Segment 10

         The first sound I hear is my own voice, cushioned by an ego that time hadn’t worn away yet.
         “Am I bringing back bad memories yet?” I laugh, this person that’s me, that’s so far separated from me that he might as well be a stranger. Lights are surrounding me like brilliant cones touching down, looking for sights that aren’t there. In the shadows, the contrast highlights your face. My tuxedo seems to absorb all the remaining light. You’re standing there in a dress, it might be a light color but it might just be white. Your hair is cut short again and the earrings you’ve chosen only highlight the angles of your face. From this distance you look beautiful. I don’t think I ever told you that, in so many words, in the plainest language I could manage. I could mouth it now, with intangible lips, but it wouldn’t make any difference. I only hope you knew that, somehow, because I was too insensible to say it.
         You have your arms crossed over your chest. My car is between us, but we’re both toward the back of it, coming around to meet each other. In the distance I see the shadowed shapes of other couples, trickling in by groups of two and four and six into a house of gleaming lights. It seems so faraway, like a place we might never reach. Voices are peppering the air, darts of laughter rising and falling above and around us. You’re staring up ahead like you’re looking for someone. I’m watching myself and I have my hands in my pockets, looking impossibly collected. I don’t know what I was thinking, I can’t remember things clearly anymore. My face barely looks familiar.
         “I don’t see why we couldn’t go in the limo,” you say, stomping one high heeled shoe lightly on the pavement. It clacks ominously in the spacious air.
         “You would have gone without me, then,” I say, sliding over to you. Close as I am, you don’t respond to my presence. I frown, briefly. “I don’t trust those things, and since I started driving . . . I don’t trust other drivers.” I shrug, sniffing. “Call me weird, but when I’m in the car now, I like to be in control.”
         You crack a smile at this. “Your dad must love that.”
         “It certainly makes trips to the mall interesting.” I look away, not at the building but into the highway, at the near silent cars cruising by, watching as some detach themselves from the flow and creep into the parking lot, bugs with glowing eyes, the shapes of the people inside only partially visible, more like ideas of figures than anything else. The air seems pleasantly warm, hot but not uncomfortable. In the sunshine it might have been unbearable but now the ground has cooled down enough that it’s not like stepping face first in a sauna. “But we don’t exactly go on many family trips these days anyway.” The shadows catch my eyes and submerge them. “My mom’s been working late a lot lately and my dad spends most of his time waiting for her to get home.”
         “How are things?” you start to ask, a small glimpse of concern lurking, somehow out of place among the glamour. “Are they still-“
         ”It’s okay,” I say quickly, cutting you off. “As far as I know, it’s what it is.”
         You take the hint apparently and fall silent. We walk a few steps, our arms close but not touching. I can’t grasp the distances involved, you might as well be walking on a treadmill. I’m following but I feel like I’m in a film, inches from the screen, I can yell at the people but I can’t interact.
         “You really didn’t want to take the limo, huh?” you say, your voice light but serious as well. This I remember, this was a sore point with you. I don’t know why I was so stubborn about it. Perhaps I just wanted to get my own way, even as my own world was putting the pieces into place to fall apart.
         “Nope,” I say bluntly. I think you wince but from this angle it’s hard to tell. I’m playing with the flower on my jacket, trying to make it look neat. In the dense heat it could be starting to wilt. “But you really did, I guess.”
         “Well,” you say airily, “it would have been nice to arrive in style, just for once.”
         “Style?” I snort. “You know what style is?” My arms go out in a grandiose gesture, somehow you avoid me without having to duck. You’re only up to my shoulders really, and that’s with heels. I remember being able to easily stick your face in my armpit, on those days I was feeling especially perverse. The sound of your muffled protests vibrated directly into my heart. But I can’t think about those things. Because they aren’t here and they aren’t now. “Style is everything you do wrong,” I finish, grinning like I’ve said something profound.
         But you only roll your eyes. “You said the same damn thing when I was picking out a dress.”
         “Ah,” I counter, pointing at you with a stern finger, “but I also added that you would look fine no matter what you chose.”
         You exhale a humorous breath and look away. “Yeah and I almost thought you were sincere when you said that.”
         “Hey, I did my best. That’s what you get for telling a guy about your dress problems.” I clasp my hands behind my back, trying to measure my steps with yours. I always used to forget that your stride was shorter than mine and sometimes I would be talking, engrossed in my own argument, only to find that you were several steps behind, amused at what had become a rather egocentric monologue. We can always find revenge, in small ways.
         “True,” you agree. “At least I didn’t ask you if the dress made me look fat or anything.”
         “Whoa, even I won’t touch that minefield,” I tell you, holding my hands up, palms out. “We were better off arguing over the limo.”
         “You know, I better get another chance to ride in one, just once,” you warn him and I think you’re only half joking about it. “Because if I missed out, I am definitely going to haunt you.” There’s a shine in your eyes as the overhead lights strike them, making your gaze more prominent and somewhat ethereal.
         “That’s a promise?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
         You stare at me for another half minute before turning away abruptly, giggling slightly. “God, no, I hope not,” you say, wiping at your face with nimble fingers, trying not to smear any of your makeup. “I hope I have better things to do, when it comes down to it.” You must have, because where are you now? I’m here and you’re nowhere in sight. Just these replays, telling me things I thought I already knew.
         “I hope you do, too,” I say, my grin typically uncaring but I catch a flash of something akin to worry in my own eyes, like I’m being reminded of something I don’t like to think about. The voices of other arrivals are growing louder, turning into a low murmur, pierced by occassional shouts as people recognize each other, as dresses are compared and shoes shown off, a masquerade without the masks, everyone dressed to look fine, caught in glittering lights, it catches them like a moving photograph, each segment somehow frozen, seared into memory. Everyone will remember something different and when you put it all together, that’s when you get the whole story. But all of these people won’t be in the same room ever again. And so the story remains fragmented and incomplete, like all the best tales. What I have of this isn’t worth repeating. I’m chewing the side of my mouth like I can’t remember if I’ve forgotten to turn the headlights off or not. I got home all right, so I guess I did. But that’s later. Now is not here, not in this place. People are waving to us, across crowds, and we’re waving back, bracelets and necklaces gathering all the ambient light, reflecting it back, shooting it up toward the stars. People are getting out of cars and limos with overstated elegance, for a few moments we’re all famous, in our own minds, caught in the manufactured magic, the thing that everyone has always told us will be one of the most important nights of our lives.
