The first time I saw Bill, well, not really the first time, but the first time he walked into my life, was in 11th grade. He was standing at my front door when I opened it on a Saturday night, tall, gawky, glasses, blonde, looking at me shyly, perhaps his head turned even slightly away as if I might hit him.
I had been expecting someone else. I had thought it was Nick -- the cool guy with the pony tail -- on the phone a few nights before, asking me out. But it was Bill and I was sorely disappointed.
Still, I went out with him for over a year because I didn't know what else to do, and he certainly was not a bad person. He was good and earnest, even a little crazy when he got behind the wheel, which was often, but he was as shy as me about sex and that was the last straw.
But I've never lost Bill, and the 50th reunion is this summer and he's coming East and so we talked last night on the phone to figure out when we might meet up. And it held all the comfort of talking with an old friend who's left the shy boy more or less behind.
When he opened with, "How're you doing, Marta?" I told him. No preliminaries. No "pretty good, how 'bout you?" We got right into it, and, for me, it had been a hard day so it was pretty peppery.
He's coming East with his girlfriend of ten years who doesn't want him to see old girlfriends because her husband was a philanderer, and the pain of that is still with her, and since I've known what that feels like I understand. "Though once she meets me, and sees that I'm almost 70, she'll probably relax," I said.
We're hoping they can both make the trip up to Woodstock to see my place. Bill is all enthusiasm for that, but unsure of her. "Even 15 minutes in the airport if that's all you've got," I said. "Just don't make me go to the reunion." Where I won't really know anyone. Where the crowd will look like a bunch of old people from the suburbs. Where Nick might appear, the sad-sack writer for the food section of the New York Times, the pony tail long gone. Probably the hair too.
Feeling very present in the this writer's world...as if I'm right there with Bill and waiting for the elusive Nick. Love the bypassing of false pleasantries and the honesty of getting right to the heart of what's really going on. "Probably the hair too" made me laugh!
ReplyDeleteYeah I really love the "let's cut out the needless "I'm doing fine, how about you" meaningless foreplay and get right down to real nitty gritty. And GOD! Who in their right mind would want to go to their 50th high school reunion? Glad the narrator would gladly opt for a 15 minute reunion at the airport instead of torturous 3 hour one where, who knows, even a flabby old and probably depressed might-have-been-boyfriend might be showing up without his formerly cute pony tail. The Horror!
ReplyDeleteWe get a sense of Bill right away with his head turned "as if I might hit him." That really struck (woops a pun) me!! An odd move and interpretation. She is disappointed it's Bill but sticks with him, kind of reluctantly. And now it is Bill who has lasted, who she really wants to see. The 50th reunion of "old people from the suburbs." Ha!!
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