I ran into an old friend last week at the doctor’s office. As coincidence would have it, Jan was taking her 85-year-old mom to the exact doctor where I was taking my 89-year-old mom. While our respective mothers were in the examining rooms, we got caught up.
Jan and I had been close friends through high school and college but had drifted apart when she became, quite literally, a gin-swilling, country club Republican. Today, though, she was chatty. “How’s life?” I said, and she was off.
As near as I could tell, Jan’s life would be grand if not for her 16-year-old daughter, Jessica. Jessica apparently was a wild child who fought her mother on everything: boys, drinking, clothing, friends. “It wasn’t like this when we were in high school,” Jan said.
I stared at her for a moment, certain that the gin had pickled her memory. “You’re joking?” I asked. Jan was defiant. “I most certainly am not,” she said. I sighed. Selective memory is a benefit of middle age, but I couldn’t resist refreshing Jan’s memory.
Jan had clearly forgotten her reputation as one of the “bad girls” of Cardinal Gibbons. She made a name for herself early freshman year for perpetually rolling up the hem on her uniform skirt and holding it up with Scotch tape. “Sister Marie would make you kneel on the floor and if your skirt did not touch the floor you got detention,” I reminded her. Jan scoffed: “Kid stuff,” she said.
Kid stuff? I asked Jan what she remembered about English class junior year. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t remember much, mainly, I reminded her, because she spent the entire year in a Quaalude-induced haze. Jan was silent, but an odd little smile appeared on her face.
She shook her head, as though erasing a bad memory. “Anyway,” she mused, “Can you believe I found a picture of Jessica on Facebook, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other?”
I shrugged. “If memory serves, you were the one who taught me how to pump a keg sophomore year.” Jan was stony. “I don’t remember that,” she said. Jan also forgot the night her mother discovered she smoked. “Don’t you remember you borrowed your Mom’s brand new Chrysler Cordoba and you dropped your cigarette and burned a hole in the ‘rich Corinthian leather’?”
“Oops!” said Jan.
Jan also forgot the time after Homecoming when we packed 8 people into an AMC Pacer and drove up and down the bridges on Seven-Isles Drive at full speed for 20 minutes until a neighbor called the cops. “We were pretending to be ‘Starsky and Hutch,’” she said with dignity.
I saved my best for last. “Remember the George Thurogood concert senior year?” Jan looked away, clearly uncomfortable. “No,” she said flatly.
“We were at the Hollywood Sportatorium,” I reminded her. “You met some bikers and decided it was too hot to wear underwear so you…..” Jan was pale. “I’d rather not discuss that,” she said and retreated into stony silence.
A minute later Jan’s mother made her slow way back into the waiting room, and after a frosty good-bye Jan went to get the car, leaving me to chat with her mom, whom I have always liked.
“Jessica’s a good kid,” said Jan’s mom. “Besides, this is all my fault.”
I looked at her quizzically and she smiled. “When Jan was in high school I used to pray that one day she would have a daughter who was just like she was.” She actually cackled. “Who says prayers don’t get answered?”