a renewed friendship (lyn)

I primp for my dinner with Mary as I would an exciting first date. 

It’s been a long time since I last saw Mary.  Over sixteen years.  We were very good friends when I lived in Chicago.  Somehow we lost touch, but over the years, I’ve often thought of her.  

One day around Christmas, with Alexander at his grandparents, and the world pretty silent, and me pretty bored, I went online searching for Mary, and found her.  She had started a temp-agency when I last saw her.  Today, she runs an analytic search firm with offices in Chicago (where she lives) and New York (where she often comes).  And from her picture, she looks exactly the same.  I sent her an email;  she wrote back;  and tonight she is in New York and we are having dinner.

I recently had bangs cut and am not sure I like them.  But it’s what I have tonight, so it’s too late to change that look.  And besides, in the early 80’s, when Mary and I were young and crazy, I wore bangs, or at least a version of them.  I found this picture taken on June 19, 1981.  It’s a picture of Mary, a good friend of ours, and me.  It was a Friday night, weeks before I was leaving Chicago for Boston, and we were bored.  And so for no particular reason, we decided to put on lots of makeup, take some pictures, and then go out for a late night snack at the corner diner, a place we frequented often.

Tonight we are meeting at Revel, a restaurant in the very-hip meatpacking district.  When I am deciding what to wear, I realize I have no appropriate clothes.  I’ve become too Upper East side.  Where are the downtown clothes I used to wear?  I try on a pair of black pants that were impossibly tight last time I tried them on.  Tonight they are too baggy.  I missed that short window of opportunity where they fit.   In the end, I settle on a short black skirt, a thin white long-sleeved cotton shirt, layered under a grey V-neck cotton sweater.

I get to the restaurant and see Mary already there.  She looks incredible.  Fit.  Pretty.  And unchanged from 16 years ago.  We give each other a big, warm, jumping-up-and-down bear hug.  There is nothing tentative in our embrace.  Immediately we are friends again.

We have so much to say that food is insignificant.  We order a glass of wine, and it’s maybe a half hour before we can even think of ordering.  Our waitress is very patient and sweet.  She seems to understand.  I notice that Mary is a very healthy eater.  She skips the bread and passes on dessert, making it easy for me.  We split a salad, have two glasses of wine each, and order fish for an entrée (she tuna and me grilled prawns).  All is delicious, but it’s the conversation that sparkles.

Mary doesn’t notice my weight, as I look as I did when she last saw me. In fact, when I tell her of my recent weight-loss, she is stunned.  “Lynnie, I can’t even picture you heavy.”   I’ve always loved that she calls me Lynnie.  We talk about the past, but we don’t reminisce.  I like that we don’t waste a lot of time with remembering whens.  Instead, we catch up with each other’s lives and talk about the current.  It’s an effortless night, and a good one.