I met my old lover on the street last night She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled And we talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some beer Still crazy after all these years...
Still Crazy After All These Years, Paul Simon, from Still Crazy After All These Years (1975).
I met someone from college that I had not seen since graduation. Nearly five years have passed since I've met anyone from college. I liked it that way. No ties. No history. So, when I received the email a few weeks back from Laura, perhaps my closest friend from college, I hesitated before answering.
I finally replied to her email, and, after a few more exchanged messages, we agreed to meet up when Laura was visiting New York for a seminar. My office is only 40 minutes south of Midtown Manhattan by train. Her seminar was just north of Grand Central Station. It was perfect timing. I left early from work last Friday, claiming I had an "appointment", and sped through town to catch the 5:25 to Penn Station (just west of Grand Central Station). Sitting on the train, I reviewed a case addressing the discovery of draft reports by experts while imagining what it would be like to see Laura again for the first time in nearly five years.
Laura and I had been close all throughout college. We were both psychology majors, although I started distancing myself from the field in senior year, when I grew dissatisfied with the reception of my thesis by the faculty. Laura used me as a sounding board for her relationships. I rarely dated in college, far too timid to deal with the sense of exposure I felt when I asked women out. I went the other route, and threw myself into my work. I used Laura to listen to myself identify my anxieties. It calmed me, somewhat. I drank less when we talked often. Towards the end of college, she took to a fellow in a serious way. We saw each other less often. I took up the task of getting into law school. Things fall apart. It happens. There was no falling out. We were still warm to each other, me, to some extent, admiring and smitten by her wholesome, kind nature. She, for reasons I never understood. I still don't. Purity is a paradox when you assume ulterior motives as a practice.
We ate dinner at Cafe Centro, near where her seminar took place. Crowded with what seemed to be a hoard of lawyers, many of whom I suspect work at Davis Polk, Cafe Centro was not quite the atmosphere I was looking for. I wanted quiet. A place to chat. A part of me, calculating and idealistic, wanted an environment where I could control external distractions. I got a crowded bistro with an open kitchen. It had a good wine list, so I was able to accept the outcome. I needed control, I thought. I was unwilling to reveal much of myself around others.
I was a bit uncomfortable with meeting Laura. It wasn't because of Laura or our past friendship. It was because of my sense of what others see what I do and what I've become. I was a much more warm, jovial person in college. Now the bags under the eyes are a little darker. Now family members ask what happened to the off-kilter, wildly funny and morbidly emotional "artist" that used to talk of becoming a novelist. I don't answer. I never explain. Something happened, wherein I traded a certain element of myself normally reserved for the emotional and the beautiful, the sublimely funny and tragic, for the wry, the rational, the bemused objectivity that allows me to will myself through the day. It is zen. I tell myself that all the time. I am now zen and nothing shall affect me.
The point is, I was scared of meeting Laura. Would she think I was a bad person? Until thinking about meeting Laura last week, I had not given much thought to what normal people - those who do not practice family law - think about family law. Friends ask that I not bring up cases, particularly when I do a lot of domestic violence motions. Parents remark, in their prim Catholic fashion, that "people" should not be so comfortable about dealing with sex as a profession. Still, my colleagues and I eye each other with toothy smiles. We like this. This... this is drama. It's Lear and Othello, Luigi Pirandello, Judith Guest, and, of course, as it's law, The Verdict.
Six Characters in Search of an Author
But what would Laura think? An old friend who last saw me as destined to do therapeutic programs for kids or neurochem lab work now sees me as the dissolute lawyer? I stamped out a partially smoked cigarette and walked into the restaurant. Laura sat at the bar. I saw her at once, recognizing her as though she had never aged. This is going to be good. You're not going to fuck this up. I checked my jacket and my briefcase with the coat check and sucked in a deep breath. Just act like a boy scout, and you'll be fine. Even though she can probably smell that last cigarette lingering on your breath, dipshit. I walked over to the bar. She had the same porcelain Irish face. The same freckles. The same wavy brown hair. Damn, she still even wears the same crucifix.
Twenty minutes after we sat down, I began to breath again. I sipped at the wine, a nice merlot. It had been four years, nearly five, and Laura and I traded "war stories." We had our issues. We had our moments of failure. We moved on in our respective histories, just as my ribeye arrived. Dinner was jokes in between bites of steak, old stories of foolishness.
"You nearly were arrested for rappelling off the side of the dorm."
"I tried to surprise you on Halloween, only to be kneed in the crotch."
"Your roommates were insane."
"All roommates were insane."
The plates were being cleared. I started a little rant. "I want one of those little metal things these yahoos use to clear crumbs off the table. Who the hell makes something like that? I mean honestly--"
She reached across the now cleaned table, and grabbed my hand, holding onto my fingers. I shifted my hand around, enveloping her hand in mine. Her hand was soft. I had forgotten how soft women's hands could be. She smiled, but her eyes had a sheen that the light caught. There was another story, I could tell, but it wouldn't be told that night.
"It's good to see you again," Laura said.
"You too." I rubbed her fingers softly with my thumb. "It's been too long," I murmured.
Perfectly bitter espresso came next, along with a bit of mousse. She asked if I came into the city often. I did, I explained. Did she come down from Connecticut much? She wasn't that far north of the city, she said. I paid the check, and went to pick up our coats. The walk down to Grand Central Station, for her train, should give me a few more minutes to enjoy this. A nice brisk city walk, I thought. I helped her put her coat on, and started heading for the front door.
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"I... I thought you needed to catch a train?"
"Yeah," She smiled. "You can go out the back and you'll be directly above the Grand Central Terminal."
"Oh," I answered. "Oh. I guess we go out the back, then."
I walked her to her train terminal. We bid each other farewell. A brief hug, and she turned for the tracks. I turned for the exit, walking across the central atrium of Grand Central Station, under a fresco of stars on a brilliant blue background.
updated 7/31/03: Replaced initials with pseudonyms, revised quotation.
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