Time Flies: A Novel

by Claire Cook

  To: Melanie

  From: Finn Miller

  Subject: Re: Re: Reunion

  Save the last dance for me.

  CHAPTER 10

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: It’s Never Too Late to Make a Reunion Time Capsule!

  Do inform your classmates in advance so they can bring an item that represents an important memory. Think: never-returned textbooks, old report cards, record albums and 8-track tapes, as well as condoms (unused only, please) and other prom memorabilia.

  Don’t overlook the importance of choosing the right container for your time capsule. Even you and (most of) your aging classmates will hold up longer than a flimsy cardboard box. Should one of you have a professional connection, a simple casket works perfectly. Leave open and place in a prominent location at the reunion.

  Instead of dreaming about Finn Miller, I dreamed about artist and former nun Corita Kent, who created the famous LOVE postage stamp. In high school, or maybe it was junior high, she became my hero when she designed the rainbow of swashes that was painted on one of the enormous storage tanks along the Southeast Expressway and changed the commute to Boston forever. Not only was it pop art and the coolest thing evah, but rumor had it that she’d snuck the profile of Ho Chi Minh into the blue swash as a protest against the Vietnam War.

  She died when Trevor and Troy were still little, but in my dream she showed up at my house in Georgia and asked me to touch up the tank for her.

  She was wearing her nun’s habit again. I wondered if it was a last-minute religious reconversion before she died, but I didn’t ask in case it might be rude. Her headpiece was too wide to fit through our front door, so I stepped out on the stone front steps to talk to her.

  “Thank you for thinking of me,” I said. “But I couldn’t possibly touch your work.”

  She smiled a beautiful smile and I wished she weren’t a nun because then maybe she could be my mother. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It’s a storage tank.”

  “But I’m not a painter.”

  A gust of wind caught her rosary beads and she smiled again. “We’ll give you a metal paintbrush and metal paint, and you’ll be just fine.”

  “But I’m afraid.”

  “Of course you’re afraid. We’re all afraid. There are only two choices: afraid and boring.”

  “Really?” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s okay. If you knew it, I would have asked someone else.” She reached into the pocket of her habit and pulled out a child’s eight-color watercolor paint set.

  I held out one hand and she placed it on my palm. It was lighter than air. “That’s it? That’s all I need?”

  She was starting to levitate. “Yes, there’s a metal ladder built onto the side of the tank, so hold on tight and just don’t look down. And make sure you get Ho Chi Minh’s nose right. It’s the blue one.”

  My heart did a double beat and the baby elephant sat down on my chest. “But I’m afraid of heights. I can’t even drive over a bridge. And how am I going to get to the tank anyway? It’s right on the edge of a highway.”

  Corita Kent was fully airborne now, and for the first time I realized that Sister Bertrille from The Flying Nun had been up in the sky waiting for her all along.

  “Boring,” they both yelled. And then they giggled and flew off together.

  When The Flying Nun came out, my sister, Marion, and I watched it religiously every Thursday night at eight. We even talked our mother into cutting our bangs so we’d look like Sally Field.

  It was all fun and games until Marion decided to make me fly. She was four years older so she should have known better, but one day she wrapped me in a sheet and helped me climb up and stand on my bed. It was an iron cottage bed that had belonged to some old dead relative, and it was painted a shiny white. Marion stood on the bed and gave me ten fingers to stand on the slippery footboard, which seemed a hundred feet high.

  I was trying really hard not to cry. “I don’t think I can fly,” I whispered. I twisted around to keep from falling forward and ended up mostly on the bed. My head hit the edge of the metal frame. When Marion dabbed at my face with a corner of the sheet, it turned really, really red.

  “Don’t tell Mom,” she hissed, so I started to scream. Then Marion started to scream as if she were the one bleeding, so I screamed louder. When our mother came running in, she screamed, too, then ordered us both out to the car. My mother hated blood and she hated to drive and money didn’t grow on trees. By the time we found the hospital, the six stitches and one lollipop I got from the doctor was practically the best part of the day.

