"The Accusation"

“It’s so good to see you!” said Andy, embracing a former high school friend just outside the coffee shop where they agreed to meet. “I can’t believe fifty years have passed!”

The friend studied Andy’s face. “My God, it IS Andy! They’re Andy’s eyes!”

Andy laughed. “You always had a good sense of humor!”

“Really?” she said, looking puzzled. “I don’t remember being funny.”

“Well, anyway, let’s go inside,” said Andy. “I want to hear everything!” He held the door open for her, then followed her to a booth near a window through which sunlight streamed. “I like that you let your hair go gray!” he told her.

“I like your gray streaks,” she said.

Then he passed his eyes over her slim neck and arms. She had not let herself go. “You know, you were quite the catch in high school.”

His friend looked at him quizzically. “I don’t think most people noticed me.”

“Au contraire!” Andy said, in what he immediately worried was a bad French accent. “You had a nice body! It was noticed!” Andy chuckled. “Boys talk,” he said. “You were discussed.”

“I never imagined!” The woman looked pleased. “You’re still tall,” she said. “It was something I always liked about you.” She laughed. “I wouldn’t expect that to change.”

“I stopped wearing glasses in college,” Andy said.

“That’s right!” his friend said, laughing. “Much improved!”

“You think so?” Andy said.

“The glasses made you look so serious!”

“I was serious,” Andy said.

“So was I.”

Andy said, “Let’s order,” and signaled a nearby waitress. Andy guessed the waitress that came to the table was about sixty. She wore heavy make-up that made her look older, and her long, dyed red hair was held back in a hastily made ponytail that missed catching much of her hair. Her eyes looked weighed down by being tired.

“Give us time,” Andy told her. “We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

“Fine,” the waitress said curtly, probably because the coffee shop was becoming busy, Andy thought.

“We’ll leave a big tip,” Andy told the waitress.

“Fine,” she said, and left.

While his friend studied the menu, Andy studied her face, struggling to connect the now 70-year-old woman with the teenager he remembered. Sun damage had made her complexion uneven. She had crow’s feet around the eyes. Around her mouth, age had carved fissures. But she had kept the lively eyes, cutely freckled nose, and plump lips he adored, with ever having kissed her.

It was a hot summer day, but the air conditioning helped take the stress out of the heat. “So!” Andy said, leaning in towards his friend. “Tell me what you’ve been up to for fifty years!” He chuckled.

“Well,” said the woman, leaning towards the seat back. She looked relaxed and happy. Andy concluded that seeing him gave her a degree of pleasure. “It’s the summer, and I haven’t any students to tutor. As I told you on the phone, I’m retired. But I still work a little.”

“Yes, how’s that going?” Andy asked, genuinely curious.

“I love connecting with students,” she answered. “I’m grateful to tutor several hours a day. Otherwise, it’d be too lonely. I’ve got plenty of hobbies but they’re solitary. I belong to a few online groups so I can feel I’m with people—I’m learning Italian, just for the hell of it, and I joined a few meditation groups.” Her eyes lost some of their liveliness, projecting a touch of sadness. “But it's lonely living alone.”

“I can imagine,” said Andy, although he didn’t really know that type of aloneness, having been married his whole adult life. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you! You know, I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. I think you know I carried a torch for you in high school!”

A hint of pink appeared in her cheeks. “I don’t deserve a torch!”

“Too humble!” Andy said.

“Too adulatory!” she said. Then she seemed to reach into her memory. “I think of us as friends who dated without ever becoming romantic. You took me to see Carousel at Jones Beach.” She smiled, recollecting the evening.

“You remember that?” Andy said, delighted. His memory dived into the past. “We used to play tennis a lot. You always beat me!”

She looked mystified. “We played a lot of tennis? I don’t remember that!”

“Sure!” Andy said. “You were a great tennis player!”

“I was?” the woman asked. “I was captain of the girls’ tennis team. But I never thought of myself as that good.”

“You were good!” Andy said, with absolute certainty. “And so smart! I enjoyed our conversations tremendously! You were very honest. And curious about everything. You raised interesting questions, which I was always happy to try and answer.”

Her body shifted uncomfortably in the booth seat.

“You were different than most girls,” Andy said.

“I remember us talking politics a lot,” his friend said. “I hated Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, and then the news broke about the Watergate break-in. I watched every bit of the Congressional hearings.”

Andy chuckled. “I remember asking you to stop talking politics so much and talk about us!”

She grinned.

“I invited you to the senior prom, but you rejected me!” Andy said.

“I know, I hated proms,” she said, looking down.