         “Did you remember the tickets?” you ask me suddenly, always practical when it mattered. I nod impatiently but pat my pocket anyway, feeling the reassuring thickness.
         “Remind me, do we have assigned seating in here or not?” I say mischeviously, tapping you with my elbow. I think that was a running joke of mine, back then, something that only I found funny. There was a story behind it, but I can’t remember now. I left that memory in another time, in someone else’s care.
         “Hush,” you say, automatically, distracted, suddenly slipping your arm into mine. I’m not sure if you even realize what you’re doing. I’m just as surprised, but am so taken by surprise that I forget to move away. We look too natural, I realize, and something tugs at me. But this is just a museum piece, a reenactment by actors who are too good at what they do, who speak all the old lines with a fervor that’s only too clear. You only do this once, and this rambling first take is the closest to fame any of us will ever get.
         “Well, then,” is all I’m able to get myself to say. From a distance the hall seemed all too unreal, a fairytale castle lit by luminous sprites, the washes of light giving it a sense of being detached from this world. But up close, as we fall into its sphere, the whole affair becomes too solid, opening into a spacious world of crystal. There’s carpet under our feet and we’re not even indoors yet. Double doors welcome up into a lobby, with a chandelier hovering overhead sparking with such fire that it might contain all the spirits that ever were. People are milling about and mingling, somehow not looking at all out of place. Beyond them, deeper into the building, I see more doors, revealing the hall that we’re all here for, where the main event will take place. It’s entering some kind of fantasy and I expect to enter a ballroom frequented by kings, neckdeep in glamour and manipulation, trying to curry the favor of a man you can’t see. There’s mirrors on the walls, polished so finely that you could step through them and what I see I refuse to believe. It’s not real. My life was never like this. And yet here we are, revelling in it, for just a few hours.
         Outside, we’re under an awning, in something that might be a courtyard, the way it brings us all together, funnels us inside. I look up, not seeing the stars and I see a flash of unease cross my face, like I’ve been separated from something vital. But not yet. That wouldn’t come for a while. You’re oblivious to all of this, walking next to me, outwardly contented. The parade of other couples is filing in, giving the empty rooms character, making it our own for just one night. We step in and are caught in a collective dream, fed by our own imaginations, what people have told us. You will treasure this, my mother told me and I never thought about why her speech was so halting, the words not coming as easily as they should have. This night, it’s something you will always carry. A year later, even those words would be beyond her. I haven’t thought about this night since it happened, but her voice, wishing for me to come back, thinking I was someone else, wishing I was her son, they follow him around like plague birds, waiting for something on me to decay and drop off so that they might feed.
         “This place is nicer than where my sister had hers,” you tell me, keeping your voice quiet. I can’t understand why you’re attached to my arm, it seems to go against all history. “I mean, it was nice, I’ve seen pictures and everything but this . . . this is a lot nicer.”
         “Are you just saying that because it’s ours?” I ask her, only half kidding.
         “Ours?” you respond, with a raised eyebrow.
         “Our class,” I amend. “You know, it’s all about us tonight, as a group. We’re not looking at someone else’s memories, you know what I mean? We’re in the pictures.”
         You don’t look convinced. “If you say so,” comes the answer and I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. The smell of food comes wafting in from somewhere, foreign and familiar, the same things I’d always eaten, just cooked in fancier ways. I remember being surprised that they were going to feed us. Having no other siblings I didn’t know what to expect from this affair. I figured I had paid a lot of money to dress up real nice and sit in a fancy room and maybe dance a little and have something to tell the grandkids about when they come around and ask me what my prom was like. It was magical, kids, I could hear myself telling them, in a voice that elevated things far beyond what they actually were. We’re travelling to the center of the palace, deep into the heart of it. People are speaking but they aren’t talking to us. Maybe they are and I can’t hear. There’s music coming in the same direction, soft and low, blending in like wallpaper from down this mirrored hallway, from the source of the grand banquet.
         There’s already people inside, flitting from table to table, judging the tables like they’re trying to mark territory, get the best vantage point from which to perceive the night. The room is ringed with high, round windows, and each one seems to be peek out on a different world, the suggested outlines of gardens and trees, latticework and gently curving pathways. But it’s the one that faces the highway that most interests, I can tell by the arc of my own gaze, I’m watching the glowworm blurs of moving cars against darkened buildings and I can tell that’s where I want to be. Moving. There’s a light out there, a single point resting on the black like a protest and I want to be where it is. And yet I’m immersed in splendor, walking among round tables, below crystal bulbs arranged like fine delicate spiders, waiting for you to find a spot you deem worthy. Part of me always thought you were playing a game, seeing how long I’d follow you around before I simply gave up. It was longer than you thought, but I never held out as long as I might have suspected.
         “Here seems good,” you say, perhaps thinking that I might be about to say something. There’s another couple on the other end, directly opposite us, I vaguely know them although they seem to know you, giving you a hearty wave and the girl even comes over to hug you. I see myself plop down in the seat, giving the other fellow a polite howitsgoing. The music has shifted into something a cut above background noise, pushing its way from aural static to something you can actively listen to. I can barely hear it, but my memories resound all the same and it’s the soundtrack of a million soap operas. I could get wistful, just listening to it, if I had the nerve. People are streaming in, settling at tables, mingling on the hardwood floor in the center of the room that must serve as a dancefloor. You’re now talking to a few other girls, far enough away that I can’t hear, your lips are moving but the words are a mystery. One or two pairs of eyes drift quickly back toward me, perhaps trying to see if I’m attempting to listen. I probably am, but it wouldn’t do any good. No doubt I’m playing the conversation in my head and coming up with my own asides. I think I would have barged in anyway, given another minute or so.
         But the chair next to me scrapes and that chance is lost. “Hell of a crowd here tonight,” the guy next to me says. We shake hands almost automatically, something we do to pretend that we’re men. He’s wearing a much sharper tux than I am, but his girl is nowhere in sight. I don’t even remember who his date was, although at the time I probably did, the matchups circulated through the entire school, carried by whispers, who was going with who, the inherent drama of this kind of thing running wild. “They really pulled out all the stops this year.”
