REUNION          

  Megan unfolded the square of paper and read it again.  Her stomach lurched and sweat beaded on her forehead.  When Sully put his hand over hers, he jerked it back.

            “Geez.  You’re freezing.  You’re not getting sick or something?”

            She gave her husband a thin smile and put the note back into her pocket.  “No, I don’t think so.  Just....”  It wasn’t the time to tell him.  He was going crazy over the layoffs.  New housing was down.  If things didn’t turn around soon....

            “How about some hot chocolate?”  He got up from the worn couch and rubbed arthritic knees.  “I could use some.”

            When Sully left the room, Meg stood and went to the window.  Snow still covered the lawn.  That gave her comfort; she had time.  She turned and saw herself in the wall mirror.  Where had the extra fifty pounds come from?  The streaks of gray at her temples?  Maybe it looked worse than it was, in the baggy sweats.  She pulled the top taut and looked at the side view.  No.  What was, was. 

            “Here we go.”  Sully re-entered balancing two huge, steaming mugs and a handful of cookies.  He cocked his head and studied her image in the mirror.  “That’s my sweet mama you’re frowning at.”

            Meg winced.  Her son Nathan was a freshman at C.U. on a full-ride from Ball Aerotech.  Right now, she didn’t want to be anyone’s “sweet mama.”  She wanted to be sexy.  She wanted to be successful.  She wanted to be skinny.

            “No cookies for me.”  She took the cup and perched on the edge of a straight-backed chair.  “Do you think I’m sexy?”

            “Prettiest old lady in town.”  Sully’s words filtered through bites of Pecan Sandy.

            “Yeah.  That’s what I was afraid of.”  Megan pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then let the blond strands fall.  In high school it was almost waist-length. Now it brushed her shoulders, thin and streaked with gray-red tones.  She’d been a lot smaller then, too.  Size ten.  Twenty years later she sat on a second-hand dining room chair in her size XL Walmart sweats.  Twenty years.  Her twenty-year reunion.

            She dreamed about it that night.  She saw herself at seventeen, waiting to be picked up for the prom. 

            “You’ll be queen, sure,” said her little sister, watching her tease the last strands of hair into place.

            “They only pick cheerleaders.”

            “But they nominated you.  You and Brock’ll be the royalty, no matter how hard Lindsey Davis shakes her pom-poms.”

            Brock was late, but he was worth waiting for.  In his white tux, he looked like Richard Gere from “An Officer and a Gentleman.”   The next month they broke up; Brock went to college back east and Meg got a job with the telephone company.  Five years later, she was married to Sully with a kid and another on the way.

            Megan awoke in a sweat.  Five-thirty.  Sully lay on his side, snoring lightly.  For just a moment, she was disoriented.  She’d expected...who?  Brock?  Shake it off, she told herself.  You’re not going to the reunion.  What would Sully think?  And look at yourself.  Do you want Brock to see you this way?

            But the dream nagged her at work and she couldn’t concentrate.

            “What’s up?” Robbie, who shared her small office, sat on the end of Meg’s desk munching left-over Christmas candy.

            “Can you keep a secret?”

            Robbie crossed her heart .

            I got this note yesterday.  Meg pulled the paper from her purse and shoved it at her co-worker.

            “Sweet.  You’re going, aren’t you?”

            “Well duh.  Of course not.”

            “And this would be because...”

            “Which of my two hundred reasons do you want to hear?  Seriously, Robbie, we can’t afford it right now.  They’re eating at the Brown Palace. The banquet alone is fifty dollars.”  And then, too, there was Brock.  She wasn’t Megan Starcroft anymore.  She was Meg Ward.  Plain, one-hundred-seventy pound Meg Ward.

            She probably would’ve let it go at that, but Sully was so preoccupied.  She colored her hair and he didn’t notice until she told him.  She lost ten pounds and he said her rump would fit the bike seat better now.  That’s when she decided.  What would it hurt for her to go to the reunion?  She had three months to save the money.  And well, to lose the weight. She’d admit it. She wanted to make an entrance. 

            In February, she signed up for aerobics at the church.  Sully’s union voted to take a ten per cent cut in pay and he was putting in a lot of overtime.  While he worked at the site, she spent evenings on the treadmill she’d borrowed from Robbie. She told her husband about the reunion.  He didn’t seem to hear her.  

            In March, Robbie started walking with her.  Saturdays, they’d take the bike path along the creek to the mall and finish up with a Diet Coke before the trek home.  Most Sundays, Meg stayed in the basement, working out to her video while Sully slept in his recliner.  They talked about the reunion. He asked her why she wanted to go.

            “To see old friends,” is what she’d said. She couldn’t tell him it was to see Brock; to show him what he’d missed.

            By April, Meg figured she should’ve lost forty-five pounds.  The scales said twenty.  Sully whistled at her as she tried on her new dress, but the lines stretched across her bottom told the truth: it was too small.  She sighed deeply and fell onto the sofa. 

            “You look great.”  Sully sat down beside her.

            “I look like a balloon animal.”

            “So you’re a few pounds overweight.  I am, too.  We’re compatible.”

            “Well, I don’t want to be overweight.  I want to be thin and sexy.”

            “Who’re you trying to impress?”

            Meg looked down, twisted the gold band on her left hand.  Sully loved her, she knew, but the man didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.  Didn’t she deserve romance once in a while? She wondered if Brock sent his wife roses.  Maybe he wasn’t married.  Then she closed her eyes and let herself imagine life as it might have been, with Brock.  She’d be thin, of course, and they’d be wealthy.  Brock had wanted to be an architect. 

They’d live in a condo somewhere and she’d belong to a gym.

            “You asleep?”

