Don't You Forget About Me

by Jancee Dunn

I poured some more coffee. “Is that why you didn’t go to your reunion?”

  “I just wasn’t interested in seeing anyone,” she said. “I would compare high school to being at a bad job in a dysfunctional company. Instead of being fired, you graduate.” She paused. “I don’t look back, really,” she said thoughtfully, then corrected herself. “Well, I suppose I do, sometimes. But with a reunion, you’re recreating the student body, and you’re all supposed to be adults now, but the problem is you haven’t acted together as adults, so you’re all thrown together in this room, it’s like this dress rehearsal for a play.” She paced the kitchen as if for a lecture. “It’s like everyone went into a cryogenic freezer, and then it was unlocked and everyone crawled out to gather in some conference room with name tags on. My mild curiosity would not have been worth the discomfort.”

  She looked closely at me again. “I know that people focus on the good things of the past,” she said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve noticed that you dwell on slights. But then when you go to a reunion, you can’t control your memories, you don’t know what stray recollection will surface. I didn’t want to put myself in that position. I’m glad I’ve forgotten a lot of that time period, and I suppose I prefer to keep it that way.”

  “But don’t you have any unresolved issues?” I persisted. “Don’t you want closure on anything?”

  She smirked. “What, like Sue Davis figuring out new ways to torture me because she thought I stole her boyfriend? Which I didn’t. Would I achieve some sort of closure if she approached me at the reunion and said, ‘I’m sorry I wired your locker shut, I’m sorry about the prank calls and the rumors that I spread about you?’ Most reunions are so brief that you wouldn’t be able to work up to that kind of intimate moment, anyway. Unless she was drunk and became bold, in which case I would discount anything that she said.” She shook herself. “Ugh. You see? I don’t want to think about how Sue Davis used to call me and whisper ‘Slut’ and hang up. I saw a picture of her, and it didn’t make me happier that she’s obese now. I didn’t think of it as any kind of justice; it just made me depressed.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Sue Davis is obese?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what she could possibly say that would blot out some of those memories. So why bother?” She reached over to pick up a large jug of cheap wine that sat on the table. My parents had made short work of it the prior evening, so it was nearly empty.

  She unscrewed the cap and took a cautious sniff. “Did you try any of this last night?” she asked in a low voice.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Have a sip. Just have yourself a little sip.”

  To make Ginny laugh, I took a swig out of the jug. Then I ran to the kitchen sink and spit it out. “It’s vinegar,” I said, gasping. “You could put it on a salad.”

  “Well, apparently they didn’t notice.” Making fun of our parents was a hallowed tradition that we faithfully resurrected whenever we got together, even if we occasionally felt a twinge of guilt.

  Ginny looked down at my bare feet. “You have the nicest feet,” she said admiringly. “I’m the one who got stuck with the huge big toe. Thanks, Dad.” She slid a pale foot out of her ballet slipper and inspected it critically. “Look at this thing. It’s shaped like a lightbulb. Your feet are in perfect proportion. You’re so lucky.”

  I told myself to just accept the compliment, and tried to quash the suspicion that given my situation, it was the best she could scrounge up.

  chapter sixteen

  For once I was glad that my parents had forgotten my birthday. When I was younger, every birthday was a last-minute scramble culminating in a couple of twenties thrown into a card and some cartons of Chinese takeout (made belatedly festive by exhortations to order from the “Special Dishes” side of the menu, usually forbidden because of the double-digit cost). My parents just weren’t the birthday-party type, and they were baffled that I would get so dismayed by their lack of enthusiasm.

  As I grew older, their inattention was a blessing. Adam came from a family in which every occasion, from birthdays to Groundhog Day, was rowdily celebrated. If a cake existed in the shape of Punxsutawney Phil, Adam’s family would purchase it and throw a Groundhog Day party. Every summer, the group started feverish preparations for Adam’s brother Josh’s Halloween party, trying to top the previous year’s elaborate costumes. During the early years of our marriage, I threw myself into each shindig, buying presents and decorations, thinking up jolly games for my nieces and nephews, and sending around copies of photos marking every occasion.

