25

R-squared

September 3, 1996

“You’re so organized.” My mom came into my bedroom as I was zipping my duffel. “We should leave for the depot in five minutes. You have some junk mail.” She set the stack on the corner of my neatly made bed and bustled out. “I can only imagine the pile you’re going to have waiting for you by Thanksgiving!”

She was trying hard to be cheerful, though I knew she was sad that I was leaving. And that I’d spent so much time away from her this summer. Working.

I was taking the noon bus. By eight tonight I’d be up in my third-floor room unpacking with Maggie and Serra, joking around and catching up, lighting green-apple candles to combat the Plato House smells, singing along to KFOG.

Imagining the secret pied-à-terre that awaited me across the water.

I flipped through the mail. Two credit card offers addressed to Ms. Rebecca Reardon, both proclaiming that I was prequalified! And a yellow-and-black card with the slanted letters VFF and the slogan Membership Has Perks! Since my mom had cosigned for my prepaid $500 credit card, I was a popular girl.

Except VFF wasn’t another company trying to get me hooked on plastic; it was an ad for the Vancouver Film Festival. I could become a Back Lot Sponsor or Red Carpet Sponsor or Balcony Sponsor.

On the back was a collage of black-and-white movie stills, and one was from His Girl Friday. Rosalind Russell, the wisecracking, uncompromising newspaper reporter in her gigantic shoulder pads, writing in her notebook.

Eric and I had closet-screened it at least three times.

The first time we watched it together, freshman year of high school, I’d said I wasn’t in the mood for a classic. But it won me over.

We have the same initials, I’d said. We’re both R-squareds.

I think that’s a sign from the movie gods you’re on the right career path, Eric had said happily. It always thrilled him to convert someone to his favorite films.

He hadn’t signed the postcard, not even with an E.

But he’d sketched glasses on Rosalind Russell, in black ballpoint. The frames were delicate and slightly cat-eyed, like the ones I’d worn in high school.

What are you saying, Eric?

I’d sent him an email from my CommPlanet account the Monday after his mother’s party, back in late July. Not a rambling message desperate for forgiveness this time. A defiant one:

He hadn’t answered. But maybe this was his response at last, to remind me how far I’d strayed from Rosalind.

Or was it an apology, an innocent bit of nostalgia? A reminder of all those hours in his closet on our mountain of pillows, joking around, bathed in flickering movie light? Not a nasty, judgmental reminder, but a sweet one.

Sweet hurt more.