         “Hey, I’m just here for the food,” I say with a shrug. Other people have joined my table, taking what seats are available. The tables nearby are close enough that people are sitting right behind me, like I’m part of some giant interlocked series of circles, drifting somewhere together, into some distant ocean. There’s the sound of hoofbeats somewhere but I think it’s my imagination, making my fears solid. I’m trapped on the deck of a sinking ship and what’s in the air is just as frightening as what’s down below. Because the sky is grey somewhere and it’s just as unsettling to be stuck inside the photograph as to be standing outside of it looking for a way to get in. I’m looking at you and I’m listening to what I’m saying and the disconnect is disconcerting. I don’t know what you’re saying. I probably thought it was about me. I said that already. It hardly matters.
         “Who’re you fooling?” the guy asks me. I’ve managed to keep the seat on the other side of me empty. I’m leaning away, one hand on the chair, that gesture alone is enough to chase any potential partners away. “I can’t believe that for a second, bud.”
         “Hey, I said I was working on gaining all that weight back,” I note, running a hand down the vest of my tux, smoothing out the wrinkles. “Just because I don’t eat doesn’t mean I don’t like to eat. I just don’t do it often enough.” I press forward a little, acting all conspiratorial. “Don’t tell my mother though, it’ll break her heart. I’ve almost convinced her I have a tapeworm.” Before he can speak, I hold up a hand. “Don’t ask why, it doesn’t quite make sense yet, you know?” I wiggle my eyebrows, as if I’ve just invested him in some grave secret. On the other side of him, a girl has caught part of this and rolls her eyes. Her friend giggles. Across the table, you’re drawn into a tight cluster, your hands making animated motions. It was always fun watching you talk, sometimes more than actually listening to you. I could be accused of not always paying attention. The trick always was to make sure that they never knew when you were actually listening.
         The guy, he stares at me for a few seconds, desperate not to do a double take. He laughs, of course, partly because he’s not sure what else to do. But it’s okay here, we’re all friends. There are people at my back, people on all sides, the lights are going down, crystals dimming, we’re being plunged into something timeless. Tonight, we’re our parents and we’re our grandchildren and we’re reenacting something that tradition has elevated to the level of something sacred. I could have the words rite of passage carved into me, for all it means.
         “God, you’re too much,” he says and I suspect he actually is sincere about that. I remember him from the bar, lost in morose wonderment, desperately trying to make sense of it all. “I never know what the hell is going to come out of your mouth.”
         “Oh, Christ, don’t give him openings like that,” one of the girl admonishes.
         I give her my most winning smile. “Ah, don’t worry. Tonight I’m on my best behavior. You certainly don’t need me to make the night memorable, hm?” My eyes flicker just generally in some direction, I don’t imply anything but she thinks I do and blushes briefly. Turning back to my friend, I say, “To be perfectly honest, I’m just trying to take it all in, you know?”
         The guy shrugs. “I don’t know, I expected . . . it doesn’t feel as different as I thought it would.” He shoots me a look. “You ever been to a wedding?”
         “Not unless you count the ones where I marry a fabulous movie star. And those are in my head,” I respond, with an easy laugh.
         “Okay then,” he replies, creasing the tablecloth absently. “It’s not much different, I mean, everyone is dressed a bit nicer I guess and you know, it’s not all about one person but it . . . it doesn’t feel much different.” He shrugs again, for lack of anything else. “But I guess I already said that, huh?”
         “Well then don’t spoil it for the rest of us then,” I say, resting both forearms on the table. “You keep those cynical, jaded views to yourself. Let these innocents approach it with fresh eyes.” My eyes are scanning the room, looking for more people I know. I know what I’m doing, I’m already plotting a path to mingling, to collide with as many as I can tonight. “After all, we are letting you sit with us.” I say the last with a wide grin.
         Out of nowhere anothe fellow comes up on my other side, putting a hand on the back of the empty seat. “Hey stranger, you saving this for somebody?”
         “As a matter of fact I am,” I say easily. I see you glance back over here, some kind of secret radar sensing someone might be taking your chair, but whatever conversation you’re engrossed in, you have no inclination to move away from it. It’s like you’re negotiating a peace treaty out there, so intent are you. I get the sense that the other girls are trying to convince you of something, that you have some other place to be. But I can’t read the body language, no matter how mundanely stated it might be. “For someone a bit more attractive than yourself.”
         “God, you’re so smooth,” he says, slipping into the chair anyway, nearly sitting on my hand in the process. “You must really turn yourself on when you practice in the mirror.”
         “Well I am my own best audience,” I admit, and a round of general agreement occurs. “Though it is nice to be acknowledged by my peers once in a while.” I bow as best I can while sitting down. The other guy makes a face at that and looks to be about to turn away.
         Behind me, my friend says, “What’s the deal, though, with saving the seat? You aren’t flying solo tonight or anything, are you?”
         “Of course he’s not,” a girl a few seats down says, breaking off her own no doubt fascinating conversation to jump in. Across the room someone is reading a speech about what a special night this is, but of course nobody is listening. If you’re here you’ve drawn your own conclusions. “Didn’t you see who he came in with?”
         “I thought I did,” says the guy in your seat, drawing the word out like he’s uncovered some sort of mystery. “But I figured something was warping my vision.” His gaze swivels to me. “So this is a change of pace for you, isn’t it?”
         “Yeah, you know how hard it is for me to dress up,” I counter casually. They’ve passed out glass of water now and I sip at mine. It never fails to amaze me how restaurant water doesn’t even quench my thirst, I could drink of it forever and be reduced to dust somehow. My throat could be coated in sand, and all the water would just slide right through and touch nothing. “I also have a tough time dealing with crowds.” I mime acting frightened, as if I suddenly realized I’m in a room full of people. That gets a laugh as well. I never realized how well I can act frightened, looking at it from a detached angle. “It’s a miracle I’m even here, to be honest.”
         “You didn’t finish that sentence,” the guy in your chair says. “You left something out,” he adds, when I give him an odd look.
         “What’s that supposed to mean?” my friend on my other side says for me. I get the sense he’s not so much defending me as setting me up. This conversation has been planned since the event was announced, since the pieces were put into place. “Why would he say something other than what he meant?” He seems honestly confused, but I know him and he’s an honest liar. We all are, it’s what draws us together. It’s what roots me here, years after I’m gone, when you’ve already slid out of my vision. The rhythms keep me in place, the old connections tingle, ghost limbs that still ache where I forcibly severed them, so long ago and so far ahead.
