The rain had stopped by the time Glen left the café. Still feeling a bit light headed from the incident in the bank; he had stayed there a while after Jessica had left. He wanted to calm down a little more before he drove home. These attacks, along with the pain and dizziness, often left him with chills and anxiety. Sometimes the aftereffects would last for hours, depending on how severe the attack had been. It took some real convincing to assure Jess that he really was all right, and understood when she had to go. It turned out that she was working that day, consulting for a marketing firm, and had an appointment that she couldn’t skip out on. He wondered whether their promises to stay in touch would actually be kept. He had written his number and email address on the back of the café receipt for her, but when Jess had stuffed it into her wallet, crumpled in with so many other cards and papers he lost the feeling that it would be important to her. She had given him one of her business cards. Although he felt that a card was a very impersonal way to exchange information, he gently placed it into his pocket, making sure not to ruin it. He glanced out the window, watching as Jessica crossed the street, got into her little Honda and was gone.
Walking into his dingy 3rd floor apartment was always depressing. There were precious few windows, and even those had become so frosted and soiled by age that they didn’t let much light in. They were drafty as well, and on cold rainy days like this the heat coming from the single gas-fed unit beside the stove didn’t offer much reprieve. Glen removed his coat, but left his sweatshirt on. As he hung his coat on the nail in the kitchen wall, he reached into the pocket and took out Jessica’s card. Glossy and perfectly typeset, the card seemed to suggest importance. He carefully tacked it up to his bulletin board, right next to some unpaid utility bills and a menu from the Chinese take out restaurant down the block. Being single and somewhat lazy when it came to housekeeping, he ordered there a lot.
He briefly considered sending Jess an email to thank her for helping him through his attack and making sure he was OK, but he didn’t want to seem like a pain in the a*s. Plus, if he wanted to see her again, wasn’t there some unspoken rule about waiting three days so you don’t look desperate? He certainly didn’t want to give anyone that impression, especially someone who had already seen one of his fainting spells. He shivered, imagining what she must have thought.
Having finally settled in, Glen decided to check out the film. He gingerly slipped it out of his coat pocket, brought it into his office and flicked on the light. The strip was about 6 or 7 inches long, and contained only 5 frames. Disappointed, he held it up to the light and almost didn’t recognize the boy in the pictures. He squinted a bit in order to pick out the details better and saw an image of a slightly built, meek looking teenager with his head bowed, leaning against a locker. All the frames were of the same boy, in similar poses. They were just in different locations. So this was how she saw him. This was what she remembered, was thinking about earlier in the bank. No matter how much things changed, they always found a way to remain the same.
He flipped the strip over on his desk and opened the top drawer. Reaching in, he pulled out a gold paint pen and a tube of invisible glue. He shook the pen vigorously, held the film in place and wrote along the leading side “Jessica Stearns 1/14/08”. He then meticulously applied the glue to the sides of the strip, careful not to let any of it seep onto the actual frames. He even left room for the glue to expand as it dried. Satisfied that he had done as good a job as always, he picked out the next open spot on the office wall and slowly, carefully pressed the strip into place on the paneling. He then turned, glancing at the photos of himself one more time, remembering how somber and shy he was as a teenager. He had always hoped that Jessica didn’t see him that way. Now he knew better. He flipped off the light, headed back into the kitchen, tore her card from the bulletin board and dropped it in the trash. Glen didn’t need her phone number any more than he needed her memories, not when he had collected so many filmstrips already.
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