I found Abby on my porch when I got home at 6:15. She was wearing jeans with a cute pink cardigan, and had an overnight bag at her feet. Her short copper red hair was tousled as usual. She looked exactly as I remembered her.
“Abby!” We shared an exuberant hug, laughing, and she squeezed me tight.
“Here, let me get your bag,” I said as I led the way to my apartment door.
Soon we were seated on my living room couch with drinks, a beer for Abby and iced tea for me. Abby was beaming. “I can’t believe it’s been so long! Why haven’t we done this sooner? It’s so good to see you! What have you been up to?”
“Just working and doing, you know, whatever.” I realized what a boring life I’d been living here in Milton. James was the only truly interesting thing in my life. “How about you, Abby?”
“Oh lord, that’s a long story. I’ll tell you over dinner. I’m hungry. Let’s put on our party clothes.”
I let Abby change in my bedroom and then took my own turn. If we were going to bars after dinner, I wanted to pick something appropriate. Finally I decided on a plain black dress, tights and some black ankle boots. With some jewelry, it looked just one notch above casual. Not too fancy for a popular bar, but good enough for a piano bar. Although I had no idea where we’d go. Spontaneous was one word for Abby, and we’d figure something out. I did know where we were eating, though, so I called an Uber.
The Mexican restaurant was downtown and busy already. After a 10 minute wait, we slid into a booth. Abby immediately ordered a margarita. “C’mon, you need one too. We’re here to celebrate.” To the hostess, “Make that two.”
“So Abby, where have you been all this time?”
“Well, when we got married, Brian and I moved to Sommerville because his aunt had a trailer park there, and I could go to the tech college. I was glad to get out of Green Hollow, but Sommerville wasn’t much better. Living in a trailer? Yuck.”
“What did you study?”
“Computers.” Abby had always been good with technology.
“That was a good plan. How long did it take?”
“2 years. But I couldn’t get any IT work in Sommerville. It’s as tiny as Green Hollow, and there were just no jobs. So I worked at Dollar General. I had to support us both with that job.”
“Abby, how did you manage that?” I was aghast. How could one person provide for two people with such a job?
Our waitress interrupted to deliver our drinks and take our orders.
“No, really, how was that possible?” I persisted.
“I did it with a lot of overtime. Brian would do some odd jobs around the trailer park to get us a discount on the rent. But the b*****d never got up off his a*s to do anything. He sat in front of his computer all day, gaming with other losers online. He said there was nothing good enough for him. I could work at Dollar General but he was above working at Taco Bell. Not like he had any skills anyway.”
That sounded miserable. I hadn’t been any happier with Keith. Talk moved on to cheerier topics as we waited for our food.
Abby and I reminisced about our high school days until dinner was over. Then we stood in front of the restaurant, deciding where to go next.
“Keith always took us to the Omni rooftop hotel bar.”
“That sounds stuffy and bland. I checked online and saw The Yacht. It looked pretty interesting.”
I’d never been there, but agreed. It was just two blocks away.
When we entered, there were anchors, bamboo, and palm fronds everywhere. “What on earth is this place?” I asked.
“A tiki bar,” Abby said, delightedly. Indeed there were tiki torches flanking the bar. The Beach Boys were playing just loud enough to mask conversation. We grabbed two vacant stools at the bar and I studied the cocktail menu.
My Singapore sling arrived in a tall frosted cocktail glass, topped with lemon and a cherry. Abby’s pina colada had an elaborate pineapple garnish. Abby asked, “What about you? I confessed all of my sordid affairs. What have you been up to for the last 5 years?”
I explained that I’d stayed living with my mother, working part time for Dr. Lambert, an elderly doctor in Green Hollow. “I kept meaning to enroll in college, for a 2 year degree in office administration, but I’d have to drive all the way over to Hot Springs every day. It never seemed like the right time. Then I started dating Keith.” Keith hadn’t wanted me to waste my money so I could do exactly what I was already doing at Dr. Lambert’s. I was swayed by his reasoning. I didn’t have any particular talents like Abby, with her computers.
“What went wrong with that?”
“After we’d been here about 2 months, we got into an argument and he slapped me. When I told him to f**k off… well, I was pretty bruised up and had two broken fingers by the time I got away.”
“Men! They’re disgusting. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. But you got out?”
“Immediately. Heidi helped me. I crashed on her sofa and she hooked me up with this apartment.”
“Thank god you had good friends. And thank god you knew to leave. Not like your mom.”
“My mom?” How did Abby know about my father’s abuse?
