“It was fine.” This is the third time I’ve said it to Fairfax, and I’m getting tired of repeating myself. She won’t quit asking about the Amelia Island trip, the weekend at Elizabeth Pointe Lodge with Peter. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was trying to live vicariously through me.

And the truth is, I don’t want to elaborate on the mini-vacation, share details.  It was fine, okay?  The room was lovely, oceanfront.  We had our own private balcony, coffee in the morning, wine at night.  Peter even booked us a horse ride on the beach.  I’d never ridden a horse in my life, but I agreed. And I didn’t fall off the darn thing—even got into a rhythm, sort of, with its haunches and mine.  It started to feel natural, eased my nerves a bit, about the beast beneath me.

And it was fine.

“You didn’t laugh, did you?” There is just a hint of mirth in Fairfax’s voice, and the irony irks me.

Maybe her deep interest lies not in living vicariously but in amusement.  Namely about my sex life, or lack thereof.

Until recently.

I sigh.  “No, I didn’t laugh this time.  I was very serious, I promise.”  I still kind of regret telling Fairfax that detail about the dogs.  And my off-the-charts chuckling.

That time in Fairfax’s bathroom, when I dropped the eye shadow, scattering gold dust everywhere, I spilled my guts to her.  She had caught me off-guard with such a direct question, and I couldn’t stop the flow of words from my mouth. How Peter wanted to sleep with me, how intent he was, but I couldn’t seem to get to that same place of want.

“Why?” she had asked (so earnest, her seaside eyes full of concern), and for lack of any other sensible reason, I replied, “The dogs.”

And it was true.  Chum and Lana were always there, watching us.  Peter closed his bedroom door, sequestering them in the hall, which led to lots of whining and barking.  And then I would start to laugh, almost in a bark of my own, and not be able to stop.  It was all too funny, or it struck me so at the time.  Those two dogs, we two humans, all just animals at heart.  To stop the noise, Peter would let them back in the room.  And, to top it all off, more times than not, Chum would jump on Peter’s poor puppy, a behavior he wasn’t exhibiting at any other time or place.  Just there, in that bedroom.

And I would just surrender to laughter.  As he pulled my dog from his, I was gasping for air, face muffled by the mattress, howling at the humor of the whole process.

Because it was crystal clear in those moments: we were all creatures.  Looking for a little companionship, someone to lick our wounds, climb on top of occasionally.

I know it doesn’t sound funny now, but when it happened, it was, I swear.  The irony of life, to ascend, to achieve, to think you were here for some sort of higher purpose.  And the reality is, we’re no different than our own dogs.

(Don’t even get me started on Chum’s expression when Peter starts to kiss me.  My dog’s jaw falls open and his tongue lolls completely out of his mouth.  I’m about to crack up now just thinking about it, but with Fairfax on the line, I’d better not.)

“You’re sure you didn’t laugh?  Because men hate that.” Fairfax will not let this go.

I don’t see how she could be an expert on men, seeing as she’s been paired off for thirty years. Maybe she’s an expert on one man, her husband, I want to say, but don’t.  I take a deep breath. “No, there was no laughter, I promise.”

“Well, I mean, a little laughter is okay.  You know, the happy kind.”

“Hmm.” I am trying to keep my mind on the road, the highway.

“Well, anyway, I knew if you guys could just get away without your dogs, it would all work out!”

“Uh, huh.” I don’t want to miss the exit with the good gas station.  I have to pee, and I’ve been holding it in while Fairfax grilled me.  And I’m darn sure Chum has to go too.  He’s been whining off and on for the last five minutes.

“Not long now, buddy,” I call to the back seat.

“What?”

“Nothing, just need to stop soon. Chum and I both need the room of rest, or, in his case, the shrub of comfort. You know.”

Fairfax makes a funny noise, almost a groan.  “You brought your dog with you?”

“Sure, why not? Chum’s never seen Guilford.” Aha, the good exit is only five miles ahead! Our bladders shall hold. Gotta make the stop on I-95 because the route gets rural close to Greensboro.

