Non-reunification
by Charles C. Cole
Celia Pannell was a successful businesswoman having a meeting with a new client in a strange town. She stumbled going up the broad, shallow concrete steps to the office building, not noticing that she had dropped what looked like a fluttering check, of all things.
Have you ever punched in your debit card code at the grocery store when a stranger is a little too close, inside your personal space? What happens? You mess up! You know the number cold, but you’re distracted. The intrusive stranger probably isn’t looking and, even if they are, the number’s no good without the card. Same thing happens at the gas pumps or logging into your computer.
I felt this was like that: she knew I was observing her, and that made all the difference. We’d arranged for me to be nearby. No ice-breaker, face-to-face conversation beforehand. No polite, introductory touching. I just wanted to see what she looked like after all these decades. We’d dated in high school, then gone to our separate colleges where we’d met and married our life partners. Eventually, we’d each lost our loved ones to cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and prostate.
I had no intention of starting over; that’s not what this was about. I just wanted to check in with a childhood friend I’d been missing from my life. Celia had felt a live video call, face closer than a high-school yearbook picture, would shock me: she’d gotten older. Me, too. A phone call, to her, seemed too personal and permanent, like it was allowing me into her life, giving me a private number I could use whenever I wanted.
So, instead, we used Facebook Messenger. We wrote about the weather, our pets, our grown kids, the view out our respective dining room windows, work. More her work than mine, as I’d recently been laid off. And, as it turned out, Celia inadvertently revealed she had an upcoming business meeting just over an hour’s drive from my house. So, after some friendly bullying from me, she’d consented to my watching her arrive and walk in. She told me the make, model, color of her car - and the time and place of her meeting. Not how she’d be dressed or how she’d wear her hair.
Celia, a CIO for some huge banking concern, was still astonishingly beautiful. Time had done nothing to diminish her glow. She strolled with confidence, no doubt propelled by her extensive history of corporate successes, chin up but not afraid to be feminine: still no pantsuits for those long, lean legs of hers. I was happy for her. I observed from a busy coffee place, in the outdoor dining area. She didn’t appear to look about, but she must have known I’d get as close as I could.
I waited until Celia had disappeared in the building, then picked up her dropped paper. It really was a check! I was thinking of a way to return it. With flowers? But she’d claimed the meeting was to last all day and that I shouldn’t wait. We’d agreed that “baby steps” was the most appropriate pace for this rapprochement.
The check, as it turned out, was addressed to me! Celia’d written: “For gas, time, tolls,” in the notes field. I went into my prideful head. Was this because I was unemployed? Should I be insulted? Even at the height of my career, I had never attained her level of financial security. I’d been an artist masquerading as a white-collar worker. Now that the mask was off, I was a painter looking for renewing inspiration. Many years ago, she had been my muse.
Celia’s phone number was handwritten below her printed address. Don’t get excited, I thought. Maybe it’s out of habit. But, as I walked back to my car and my long drive home, I knew she’d extended an invitation. An opening for something more. Clever, brave lady. Maybe, just maybe we were ready for the next stage in our non-reunification.
Copyright © 2022 by Charles C. Cole
