Sipping

A few years ago, I stopped in a convenience store in my old hometown for a soda.  I went to the cashier to pay and the girl at the register called me by name.  "We graduated from high school together," she said.  I protested, forgetting that I was, indeed, in my hometown.  She didn't look familiar.  She insisted and told me her name was Jackie.  And all of a sudden....  It was like her face transformed.  I could see her.  Her hair was shorter, grayer.  But her eyes were the same.  Jackie!  We hadn't been close friends.  And yet it was such a pleasant surprise to see her after such a long time. 

"How long has it been?" I asked, as she gave me my change.  

Sixteen, seventeen years.  Okay, more like seventeen, eighteen.

Just like Gregers and Hjalmar.  Friends, schoolmates. Equals when Gregers moved away, sixteen years ago.  But now....  Gregers hasn't seen Hjalmar since he's left, hasn't written, hasn't even remembered the post-scripts his dad included in his business letters about Hjalmar's new wife and photography business.  But now he's home, the guest of honor.  And he invited Hjalmar to the feast.  To visit.  To catch up on old times.  To eat good food.  So Hjalmar borrows a dinner jacket and goes, feeling out of place and outclassed.  Out of obligation to the father.  Out of curiosity to see the son.

There was a line behind me, full of people paying for their gas and chips and coffees, so I couldn't chat for long.  She showed me a picture of her son.  We had a reunion coming up, she reminded me.  Our twenty year reunion.  I'd never been to one, I said, but I'd go if she went. We agreed.

Our reunion was two years ago.  Neither of us went.  The reunion organizer told me Jackie was unreachable.  I hadn't gotten her phone number.  I called the convenience store, but she no longer worked there.  No forwarding address.  She'd moved on.