“You brought Chum and not Peter?” There is exasperation in Fairfax’s voice, usually only heard when she’s discussing her mother-in-law.  I have to say, her irritation catches me off guard. Why does she care so much, about Peter, his feelings?

What about my feelings?

“Look, Fair, Peter Redmond did not want to go to my college reunion, I promise you.  No one wants to go to these things unless they’re your own.”  And not even then, I think.  They can be deadly.

But not always.

I think back to my high school reunion last year.  How I dreaded going.  But it turned out to be fun.  More than fun.  Because of Adam.  My heart jumps unexpectedly. I swallow down a new ache in my throat.

“Peter did want to go.” Fairfax voice sounds scratchy coming through the cell phone.

“What? How do you know?” I glance at my phone, clipped to the dash, then return my eyes to the road.  I’m glad Fairfax can’t see my expression.  She would spot the guilt in the squint of my eyes, the clench of my teeth.

“Plumb, he told me.  He was hurt.” There is silence for a few seconds.  I hear a door squeak, then close.  The shuffle of her footsteps.  “Hello? You still there?” Fairfax asks.

“Yeah, I’m here.” The exit is just ahead, thank goodness. “Listen, Fairfax, I’m going to have to stop for a potty break.”

“Where are you?”

I dutifully give her the exit number and name of the town where I’m stopping.  Fairfax wants to know the name of the gas station too, and I can’t remember, so I make one up, which seems to satisfy her.  Something about this trip, this conversation, overwhelms me with déjà vu.  I wheel into the station and pull up beside the first available pump.

And I sit still for a few seconds to think.

What? What is so familiar about this experience? It feels like a pattern, well-worn, but why?

Then it hits me.  The trips back to Guilford College after spending the break at home with my mother.  Four years of that routine.  The long drive north while Ruth Plumb waited (I’m sure) by the phone for me to call her the second I arrived in my dorm room.  Finally finding freedom on the road only to spend the hours mulling over mother/daughter conversations. How many white lies I told her to get her off my back.

Driving on a guilt trip to Guilford.

Who was I dating, how nice a boy was he?  Don’t let him go too far, be careful.  My responses, lies, lies, lies.  Ruth’s desires and fears for me, her instructions, commands. The underlying theme of every sentence that I was on the wrong path, was veering into disaster, that I couldn’t be trusted to figure things out for myself.

Fairfax’s pointed conversation about Peter seems remarkably similar.

You need to do better by him, Nancy, is what my best friend was really saying on this phone call.   You aren’t treating him right.  Be kinder, more open, intimate.  Work at it, Nancy. Just like anything worthwhile, a relationship takes effort, time, and attention.  Give a little.  Bend, adjust, accommodate.

It takes work.

But, here’s the thing:  I have a problem with that.

It’s not that I don’t know how to work hard.  Every weekday and many weekends, I pour myself, my brain, my energy, what little charm I have into the sinkhole of meeting planning for NFMS.  It is tough, a doggone daily battle.  And my personal life takes work too, doing the shopping and paying bills and keeping my house from falling apart and my own health on track and caring for my dog.  (Though, that last one is a joy, I admit.)

I don’t want to have to work at a relationship too. I don’t have the energy to flirt and pretend to be sexy when I don’t feel it.  I don’t want to go along with the mechanics of sex just to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.  Even if it is Peter Redmond, a kind man, a good friend.

As my friend Janey said to me sometime last year, we shouldn’t have to settle for “at least.” As in, at least Peter Redmond is a brilliant man who loves dogs as much as you do, and he likes you. At least, you’ve got that, Nancy.  That’s what Fairfax is really saying.

But I’m telling you, turning “at least” into soulmate material would take hard work.  And I am worn out. I simply cannot put effort into any other task right now, not even into making a relationship with “a good guy” work out. It’s enough already, I’m forty seven years old, and I’ve earned the right to say that.

And, anyway, my weekend with Peter was fine.  Fine.  Everything worked, it functioned.  I functioned. And it wasn’t too painful. I guess I can be grateful for that. Check sex off the list.

At least I can do that.