         “We all heard what he said,” the other guy says, his grin wicked. “But I can tell you what I heard.” His voice settles into a not bad imitation of my voice, deep without being rough, navigating over the tangles of my sentences, always one step ahead of what I’m really trying to say. “It’s a miracle I’m even here . . . with her.”
         An audible gasp wraps around the table. It’s staged, every single breath. I glance at all of them, expecting better, cursing myself for not seeing this coming. This is how they show concern, in their petty way.
         “Going to the well again?” someone says from across the table. I see him, he’s got a girl hanging onto his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. The music has shifted, finding a gentle groove, something to fill the spaces between your speech, to plug up the silence and make sure every moment is packed with some kind of movement. The girl is rubbing his arm, an affectionate gesture. I don’t envy him, I’ve been where he is and it’s the way of the world. Sometimes you’re alone and sometimes you’re not. It’s what you do in between that separates us. “Have you gone crazy?”
         “I think you need to leave the junior psychology at home,” I tell them, pivoting so that I can face everyone I can. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy in your seat leaning on the table with one elbow, staring at me with a bemused expression. “You’re all reading too much into this. It’s fun to watch but you’re straining yourselves for no good reason.” They don’t believe me, of course, although I’m radiating as much sincerity as I possibly can. Skeptical looks abound, like a dozen variations on a single face. The music rises into some kind of crescendo, a tiny wave hitting the uncaring shore, barely leaving a mark.
         “Don’t bug him about it,” one girl says, trying to keep this from turning into a tribunal. “It’s not any of our business, who he brings with him.” I think I dated one of her friends once, just for a day, just to see what it was like. It didn’t feel right, like getting into a suit of ill fitting clothes.
         “Oh, I’m not prying,” says the guy in your chair. “I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say I’m a bit concerned, that’s all.”
         “I don’t care if he stabs himself in the face again,” a guy who I don’t recognize says. “He knows what he’s getting into, far be it for the rest of us to warn him.”
         Judging from the look on my face I’m starting to see where this is going. I’ve probably already figured it out but sometimes it’s best to string people along and see what kind of ultimate point they come to. “Warn me?” I ask, a twitch of the lips the only revealing emotion. “You make it sound like a suicide mission.”
         Nobody hears, of course. There’s someone else talking to you who I can’t see, he’s lost in the crowd that’s gathered now. I assume it’s a guy because I can see the dark colors of a tux but who can say for sure, in these free times?
         “You know,” the one guy says, inhabiting your space, “if I was some asshole and he just some hapless dude, I might say, I might have the same damn attitude. But I . . .” he claps his hand on my shoulder, a gesture I don’t stop or encourage, “but this guy here, he’s my friend and there are certain things you do for friends. If they’re going down a certain road, you’re obligated to at least say something, just because you’re friends in the hopes that maybe they’ll veer off before terrible things happen.”
         I turn slowly and fix him with an expression gaze for a good fifteen seconds or so. Finally I point to him and cracking a grim smile say quite clearly, “You, my friend, are a jackass.”
         “He’s just trying to save you from yourself,” my friend on my other side says. “You can’t fault him for that, for saying something.”
         “Why, because I took a girl to the prom?” I ask, throwing my hands up in mock anger. I’m throwing my voice, boomeranging it so that it seems louder than it actually is, without going anywhere. “That seems a little narrowminded to me . . .” the other guy’s arm is still on me and I turn slightly, touching it and looking at him longingly, “unless you want to come as my date.”
         He snatches his arm anyway but laughs, a tad uneasily it seems. Always keep them guessing but if you don’t know the punchline yourself, things start to unravel.
         “Not just any girl,” the fellow on my other side says. “While we revel in your heterosexuality as much as you do . . .”
         “Do you even know what you just said-“ I interrupt.
         “. . . but the fact that you brought that one particular girl . . .” he inclines his head toward you, but you’re oblivious about the whole conversation. Perhaps you’re having a parallel one, where you are. Some people are starting to pair up for a dance on the floor and I’m losing sight of you amongst the bodies. “. . . you can see why we’re a little worried. Can you blame us for it?”
         “I’m thinking about it,” I say icily. I let go of the glass of water and leave fingerprint smears all over it, tracks of clearness among the condensation. My mark on the world, quickly obscured by drips. “I think you’re all suffering from an acute lack of drama and you’re latching onto the closest thing you can find.” I look at all of them again but the motion has no impact. They’re watching me the same way you watch the sophoric bear at the zoo, waiting in the hope that it might do something dramatic, but if it doesn’t, there’s always the lion cage a few rows down.
         “Is that how you see it?” the guy in your chair says. “That’s funny. How quickly they forget,” he adds, almost as an aside. There’s a girl sitting next to him but I don’t recognize her and she seems alternatly bored and interested in the whole experience, I get the sense that she would prefer a summary of the whole affair later, that a story isn’t any good unless you hear it second or third hand, warped beyond all its original boundaries.
         “Dude,” the other guy says, “listen, maybe you don’t remember anymore but . . . we remember how it was, right after you two fell apart . . . you were a mess.”
         “I was a bit depressed,” I admit, shrugging. “But what can I say, I’m a volatile mix of emotions. We all have our moments when things don’t go the way we want. I certainly wasn’t going to laugh it off.”
         “Ah, no, but it was bad,” comes the voice from my other side. A girl is nodding, agreeing with something. You’re almost totally out of sight now, buried, to the point where I start to think you might be sitting at another table, abandoning me to this tribunal. Or you were never here at all, just the suggestion of you, something that riles them up in a way I can’t comprehend. Now, I think I see what they were trying to do, for me, in their clumsy way. It was protection, in a sense.
         “Nobody could even talk to you,” another girl, not the same one who nodded, interjects. “You didn’t . . . you became like this, just another person . . . I thought, for a while I thought it broke you, that you’d never be the same again . . .” I know what she’s articulating, I see the recollection wash across my own face, a thing I locked somewhere deep inside myself and vowed not to let happen again. But here I am now, unable to talk, wondering what all the fuss was ever about. If they were trying to save my soul, there were better ways to go about it and better targets to save. And as it turns out, mine became perpetual anyway, in what could only be some kind of elaborate cosmic joke.
“It was weird,” she finishes, eloquently, “what you became, I just, I didn’t like it at all.”
