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| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 03:10 |
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A few months ago, I was at the YMCA (aside: So many posts lately revolve around the Y that I really should rename this blog YMCA Turmoil. Seriously, though, half my community"s population is there on any given afternoon) and I saw a woman that looked remarkably like a girl named Marta, with whom I"d gone to high school in Atlanta 15 years ago. When I spotted her, I did a doubletake. And then a tripletake. And then I did a quadrupletake. And she appeared to notice all my "taking, and to be a little disconcerted by it. And from the curl of her lip and the nervously defiant stare she gave me in response to my decatake, I decided that it definitely wasn"t my friend Marta, because if it were, she certainly would have recognized me. I mean, we went to a Duran Duran reunion concert together, for God"s sake, watching in mutual horror as Simon LeBon writhed and sang on a velvet sofa that was shaped like a pair of red lips. We even held up lighters together and screeched "SI-MONNNNN! OH MY GOD, WE LOVE YOU SI-MONNNNN!" every time it got quiet on stage (aside: We totally didn"t love Simon. I had won the tickets from a radio station). Obviously, this was the kind of friendship-sealing event that would make it completely impossible for Marta not to recognize me 15 years later. Still, when I got home that day, I logged onto my high school alumni site, just to find out where the real Marta had landed. And I saw that she was living in Nashfuckingville, Tennessee. It was Marta! OMG! Excitedly, I told my stepdaughters that night that I had seen an old high school friend at the YMCA, and that I wasn"t sure it was her until later, and that I couldn"t wait to see her again, because it would be so fun to get together and catch up on all that had passed since we had graduated. I told them about the time that Marta had thrown a rubber cockroach down beside a teacher who had professed earlier in the week to having an irrational fear of bugs, and how when the teacher turned in time to see the rubber roach bouncing across the floor and began to scream, Marta jumped out of her seat, grabbed the rubber roach, and popped it into her own mouth, prompting the teacher to scream even louder. I told them that I laughed that day until the tears rolled down my face. I told them how awesome it would be to get back in touch with someone who had such a great sense of humor. I didn"t see Marta again at the Y for several weeks, but one fateful day, she got on the elliptical right beside mine. "Marta?" I said hesitantly. She looked at me blankly. "It"s me, Lindsay. From high school?" Recognition dawned on her face. "Oh my. Hi!" We chatted for a few minutes. She had moved to Nashville two years ago. I was conscious of how annoying it can be to chat with someone while trying to work out, so I suggested we meet for coffee one day soon, to catch up. I gave her my e-mail address. She never e-mailed, but I figured she had lost it. Then I saw her again, a few weeks later. "We have got to get together!" I said. "Yeah!" she responded. "Okay! Uh, let me get your e-mail address again!" I gave it to her. Several days after that, I got an e-mail. "I"m about to go to the Y," it read, "and I thought I"d better e-mail you before I see you again!" It occurred to me that the e-mail read more like someone who was afraid of being caught than someone who wanted to get together. But surely I was reading it wrong. I e-mailed back and said my schedule was pretty open on nights and weekends, and told her to name her date and I"d make it work. She didn"t e-mail back. Ever. Now maybe she"s busy. Or maybe she, ummmm... maybe she"s busy. But maybe? Just maybe? She doesn"t really want to get together. And I"m okay with that. Really, I am. It"s not very easy for me to get a night out, anyway, so if someone"s not into it, I don"t want to waste her time or mine. But where I used to saunter into the Y with the easy self-confidence of someone who assumes she"s, well, liked, I now find myself feeling like that woman, the woman at the gym that you"d do anything to avoid. The woman who wants to chat on the elliptical and reminisce about some shared past that was 15 years ago, for God"s sake. Doesn"t that woman realize that you"ve moved on? That totally oblivious woman who keeps insisting that you get together for coffee when, Hello! You"ve made it pretty damn obvious that you don"t want to have coffee and rehash the details of a freaking Duran Duran reunion concert! Or maybe she"s just busy. |
