The invitation to my own twenty-fifth high school reunion came this week. I’d hoped we could skip this one and go straight to the fortieth with its inevitable talk of grandchildren, which route everybody drove, and how the kids with those danged thumper cars make so much noise you can hardly hear what Dick van Dyke’s saying in Diagnosis Murder.
I was going to skip the reunion but then I got The News: my Serious High School Boyfriend, whom I haven’t seen since graduation, is coming with his lovely and talented wife, who has had a boob lift, I kid you not.
Hey, it’s not like I’m boiling a bunny on this guy’s stove or anything, but let’s just say I’ve kept track of him over the years.
When we were in high school, I was obsessed with Serious Boyfriend. He wore loooong brown hair to his waist, a kinda stinky suede coat with 8-inch fringe, and a puka shell necklace.
Today, he’d make Austin Powers look like a GQ poster boy, but back in the Frampton years he was “far out.”
The ultimate disappointment is that S.B. is probably going to show up driving the biggest gas-guzzling, ozone-eating sport utility monster in the parking lot, and I will get silly on umbrella drinks wondering what happened to the guy with the peace-symbol headband who used to explain Jethro Tull lyrics to me.
(“See, ‘Aqualung’ is a metaphor for the poor, disenfranchised, and dispirited part of our collective souls,” he would start, while I was just thinking, “Yakkety, yakkety, yak, does this guy have the grooviest ice-blue eyes you’ve ever seen or what? OHMIGOD!”)
Okay, gotta pull myself together here. After all, I’m a respectable married lady and mother of one who, while never tapped for the Junior League, is a card-carrying member of the prestigious J. C. Penney Bra and Panty Club.
Let’s just say I’ve done pretty well for myself. There’s no need to sweat over a silly old class reunion.
Still, as soon as I heard S.B. had sent in his registration, I called my hairdresser and close personal friend, Brenda, which we pronounce “Branda.”
So Branda says to me, “Don’t sweat it girl-FRAN.” (I love hairdresser lingo. I always feel so safe and cozy with someone who knows my roots better’n Aunt Mamie, the genealogy guru in our family who has been known to get so engrossed in her work that she answers the door wearing her pantyhose AND NOTHING ELSE.)
Anyhow, I explained to Branda that I had to look “outta sight!” for the twenty-fifth class reunion. I also told her that I had forgiven her for that time not too long ago when I said I wanted hair just like on Dharma and Greg and she made me look like Greg.
Next stop in my pre-reunion panic was my best friend and clothing advisor, Sue-Ellen, who, when she gets real excited, will excuse herself and quickly throw up. Afterward, she told me she ran into her own S.B. at her recent thirtieth class reunion (you didn’t think I’d have a best friend who is younger than me did you?) and she was all tongue-tied.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “At least you’ve got fair warning. You know how I get when I’m excited.”
I groaned out loud picturing Sue-Ellen making a mad dash for the ladies’ room across a jam-packed Ramada conference room-slash-grand ballroom, nearly knocking over twenty-five pounds of sesame chicken wings in the process.
Sue-Ellen said that I should be concentrating on chitchat, not losing fourteen pounds in the next twenty-one days.
“My big mistake was that I had nothing clever to say, so I just stood there and blathered about how it sure had been a long time and he said it sure had been, and then I said I was going to try the crab balls, and he said wonder where they get those, and I said ‘eyuk.’”
That night, I watched 60 Minutes and listened to public radio to find out what was going on in the world so I could segue artfully from “Yes, it has been a long time and you look just the same, too” to a thoughtful discussion on Y2K, Kosovo, and an obscure Ukranian opera singer.
My husband, not the jealous type, thinks it’s all a big joke.
Although, truthfully, he’s so immersed in the NBA playoffs, he wouldn’t notice if I invited Andy Rooney over for a threesome.
“I can’t wait for you to meet my high school sweetheart,” I said during halftime of the forty-fifth game between the Knicks and Pacers.
“Is this the guy with the puka shells?”
“Well, yeah.”
“The one with the smelly coat and pretentious ‘Aqualung’ explanation? The one who dumped you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s an idiot.”
Sometimes they know just what to say, don’t they?