         “None of us did,” my friend says, looking like he’s resisting the urge to give me a reassuring pat on the back.
         “And yet here I am, all kinds of recovered,” I say flatly. “That’s what you do, you get past these things and move on. We’re friends now, that’s all. Sometimes we even laugh about it, when you guys aren’t around,” I tell them, trying to sting without piercing. “I’ll probably tell her about you crazy people, when this is all over.”
         “You do that,” says the guy in your chair, and I get the sense from his tone that he’s doing his best to not take this as a joke. The gauntlet’s been thrown down, he’s doing his best to save my soul. He’s got a mission, between these elegant walls. Before the sun comes up again, I won’t be in anymore danger. My eyes keep scanning the place where I think you might be, and from where I can see, standing apart from myself, it appears that I’m looking for an anchor, or trying to find a way out. Caught at the edge of the table, I look surrounded, comfortable and trapped, my fingers creasing the tablecloth, looking ready to push off and rush away. “But when she abandons you again, and you don’t have anyone to talk to . . . we crazy people are all you’re going to have.” He looks like he’s about to add something else, but holds his tongue.
         There’s an awkward silence that follows this. No one wants to refute his statement but the level of vitriol implied means nobody has any desire to fully embrace it either.
         “Easy now,” someone says, after a time. “This is a party, we’re all trying to have fun here. Let’s not get too serious.”
         “It’s all right,” I say, holding out a hand. I take a sip of my water, trying to stall for time. People at other tables seem to have food, but I can’t see where it’s coming from. The dancing is still going on, everything seems jumbled and out of order. I get the sense that time is passing out of step with itself. I don’t like this, it’s razors inside of me, watching myself watching you, trying to remember how it all went, when I was actually here. I could slip through the floor at any minute and find myself in another place. Back at my house, maybe, or on some highway. The only constant is that you’ll be there, but I don’t know what that means. “He’s just speaking his mind. No harm done. We’re all friends here.” I draw the word out, emphasizing it, stretching it out just taut enough to let him know it could snap at any second. In your chair he looks at me and doesn’t say a word.
         Voices call my name. No, not me. I wave at people that I don’t see. My hand is curled around the glass protectively. I can see dancers curved the wrong way, reflected in moist desolation. “But what do you mean, when she abandons me? What did you mean by that?”
         “He didn’t mean anything by it,” the guy on the other side of me says, reaching out with a hand like he’s going to stop me from doing something. But what am I going to do, hit him? For once, I wasn’t the crazy one.
         In your chair, he blinks, smooth some creases in his pants, then looks back at me again. “What I mean, I . . .” he leans forward, rests his hand on the bridge of his nose. “Listen, nobody’s trying to insult you or her, here. All right? I just want to make that clear. I just thought this has to be said, that someone has to say it.”
         “Then say something,” I tell him, with a laugh. “So far all you’ve done is insinuate and apologize and then insinuate again. I’ll listen, when you’ve got something I can hear.” Outside the windows, the sky seems darker. I get the sense this conversation has been going on for hours. But that’s not right. It was over quickly. People in the background are becoming blurred, photographs exposed to too much light. My memory becomes dim. I’m falling into the cracks, filling in the gaps. “So give it to me, what you’ve got. I promise I won’t hit you. I think I can take it.”
         “I like her,” he says, but his face seems pained and he keeps glancing in your direction, waiting for you to come back. You probably would have hit him, had you heard any of this. But you’re out of sight now, just a memory we’re discussing, a shape we’re trying to fill in with thoughts and words. If we could get this table together again now, in the time we call the present, what would we say? Could we even find the connection again, to speak so frankly? “And I liked the two of you, together. She’s cool, she’s fun to be around.” He stops, pushing away a plate. That wasn’t there a second ago. Now it’s gone again. Oh God, what’s happening? Is this finally unravelling? “But you know all of that already. The thing is,” he hesitates, choosing words carefully. “Here’s the thing, she’s . . . flighty. I think that’s the word.”
         “Flighty?” I say, tilting my head a little. My tie has become slightly loosened. If I blink again it might come off completely. “That’s a new one.”
         “No, I think that’s apt,” the other guy says, nodding. “I think he’s nailed it, right there.”
         “Lucky me,” he says, frowning a little. “But the thing is, what I mean with that is when it comes to relationships, she . . . she’s not very focused.”
         “I think he knows this already,” one girl says dryly.
         “Don’t I,” I comment, equally dry.
         “In painful detail,” another says, either coming into the conversation late or just trying to help out.
         “She gets . . . bored isn’t the right word,” he’s trying to explain but you can’t fit a person into a sentence and try to pretend that it’s all of them there is. “Her interest shifts, you know this, you saw her with other guys and you saw how long they lasted.”
         “You were a record, I think,” the other guy smirks, nudging me.
         “Thanks,” I say, for lack of anything else.
         “But it ended, all the same, just like the others,” he says, occupying your chair and working on a piece of cake that’s now in front of him. Then he’s wiping the empty spot with a napkin. This isn’t exact, it’s all jumbled. You should be back by now, from your endless conversation. There you are, talking to a group, a different set. You catch my eye and wave. I don’t think I respond, because I’m working in a different slip, out of step with everything that’s going on. Men appear at the window, knocking to get in. Jokers, all of them. But no, I see guns. I’m seeing things. Ah. I have to stay. They’re pulling me, the idle winds. I have to see how it ends. I know how it ends. “And that’s, it’s just how it goes. Fine, you want to talk to her, you want to stay friends, that’s cool, that’s great.”
         “You still haven’t said anything,” I tell him.
         “If you get back together with her, the same thing is going to happen again,” he states flatly. “And it’s going to be even worse this time.” There’s a lingering sense of doom to what he says, and I expect lightning to crash outside, in time with the portents. It does, maybe, in reverse motion, turning the whole room into the opposite of color. I’m seeing through everything, I’m looking through myself.
         I have to laugh at this, looking around the room in disbelief. “Who said I’m getting back together with her? Which of you nuts came up with that idea? Really, you guys have to find other hobbies or something.” I’m looking from one to the other, trying to find the source.
         “You brought her here,” someone says. Maybe it’s the air.
         “We’ve been through this already,” I say, losing some of my humor. Did we go through this? Hours ago? “And it’s the prom. It doesn’t mean anything except an excuse to dress up fancy.” I fiddle with my tie. “And uncomfortably.”
