So here I am. How could I have been so stupid? I didn’t even get an invitation, though my parents still live in the house I grew up in. But when Bonnie told me about it and asked me to come with her, the thought of going anywhere without my husband or children had seduced me. Even going home. Even going to my high school reunion.
So here I am, adrift and miserable. Our class of 350 was small by Chicago standards, yet I knew few people even 25 years ago. The number of classmates I talked to was smaller still. The room is full of strangers and people worse than strangers, people I fear will snub me. My hard-won poise slips away, and I’m 17 once again.
In line to get a drink, I recognize Liz in front of me. Liz was one of those girls whose hair was always perfectly coifed, one of those girls I half envied and half despised. Her hair is still perfect. Liz turns around. “Hello,” I say. Liz smiles blandly, says nothing, looks through me. Am I being snubbed? Still?
Drink in hand I move to the periphery, scanning the room for someone to approach. I don’t really want to talk to anyone, I just want to seem to be talking to someone so I don’t look as isolated as I feel. After all, what do I have to say? I am married and I have three children. That’s all.
Furiously I wish I had some flashy career to boast of: thrilling court cases that I had tried, or published books favorably reviewed in the New York Times. It occurs to me, too late, that I could have created an alter ego to attend this reunion. I could have invented trials, law firms, books, reviews, with no one but Bonnie the wiser. Instead I’m stuck with myself, face to face with my lack of achievement. Even my marriage of 20 years is nothing to be smug about. Lately I’ve felt estranged, unsure if I’m staying in my marriage for good reasons or bad, wondering if only cowardice keeps me from filing for divorce.
Still on the outskirts, I slowly sip my drink. How could I have forgotten this loneliness? Though part of a group, I never felt I belonged. I scarcely dated and had no best friend, just a slew of activities and a reputation for independence that masked my isolation.
I see Bonnie circulating, but her motives are impure. She is in the midst of a divorce and custody fight with Jim, a classmate of ours who also has come. Bonnie had thought that Jim would stay home. After all, it was his weekend to take the kids. Jim instead had left their children with Amy, the other woman. Bonnie wants to tell her version of their breakup first. I know what Bonnie is saying to Karen, because I have already heard it a dozen times. “He started the affair just two weeks after the foundation was dug for our dream house! And Amy is a former patient of his; it’s completely unethical. How can he have the gall to be fighting me for custody!”
Unlike Bonnie, I have no story to tell. Reluctantly, I edge myself into the throng and approach an acquaintance: “Hi. Where do you live? What are you doing? Kids? How old?” All the while I scan the room, looking for someone else to approach. Finally it dawns on me. It seems to dawn on all of us that for a few hours we are stuck with one another. I still avoid the popular crowd, but I do talk to people I barely knew.
Here’s Ron again. I had gone to the senior prom with him, but he was never my boyfriend. My attitude about boys in high school was akin to Groucho Marx’s attitude about country clubs: Any boy stupid or desperate enough to be interested in me was not anyone I wanted to date. When I had realized that Ron was the only boy likely to ask me, I decided I would rather be miserable at the prom with Ron than miserable at home alone.
Twenty-five years later, I discover Ron is gay. Once I shake off the thought that my coldness drove him into homosexuality, I realize my standoffishness may have suited him just fine. Ron seems relaxed, at peace with himself in a way I envy. I am curious about the arc of his life. In high school he was a conservative Republican, a conventional Protestant, a reflection of his parents’ values. Now he is gay, liberal, a social worker. A strange impulse leads me to ask, “Are you happy?”
Ron talks about his satisfaction in his work, his church, his volunteer activities, then turns my question back on me. “Are you happy?” I tell him of my confusion over my marriage, my misery about moving to a different town. Speaking honestly comes as a relief. I have connected with Ron in a way that would have been unimaginable in high school.
Now Jill makes a theatrically late entrance. She is the closest our class has to a celebrity. After working as an activist for years, Jill reinvented herself. She moved to Hollywood to become an actress, despite her age and lack of training. Amazingly, Jill succeeded. An award is announced, and Jill walks to the microphone. As she gushes, she sounds like a vapid starlet rather than the intelligent and passionate person I remember. A style she must have at first adopted in order to fit in has penetrated and transformed her in terrifying ways.
As the evening winds down, the DJ puts on “Brown-Eyed Girl.” My toes tap, my body sways to the beat. I want to dance-but awkward times flash into my consciousness. Boys seldom asked me, and dancing with a girlfriend was an admission of failure. When I did dance I was horribly self-conscious, sure that however I moved was graceless and wrong. Few couples are on the floor. Still, I approach Bonnie, only to discover her comparing divorce war stories with Patty.
Then I see Jane. In her freshman year of college, Jane was in a horrendous car accident. Despite years of rehabilitation, she still bears the marks of a damaged brain. Her speech is abrupt, with peculiar pauses; her voice is as deep as a man’s. Her body moves like a marionette, limbs jerking and flopping. But Jane is moving her foot to the music, just like me, so I ask her if she wants to dance.
Wordlessly Jane steps out to the floor and begins dancing, her movements now miraculously fluid and connected. I focus on the music, my movement, my partner. In this moment I am free. I am doing what I want to be doing, not worrying about fitting in, not caring how I look or what people are thinking. At the end of the song, Jane says to me seriously, in her deep voice, “Thank you. This was the highlight of the evening.”
On this strange night, I have revisited myself as a teen: standing aloof while trying to conceal the pain of not belonging. But I have emerged in a different place from where I began. I have opened up, softened, connected with a few people. And at evening’s end I have experienced a moment of weightless grace.
