair that he’s back from the UK. There’s a beautiful golden-skinned tall girl with him in some of the later photos. You have a bad feeling that he’s going to be at the reunion just to show off his spoils. You could have ticked the NO box in the RSVP, but you are not a quitter it’s only the others who quit on you.

Four months to the reunion; you visit your therapist. You lie to her about the amazing friends you had in high school, how popular you were, and how you had the time of your life with the In Crowd. Why you lie to your therapist is a mystery to you, maybe it’s just that you don’t want her to think you’ve always been a nerdy loser. Your therapist says you must go to the reunion. Then you tell her about your apprehensions, your weight gain, your divorce, the job that you are stuck in, all of which she already knows; she asks you why you ticked the YES box on the RSVP. You wouldn’t be paying hundreds of dollars to her if you could make the right decision by yourself all the time, would you; you wouldn’t of course tell her that, you are too nice for that, nice is good, right? You change the subject instead; you tell her you rather talk about your weight loss goals at the next session.

At home you order multiple outfits online for the reunion; you will select the exactly right one. They arrive in the next few days, and none of them fit; you have taken extra care to order the correct size; you wonder where they measure the waist size, or did you mix up the metric and the imperial, that’s an easy mistake, even NASA did that few years back. Yes, they did, I read it on the internet. You decide to go nineties, and go physical shopping, in a mall. You go to all types of clothing stores. At a high-end designer store, the associate insists that you buy the larger size; you think, it is my money, my body, and my dignity, so get lost; but obviously, you don’t say that to her, remember, you are nice. You lie instead; you say that it’s for your sister for her birthday.

You have a plan; you will lose 20 pounds in the next three months. You diet. Two months to the reunion; you are eighteen pounds over your target weight. Six weeks to go and you have lost only one more pound. You don’t have a dress, a date, or the will to walk through the door of the ballroom. You keep thinking of your ex and the golden girl. You panic, visit the therapist, and on her suggestion, you start a no-carb, high-protein diet. Your steaks are overcooked. You cook medium rare and there’s a murder on your plate that makes you throw up. You decide on fish and pasta and do not weigh yourself again. You shove your designer dress with the French CDs, and your friend lends you her immediate-post-maternity black dress.

On November 2nd you walk through the doors of the ballroom, alone; at the entrance, you pick up your name tag, and another woman picking up hers calls you by your first name and says that you haven’t changed a bit, you had already caught her looking at your tag, and using her first name you return the compliment. Inside, an eighties band is playing Duran Duran, how very original, you think, and you notice everyone has expanded in the middle, but everyone has much better haircuts. Everyone lies to everyone that they have not changed. You remember that they were going to invite your high school teachers as well, this being the 20^th reunion. You look around and sit with your former math teacher, the only teacher who cared enough or was alive enough to come, she remembers that you were good in math, she likes that you are a data analyst, and mentions that you have gained a lot of weight, you want to say that she has gained a lot of age, but you are nice, right?

From the chair next to the math teacher, you watch the crowd mingle, and your heart sinks, you break into a sweat. There, in the middle surrounded by a small group of admirers is your ex. Behind him stands the golden girl, her chin resting on his shoulder. A sheet of impossibly straight black hair falls to her waist. A bare leg peeks from a honey-colored ankle-length dress, and she’s taller than your ex. You turn to the math teacher and try to make conversation about “principal component analysis and Eigenvalues”. You tell her how her teaching helped you to get your current job. She nods impatiently and asks isn’t that whatshisname, your boyfriend in high school, she’s pointing to your ex. You pretend not to understand but she insists on being very clear who she is pointing to, the one with the gorgeous girl, she says. You walk away, and before you exit the ballroom you remember that you are not a quitter. To prove that you walk to the drinks table and drink three glasses of spiked punch one after the other.

Things are a bit blurred but you feel empowered. The golden girl is now wrapped around your ex like the snake on the apple tree. She is whispering something in his ear, and he nods and points to the ceiling. She gives her tiny, most likely brand name clutch to your ex and floats away towards the door. Her honey-colored silk dress barely hangs on her bare shoulders with thin straps, and trails behind her sweeping the floor. She’s even taller than you first thought and something silver in her hand catches the light and you know where she’s headed; she’s going to have a cigarette.

You work in this building and know it like the back of your hand and you know above the 17^th floor is a roof deck where many working in the floors above the ballroom sneak a cigarette. You’ve done it too when you tried to lose weight because you thought it may make you more attractive and your ex will stay. It took a few years off your life expectancy and he didn't stay. You wait five minutes and walk out of the ballroom, beyond the tall windows of the lobby you see tiny white flakes float down like minute angels. You take the elevator to the 17th floor and climb up the set of stairs to the rooftop, the door to the outside is kept ajar with a brick, you peek out, the golden girl is standing at the concrete banister, bathed in moonlight against the falling flakes she looks like a goddess with a cigarette. You move the door stop and gently close the door. Above the door on the cement ledge is the key, you put the key in your purse, you know that’s the only key and you know the janitor has lost his and the master key does not work on this door. You walk down the steps, down the elevator, pick up your bulky jacket from the cloak room and walk away.