         “Come on now,” he says, sitting in your chair. You’ve barely been in it and I keep considering it as belonging to you. You didn’t have to touch something very long to own it, as I knew all too well. But that doesn’t explain. That’s not the whole story. And I can’t tell it here, being impassive. It’s just variations of everything I know. Everything we were ever told. “Don’t be naive, pal. I know you’re not. She didn’t come here just so she could dine in these fine surroundings.” Have you even eaten yet? Have any of us? I don’t remember ever seeing you with food, although some might say because it rarely last long around you.
         “Fine then,” I say, starting to get exasperated at all this innuendo. “What did she come here for?” But the answer is already clear, on their faces, in all of their eyes. I’ve never seen a group so united for a cause so wrongly drawn. I appear to be resisting the urge to rest my chin on my neatly folded hands and smile sweetly at them, daring them to shock me. It seems like something I might do, had I thought of it.
         Nobody looks at anybody else. Eye contact is forbidden. The music changes into something sappy, wringing emotion out of the night. People are gone and replaced, and the change is hardly noticed. That’s how it is, in this life. You change your face and people just wonder why it isn’t raining today, then the voice on the television promised that scattered showers were in the offering.
         “Well,” a guy says, sheepishly hesitant, putting forth a theory so blisteringly obvious there aren’t words for it, “she’s making a play for you.”
         “Excuse me?” I say, almost immediately. The surprise is evident in my face, but there’s a time lapse involved. “A play? For me?” I can’t help repeating but maybe that’s because the pause is too long. There’s spiderweb tendrils of me drifting away, dissolving into the nonexistant air. I’m trying to remember what it was like to breathe and I’m afraid that if I ever become solid again I’ll never recall how it went.
         “Christ, it’s so obvious,” he says, almost spitting the words out like a curse. “Why can’t you see?”
         “Why can’t you make sense?” I spit back.
         “She still wants you,” he points out.
         “As much as that fluffs my ego, I doubt it,” comes my answer.
         “Then why did she ask you?” he nearly stammers, having reached his own levels of frustration. “Why did she bring you here, if she doesn’t want you back?”
         I’m about to speak when he says this, but his words stop me. I’m processing this, I’m watching his words slide down the walls, thick and dripping. I lean back in the chair, drape one arm over the back of it and try not to laugh. At least it looks like that. As far as I can tell. I’m trying to read my own body language but it’s all foreign, symbols and signs and I’m cut off from the nerve center, all meaning suspect.
         “Is that what you think?” I say quietly, as the song plays in the background, promising that we’ll all be together forever. No, we won’t. But you can’t make anyone believe that tonight. Locked in each other’s arms, the heat of bodies pressed together is a kind of glue, bonding inseparably. “Is that what brought this on?” You’re coming back to the table now, saying goodbye to someone I can’t see. There’s promise buried somewhere deep in your eyes.
         They’re staring at me, waiting for a point to come of it. But there is none, there’s only pressing forward and trying not to stumble in the dark. I change tactics, alter cadence. “Who told you that? Who said it?” I thrust out, pinning them against themselves.
         “Ah,” the guy says, shifting in your chair, that you’re coming to reclaim. Or not, I can’t see you. Where are you? Where did you go? “That’s what someone said, that they heard . . .”
         “Were they there?” I insist, leaning forward enough so that I seem bigger than I actually am, with my see through frame and fading presence. “Can you tell the name of someone who actually saw it?”
         Glances. People could be murmuring but maybe not. Maybe it’s the night, leaking out a hairline crack. Time will steal you, I see you coming in slow motion. I can make you walk backwards but I can’t put time back in its bottle. It’s escaped and it’s corroding us all.
         “You can’t,” I tell them, snapping the words out like a hammer. A thousand hammers, falling against an uncaring fence. “And I’ll tell you why you can’t . . .”
         Someone might realize it, in the last second, right before it all drops out. “Goddammit,” they swear, but maybe they’ve just realized there’s only one direction to go in, when everyone around us had lied and said the world was open to us, that whatever we wanted was ours. Everything in the world, maybe. If you were generous. But not in time. You can’t have a bit of that at all.
         “She didn’t ask me,” I say, trying not to smirk, failing dearly, “I asked her.” I cross my arms over my chest. “How does that help your theory? If there’s anything left of it.”
         “Why?” someone asks, finally, over the velvety croon of manufactured emotion. They seem embarrassed to have even brought it up. But the hard questions have to be asked, if you’re going to move forward. They didn’t look at me the same, after this. A year later they wouldn’t be looking at me at all. Voices in glass, telling me to stay in one place. But I can’t. That was never how it went. They’re looking tired now, colors are fading. Things aren’t as vibrant, when you’re been wallowing for hours. It peels, it settles, becomes dull. We all had to get out, before the whole ediface collapsed. “Why would you do it?” I don’t remember if someone actually asked that question, but it was certainly implied.
         “Because,” I say, not looking at anywhere in particular. “Because she’s my friend. Because I wanted to. And because I felt like it.”
         And then you’re back. The fellow is gone, your chair is empty and then it’s not. You’re grabbing my arm, hands tugging at me.
         “Now what?” I hear myself say, as if this isn’t the first time we’ve done this tonight.
         “Come on,” you say. You’re half standing, with one leg resting on the chair but after a few yanks you give up and plop down in the seat, staring at me with mock frustration.
         “Yes?” I ask, drawing the word out.
         “You are not going to be sitting here all night,” you tell me, in no uncertain terms of compromise. “I’m going to drag you up for just one dance.”
         “You are?” I say, daring you to do it. But the outcome is already decided. I had nothing against dancing, I never did, but I enjoyed the game required to get me there. “You think you are,” I amend.
         “One’s not going to kill you,” you retort, with a little less patience than usual, perhaps because the circumstances are different, perhaps because you can feel, more acutely than any of us, the night’s clock ticking resolutely downwards, winding out of touch. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before. Come on,” she says, renewing the tugging. Perhaps I liked it better this way, it made me feel wanted. But that had never been a problem before. “Just once. With me, please?” The pleading tone was always the trump card, a signal to me that I had to make a decision right then, or you were going to move onto something else. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had said no but of course I wouldn’t.