  A few years in, his brothers and sisters started reproducing madly, and between the kids’ birthdays and their school events, we never had a spare weekend. His family didn’t embrace me so much as engulf me, and if I opted out of a kindergarten graduation party, Adam received a round of inquisitive phone calls. I carefully maintained an attendance rate of 90 percent, knowing that if it dropped below that, my mother-in-law’s tone would be slightly cooler to me on the phone, her chitchat briefer before she abruptly asked if Adam happened to be around.

  So I grew to appreciate my parents’ disinterested approach to holidays, and thus was amazed when the day before I turned thirty-eight my mother brought up the subject of my birthday. Ginny had returned to Madison, so it was just the two of us in the kitchen.

  “Isn’t it tomorrow?” she asked, consulting her calendar. “One week before Thanksgiving, right?”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “but let’s just follow tradition and let it slide. I’m not feeling particularly celebratory, anyway.”

  “All the more reason to go out,” said my mother firmly. She clapped her hands. “I know. Let’s go to Benihana! Your favorite! For dessert, you can get that fried ice cream you like. Don’t they roll it in coconut or something?”

  I hadn’t been to Benihana since the Reagan administration, or maybe the very beginning of the Clinton era.

  “I’m going to call right now and make a reservation,” said my mother. “We’re going tomorrow night at seven, and that’s that.”

  “Now you make a big deal?” I said as she grabbed the phone. “Where were you when I was sixteen?” But secretly I was a little pleased, and the next evening we bundled into my folks’ car and off we went to Benihana.

  We walked into the restaurant and the scent of steak and sizzling onions transported me right back as we were shown to our long communal table. A woman who looked strangely familiar was sitting at the far end. It was Dawn, grinning madly and jumping up. “Happy birthday!” she cried. Everyone at adjoining tables looked our way. She looked around, abashed. “Inside voices, right?” she said more quietly.

  As we sat down, Dawn pulled four sparkly party hats from her pink L.L. Bean bag. “Your mom called me and told me it was your birthday,” she said, “and when she said you all were bringing back the old tradition of going to Benihana, I said, ‘Well, then, I’ll get the party hats.’”

  My folks laughed and put them on as the people at the other end of our communal table gawped. I didn’t move to put on my hat, so Dawn jumped up and strapped it onto my head. “You look so bummed,” she said, laughing. “I’ve got to get a picture of your expression. You look exactly like my dog Stevie when I try to give him a bath.” She turned again to rummage in her bag, displacing a Tupperware container of Cheerios, a packet of wipes, and two children’s books. “Do you believe all this crap?” she said, pulling out a full-sized box of tissues. “I give up.” She pulled back and looked at me. “You look like one of my babysitters, I’m telling you.”

  The elastic from the hat was too tight, so I pulled it to allow myself some air. “Whoops,” I said. “The elastic snapped.”

  Dawn pulled off her own hat. “Here,” she said, fastening it onto my head. “You can have mine.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Dawn grabbed a grease-filmed placard on the table that said “Specialty Drinks.” “‘An experience at every table,’” she read aloud. “Hey, Lily. Remember how we used to ord
er that nonalcoholic drink when we were kids?” Our usual was a Roy Rogers, a sick-making concoction of ginger ale, orange juice, and grenadine, festooned with six plastic swords that stabbed unrecognizable fruit chunks, all of which seemed to be the same virulent red of the maraschino cherry.

  “I think we should break with tradition this time, and get some actual alcoholic drinks,” Dawn announced. She turned to the waiter. “I’ll have the Cherry Blossom.”

  I grinned at her. “And I’ll have the Tokyo Peach.”

  “Make it two Cherry Blossoms,” said my mother.

  My father raised his hand. “Scotch. Neat.”

  A waiter scurried over with menus, my parents fumbled for their reading glasses, and we studied the menus in silence. A few minutes ticked by. My father murmured something unintelligible, but otherwise no one said anything. Why was the stillness so oppressive? Menu reading didn’t need to be interactive. My parents were as familiar to me as my grayish slippers at home, and Dawn could not have been a more benign presence, yet I was hunched tensely over the menu like a turkey buzzard. The ambient noise in the crowded room seemed to fade until there was no sound at all.

