I Am Jack's Life Ch. 13

I stepped over to the other three of my best friends in the whole wide world. I let go of Kimmy's hand and slipped my arm around Anna's waist and kissed her softly. It was a territorial stamp, but a soft one. I think I felt two hundred tons lift off of her shoulders.

Beth was smiling softly at us, not looking away, her eyes red with previous tears. I looked at Abby and she too had a smile on her face. Kimmy and I had reached an understanding, and that made all of us feel better.

It wasn't perfect, and I was still confused as hell. But it was a start.

"Hey guys..." I said after a second.

They all looked at me expectantly. Some where, some how, they had all started looking to me for guidance and leadership, rather than just letting me tag along.

"Let's get the fuck out of here. I need a drink," I said with a wry smile.

That was unanimous.

#

Abby laughed until she had tears in her eyes that sparkled in the light of the campfire. I was laughing too, so was Anna, Kimmy, and Beth; but it was Abby who'd lost it completely. Her head fell into Beth's lap as tears of mirth streamed from her face. Anna rescued the bottle of wine from her before it spilled. It was our last one.

We were down at the beach outside Abby's parent's beach house. We'd raided the wine cellar and probably drunk about two thousand dollars worth of fine reds. That had only been about ten bottles, but still. The last two bottles, we'd skipped the glasses and just passed around the bottles themselves.

Abby struggled to breath and pulled herself up with Beth pushing on the side of her head. That only made the rest of us laugh harder.

I forget what the joke had been. I was pretty drunk. Not prom night drunk, that had been a vodka and beer shots drunk. This was feeling warm and good on a couple bottles worth of wine drunk. It's a different kind of feeling. Try it sometime.

Anna stopped giggling long enough to take a long pull from the last bottle of expensive pinot noir and then passed the bottle to me. There was about half of it left. I settled down my own laughter and took a drink, then passed it to Kimmy. She giggled and caught my eye when my fingers brushed hers. She was still in her funeral clothes, but the her top had gotten unbuttoned to the point it was no longer tasteful, her now short hair was pulled back in a clip to be out of her eyes. Her blue eyes sparkled with water from mirthful tears in the firelight. It was very sexy.

I looked away.

Laughter settled down again, and Abby regained her sitting posture. The bottle was passed to her and we all just sort of sat regaining out breath. We'd been talking about high school, remembering the good times. It felt good. There was a lot to remember.

Abby seriously had the giggles though, every time she'd try to take a drink she'd bust up laughing again.

"Oh come on, take your swig and pass it around, what's gotten into you?" Anna said with her own voice on the edge of laughter.

"Library books!" Abby gasped out at last.

"Oh god," Anna said, rolling her eyes. Then she too began to giggle like a maniac.

"Obviously the rest of us are missing the joke," I said.

Abby and Anna both continued to laugh. I'm pretty sure Abby's face was going crack wide open. She was sucking air in now with the desperate gulps of the drowned.

"Oh C'mon you two!" exclaimed Beth, laughing herself, though seemingly at them, and not their shared joke.

"I love checking out," Abby gasped, "Library books!" And she was gone again. Helpless against her self induced mirth. Anna fell backwards onto the sand, clutching her sides as the heaved in great guffaws.

"That isn't even funny!" exclaimed Beth, managing to laugh and sound indignant at the same time.

That of course, made them both worse.

Kimmy just shook her head, "Is this that stupid code you two had?" she asked.

Abby nodded helplessly.

Beth and I looked at Kimmy for an explanation.

Kimmy rolled her eyes, "These two, would use code so they could talk about hooking up with or checking out guys in front of people. Guys were books, checking out a cute guy was 'checking out a library book'," she said. She was smirking. I rolled my eyes, so did Beth.

"Hooking up with a guy would be 'stayed up all night reading that library book' and so on," Kimmy continued, "you do not want to know what the translation of 'I just devoured this great book last night' was."

"Ew!" exclaimed Beth. I just chuckled.

It was pretty funny actually.

