auto dealers and the shops and the town itself, Andrew looked the same but a little different. His hair was still wavy and chestnut brown, but thinner, and his shoulders were still broad but he didn’t stand as tall or stiffly as I remembered; he stooped a little, as though being so tall had become an inconvenience over the years. He still had that smile, relaxed and confident, and his teeth were terrific, and his eyes alert and energetic. He was a very handsome man, even if he wasn’t the high school basketball star anymore. It would have been silly to expect him to be that anyway; none of us are the high school basketball star anymore.
It would also have been silly to expect the sight of him to make me feel just as it did the night he asked me to dance, not because he wasn’t the same but because I wasn’t. Your heart doesn’t flutter like that of a fourteen-year-old girl’s when you aren’t fourteen anymore. It was as though I was expecting him to appear before me and suddenly we would be in high school again, and the Bee Gees would start playing and we would dance and it would be exactly as it was. That was an unreasonable expectation—that’s the part they mean when they say you can’t go home again. You can’t have the music and the dancing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a perfectly lovely time.
“What made you choose pediatrics?” I asked. We were drinking a very crisp white wine, which he’d ordered in French.
“I always knew I’d be a doctor,” he said. “I spent so much time in the hospital as a kid, it felt like home. I’m sure it was the same for you.”
I nodded.
“As for the specialty, I originally considered surgery. I spent two years in the ER and I hated it. The hours are ridiculous and the drama is off the charts. The work is fulfilling but I was emotionally spent every day. I think I would have had a nervous breakdown before my thirtieth birthday. With pediatrics the hours are reasonable and the calamities are few and far between. Plus, I like the kids. Some of them I’ve treated since they were a day old. And you get to know the families. That is probably the best part, you really become a part of the community. I think I know half the moms in town.”
I laughed. “Like Brooke.”
“Yeah, she’s something else, isn’t she?”
I took a long sip of wine. “Yes, she is.”
Our entrées came and we ate quickly, and we laughed some more, it was relaxed and easy and fun. It was as though we had been the best of friends, which was strange, because in truth we had not. We hadn’t really known each other that well in high school, or afterward, but we were from the same place. That can go a long way sometimes.
Our plates had been cleared and Andrew was sloshing red wine in his glass when a different look came over his face, as though he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure about it. It was the same look he had that night, forever ago, when he stood before me and wanted to dance to a slow song but struggled to ask.
“So, Samantha, I thought I heard you got married.”
It wasn’t really a question, not technically. It was a statement, but there was a question connected to it even if he didn’t ask it.
“Did you hear that from Brooke?”
“No, just around. Not from Brooke.”
Life is funny sometimes. It throws you curveballs at the most unusual times. One minute you’re rekindling romantic feelings with a boy you adored in high school and the next you’re forced to explain why you were married for three days to a man who will very likely someday be the governor of California.
“I didn’t mean to bring up an uncomfortable subject,” Andrew said, looking concerned he had ruined the mood. “I just wondered if I had heard that wrong. You know how the grapevine can be. You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. I’m sorry if it’s a bad subject.”
“It isn’t,” I said, “there’s no big secret or anything. I was married, briefly, to the wrong man. In retrospect, it was a good thing that it happened the way it did. I could have wasted years of my life with him; instead I only wasted a couple of days.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“There’s nothing