  I scanned the menu, desperate to pick anything. Hibachi Chicken. Hibachi Shrimp. Hibachi Scallops. Hibachi Steak. Hibachi Calamari. Nothing had changed on the menu of Traditional Dishes, except now there was South Beach Hibachi, an attempt at being contemporary.

  Mercifully, my mother spoke up. “Hmm,” she said. We all leaned toward her eagerly, hoping she would make a comment that we could build upon. “Everything looks so good.”

  We all nodded. “It sure does,” said Dawn. This exchange opened the door for the usual things that people say when they’re out to dinner and studying menus. I’ve been good all week, so tonight I’m going to splurge. I think I’m going to get an app, because I’m not getting dessert. Has anyone had the Hibachi Steak? I’m starving, I had a really light lunch. Does anyone want to split an appetizer? I really should get a salad, but…

  As everyone relaxed, Dawn fell into a spirited discussion with my parents. Their conversation washed comfortingly over me as they exchanged local reports about the new bagel place in town, the poor turnout for this year’s Fourth of July parade, and the brash young superintendent of Dawn’s school district, whose new ideas were quite unpopular.

  “Let me tell you what, we have cleared our calendar for voting day,” my father boomed. “That superintendent thinks everyone in town has beaucoup bucks to throw at a school gym. He should just ask his dad for money.”

  That woke me up from staring trancelike at the gummy fish tank in the lobby.

  “Dad, why are you still voting on school board issues? Didn’t your kids move out years ago?”

  He smirked. ‘Well, some of them didn’t.” My mother swatted him as I drained the rest of my Tokyo Peach. “All school board issues have a price tag, believe me. Why wouldn’t I want to have a say? These kids are going to be your boss someday. They don’t need to be overindulged with a state-of-the-art gym, for the love of Pete.”

  A chef materialized at our table. “My name is Bill,” he said, pointing to his name tag. “Have you been here before? Do you know how our menu works?”

  “Oh, yes,” my mother said, waving her hand. “We’ve been bringing these girls here for years.”

  Bill’s eyes flicked over to Dawn and me, and I knew he was thinking, Those two are looking at girlhood through a rearview mirror.

  My mother pointed at me. “And tonight it’s her birthday!”

  Please, please don’t ask how old I am, I prayed, and then I realized that I had hit the age where it is not polite to ask how many candles you are blowing out.

  Bill kept his eyes on my parents. “Do you know what you’d like?” We gave our orders. Shortly afterward Bill returned and the show began. He sliced, diced, and flung a cleaver around. Then he kicked into high gear and, with one quick movement, tossed some shrimp into the air; with the tip of his knife he bounced them onto my mother’s plate.

  Dawn and my parents clapped, but I examined the shrimp. Were they done cooking yet? They still looked a little gray.

  Then Bill flipped pieces of steak, one by one, into a tidy pile onto my father’s plate and clacked together his large wooden salt and pepper shakers to release a cloud of pepper dust over the meat.

  “A little more,” said my father, pointing at his Hibachi Steak.

  “Thank you, Bill,” my mother said quickly. “This is great.” She had a deft way of making up for my father’s brusqueness without having it sound like a rebuke. Because my dad felt that tipping was an outmoded practice, he made the waiter work for it. He never said please or thank you, and I was forever slipping more money onto his grudging 10 percent. I wasn’t going to argue with him tonight, but our disagreements had ruined more than one dinner when I tried to explain that he wasn’t punishing the restaurant by refusing to augment the waiter’s salary, he was punishing the poor guy bringing the food.

  Dawn took her purple drink umbrella and stuck it behind her ear. “Remember when we used to do this?” she cried. “We were so queer.” Involuntarily I looked around in embarrassment. Thank God none of my New York friends could see this. Then again, why was I casing the place? Of course they weren’t going to be at a chain restaurant on Route 22 on a Friday night.

  Dawn brightened. “Oh! I almost forgot. I just got you a little something. Excuse the wrapping job. Kade insisted on doing it.” She pulled out a crumpled package and handed it to me.

  “Kade is a nice name,” said my mother. “What’s the origin? Is it a family name?”