“I visited you at college and you made me sleep on your roommate’s floor!” Andy said. ”I could never get anywhere with you! I’d want to kiss you, and you always looked like you didn’t want to. I don’t know what it was.” He sighed. “It was something...”

She looked to be thinking, her eyes staring nowhere in particular. “I guess I wasn’t attracted to boys that liked me.”

“Really?” Andy asked, surprised.

“I think I thought that nice boys were boring.”

Andy chuckled uneasily.

“In college I fell in with a fast crowd,” she said. “Once I started drinking, I lost my shyness. With a couple of drinks in me, I was the life of the party.” She shook her head, as if she disapproved of what she was revealing.

“I’d love to see you after a couple of drinks!” Andy said, laughing.

“Yeh, well, I’m glad you didn’t get to!” the woman said, sadness creeping into her face. “When I got to college, virginity suddenly became unpopular. Just when I was beginning college life, women’s lib started telling women to have sex like men do—with or without love. Why not? Sex was fun, and it had no calories.”

Andy laughed. “It had no calories," he repeated.

“Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying became my Bible…you didn’t even have to know his name… the ‘zipless fuck.’ I think I liked the bad boys, the ones with experience.” She looked as if she didn’t like to remember.

“God, it’s good to see you!” Andy said, partly to cheer her up.

“You can’t turn back the pages,” she said, looking sad. “You know, I never married.”

“You told me on the phone,” Andy said. “Unbelievable!”

“What can you do?” she said, shrugging.

Andy leaned even closer. “It’s so good to see you!”

The waitress returned, asking hurriedly, “What’ll you have?” Andy noticed that the coffee shop had become even more crowded.

“I believe in eating right,” his friend told Andy.

“Yeh,” said Andy, “but it’s like you said about nice boys—eating healthy can get boring.”

Andy ordered a hamburger, but catching his friend’s look of disapproval, asked for broccoli instead of fries. His friend admiringly clapped her hands, laughing. Andy laughed sheepishly.

“I’ll have a vegetable wrap with cheese,” his friend told the waitress.

The waitress squinted through tired eyes, scribbling their orders quickly onto her pad. “Shouldn’t be long,” she said, leaving.

Andy’s friend’s eyes softened, looking at him. Andy interpreted the change as growing comfort at being with him. He believed she was genuinely glad to see him. He hoped she saw that he was not the same person she remembered.

“Tell me about your children,” she said, smiling. “I love to hear about people’s children!”

“I’m so proud of them!” he said. “Like I told you, I’m close to Susan, my favorite—a special ed teacher, like you! My children give my life meaning. Unfortunately, Brian and Jerry live in Boston and LA respectively, so I don’t see them much.” A jolt of sadness hit him. He sighed. “God, I wish we could go back in time!” He guessed that he had known her too early. He had never even kissed her. “I’ve never given up thinking what might have been.”

His friend quickly took in Andy’s face, shoulders, and arms. A somewhat dreamy-eyed expression replaced her neutral one. Almost as quickly, her body became rigid, and her face turned harsh, as if she were chastising someone.

“You’ve got to stop making love to me!” she said.

“I’m not making love to you!” Andy said, astounded.

“You’re a married man!” she said. “You’re teasing me to death!”

“Nothing of the sort!” Andy answered.

“Yes, you are!” she said, her eyes showing a touch of panic.

Andy raised his voice, looking around at nearby tables. “What are you talking about?” he said more softly.

“It’s unfair!” she said loud enough to be heard by other tables. “You get to go back to your wife, and I get to go home alone!”

“I’m not making love to you!’ Andy squirmed in his seat. “How can you say that?”

“Our conversation is upsetting me!” his friend said. The waitress returned with their food. “Please pack my order,” the friend told her. “I have an emergency. I have to go!”

“I’m so sorry!” the waitress said, sounding concerned. She turned to Andy. “Would you like your order packed also?”

Andy felt his body tense, as if standing strong. “I’m eating it here! I’m not going anywhere.” He turned to his friend, anger in his heart. “You’re not really going?!”

“I’m sorry I can’t stay,” she said, her eyes lowered. ”But I won’t be made love to by you across the table—or anywhere else!”

The two waited in silence for the waitress to bring their food. After the take-home plastic bags had been put on the table by the waitress, the friend picked up her pocketbook and grabbed the plastic bag that held her lunch. “I’m so sorry,” she said and got up. Andy studied the back of her as she wove her way through the busy tables and new customers making their way to their seats.

He thought of calling after her, then recalled the pain she had caused him long ago. He hardly tasted his lunch. Then he paid his bill and went home, still smarting from her accusation.

A week later, he called her, confessing to having “made love” to her across the table, although he did not believe it...anything to get her talking again.