            She felt a twinge of guilt as she smiled at Sully.  Plain, dependable Sully.  She squeezed his hand and went to the bedroom to change the too-tight dress. 

***

            At the office, her weight loss was a source of interest for the whole floor.  Robbie had told everyone about the reunion and the secretaries from the third floor cheered her on.  They even had a pool to guess how much she’d lose before May.

            On her desk lay a copy of her high school annual.  Robbie asked her to bring it to show what kind of hunk she’d dated then.  She knew she looked pretty good in the pictures, too, and didn’t mind showing the book around. 

            “That’s you?” One of her bosses perched on her desk, scanning the pictures. “ Hot chick.”

            Meg’s face reddened and she grinned. 

            The man stood to leave.  “So, what happened?”

            He was kidding, but Meg teared up. 

            “Don’t pay any attention to him, Meg.”  Robbie scowled as he passed her in the doorway.  “His mother didn’t have any children that lived.”

            But the reunion was two weeks away.  Meg didn’t want to look better.  She wanted to look drop-dead gorgeous.  The only way to that end, as she saw it, was fasting.  Or the Hollywood Juice Diet.  Or celery. 

            By the day she was to leave, she’d lost ten more pounds.  The reunion dress didn’t skim her curves, but it went on without creeping up her thighs, pooching at her hips.  She was tired, though, and had black bags under her eyes.  Sully said it looked like she’d packed more in them than in her suitcase.  Then he looked at her without cocking his head like he usually did. He looked at her straight on, and told her he hoped she’d have a good time.

            “I’ll be back before you can miss me,” she said.  She hesitated after kissing him goodbye.  She ought to say something else; he looked so lost.  But she had a three-hour drive and a hot tub waiting at the hotel. 

            Sully’s long face refused to fade from Meg’s mind.  I shouldn’t feel guilty.  I’m going to a reunion, not having an affair, for Pete’s sake.  But suddenly it felt like an affair.  She debated the issue with herself until she’d parked in the underground lot at the hotel.  Then she glimpsed a banner hung across the doorway to the elevators: Welcome Emerson High Class of 1982. 

            Meg’s hands shook as she pulled her bag from the trunk and set it on its wheels.  She scanned other arriving guests to see if anyone looked familiar.  Then she checked in, climbed the stairs to her second-floor room and slid the card key into the slot.  Inside, she walked across the room to the window and pulled back the teal and purple drapes. Late afternoon sun flooded the carpet as she took the space to the bed in three leaps and bounced onto the fat pillows.

            By registration time the next morning, she still hadn’t spotted Brock.  Maybe he’s changed and I wouldn’t recognize him, she thought.  Maybe he’s fat and balding and... then she saw him.  There was no mistaking who he was, except for the flecks of gray in his hair he looked like he always did.  Her heart thumped.  Her feet fastened themselves to the floor and she watched, fascinated, as he disappeared into the meeting room. 

            Meg spent the next ninety minutes watching Brock circulate through the crowd of classmates.  His broad smile never faded.  He must work out, she mused as she appreciated the fit of his sport coat.  Finally, summoning her courage, she crept up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

            “Brock.  You look wonderful.  I was hoping I’d see you here.”

            He smiled that devastating smile, then squinted to read her nametag.  “I’m glad to see you, too...Megan.”  He looked past her, panning the room and the smile faded.  Then his eyes widened and the smile returned.

            “Would you excuse me?  I just saw someone I haven’t thought of in years.”

            Megan watched him walk away.  She shook her head to clear her thoughts.  The jerk didn’t remember her.  She expected tears to fall but instead, a hot flush worked its way up her neck to her forehead.  She sucked in her lips, made them thin and taut, and her left foot jiggled.  She returned her banquet ticket, plunked down her nametag and stamped upstairs to her room. 

            The drive home was long enough for her conscience to thoroughly beat her up.  How would she explain to Sully why she’d left the reunion early?  Maybe she’d gotten sick or...she’d missed him.  No, that was too corny.  It just wasn’t what she expected.  And what about the girls at work?  How would she answer their prodding, their teasing?

He wasn’t there.  That was a lie, but right now it sounded like a winner.  She’d tell them Brock didn’t show. 

            Sully was waiting for her when she pulled up in the drive.”  I’m glad you took the cell.  Otherwise, I might not’ve been here when you drove in.  I’ve gotta go downtown for a minute.  You want to come?”

            He held out his hand and she took it, feeling the warmth of his calloused palm.  Gosh, she was glad to be home.  He looked good, too, bald spot, paunch and all. 

            At work on Monday, the secretaries were dividing up the weight pool money.  She stood at the door for a moment, before entering, to summon her courage. 

            “Meg.  How’d it go?”

            “What do you mean, how’d it go.  It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

            “Hey Meg. What’d you do to deserve that kind of thanks?”

            The women rushed her, confused her with their questions.  “What are you talking about?”

            “As if you didn’t know,” said Robbie, handing her a vase of long-stemmed peach roses with a card fastened to a plastic spear. 

            Meg freed the card and opened it.  The message said simply, “You haven’t changed.  Thanks for the weekend.”

            They hooted and whistled like a group of men at a stag party.  Meg blushed and put the card into her purse.  The day was a total loss. No work got done with all the teasing and the questions and workers from other floors coming in to see her roses.  Finally, Meg grabbed her purse and the flowers and stood.

            “I’ll see you all tomorrow, after you’ve remembered how old you are.”  She smiled at the women as she passed their desks on her way out.

            By the time Sully got home, the steak was done.  Meg met him in her new dress, wearing half a bottle of “Windsong”, his favorite. 

            “Thanks for the flowers,” she said, then buried her face in his dusty work shirt.

            “Don’t mention it,” was all he said.

            And they never did, again.