****

About two hours later, I pull up to the Greensboro Hilton Garden Inn.  Luckily, this stay is free thanks to meeting planner points, and the place is pet-friendly.  Bone-deep relief overtakes me.  A trip into the past is just what the doctor ordered, though probably not the hematologist. Ha! You have to laugh at the pickles that life puts you in.

But, seriously, I needed to get away, and the twenty-fifth college reunion invite arrived like a godsend. It was originally scheduled in September, but then Hurricane Florence scooted into the Carolinas, forcing the school to push the event to November, a better month for me anyway.  All I had on my current docket was a small meeting in December (planned by Martha before they let her go, thank goodness), so my responsibilities were minimal at the moment.  Once 2019 starts I’ll be buried in annual meeting prep, so this invitation came at the right time.

I hoist my duffel bag over my shoulder, and the cool fall air feels good on my skin, reminding me that the end of hurricane season is almost here.  Thank goodness Northeast Florida had stayed safe this time—no storm to undue the repairs made since Irma in 2017. I always feel that once you pay your dues, the storm gods should give you a pass for a few years at least.  But weather doesn’t work that way.

Chum woofs when I place his crate outside the hotel room door.  He likes the crisp air too—Jacksonville’s intrepid mugginess has tired us out, weighed us down.  Our evening walks with Peter and Lana end with every creature panting and lapping up water.

Just last night, for instance, I was filling a Tervis tumbler for the third time at Peter’s refrigerator, splashing some into the dogs’ water bowl. My t-shirt was damp to the touch.  I know because Peter told me, as he fingered the fabric.  He mentioned the importance of rehydrating, but all I could think was that I didn’t want his hand to go underneath my shirt.  Or, worse, dip into my leggings.

I stepped back, knocking dry food out of a dog bowl.

“What’s wrong,” Peter asked. “You’re jumpy.”

“I’m all sweaty and gross. I need a shower.” Chum barked.  I looked down—he and Lana had already drained the water bowl dry. I poured the rest of my supply into theirs.

“We could take one.  Together.” Peter’s red brows were raised, and I felt a laugh begin to bubble in my belly.

I tamped it down.  Swallowed hard. “Well, I really need to get home and pack.  Early start tomorrow, you know.”

Peter stared at me, head tilted.  I felt like one of his patients, with him trying to work out exactly what might be wrong with me.  Pernicious anemia, perhaps.  I’ve always liked the name of that disease, though I’m not sure what it is—it’s not the kind Fairfax had.  All I know is, it’s fun to say. The laugh impulse came back hard, and I started to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” He had that hurt look again, one I thought we’d put to bed (no pun intended) after Elizabeth Pointe Lodge.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. It was a weird thought.” I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply.  “Ok, I’m fine now.”

“What thought? What were you thinking?” Peter had moved closer. His fingers were crawling up my t-shirt like a spider.  “Nancy, are you scared?”

I jumped back. “Scared?” I laughed again, forced this time.  “Of course not! Hey, the babies need more water.” I pointed to our dogs, tongues hanging from their mouths in perfect parentheses.

His gaze shot to the dogs, and I moved away quickly, grabbing Chum’s leash from the dining room table and headed to the powder room for a few minutes.  When I emerged, Chum was whining.  I knew what that meant—all that water in needed to come out.  Good.  Time to go, and no need to invent some elaborate excuse.

Peter had predicted as much.  He was standing by the door.  The dogs’ tails swished across the Greek key entry rug. “No, Lana,” he was saying (sweetly, I must say) to his dog.  “Chum’s got to go now.”

I felt bad.  I always do with Peter.  I evade and avoid.  Reject.  Even tonight, after the weekend away.  The big event.  Nothing had changed. I was a bad person. Surely only a shriveled-up shrew would cast aside the attentions of an attractive physician.

Peter patted me on the shoulder, didn’t even try to kiss me.  Well, what did I expect?  I sighed, then clipped the leash on Chum and headed down the outside staircase.  For a second, I contemplated running back to his door, ringing the bell and then leaning in for a smooch when he answered.  “Something to remember me by,” I’d say huskily, but even the thought of that struck me as so absurd that I laughed all the way home, down Riverside Avenue to Mallory.