         “Sure. Fine,” I say, with a mock exaggerated sigh, like I’m doing you a big favor. “But one, though. That’s it. You’re taking a lot out of me, here. I’m just getting comfortable.”
         “Oh, you need to get off your ass,” you say, snorting a little, giving me one final pull that takes me out of my seat, nearly sending me into the table behind us. I’m off balance and poised, standing on just the edge I need to be. This could be the last song tonight. I can’t be sure. I’m not paying attention. Standing upright I realize how much taller I am than you. You put a hand out to steady me. “That’s better,” you say, grinning impishly.
         “You owe me,” I tell you, more out of habit than anything else. We’re probably even, over the years, but I think even if there were debts, neither of us would call them in. My words are lost in a swirl anyway, as we travel to the dance floor, you leading but I’m not so much following as going to the same place. I can see my friends staring at me, some of them shaking their heads, and their lips are moving and maybe they’re talking about me but I can’t tell. I’m moving with myself, shifting into a new perspective. The room grows dark around the edges, the lights dimming, my vision starting to fade.
         “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say, dismissing it and acknowledging it at the same time. “Tell me something else I don’t already know.”
         The song is going on around us, already set in motion and it takes me a moment to find the soft rhythm. We fall into a natural stance, our bodies settling into each other instictively. It’s memory here, that guides me, so far removed. The feel of your hand, in mine, strangely warm, the way my other arm fits around your body, how we both move in time, not really leading or following but just both going in the same direction, understanding the shifts, knowing when to let go and go with it.
         “You’ve gotten better,” you tell me, your voice not leaving our sphere, even though we’re surrounded by dozens of other couples, dark and light, suited elegance, moving to a place beyond their years. We all want to be adults, without knowing what it means. Once you’ve left, the door shuts and not all your pounding can make it open again. I’ve lost things that I won’t replace, because even when you get them back, it’s not the same as when you had them the first time.
         “I’m well rested, that’s all,” I reply. “Sitting on my proverbial ass all night, remember?” You laugh a little at that and look down. “Besides,” I add, “we’re early into it yet. I hope you wore sturdy shoes, I think I’ve been putting on weight.”
         The laugh turns into a giggle, and you shake your head at my train of thought. For some reason my calculated absurdities never fail to connect with you, except when they actually mean something. But I cloak what I say, just like the rest of us, but I’m not sure what I’m really attempting to say and I’m afraid it will come out wrong and nothing will be right.
         “No, you’re doing all right,” you say, reassuring me, even though I don’t really care. Your other hand, the one I’m not holding, is resting on my arm. You’re squeezing it a little, as if afraid I might go away, or that you might and I’m the only anchor you have left. It’s not true. They’re all out there, all around us. In the end, it was me who was without the anchor, all my foundations blown and when the time came to leave, there was nothing here that could stop me from going. “You’re doing fine.”
         We sway with the song for another minute or so, not speaking. I see shadows outside, time closed down, the road leading to places that I can’t imagine. I want to find a path and follow it until it ends and then turn around and go back to find what I missed. You’re lost in something, staring at my chest but not actually seeing it. A couple dances through me, their lips barely brushing together. There’s a sense of feigned romance drenching the air, and in comparison we seem chaste and tentative.
         “Thanks for coming,” you say, after a little more time has passed. You seem to be wrestling with just how to say this. “I’m really glad you did, I really appreciate it.”
         “Hey, the pleasure’s all mine,” I say easily. “It gave me an excuse to get out of the house.”
         “No, I’m being serious now,” you say.
         “So am I,” I respond. “My parents want to repaint the dining room this weekend, so this got me out of that nicely.” Seeing some room, I send you into a brief dip, with a casual flamboyance that leaves you grinning, although there’s still something lingering in you. You’re not finished yet. I know this story. I know how it ends. I keep telling myself that so it won’t be as bad, when I watch it happen. If I stay long enough. A hand reaches for me, sideways. I have to hold on.
         “I didn’t know what I was going to do,” you say, as if I hadn’t spoken. Sometimes that was the best way to deal with me, just forge on regardless and hope I caught up at some point. “I didn’t expect things to, ah, to go so bad right before the prom.” You frown and look away, into the crowd, trying to see through the shifting mob, to the people sitting at near empty tables, silently glad they weren’t up here with us, or secretly wishing that they could get the nerve to partner up and join us. “I told we’d hold out, until tonight at least. I figured after this weekend, it could go all to hell for all I cared.”
         I’m not talking, I’m watching you now, waiting for you to finish. I don’t remember if we discussed this already, tonight.
         “But I just couldn’t . . . it wasn’t working,” and you’re saying it to me like you’re trying to convince me, that you want my approval that you did the right thing. I have no idea, it’s not for me to say. It never was. “We couldn’t keep it together enough . . . I thought we’d be fighting the whole night, if we came together.” You bite your lip, chew on it thoughtfully, distracted. “But I had already decided to go. I wanted to go.”
         “There was no reason why you shouldn’t have gone,” I say, reasonably. This is doing something to me, you’re a magnet disrupting all the fine shavings inside of me, realigning them, until what I feel isn’t what I thought. “We both know that. You weren’t married to him.”
         “Yeah,” you say, looking past me diagonally, sounding detached. Then you laugh a little, for lack of anything else to do. “It’s me,” you say. “Isn’t it?”
         “You what?” We slide a little, the music has changed tempo slightly, somehow become even slower. We’re standing there, you and I, practically, just shuffling, as if the movement itself might keep us warm or give us enough gravity to keep from falling.
         “I always think this is the one that’s going to last,” you tell me, like I hadn’t said anything at all. That was one of our problems. Sometimes you didn’t hear me, but sometimes I listened and pretended not to, because I knew it would tick you off. “And they don’t, they never do. It must be me, it has to be, I mean, I’m the common factor, right?”
         “Don’t worry about it,” I say, perhaps pulling you a bit closer. It’s going to ruin me, this proximity. It’s going to make a liar out of everything I ever said. Don’t look back, goddammit. If I learned one thing and how not to apply it, that was it.
         “And the thing is,” you continue, proving my point, at least one of them, I’m not sure which, “I know it’s me and it’s something I’m doing, every time and . . . and I don’t know how I’m doing it. And so I don’t change. And I’m going to, this is how it’s going to be, unless I change. And I don’t know how.”
         “I think it’s called being a teenager. I think it comes with the territory.”
