Sin Zapato

On being done with counting the days

I broke my Lenten promise on Saturday.

It was not about temptation.

I had dropped Mami off at the local nail salon that late afternoon and was walking around my perfect little town, feeling the peace that comes with a lazy, aimless stroll.

This sign appeared. Just for me. So I stopped to take a photo of it, make a story of it, when a call came in from one of my closest girls, one of the Peas from the Pea Pod.

She rarely calls me in the middle of the day, and even more rarely visits Facebook, but when I answered she told me she’d gone into the platform earlier that day, drawn for whatever reason. And saw news she knew I would miss because of my Great Pause.

An old high school classmate had passed away. It was posted to our graduating class reunion page.

My heart broke into a thousand pieces at my feet.

I’m not sure if I made any sense in the conversation that followed. We kept talking, but I had that breathless, light-headed, untethered feeling that comes with shock.

I’ve noticed this about the unacceptable. That the body takes the blow while the mind rears and then takes off at a gallop. A Quixotic quest for some kind of sense, I think.

I somehow made it back to the salon. Took a seat instead of walking around with my head in a spin and my heart back somewhere on the corner of North Dean and Depot Square. Mami was doing just fine, chatting with her technician and waiting patiently for her new color to dry. In a blur, I paid, chatted with the salon Angels, helped Ma with her coat, with the front steps, with her climb back into our car, and made it safely back home.

And then, from the comfort of my coach, I dove into my high school reunion page on Facebook. Despite the Lenten promise. For sense. For company in my grief. For the boy, the man, whose loved ones called Big G.

To be clear, I crossed paths with G exactly twice in my lifetime. And only for moments.

Our first interchange?

Picture a high school classroom with only some tables and chairs in it, placed somewhat randomly for rest and chatter, not for learning. It is a smoke room, because (clutch those pearls) in The Year of Our Lord 1983, our private, pathologically disciplined Roman Catholic high school has a room set aside for young teenagers and their pack-a-day habit.

Yessir, that’s us, some in the throes of baby fat and braces, some at their peak, some in need of the center of the room, some in need of its edges, and all of this in navy blue uniforms.

I don’t even know why I’m there. The desire to smoke will not arrive until college, and none of my friends are here because they don’t smoke. Somehow, though, and for reasons that still mystify, I am in this stinking room, perched along the windowsill and facing the courtyard of our school, a structure we name the Square Doughnut. G is a few feet to my right, also perched, but facing the room and enjoying his drag.

Someone has a boombox. It starts to play “Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes. I bop. I sing low. But when the song gets to that critical pre-instrumental part, I turn to G, he miraculously turns to me, and together we sing, “Oh-whoa-whoa-who-ah…”

It is perfection.

We have never spoken before this moment. And we will not speak after this moment. At least not for another 35 years. But for those 35 years, that song does not appear without an image of him singing with me. It is one of my all-time favorite high school memories.

Which brings me to our second interchange.

We are at our 35th reunion. I believe he has not attended any of our previous big ones, so we’re all happy to see him. I am part of a rare high school experience, I hear. Not everyone had it the same, I know, but I am happy to be among these people again. It’s a sticky, sentimental group, shameless in its affection. My kind of people.

G has aged well. The black hair now graying, the smile lines a pleasant new frame around his downturned eyes. Later, when he appears on our Facebook feed, he will self-deprecate, call himself “ruggedly handsome.” He is innately funny. And not wrong.

When I see him, again along the edges of the room, I do not go over to him. I don’t even approach the people he’s with, all of whom I actually have spent time with over the years. I am shy, for some reason. Convinced that he can’t possibly remember me or those 10 seconds in the smoke room. I am also channeling my high school self, the one that masquerades as a clown but feels safest in hiding.

A few hours and drinks later, though…

We are herded out of the event room and into the more intimate hotel bar, where 100 aging classmates in their feels have decided to continue the nostalgiafest. We’re crowded together now, and I am buzzed and done with my stilettos, my boundaries, and all the shit I told myself when I was 17. So that when I see G just a few feet away, I wave that boy in.

“Listen…I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but…”

I tell him the story.

He leans in. He listens. Small silver hoop on his ear tuned into my voice.

When I’m done, he pops his head back up and smiles.

“To this day,” I say, “Every time I hear that song, I think of that moment.”

“I remember it,” he says.

“Bullshit.” I sincerely do not believe him.

“Seriously.” He insists.

We banter. We laugh. And in the end, I do not argue with this funny, sweet, kind boy. I find that it doesn’t really matter if he actually remembers or he can just easily imagine the scene. It only matters that I get to tell him.

He arrived in my Facebook feed shortly thereafter. We have close to 100 people in common, so I got the limited, crowded, but fun ringside view of some small part of him. The GIF wars, the music videos, the movie quotes. The family photo, the work photo, the group outing photo. We shared how we met the big loves of our lives (he was married to his), what we thought about dog owners who walked their pups off-leash (idiots, all of them), and how we might have common ancestry (he was as New York Italian as it gets, but his surname was Spanish).

Maybe a couple of years later, his granddaughter was born. With that, he completely fell away from Facebook. It didn’t surprise me. He didn’t seem as engaged in all of it as some, and yeah, something about the announcement of this new love in his life felt like a good-bye. And who can blame him? Why waste time facing a gadget screen with all that magic to witness and love and hold?

It has been years since I’d heard another word or seen another image. Until now. Until this.

Dearest G,

I can’t explain why your trip back Home is so heavy on my heart. It seems…I don’t know…self-indulgent, especially when I think of your wife, your entire family, your everyday loves who now have to navigate the unbearable, unfathomable loss of you.

I just know I feel something more than empathy or shock or the ever-present reminder of our fragility. I feel loss too.

I hope you spent every free moment of these last few years building endless perfect memories, the ones that will stick forever, the ones that will comfort your everyday loves.

You’ll always be a part of us.

And message received. Life is short. This is me, sharing my passion.

S