“Oh come on, it was obvious. She was walking into doors and falling down stairs all the time. No one is that clumsy. Then he died and all the bruises stopped. His dying is the best thing that ever happened to you and your mother.” We sipped our drinks. “What do we need with men anyway? We’re fine on our own. They cause nothing but trouble.”
“Not all men.” I was thinking of James. And Bruce as well.
Abby drew herself up and looked severe and dignified. “Nope! I refuse to admit that statement. The judge rejects your claim. All the evidence is against you.”
“No, really. Heidi’s husband is the best. He’s the one that convinced Keith to leave me alone.”
“He’s an outlier. People say ‘not all men’ but it always ends up to be some guy who thinks because he is pleasant and friendly, he is entitled to sex. Then acts like a baby when he gets turned down.” She mimicked a whiny voice, saying, “I’m a nice guy, why do I get friend zoned? No girls want to date me.”
I had to admit such men existed. And I had to admit the term ‘nice guy’ was really annoying. But this was bringing me down, so I drew us back to high school memories by mentioning Claude.
“He wasn’t one of those stupid nice guys. He was always fun but never pushy.”
“Claude was gay.”
“No! I never knew!”
“Yeah, it’s not so pleasant being gay in Green Hollow. So he kept it under cover. That’s why he moved to Charlotte so quick after high school.”
“Well, he was always tons of fun. Remember that time he got us a joint and we couldn’t stop laughing?”
We drifted back to the good times we had together, the inseparables. After a couple of mai-tai, I switched to cokes. As much as I enjoyed getting tipsy, drunkenness was not my style and I’d had quite enough. We ended up staying until last call at 1:30.
Abby was in much worse shape than I was, Sunday morning. As she grumbled over her tall glass of water, I had OJ, and some eggs and toast.
“I’m so dehydrated,” she complained.
“You’re hung over. You’ll feel better soon,” I said and tossed her some ibuprofen.
“How can you be so hard hearted?” she called after me as I headed for the shower. I laughed.
Once we were both washed and dressed, I asked, “Do you want to meet James? I thought I might invite him over before his shift at work.”
In response, Abby groaned and flopped her head onto her arms, sitting at the kitchen table.
“C’mon, you can’t feel that bad,” I coaxed.
She simply moaned, too miserable to even form words.
“Well, OK, maybe next time. Today you can give me moral support as I go through my clothes.” I had to find a way to trim down my wardrobe.
“I’ll be in here,” I called, and opened my closet. I was sorting through blouses when Abby shuffled in. She dropped onto my bed.
Surely I didn’t need four white blouses. I wavered, trying to decide which ones were most versatile. I loved all of them. I held up two for Abby’s inspection. “Which do you like better?”
She pointed at one and fell back against my pillows. “Why do you have two white shirts? Isn’t one enough?”
“It’s four, actually,” I said. Abby had never understood my interest in clothing.
A small pile of clothing for donation gathered, as I continued sorting. A very small pile, considering the effort it took to part with each item. Abby had fallen asleep. After two hours, my stomach informed me it was lunch time.
I was stirring mayonnaise into a tuna salad when Abby resurfaced. “Feel like eating something?” I asked. She nodded.
I fixed two sandwiches for us and set them on the kitchen table. After several bites, Abby perked up a bit, and ate her sandwich with more animation.
“I brought a surprise for you,” she said, as she finished eating. She put her plate in the sink and rummaged around in her messy pile of belongings, came up with a small gift bag,
“What is that?”
In response, she spilled the contents onto the kitchen table. It was a pile of folded, yellowing papers. I put down my sandwich and picked one up. It was elaborately folded into the shape of a flower, with my handwriting on it. Notes we’d exchanged during our high school classes. Some were simple squares folded cleverly, but some were quite complicated. It had been a distraction from the miserable home life I tolerated. I could tune out the fighting as I concentrated on creating the exact folds and creases. Looking at them now didn’t make me feel happy.
I could sense Abby’s disappointment and tried to smile. “Wow, you saved these so many years. Why?”
“Everything you touch is sacred. Of course I saved them.” Being a smart a*s as usual.
I leafed through them and opened one up. My perfect schoolgirl penmanship slanted across the paper, alternating with Abby’s rough scribbles. This one seemed to be an exchange about Claude and our weekend plans. Abby had opened one, too.
“Here’s one of your haikus, about Smokey’s Tavern.” She read it aloud.
In Smokey's Tavern
lighting one more cigarette
hobos come to roost
That did make me laugh. While I washed dishes, Abby opened up notes at random and read out bits to me. Why she had saved them I still didn’t know, but I had to admit some were very funny.
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