Try to Catch the Deluge in a Paper Cup

I don’t suppose this photograph needs explaining (except to Mom: sorry*). The third person is my best friend from junior high in WV, Kirsten. I remember that she loved Teri and Lynette, a hurricane sisterhood of sorts. This also happens to be a great picture of four people who weren’t at the reunion: Sara, Tim, Sonja, and Lacy. I hope we can get all of them to join us at the 25th.

You might not believe it from the cup count, but I have vivid memories of this night. I was wearing a black mini-skirt, a white tank top, and large, red hoop earrings. I used to joke about whether they were wide enough to hook my ankles in: a crude joke for an innocent virgin to make. Look at how I draped myself on poor Tim. I think that later, he held my hair back when I threw up in the grass by the police station. (I miss him. I wonder how California is treating him.)

Zeke might not remember this, but he teased me for flirting with the balding singer who stood between the two pianos. You might see the coaster in my hand on which I’d written yet another song request. At one point, I wrote, “Sing a song that you like,” and he serenaded me with “Separate Lives.” When he stepped down from the stage to take his break, he leaned over and said into my ear, “If only I were a few years younger and you were a few inches shorter....”

Oh, for crying out loud.

*To set the record straight, I don’t think it was long before Mom did learn about this night. She saw the white plastic bag containing a souvenir glass that I’d brilliantly hidden under my car seat.