Once inside my own door, I’d felt such a sense of relief, of escape, that I knew I’d acted like my true self with Peter Redmond, no matter how counter-intuitive, illogical, and shrewish it seemed.

I guess I’m a bit slippery, just like Fairfax’s brother-in-law, Max, who has a long history of avoiding family responsibilities.  I slip away at key moments too, romantic ones. Funny thing about Max, helping out with the grandfather last year, showing up when his brother was hospitalized.  It’s like Max decided to play a different role in the family. Break out of character.

It occurs to me now as I flop onto the hotel bed in Greensboro, Chum sniffing every corner of the room, that being romantic with Peter is the same kind of thing—it feels just like playing a role in a play, something I haven’t done since college.  I have to warm up my mouth and body, run lines in my head, stretch and move, get in the anticipatory state of mind that all actors craft.

It was an art back then to me—acting.  I enjoyed the effort, the attention to the minutiae of a character, an expression, a hairstyle.  Knowing a line by heart but being able to speak it as if the words had just come to me.  I was good at it back then.

Not now. I simply don’t have the heart for it.

I moan out loud.  Chum lifts his chin, sneezes, then goes back to his hotel room exploration. In the story of Chum’s life, this trip will rank near the top of his dog adventures, I imagine.  I rarely take him with me when I travel for work, so this is a novelty for both of us to be in a hotel room together.  And I can honestly say, there is no one I’d rather be with right now.

Because these college reunions…they are like Noah’s Ark.  From the very first one I attended (the fifth reunion, I believe), everyone was paired off, but not me.

Now I am.  With my dog.

I chuckle.  Chum barks in response, and I start to laugh, deep healing laughter with no guilt whatsoever.  It feels good. It feels good to be away from Jacksonville, and Peter, and even Fairfax.

To be back in the town where I can honestly say I grew up.

This good vibe continues through the evening, the meet-up with my friends at a local bistro for dinner.  There is outdoor seating, dogs welcome, so Chum has a blast, watching alums weave through the tables, greeting, shouting, hugging. It’s comfortably cool outside, a light jacket is enough to keep me warm. Chum wears the adorable dog sweater Fairfax gave him for Christmas one year.  He is the star of the patio, people can’t help petting him, the only male in our group.

Funny thing, my two buddies, Ellie and Amelia, didn’t bring their husbands this time, so girl chat and ‘remember whens’ are unedited and endless. We stay at the restaurant until it closes down, don’t even venture onto campus.  Of course, the conversation meanders to me, whom I’m dating, as it always does. I’m tempted to tell them about Peter, just to prove something—maybe that I’m still attractive to somebody—but it feels wrong.  Why brag about a relationship when you’re ashamed of your own behavior in it?  So, I answer my friends that I’m not seeing anyone, “no one in particular’ instead.

There’s the usual chit-chat about children, they each have two, all four of them in college, though none at Guilford.  Not surprising—private Liberal Arts education is just too expensive, Ellie says, and Amelia agrees.  Plus, state schools offer more options, career-wise.  It’s easier to get into the graduate programs if you’ve done undergraduate work in the same place, and so on and so forth.

The child-centric conversation doesn’t bore me like it used to, or make me feel left out.  I think I have Fairfax to thank for that.  I’ve lived a bit of her life, experienced her children, their hopes and dreams, through our friendship.  Truly, offspring are a gift, but it’s not easy to raise them and takes hard work.  The disappointments can be many, the joys little, or that ratio could flip, depending on the parent’s attitude.  I’ve seen how Fairfax engages her sons and husband, and I have to say she’s got it down to an art.  Somehow she manages to reframe negatives into positives.

Unlike Amelia and Ellie, who are complaining about their husbands now. No wonder they didn’t bring them.  The more wine my friends consume, the worse the male species becomes.  I nod and murmur along but really don’t say anything until Ellie asks me a question, catching me off-guard.

“What about Jacob, do you ever hear from him?”