         “It’s a pattern. I don’t like it.” You’re rather adamant about this, knowing you this is probably the product of a long train of thought. It’s wrong but I was never one to dissuade you, you would either come to realize it on your own or you never would.
         “You’re a little young yet to be a serial dater,” I say, spinning you around a little bit, still maintaining my rhythm. You relax into it but there’s a certain tension underlying your body, I can feel it in your hips, your shoulders, hardly betraying you but still present. But I knew you at your most comfortable and I can tell when things are coiled up inside of you. But I can’t say anything, this isn’t the place and it’s not my place. “If you’re out of college and on boyfriend number fifty then maybe we’ll sit down and have a chat.”
         “That might be a good idea, if that’s the case,” you say, smiling a little. “I might someone to slap some sense into me.” You sway into me, brushing against me briefly, in a familiar fashion. “Might as well be you. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
         “That’s the first time you’ve ever admitted that,” I say, with some surprise. “It’s certainly a change from arguing over whether the sky is blue on a sunny day.”
         “You just like being contrary,” comes the response.
         “I like being contrary?” I ask, in disbelief. “Me? Just wait until the ride home. Sister, if you think I’m going to let that comment slide, you’ve got another thing coming-“
         While I’m speaking your face has become pinched and pensive, almost as if the somber music behind us is warping you, dragging your emotions downward, reminding us that we might have parties again, we might have dances again, we might dress up again, but we’ll only have this night just once. It’s not a terrible thing, but it’s a true thing and it’s not something we like to admit. It’s giving me different visions, of dim streets and fog ridden streetlamps, of walking together and thinking you’re the only people in the world, all windows dark, all air still, the temperature just warm enough that you don’t want to ever go inside. The heat of your hand, it’s taking me. I’m watching myself disintegrate before my own eyes, going down by degrees, even as I flicker into this place. My feet are through the floor. I’m dancing with you. The song builds, threatens to crash. Two people are together and overlapping me, her head resting on his shoulder, eyes staring into a place that isn’t here, a future that won’t come to pass. He’s got her, whoever he is but he’ll have to let her go eventually. You always do. I can’t learn that lesson. Time teaches me again and again but I refuse to learn. Dammit. Maybe that’s why I’m here. To learn. Finally. Because I never listen. Because I hear the wrong things. But the thing it’s telling me, I already know. I knew what loss was, before I entered. Are your parents still alive? In some time they aren’t. Mine are gone now, and ever. I’ve felt the knife’s edge go right through me and I survived it. I’ll survive this. I hope. I’m not sure. Dammit. You’re staring at me and I know what you’re going to say. You poor bastard. I’ll tell myself that, if we ever meet again. What you had is what you had. You won’t get it again. Be content with that, you sorry fool. And leave it be.
         “Are you all right?” I ask, insisting on a thing you can’t answer. Not honestly. Of course you’re not all right. In less than five years you’re going to be dead. I’m going to watch you die and you won’t even know it. I could tell you that and it would be true, but not yet. There’s still time for it to unfold. I’m unfolding, pieces of me exposed to the uncaring air.
         “I want it to work out,” you say, intently, to someone who isn’t here. Your hand tightens around mine, warningly. You don’t even know what your body is trying to say. Or you do, but you can’t stop it. “This time I do.” But you’re not talking to me, or at me, or about me.
         “What are you saying?” I might ask, out of time, out of sequence. The band is packing up. No, the song’s not over yet.
         “He came, tonight,” you tell me. “With a friend, the same, like I did.” It’s hard for you to get the words out. Your lungs are filling up. “He might have came for me, that’s what they tell me, it’s what I want to . . .” you break off, shaking your head, looking desperately uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” you say, barely audible.
         “For what?” I demand, quietly. “What are you apologizing for?”
         “We were talking before,” you say. “The two of us. Earlier.” You’re not squeezing my hand anymore. But maybe that’s just perception, removed from this distance. “He wants it to work and ah, so do I. I think we can do it. I really do.”
         “I’m being dense here,” I say. “I don’t mean to be, but I am. What exactly are you telling me?” I can see it. I know how it goes.
         You lean into me suddenly, your forehead resting on my chest. I think you laugh into me, a tired and sad noise, muffled by me and the surrounding night. When you lift your head again, your hair is mussed a little and you’re not smiling.
         “I’m . . . I’m going home with him,” you tell me, your voice flat. “We have stuff, a lot of stuff, that we need to talk about and that . . . it can’t wait. I don’t want it to wait. So I’m, ah, I’m going with him and we’re going to talk about it . . .” your voice gets stronger as you say, like you’re convincing yourself of this thing. Of it.
         I don’t say anything. Not immediately, not right away. One or both of us lets go of the other, we separate simultaneously. There’s no motion to reach out, the song’s over. Around us, people are streaming out, arm in arm, laughing, drifting back to tables, collecting belongings, going to wherever the weekend might bring them.
         “Don’t be mad-“ you say.
         “Fine, it’s fine,” I say, quickly, at the same time. We’re not the only two left but it feels that way.
         “Don’t be mad,” you repeat, begging, for no real reason. Maybe it’s just the way I hear it.
         “Don’t worry about it,” I tell you, but I’ve stepped away, I’ve widened the gap. My face is neutral, friendly. “Do what you have to do.”
         “Don’t go, please, you don’t have to go now,” you say, not moving toward me, not stopping me at all. There’s cars outside and I’m with them, I’m already there. As I remember, so few nights ago.
         “And good luck,” I say, giving you a mock salute, grinning broadly. I hesitate a half second, perhaps waiting for you to do something more. No motion comes, the rescue party passes by, without even seeing the signal. “Take care of yourself, I’ll see you soon, okay?”
         I think you might be saying something as I turn around, pivoting on my heel. I don’t catch it, the smile is still on my face as I turn away. I see myself, striding away, moving through the crowd like a phantom.
         Two steps, and my hands are in my pockets. Another two and the smile is gone from my face, like it was never there, replaced by something else, an expression I can’t read, an acceptance, a resignation. I keep walking and by the time I’ve reached the edge of the room I’m whistling to myself, softly, a jaunty tune I don’t recognize.
         It hovers in the air and I carry it with me as I keep moving, never breaking stride, out of the building, out into the parking lot, out of my sight and eventually out into a night that I remember, but I can’t recall.