  I ran one finger along the tiny raised scar near the top of my forehead. It had started out just above my eyebrow, but as my face grew it had moved up, just like the doctor promised.

  In honor of my dream I was watching an episode of The Flying Nun that I’d found on my laptop and sent to the family room TV via the wireless thingee Trevor and Troy had configured for us last Christmas. I was stretched out in Kurt’s former recliner that I’d sprayed with Febreze so it wouldn’t smell like him.

  The episode was called “The Candid Commercial.” The gist of it seemed to be that the convent washing machine breaks down, forcing Sister Bertrille to take all the nuns’ laundry to a Laundromat. In a pretty big coincidence, a producer and cameraman just happen to be there filming a candid commercial for a laundry detergent called Delight.

  I sighed. Back when Kurt and I were living in our first little rental apartment, we used to go to the Laundromat every Monday, since it was the slowest night. I’d bring our economy-size jug of Wisk detergent and pour it carefully around the neck of each of Kurt’s and my shirts, hoping to avoid the “collar soil” that would result in the heinous “Ring Around the Collar” described in the Wisk commercials.

  Kurt would have taken over the entire length of a folding counter to sort the change we’d saved all week, pocketing the quarters for the evening’s dinner, filling the coin-operated washers and dryers with the nickels and dimes, and rolling the pennies in orange wrappers we’d store in a shoe box until we had enough to take to the bank.

  As soon as we got our two jam-packed washing machines going, one for colors and one for whites, we’d stop in at the local pizza place, put in a to-go order, take a walk, then circle back to pick up the single cheese pizza we could afford. On nights when the timing worked out just right, we’d walk into the Laundromat with our dinner as the spin cycle was winding down.

  We couldn’t wait until we could afford to buy our own washer and dryer. When Kurt’s parents finally upgraded and handed down their old Harvest Gold Kenmore set, we christened them with a champagne toast as if we’d won the lottery.

  Who knew those laundry-and-pizza dates would turn out to be some of the best times of our marriage.

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: Why Not to Go to Your Reunion on an Empty Stomach

  GOLDFISH GET-TO-KNOW-YOU REUNION ICEBREAKER: Ask class officers, cheerleaders, potheads, and other formerly prominent classmates to carry a large bowl of Goldfish snack crackers to each table, instructing everybody to take as many as they wish but not to eat a single one yet. After everybody has a handful, pause a dramatic moment, then inform the crowd that they have to take turns sharing one personal fact with their tablemates for each Goldfish they took.

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: 5 Reunion Don’ts

  1. Junior sizes (even if you can still fit into them)

  2. Pantyhose

  3. Matching spousefits (outfits for spouses)

  4. Mirrored sunglasses

  5. A case of water bottles labeled with your business logo that just happened to be in the trunk of your car

  “Have I worn you down yet?” B.J. asked when I answered my cell.

  “Mirrored sunglasses are a reunion don’t?” I said. “Really?”

  B.J. barked a laugh into my ear. “Ab
solutely. Well, unless you’re Dog the Bounty Hunter. And I think even he’s on borrowed time with the sunglasses indoors look. Anyway, what’s new?”

  “Let’s see. I just finished watching an episode of The Flying Nun, and last night I had a dream that Corita Kent asked me to paint something for her.”

  “Ha, the Flying Nun part better be a joke. Okay, enough small talk. I’m not hanging up until your flights are booked. And I don’t want to hear any whining about how much the tickets cost. It’s your own damn fault for waiting so long.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  There was dead silence on the other end. I used the time to scroll through my email, just in case something else had come in from Finn in the last three minutes.

  B.J. cleared her throat. “Really?”

  “I just said I would, didn’t I?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. You talked me into it, that’s all. You’re very persuasive.”

  B.J. blew a gust of wind into my ear. “Spill it.”