Jacob, the college boyfriend.  The one Ruth warned me about continuously, sending me straight into his bed.  His unworthy bed, as I later realized. An unnecessarily intense experience.  I learned about Sturm und Drang that same year in a class, and that term and sex with Jacob became inextricably tangled up in my mind forevermore.

I breathe in, out. “Funny thing, we played Words with Friends together for a while.” That’s about as much as I have to say about Jacob.  I quit playing him, after he kept messaging me through the game.  I think I even unfriended him on Facebook because I felt like he was cyberstalking me.

Ellie grabs her wine glass and takes a gulp.  “He’s here.”

Old instincts die hard.  I grip Chum’s leash and look over my shoulder.  “Here?”

Amelia laughs, and Ellie says, “Not here, here, Nance.  At the reunion.  He was on the list.”

Amelia nods, grins.  “The list!” she shouts. Her words are a little slurred.  Luckily, Ellie is driving them tonight.

“Okay,” I say because no other words come to me.  Though it does occur to me that I fled from one man just to run smack dab into another.  Kind of like being caught between a rock and a hard place, Scylla and Charybdis. The devil you know versus the one you used to know. My mind starts churning out metaphors, and I almost miss what Ellie says next.

“…see you, he wrote that.” She is smiling at me, in that little girl way she always had.  Like she knows the big secret, and you don’t.

“What? What did he write?” My heart ratchets up a notch, and I hate my reaction. I do not need anything else to worry about.  I will not worry about this reunion.  This trip is meant to be about relaxation and return and reminiscence.  Not rehashing of a bad relationship.  No, ma’am.

Ellie snickers.  “Jacob wrote in the comments section, that he wanted to see you, especially.”

My hand is hurting.  I look down and the leash is wound rubber-band-tight around my wrist. I take a deep breath and pull at the cord to loosen it, then flex my fingers until the red ring fades.  Okay, okay, I think.  All shall be well.

“Fine,” I reply, taking a quick sip of water.  “Fine.”

****

And that was how the reunion weekend started.  With a blast from the past.  And it ended in just the same way.  In my mind, two messages, bookends to a pivotal moment.

Later, I came to think of this Guilford reunion as one of the happiest moments of my life.  At first, it wasn’t, I’ll be honest.  I didn’t want to see Jacob Kempner, my skin crawled at the thought, just like in 1990 after we broke up.  Yet I was able to start talking myself down from this particular ledge by simply remembering my saving grace mantra.

I am forty-seven years old, an adult, self-supporting, and tired of anxiety. Work has put me through the wringer, Peter has sent me on a guilt trip, and I need to leave these feelings behind. I refuse to be anxious on my down time. It’s simply not fair to me.

It occurred to me as I tossed and turned in the hotel bed that Friday night, Chum’s furry back shifting with my every move, that I should pray about my anxiety.  It had reached the point where I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t enjoy the trip because of emotions run wild.  Mainly guilt about the man I was running from, fear of the man I would run into.

It was silly to pray about boys, I’d always thought when I was a girl.  And yet, here I am, middle-aged, doing it again. Sometimes immature, irrational feelings are where we jump into God’s arms.  It may be my mother who told me that once.  It sounds like something she’d have said.

And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.

My mother again. The prayer bubbled up in my brain and calmed me. Ruth’s favorite. She’d loved reading about Dame Julian of Norwich, even named her Facebook profile after the famous Anchoress of England.

It will all be fine.  I’m fine.  I’m lucky to be here, to see friends, to interact as I see fit and to escape the same way (with my dog in tow) if I so choose. I’m putting this reunion and trip and worry into God’s hands.  I took one more deep breath and let it out.  This time, a warmth crept into my chest, like a sauna of calm.  Something eased there, muscle or bone, I’m not sure. My body, held tight, let itself relax. I was able to go to sleep, finally.

And the next day, Saturday, I woke up feeling relaxed, rested.  My skin looked clear, the circles under my eyes, diminished and easily covered with concealer, an expensive cast-off from Fairfax.  The colder climate calmed the frizz in my hair.  I scraped it into a ponytail, pulled on my old Guilford sweatshirt and jeans and swept out the door to join Amelia and Ellie for coffee, Chum in tow.

