copyright 2014. Ann Michaels
Years From Now: the reunion
Index
1. Farewell Friends
2. Sonja
3. Richard
4. Kerry
5. Marco
6. Jesse
7. Therese
8. The school reunion: 2014
9. Facebook friends
10. Tonight’s the night
Farewell to Friends
15th November, 1984
The school hall thrummed with excitement. Exams had been completed; tonight was the farewell, or, as the Americans call it: the prom. After tonight, many of those from the 1984 graduating class of Wattle Brook High School will never see each other again. Others will connect years later on the coming phenomena of Facebook. But for now, that is years away in the future.
The school girls’ have become women tonight. No more tartan uniforms and flat, black, ugly shoes. They are transformed by stilettos and curve-clinging dresses. Therese, especially, looks fine tonight and as usual, Richard’s eye follows her, as she raises a glass to her lips, chews her dinner slowly and thoroughly, and throws back her thick, golden hair, like a flag of freedom.
Therese is talking animatedly to Marco, who is seated next to her. They are talking about the eighties era. Their time. And wondering how this period will be thought about in the future. Neither realises that, the current penchant for: big hair, gigantic shoulder-pads, and power dressing, will soon be regarded with derision and laughter. And they are unaware, as the young often are, that their country is deeply engaged in unprecedented economic deregulation, which will set free a horde of corporate pirates, who will engage in an orgy of excess, building paper empires, which will later crash and burn. They don’t know that, the free university education that they will take for granted, will soon pass away.
Marco looks very dapper in his tuxedo. He was probably born looking chic and debonair, as some people seem to be. His dark, beautiful hair glows softly, in the light thrown by the spinning disco ball. The disco ball, though, is not lit up yet. It just spins about slowly, throwing its radiance casually. Biding its time. The disco will begin later, after dinner is finished.
On the other side of Marco, at the white, cloth covered table, sits fresh-faced Kerry. She is Marco’s girlfriend. They have been together for about a year now. A senior high school romance. Kerry appears to be lost in thought at this moment. She seems to be staring at some dust motes, which are floating, as though in syrup. They gleam in the light of the round, disco ball, as they continue their intoxicating dance. What nobody knows, not even Kerry, is that she is pregnant. She will wake up feeling sick tomorrow and blame the small amount of cider she drank the night before. It will take another few weeks for her to understand the life growing within. By then, she will be living in a remote Aboriginal community in Northern Territory, as a trainee youth worker. She applied for the job months ago: not telling anyone.
Jesse is watching Kerry, with his bright, blue eyes. He likes the way she is able to disconnect from the chaos around her, and just be. Jesse is feeling wired, not only because of the weed he smoked earlier, but because of a deep feeling of agitation, which is infiltrating his mind and body, more and more every day. And he is wishing yet again, that he had the musical ability, which seems to come so easily to Richard.
It isn’t fair; Richard intends to study maths at university. That is his passion. The musical ability is just an extra. For Jesse, music is his life, and yet, he believes that he doesn’t have Richard’s talent. Richard can pick up almost any instrument, and somehow understand it.
What Jesse does have, is a sardonic and quick wit, and a cheeky, charming smile, which often lures the girls. But for him, this has little substance. It is the music that he wants.
The last of our group, Sonja, is doing the rounds of the room in her sleek, scarlet dress, and killer heels, stopping at each chair, to bid each fellow student goodbye. Sonja is sociable and confident, in that easy way, that, people who have been comfortably loved by their parent’s generally are.
Sonja is leaving tomorrow morning, taking the plane to Sarajevo, in the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. She is so excited to be returning to the land that her parent’s left, fleeing the destruction of World War 11. She thinks that, she might find there, a missing part of herself. And yet, it will be Australia, which will again, provide the place of sanctuary.
The empty plates are collected and the room darkens. ‘Let's Go Crazy’ by Prince is released into the room; the disco ball shimmers, as though casting blessings. Within seconds, the dance floor is full; a mass of writhing, snaking bodies, ready to make this a night to remember. A night to think back upon in later years. In later years, when many will look back: not forward.
In the middle of the crush, as though seeking camouflage, Marco and Kerry are dancing together, to a song by Duran Duran. They are looking intently at each other, but say nothing. The music is too loud.
Richard pushes his glasses up his nose, and advances toward Therese, as though to ask her to dance. At the last minute, Therese flounces onto the dance floor with, Sonja. And so, Richard shoves his hands into his pockets and hastily retreats, to huddle with a group of his math’s friends. They begin to talk earnestly, as the music swirls around them. But Richard’s eyes continue to click to the side, every-so-often. Against his will.
As for Jesse, he is outside, deeply kissing one of the waitresses, in a cool, dark corner. Later, after she straightens her skirt, he takes a swig of bourbon, from a bottle in the pocket of his tuxedo, and steps back into the room. He pushes his way into the centre of the crowd, near Marco and Kerry; rakes his hand theatrically through his blonde hair, and begins to dance in a comic fashion to, ‘Burn for You’, by INXS. The crowd of dancers seem suddenly infected by Jesse’s joie de vivre, and the excitement level turns up a notch. The room has a current now and a there’s certain warm disturbance in the air.
But in Jesse’s private mind, he is thinking how this night is almost in the past; it will be soon over with, and there will be no way, to ever get it back.
Later in the night, when ‘Against all Odds’ is playing and many of the girls’ begin to clutch their friends and weep and the boys turn away, trying to maintain a ‘manly’ front, Richard gathers the group of friends together, and says, ‘we’re going to Kerry’s house. Her mother is away, staying with her sister in Melbourne.’ They collect their things, at their old school, for the last time, and slip out the door. Goodbyes’ are so difficult.
They bundle into Richard’s old Datsun 180B; Therese on Sonja’s knee, and Kerry perched atop Marco. The car is heavy and resisting, and smells like old socks, and perhaps, pheromones being released.
Kerry lives just a short distance from the high school, in an old worker’s cottage, with her mother and multiple siblings. She is the youngest of the family; only she lives at home now.
Kerry is glad her mother is away, as she is embarrassing, with her thick Irish brogue and strange talk. She’s not quite right in the head, her mother. Once a month, she dons a black cloak and leaves the house, via the front window. Kerry thinks she goes to the Catholic Church, but she is not sure. Her main concern is that, none of her friends get a whiff of her mother’s strangeness.
Tonight, she can invite her friend’s home and her mother won’t be there to shame her. That is good.
The front door is pushed open and the friends’ glide down the musty hallway and into the little lounge room at the end of the skinny, decaying house. The vinyl lounge is covered by a purple throw ru
g and various dusty, unmatching pieces of carpet lay scattered across the floor. Richard hands out cans of cider and Kerry appears with bags of chips, and a few plastic bowls. Over near the narrow, peeling window, Jesse is bending over the cassette player, rifling through a box of assorted tapes. ‘Ah!’ he cries happily. Soon, the syncopated sound of Madness, the English ska band, fills the room. Jesse then, produces a small tin, some papers and tobacco from somewhere, and he retreats from the group, into a dusty corner, and rolls a cigarette.
Kerry for a long moment is mesmerised by the glowing tip of that cigarette, as it moves, like a skywriter, in the dark.
‘Come on, let’s play