  “No,” said Dawn. “My husband and I just liked the sound of it. His full name is Kaden.”

  My father’s upper lip lifted ever so slightly, and my mother shot him a look of warning.

  I examined the package. “Oh, Dawn,” I said. “It’s nice enough that you came to dinner. But thank you.” I pretended to open it carefully so I could save the wrapping paper like my parents do.

  “Just rip it open!” said my mother, signaling the waiter for another drink. By that point, she had tossed back a whole branch of Cherry Blossoms.

  I pulled out a paperback book from the wrapping and read the title out loud. “I’m Divorced. What Now?”

  My mother and Dawn exchanged anxious glances. I could tell that they were unsure of what my reaction would be.

  “What now?” I said heartily. “How about another drink?”

  Everyone at the table cheered. I turned to Dawn. “Thank you,” I said feelingly, giving her a hug. “I love it.”

  “I know this might not be your thing,” she said apologetically, “but if you do read it, I can tell you that it definitely helped two of my friends. I know some people laugh at that stuff, but not me. Do you want to hear something funny? When I go to a bookstore, I head straight for the self-help section.” She laughed. “I even read books for problems I don’t have. The other day I was reading Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, even though my kids can barely say the word teenager. I don’t think they know what a teenager is. I just feel good reading those books, somehow.”

  I flipped through it. “This will really help. Maybe there will be some advice on how to respond to the ‘Are you married?’ question at the reunion.”

  My mother perked up. “Oh! It’s coming up soon, right? I guess you two are going together, huh?”

  Dawn did not speak first and looked at me. I smiled at her. “That was the plan,” I said. She grinned back.

  A chorus of voices singing “Happy Birthday” interrupted us. It was Bill, carrying a platter of fried ice cream doused with chocolate syrup and blazing with sparklers. He led a ragtag group of waiters who clearly wished that they were somewhere else as they grimly sang along.

  I grinned as the people at nearby tables joined the chorus and Dawn and my folks raucously filled in dear Lily for the waiters. You can go home again. My parents were alive and healthy, my childhood best friend was by my side, we were all together in this
safe, familiar place. For the first time since Adam left me, I was completely filled with happiness.

  As we left the restaurant and headed for the car, Dawn and I were wearing matching paper umbrellas in our hair and walking a little unsteadily. I thought back on my last birthday, which took place in a chaotic New York bar. A knot of my co-workers from Tell Me Everything! huddled together, but the rest of my friends didn’t really know one another. Some were holdouts from college, others were PR people I had met through work, two were neighbors, one was my yoga instructor. They all stood around in individual units, despite my increasingly shrill efforts to introduce them.

  Adam kept telling me (or, rather, shouting to me over the music) not to take it personally that my friends were politely shunning one another. But I did. Why couldn’t they have made an effort for me? My friends in public relations were used to schmoozing, but obviously a yoga instructor wasn’t worth their time. After the obligatory forty-five minutes, each one gave me a kiss good-bye with a volley of excuses about babysitters and deadlines and murmured promises that we would get together soon. I’m right here, I wanted to say as I watched them head for the exit, hurriedly pulling out their cell phones. Can’t we get together right now? My drink consumption increased as the group diminished, and all that came from the evening was a raging hangover.

  Instead, here I was in the backseat of my parents’ car, drowsy and pleasantly full of Hibachi Chicken and looking out the window at the fat yellow moon as it followed us home. My dad’s favorite oldies station played softly as he chatted up front with my mother. I blew kisses at Dawn as she drove away in her minivan, waving frantically from the front seat. When we were twelve, we told each other everything, without embarrassment or shame. We knew each other utterly. I hadn’t had that kind of purity of friendship since.

  I looked down at my present. I had never read a self-help book in my life. Dawn had written an inscription on the inside cover. So glad that we reconnected! Lots of love, Dawn. It was my only birthday gift, but it was much more thoughtful than the rounds of tequila shots I had received the year before. Sigmund Freud once said that true happiness was the deferred fulfillment of a childhood wish. When I was a kid, I ardently wished that Dawn and I would grow up and live in the same town and be best friends forever.