“Why haven’t they married long ago?” Carrie asked incredulously.

She shook her head. “They have three kids―or is it four?”

“Four.” There was plenty of space in the mansion’s driveway but Lars deliberately parked his venerable Dodge beside the big shiny SUV. 

“A little new ‘Gang of Four’,” he added with a grin, once they had stopped completely. “Not as notorious as we were, though, back in the day … ”

Carrie exited the car. She pushed her sunglasses up to look at her old high school friend, who had also gotten out and was already busy admiring the view. “Lars, behave yourself, okay?”

Lars regarded her with feigned innocence. “Don’t I always?”

Carrie smirked. “I don’t know. After all, this is only the second time I have seen you in 18 years. But I fear the worst.”  

She had almost said no when the invitation came.

Even if it had been in a real old-fashioned letter. Or perhaps because of that. 

After all, so much time had passed. She had barely talked to Alan or Nadine in almost 20 years. 

Carrie couldn’t imagine the kind of closeness that the glossy paper and its laser-printed copies of old photos were supposed to rekindle. Not anymore.

But her husband convinced her.

“Come on, hon. It’s not like you get out of the house too much.” He looked down, then quickly smiled.

They were in the little kitchen, the sun was burning outside, the kids were restless and in ten minutes the world would be constricted, like a chain around her neck:

Jon – off to work, which left ….

Emma – drive her to new school.

Michael – drive him to special school.

Back.

House-work.

Shopping.

Job applications.

Plan the training for Michael’s feeding disorder.

Diet plan.

Laundry.

And … And … And … 

And, Carrie Reese, taking care of a thousand needs except her own.

But not this weekend.

Her mother had come down from L.A. to help with the kids. Lars had had a gig in Reno and picked Carrie up at the airport.

It was 1996 again, for an evening. Carrie had never been to a high school reunion―well, a special friends’ reunion, to be exact, but same difference. No one else from their class had been invited, which was probably as well, she thought. 

Alan had made it big in stocks, that was pretty much all she knew.

Lars was a musician, maybe not famous or anything but at least he had made something of his life.

Marlene taught college students stochastic variables in NYC.

Mickey had a bar in Bermuda.

(And Nadine and Alan―who would have thought they’d still be together?!) 

And … Carrie Reese was a professional housewife and carer from Arizona.

But that’s not who I am, Carrie thought.

Okay, okay, that is who I am … but that’s not who I want to be.

A man they had not seen before waited at the door, and he presented himself as a “Connor”. There would be drinks in the garden, so if they would follow this way, please?

Lars blinked at Carrie. “Drinks in the garden for starters. This is going to be a good reunion party.”

Carrie nodded but didn’t say anything. She just followed. She figured she had about a minute to get her story straight. 

Of course, she had thought about it on the plane but had come to no firm conclusion. 

It was always difficult deciding who to be, especially when you had an autistic kid and whatnot.

Should you play the victim card or the stoic heroine? Or should you just gloss it over?

She felt that it wasn’t right to gloss it over. That would be akin to disowning Michael and she would never do that.

But what then?

As she emerged with Lars in the light of the palmy garden she felt naked and without allies, even though they were all there, ready to receive and raise their glasses. Lars and Carrie were the last to arrive.

Everyone assembled.

The core ‘Gang’ was here. 

Its two hang-arounds―”M&M” as Alan had called Mickey and Marlene―were here. 

And Alan’s girlfriend (still!), Nadine. She had been their mutual friend in Cuyahoga High and Carrie’s study partner during her miserable attempt at law school in Columbus.

4+2+1 = 6

If only she didn’t feel so alone, even here among people who supposedly still meant something. Then she could tell any story about her life, such as it was.

Carrie closed her eyes, and …

“You’ll become a great artist yourself,” Lin had said, the light of sincerity shining in those inscrutable dark eyes. “You’ll become lots of different things you can’t even imagine yet. Trust me.”

And suddenly the garden was gone and it was December 1996. 

Sooted snowflakes falling over Cleveland’s suburbs.

Alanis Morissette wringing her heart out on Carrie’s banged-up ghettoblaster. And Carrie doing the same exercise, but with Lin.

It hadn’t been about her drawings, though, but more the fact that Glen Powers had laughed at hers at the school exhibition and Glen didn’t know how Carrie had felt about him. 

And now he never would.

One little victory. Which was all you had, sometimes. But with friends like Adeline “Lin” Alexandra Kouris, it would be enough.

Carrie opened her eyes.

It was 2016 again.

Alan and Nadine were on their way to greet her.

She heard Lars laugh at her side and she heard herself say the expected words, felt herself reach out to do the perfunctory hugs.

But she didn’t really see any of them. Not yet.

Instead, she sharply noticed a lone spider’s web on the corner of the balcony, above and behind the assembled. Above everyone. The web had beads of water on it, and drops of white light.

She looked down and saw islands of light swimming on the grass, as though they had fallen through the palm tree fronds.

Everything was gently covered in light.

And despite the pain that hollowed out her heart for every step, Carrie knew she would be all right. 

Yes, some old friends were in places now, where no invitation could reach them. 

But if you allowed yourself to be still, and stretch out your arms and receive the waves of ache washing over you … then they would come.

It was all about if you could stand fast in the waves, wasn’t it?

She was afraid. Afraid that she was wrong about this feeling, as she had been wrong about so much else in life. But she decided that for the rest of this day, she wasn’t imagining things.

The light was real. And it meant something.

And by the end of the evening, everyone knew about Michael.

*

“There is no stability in this world. Who is to say what meaning there is in anything? … What is to come? I know not. But, as I put down my glass I remember … I am to dine with my friends tonight.”

― Virginia Woolf

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Cover photo by Meghan Schiereck on Unsplash

Mansion photo by Tom Nora on Unsplash

Westside Market, Cleveland by DJ Johnson on Unsplash

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53-190424

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Song: Pet Shop Boys – “Being Boring”

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Chris recommends

Tomorrow’s Light

Carrie’s first reunion with Lars, a little earlier. And some answers to the most important questions in life.

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Like Blood in A Darkroom

A long read from Shadeofthemorningsun.com about the last time ‘the Gang of Four’ were all together, a trouble New Year’s Eve 1997.

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Boats Against the Current

Carrie’s first, dramatic meeting with Adeline “Lin” Alexandra Kouris, at a party from hell in the winter of 1995.

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