  “There’s nothing to spill.” I took a quick breath. “Hey, do you remember Finn Miller?” I asked, the lure of saying his name out loud impossible to resist.

  “Of course I do. You drooled all over him in Algebra and Geometry. Didn’t you two even go out, or almost go out, or something like that?”

  I did my best imitation of nonchalant. “I’ll have to check my diary and get back to you.”

  “Well, he’s single again, too, you know. And he’s going to the reunion.”

  “Gee, what don’t you know?”

  “What can I say, I’m on the committee. His profile is a ten, too, or at least a nine-point-five. Divides his time between Malibu and Chicago, or maybe it was Maui and Cleveland.”

  “Ha,” I said. “And he has a private plane. And he invented a daily vitamin that reverses gray hair.”

  “No, no,” B.J. said. “Actually it not only gets rid of the gray, it turns your hair any color you want it to be.”

  “Cool. Like Flintstones for grown-ups. You just pick a vitamin and, presto, ten minutes later your hair turns Wilma White or Frosted Fred.”

  “Or Bamm-Bamm Blue or Pebbles Pink. And it’s time-released, so it lasts all day and most of the night.”

  “All day and most of the night,” we both sang.

  “Jinx,” we both said.

  “I think we may have botched the lyrics,” B.J. said. “But who was that anyway?”

  “The Kinks, I think. I used to love that line about believing that you and me will last forever. Ha.”

  B.J. laughed. “You and me will last forever—it’s the rest of the stupid world we have to be concerned about.”

  “This is true.” I closed my eyes to picture the metal sculpture—a big steel vitamin bottle with Flintstone-like figures climbing out and spilling over the sides. Maybe for a playground or a children’s museum, although it would have to be installed out of climbing range to protect it, and possibly sandwiched between big sheets of Plexiglas.

  Or maybe Finn Miller would commission me to make it for his Maui estate.

  “Okay, let’s get your flights booked,” B.J. said. “And, for the record, I still think there’s something you’re not telling me. Oh, and don’t forget to call your sister and let her know you’ll be in Marshbury. She’ll kill you if someone else tells her first.”

  I pulled myself away from my email screen and found the Delta site. B.J. already had it up at her end, and in no time we’d figured out the best flights and I’d punched in my credit card number.

  Delta took me to another screen and gave me one last chance to bail. I hesitated, then shut my eyes and pushed CONFIRM RESERVATION.

  “Done?” B.J. asked.

  “Done. And thank you. I think.” It took me every ounce of willpower I had not to add, So, guess what? Finn Miller emailed me. And we’ve been, well, emailing.

  I loved B.J., but she wasn’t exactly subtle and she did have a slight tendency to take things over. One mention of Finn Miller and she’d probably be planning the wedding. Or at least booking us the honeymoon suite.

  We weren’t in high school anymore, and I didn’t have to tell my best friend everything. Finn Miller was my delicious secret.

  CHAPTER 11

  To: Finn Miller

  From: Melanie

  Subject: Reunion

  I’m in! Flights booked and everything. So that means now you HAVE to go. What song do you think will be playing when we finally see each other again after all these years?

  To: Melanie

  From: B.J.

  Subject: 5 Reunion Do’s

  1. Do move beyond once a loser, always a loser. The dorks are the ones who have it all going on now. The popular kids peaked in high school.

  2. As opposed to “OMG, OMG, OMG! You look SO much better than you did in high school,” do go with a simple “You look great.”

  3. Do step out of your comfort zone and be the first one to say hello and start the conversation.

  4. Do bury the hatchet. No matter how horribly you were dissed by a classmate all those years ago, you will look a lot better if you at least appear to let it go.

  5. Do make sure you reserve plenty of time for a catty après-reunion postmortem with your real friends to balance out all this good behavior.

  P.S. Call me.

  B.J. answered on the first ring. “All I wanna do,” she sang.

  “Is have more fun,” I sang back.

  B.J. sighed. “Bummer, we still can’t sing. Or remember lyrics. I hate that.”