Looking back now, it was like I was moving through that day protected by some sort of “grace bubble.”  Nothing seemed to bother me.  I didn’t worry about what I wore, or the gray in my hair, or what to talk about.  Chum must have helped in this regard, because he was an instant conversation piece.  People approached me and the words flowed easily, about dogs, about life.  (I’m telling you, again, a dog’s life is great fodder for one’s own.)

For once, people didn’t seem to be cloistered into couples.  They mingled freely, unpaired—or maybe that was just my perception, since Chum and I were sort of an attraction unto ourselves, loads of female classmates being particularly charmed by my dog.

One singleton approached me later that evening.  I almost didn’t recognize him—Jacob.  A vague thought had passed through my mind that day, when I hadn’t seen him yet, that maybe he hadn’t come to the reunion after all.  I remembered in college he tended to be bad on the follow through, making promises that never came to be.  But as events progressed, from outdoor picnic, to campus tours, to drinks on the Quad, I almost forgot all about him.

So when Jacob strolled up to where Chum and I were sitting, I didn’t even recognize him. It was evening by then, the bonfire just starting, so everybody was cast in shadow, but still, Jacob had changed.  Dramatically.

Once sporting long auburn hair and a beard (avant-garde for the early ‘90s), he now had a shaved head and face.  His long, lean frame had thickened, was topped off with a well-developed double chin.

“Nancy,” he started to say, “I…

“My goodness, Jacob,” I interrupted, I couldn’t help myself.  “You’ve changed!”

His mouth fell open, and there was a long pause while he leaned down, I guess, to get a better look at me.  Plopped there on a blanket, I met his gaze over the drink in my hand.  Jacob’s focus swerved quickly to my blanket buddy, Chum.

“Is that a dog?”

“Yep.  Jacob, meet Chum.” He crouched down beside my dog and starting petting him.  Chum yipped his approval.

So, that was that.  We watched the fire for about thirty minutes.  Amelia graciously shared a bottle of wine with us which greased the perfunctory small talk.  Where we were all living now, which professors had died. Amelia gave a morbid, yet tipsy, update on several classmates’ untimely deaths.

I had the impression that Jacob wanted to get me alone, to talk.  When Ellie dragged Amelia over to the next blanket in search of food, he leaned closer to me, gently scratching Chum behind the ears. “Hey, I’ve wanted to tell you something for years,” he started to say.

But he never got the chance to finish.

Because my phone started making a strange noise, a notification sound I’d never heard before.  Sort of a low horn sound, like a sick goose. I pulled it from my pocket, the screen dazzling my eyes in the dark night. It was a call on Facebook Messenger, so I unlocked the phone, clicked on the icon.

And I couldn’t believe my eyes.  After all this time, after all my resolutions.

After trying to understand him and failing.  Then, forcing myself to forget him because he just didn’t make sense to me.  Was he a bad person or wasn’t he?  I never could decide.

It looked like I might have a chance to know the answer after all.

Adam Ainsley.  Another one who didn’t keep promises.  Most notably, to my mother on her deathbed, four years ago, when he failed to show up and then cut off contact.  And then, doing the exact same thing to me, last year.

Double A.  Fairfax liked to call him “double asshole,” so angry did his faithlessness make her.

I felt my racing blood pumping warmth into my chilly hands.  “Hey, Jacob,” I began, then stopped. My words sounded shivery and insubstantial, so I cleared my throat. “Jacob, hang onto Chum, could you? I’ve got to take a call.” I sprang to my feet, jarring the nerves in my icy heels.

He must have nodded assent, but I didn’t really notice. I was sprinting to a nearby lamp post, finger shaking, as I punched at the “accept video call” button on the screen.

“Hello, hello?” The light pooled around me as my phone sprang to life with an image of a man. Who, unlike most on the Guilford campus that night, had not changed much in appearance at all.

The man who still looked like the boy.  The one who got away.