Best Friends Forever

But it should be like soulmates. Right? It just should.

I pick out a tie, but when I hold it up to my shirt, it seems like overkill. After all, at least half of these guys are going to be wearing hockey jerseys or something. Even Ron, my boss for the last ten years, is likely to show up in a tracksuit or something like that. Which is always kind of funny, considering that beer belly. He’s not fooling anyone in a tracksuit.

But despite the millions of dollars in his bank account, he likes looking like a good-old boy. I went a different route, but that’s just how it is. I get the money. They still call me a project manager, but in reality I’m a salesman. I need to look a certain way to get a certain kind of investor to feel comfortable in a deal that could exceed twenty-five million dollars. A tracksuit wouldn’t do it for me.

And I guess I kind of look the part. My hair got a touch of gray early, a curse of the genes, I suppose. But I still have all of it. I had a close beard for a while too, but this summer was just too hot.

I stare at myself in the mirror for just another ten seconds, trying to remember what I looked like in college. I don’t miss the old hair or the skinny arms. Sometimes I miss the band. I don’t miss laundromats or Ramen.

Frankly, life is pretty good.

Someone must’ve been keeping track of everybody all of these years, planning this event way in advance. I don’t even know how this sort of thing happens. Probably one of those very nice ladies who majored in city planning or something. Something logical but nice. Some nice person.

As I pull up to the banquet hall that has been booked, I see just the person. Jeannie. She waves at me vigorously with the clipboard under her arm.

This must be the place, I think.

I leave the car running and take the ticket from the valet as Jeannie rushes toward me, beaming excitedly.

“I knew you would make it, Clay Corwin!” she gushes, checking my name emphatically off the list.

She hands me a paper sticker with my name in careful calligraphy in blue and purple.

“Rhonda did all the calligraphy,” she grins. “Isn’t it just beautiful? Great to see you, Clay, you look great! Go on in! This is jus

t a riot!”

Yes, I think to myself as I smile and make my way to the door, Jeannie is the perfect person for this. I bet she’s been excited about it for the last fifteen years in a row.

Once inside, there seems to be a bit of a traffic jam. Twenty people I don’t recognize mill around the foyer, applying stickers to their outfits strategically. I guess I underestimated everybody’s fashion sense. Actually, people look pretty nice.

I feel their eyes searching me for familiarity and automatically look for a way out. It’s not that I don’t want to be friendly, but… Well, I don’t particularly want to be friendly. I don’t want to make small talk with every single person, reciting the same facts about myself and hearing the same facts about them.

Jesus, why did I even come to this?

Okay. Maybe I need to lighten up a little bit.

A drink. That’s what I need.

Yes, a mission. I walk purposefully toward the ballroom door and through it, spotting the bar and striding toward it like I own the place. Everybody sort of steps to the side to let me through, huddling protectively close to their dates.

Ron turns when he sees me. He’s already found the bar and a drink and he lifts it toward me in greeting. The tawny color perfectly matches the coppery sheen of his silk shirt.

“Jesus, you got dressed up,” I observe suspiciously. “I didn’t even know you owned a shirt with buttons.”

“Joke’s on you, big guy,” Ron smirks. “They only have Canadian Club.”

“Patron?” I ask the bartender when he greets me with raised eyebrows. “Cuervo maybe? With a splash of orange juice.”

The bartender turns around to make my drink and I feel something. Maybe it’s the way Ron stops, his eyes squinting, his half smile frozen between his jowls. Maybe there’s a breeze or something, but I turn just as she’s coming up, like I knew she’d be there the moment I looked for her.

Penny stops, drawing her feet together and bouncing a little like she just completed a dance move. Her fingers tuck a wave of dark hair behind her ear as she smiles up at me. For a moment it feels like my breath is knocked out of me.

“I like your hair.” She smiles expectantly, the tone in her voice strangely familiar and friendly, even though we haven’t spoken to each other in fifteen years.

“I like yours too,” I smile back, fiercely aware that this is a really big smile for me.

“What do you think of mine?” Ron interrupts, sliding his palm over his wide, shiny bald spot.