  “Oh, well,” I said. “If the music is loud enough, we can fake it. Remember when we used to think Queen was singing ‘another one likes to dust’?”

  B.J. sighed again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you think it’s too late to go on a diet?”

  “You mean in terms of our life expectancy?”

  B.J. snorted. “No, I mean in terms of Derrick Donohue. He never once, in all four years of high school, gave me the time of day.”

  “Whoa, where is this coming from? You’ve never even mentioned him.”

  “I just remembered it.”

  “So now Derrick Donohue is going to be your midlife crisis crush?”

  “No way. He missed his chance. I just want to look so amazing he eats his heart out.”

  I walked over to the freezer and opened the door. “Come on, Beej. We both know diets don’t work. You lose a few pounds, and a year later you’ve gained it all back plus six more.”

  “I don’t care about a year later. I only care about the reunion. Listen, I think we should both get a copy of that high school reunion diet book ASAP. How bad can it be—there’s a glass of red wine on the cover.”

  I switched my phone over to my other ear. Buried way in the back of the freezer, behind two bags of coffee beans, I was pretty sure I could see a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich that had formerly belonged to Kurt. “Or we could just buy the red wine and read a good novel instead,” I said as I reached for it.

  “No, really, I’m not kidding. You’re supposed to lose twenty pounds in thirty days on it.”

  “I think it’s twenty years in thirty days.”

  B.J. blew a puff of air across the miles. “Oh, puh-lease. Like that’s going to happen. Maybe we can just find a drive-through that does liposuction.”

  I tucked the phone into the crook of my neck and tore an opening in the plastic wrapper that covered the ice cream. A freezer-burned mini iceberg glistened up at me, irrefutable evidence that my freezer was now officially single, too. And that Kurt was really gone.

  But it was okay. I was okay. Because I had somewhere to go now, too. Where Finn Miller would be waiting for me.

  I blew a puff of air back at B.J. “Don’t be ridiculous. The only diet we need is dying to have some fun. We are sooooo going to rock that reunion.”

  I brought my three box spring ladies into the kitchen and lined them up side by side across the length of the g
ranite island. Then I opened the liquor cabinet and eyed what was left in there after Kurt had absconded with most of it. I rooted around until I found three shot glasses and placed one in front of each box spring lady. I filled them all with a dollop of red wine, and then poured a human-size glass of wine for myself.

  I held up my glass. “Wish me luck, ladies.”

  I touched my big glass to each of their tiny ones.

  “Wait,” I said. “Why can’t you come, too? It might be a good thing to have some extra moral support. Plus, when everybody at the reunion starts bragging about how important they are, I can just happen to have you with me.”

  They seemed to think this was a genius idea, so after I acknowledged the fact that I was not only talking to box spring ladies but answering for them, too, I finished my wine and helped them polish off theirs. I mean, the whole thing was barely crazy if you factored in that it wasn’t just a pleasure trip for them—I’d be looking for a possible consignment sale, too.

  I headed up to the attic to look for the biggest suitcase I could find. I dragged it down the creaky attic stairs, then went back for my carry-on.

  “Damn,” I said a few minutes later. I’d managed to fit all three of the box spring ladies into the big suitcase, but there was no way in hell I could zip it closed, unless I turned their big hooped skirts into hot pants.

  I sighed. To be honest, the whole good-bye toast and suitcase thing had started out as an elaborate stall to put off calling my sister, Marion, which I’d been trying to make myself do ever since B.J. had nudged me, but now I really wanted to take them with me.

  Dread turned over in my stomach like sour milk. I stared at my phone, as if I could somehow get points for thinking about calling my sister, as opposed to actually calling her. Even without B.J. reminding me, I knew I had to do it. With all the amazing advances in technology over the years, there was still no more reliable form of communication than a small-town grapevine. By now someone Marion had run into at Marshbury’s only grocery store had probably already told her I’d bought a ticket for my class reunion.