Man of My Dreams(45)

How can he be? I know I’m not. This unsettling feeling has taken over me, turning me into a ticking time bomb. And I don’t want to walk into my ten year reunion   ticking. I’d be unrecognizable to my old friends and classmates this way. They knew me as a free-spirited, happy-go-lucky soul. That’s how I want to be remembered. Not as a twenty-eight year old who doesn’t have control over her mess of a life.

I crack my knuckles, releasing the desire to swivel my rings around my finger any longer. With my hands free of the worrisome fidgeting, I smooth down my little black dress and take a deep breath as a white-gloved maitre d opens the glass paned French doors to the ballroom. When I step inside it’s like I’m abandoning the present and walking right back in to 1997.

I recognize Daniel Miller immediately. Apparently Westmont’s star soccer goalie has turned into the real life version of the Wedding Singer. Except in this case he’s more like the Wedding Deejay and instead of a mane of frizzy, ‘80s, Adam Sandler hair, he has none. And the hair’s not the worst part; his athletic physique is replaced by a bulging beer belly. These last ten years have not been good to him. Right away I worry that people will think the same about me.

He’s hunched over; one half of a large set of earphones wedged between his ear and his shoulder, his hands mixing records. The track that plays during my entrance into this time warp is one of my all time favorites, Bittersweet Symphony. The movie Cruel Intentions and my fascination with Ryan Phillipe kept me playing this song on repeat. At one point I swore it would be the song I walked down the aisle to at my wedding. But this will suffice. If I had to pick a song to accompany me and announce my arrival, this would be it.

I heard once that the two things guaranteed to stir up old memories are a familiar scent and a song. This beat feeds me a dose of some powerful nostalgia. I decide to go with it, letting it course through my veins. Tonight I want a break from worrying about Declan, my marriage, the path my life is headed on. In high school my path was undetermined and I was fine with it, taking each day as it came. I’m entitled to live like that again, even if only for one damn night.

Behind me I hear a hasty clicking of skinny stilettos, followed by a familiar hand on my shoulder. Before I can turn around to see who it is, Lisa squeezes my middle, pushing my already over-exposed breasts into my neck. “Mia, my love, you made it!”

I pry her little hands off my waist, spin around and readjust the amount of visible cleavage back to tasteful. I give my tiny old friend a once over, pleased by how stunning she looks seven months into her second pregnancy. “You, my dear, are one hot mama! Stilettos, Li? You’re as insane as you always were.”

“You got that right. I’m not letting kids cramp my style. And obviously neither are you. I’m not sure how you do it, girl, but you look even better than you did back then. I can’t believe your husband let you out like that. Noah Matheson is going to be sorry he didn’t snatch you up when he had the chance.”

I giggle, loving the compliment almost as much as the idea of Noah thinking about me in that way. I can lie to myself and say that I haven’t been thinking about whether or not Noah will be here tonight. But I can’t stop wondering when and if he’ll walk through those doors. The heart-thumping anticipation brings me right back to ten years ago, at Lisa’s party.

We set our bags down on a table situated right in the center of the room, claiming it as ours. Then we make our way over to the reunion   committee for our “Hello My Name Is” sticker tags. I doubt most of us will need them. It hasn’t been that long. I’m certain I haven’t forgotten a single one of these faces, or their names. Our graduating class was small. Everyone knew each other, whether they were a nerd, a jock, a cheerleader or a freak. And even though I lucked out by landing myself in the popular crowd, I was friendly and polite to everyone. I hadn’t been voted Miss Congeniality at Homecoming for nothing.

I’d kept in touch with a few of the girls and bumped into familiar faces now and again around town. Lisa, Kristen and I got together with the kids a few times a year. I regret not remaining as close as we were in high school, but now it never went further than a superficial phone call about a fellow classmate or the latest best-selling must-read novel. Lisa had no idea what was going on with Declan and I wasn’t about to pour my heart out to her now.

Together we collect our name tags from the heads of the reunion   committee, Tiffany Stillwell and Kyle Anderson. The two of them chaired every committee together back in the day...yearbook committee, prom committee, save the goddamn whales committee. They were geeks in their own right, but in all their geeky glory they were also the heart and soul of Westmont’s student body. They were quite an influential couple. But from the looks of their name tags these high school sweethearts did not end up getting married like everyone thought they would. Tiffany is now Tiffany Ventura and I can’t help noticing that Kyle looks miserable sitting next to her with a bare ring finger.