Candy, Back in the Desert

First, the high school reunion.

It was blissfully uneventful. No one got overly drunk, no one yelled at anybody, the food was decent, blah blah. 22 out of 83 classmates showed up. There were 35 people total. Out of the 22 classmates? 4 males. No, wait. 5. One of them left before the group photo was taken. But he spoke about 11 syllables while he was there, so I didn't exactly miss him.

According to those who organized the shindig, there are several class members who apparently despise their former classmates. And none of us knows why. One of them will not speak to any of us when she has the misfortune of random public contact. She was one of us. We had fantastically idiotic fun times with her. What happened to her? What could have driven her underground like an angry, bewildered mole? No attempt at contact, by any of us, has been reciprocated. I stopped trying years ago. You have to save your sanity, you know. You have to, at some point, pay closer attention to those who are interested in being your friend. You must give the sullen moles the boot. Leave them to their loamy basements to gnaw and swat at tiny imaginary beasties in their tangled fur.

Then there's this guy from our class who sent a verbal message to the reunion planners via his sister: "Tell them not to waste their damned stamp." OK. Point taken. Here, drink this Maalox and sawdust smoothie I made for you.

The weirdest part of the whole evening is something I may have noticed before, but had forgotten: We all have different memories. For instance, when we girls used to have slumber parties, we always had to venture into the dark arts a little and try our hand at "levitation." This is where 7 or 8 girls gather around the body of the "dead" girl lying on her back on the floor. The person at her head massages the girl's temples in a very spooky way, while telling a tale about how the poor dead girl came to her dismal end. And believe me, the end is never easy. There is never a simple death from, say, gagging on a twinkie or mixing Midol with Boone's Farm. It is always violent and creepy. A car wreck in the woods where the girl manages to escape the burning vehicle just in time to be eaten by a bear. That sort of thing.

One of my friends at the reunion started telling about how "Oh my God, Candy told the SCARIEST stories. I used to get so scared I couldn't move!"

I was gobsmacked. What I remember is being so freaked out by the whole "light as a feather, stiff as a board" incantation that I would run into the kitchen of whomever's house it was, and talk to the resident mom. Anything to avoid the sinister witches in the candle-lit living room. But maybe that never happened. I had more than one witness testifying about my ghoulish stories and insisting that I scared ten years off their lives.

This "remember when" stuff went on all evening, as I'm sure it does at every class reunion in every language. And each time someone would talk about a specific basketball game or political hallway incident at school, there would be half a dozen voices saying "I don't remember that at all." Quite a few people who know me have told me I have a surgically precise memory. And maybe I do. But even I was lost when hearing all these mysterious forgotten details. Which just goes to show you, in the big fat novel that is life, there is no such thing as a reliable narrator. Everyone has their own separate transparency for the overhead projector, insistent and vivid.

As I looked around the room at the faces, some who were at the reunion for the first time, the whole ritual seemed bizarre. With one or 2 exceptions, I had no idea who these people had become as adults. And even with such a small gathering, there were people I never got the chance to talk to. It was hello/goodbye and a once-over to size up how fat/bald/weary-looking we'd gotten. But it felt like a gentle sizing up all around, not a vindictive one. Just a chance to run back into formation momentarily and say "I'm still alive. You too? OK. See you in another five years." Maybe the moles will climb out of their burrows for that one.