Anna had recovered enough to begin talking again. "This one time, Jack, your dad was giving us a ride somewhere, I think it was home from a track meet..." She glanced at Abby for support, who nodded, "Anyway, we're in the back seat of his car, and Abby starts going on about this library book she was checking out that she borrowed from the other team, which was code for checking out a hottie from the other school..." Anna said, trying to contain her mirth, but it kept escaping in little bursts that punctuated her statements.

"When your Dad, he starts going on about how much he loves the library, and he checks books out all the time..." Anna lost it at the end, peeling into a sort of squealing noise that dissolved into laughter.

"Oh my god," I said, imaging my dad, with his perpetual goofy grin, thinking he was having a conversation about books with these two girls sitting in the back seat trying not to lose it.

Abby was crying, but she managed to sputter out a decent impression of my father, "I just love a good book! I could read all day, every day! Sometimes I'll go to the library and check out five or six, that'll barely last me a week!" And that was it, she was squealing again.

I laughed. I could hear my dad saying exactly that. It felt good. It hurt. But it felt good to think of him like that.

My chest twisted up inside to think he was gone, but it felt good to remember him in that moment. One ordinary moment, made special by the context of the telling. Context is everything after all. And ordinary moments made extraordinary by the context around them are all any of us ever get.

The rest of the evening went well. I kept catching glances from Kimmy. I would be filled with confusion and longing and we would look away; and Beth kept giving me funny wistful looks as well. But Anna and I retired to one of the spare rooms in the beach house to sleep it off.

No one came in and interrupted us.

But I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind.

I wouldn't have even cared who it was.

Here though is where you are probably expecting some kind of profound insight from me. Some kind of parable that will make sense of loss; of death.

But I got nothing.

I'm not a religious person. I've never seen any evidence for a higher power, or greater meaning in life. I've wished I were so - so many times. But you know what they say about wishes and shitting.

My father is gone. He died of a heart attack three days before Thanksgiving in 1994 at forty-four years of age. Its nearly twenty years later and I still can't find any meaning in it. To teach me a lesson; humility? The value of our family and loved ones? Bullshit.

My father missed my graduation from Stanford, graduate school, my wedding, the birth of my children, and a hundred holidays and birthdays. Not to mention thousands of plain, ordinary days that I could have picked up a phone and called him; except for the fact he's a pile of ash in a concrete cubby hole.

The only thing I learned from my father's death is how fragile and fleeting it all is. Cherish your friends. Cherish your loved ones. Cherish every moment you squeeze out of the universe.

The only thing I've learned about losing someone is what I learned from astrophysics; Stephen Hawking and Einstein. The universe is a tapestry of moments strung together. We are but passing stars relative to one another, and each moment we are flung farther and farther away from the ones we grow up with. Cherish the time you have with them, by the time you notice their light has been extinguished they'll already be long gone.

That's about all the profoundness I can handle at the moment.

#

Unlocking the door to my parent's house - my mother's house - I walked into a living room that told the tale my mother had stayed up late as well. There were several empty wine bottles on the coffee table, and five empty wine glasses. Her brother and sister-in-law, her best friend Julie, my mom, and probably one of their other friends. I almost counted my dad.

This was going to take an adjustment.

Anna came in behind me and shut the door, we were both still wearing our crumpled funereal clothes and probably looked like hell. Anna still had her sunglasses on to hide her bloodshot eyes. Her hair was rumpled and tangled. Pretty sure I had my own bed hawk going

Red wine hangovers are their own special thing too. Trust me.

My mother came out of the kitchen. She looked showered an changed, but otherwise probably as hung over as we were. She gave us a wry half smirk-half frown.

"I was wondering where you kids disappeared too, go off and have your own private wake?" she said.

"Something like that. Sorry we just took off," I said.

"Oh don't worry about it. A bunch of us opened up some wine after everyone left and stayed up late into the night trading stories about your dad," she smiled. It was a painful sad smile. But it was a good smile. I gave a half smile back.

"I wish I'd stayed then," I said.

My mom shook her head, "Nah," she waved her hand dismissively, "I hope the girls took you out and got you good and drunk."

"Pretty much," Anna whispered. Though from embarrassment or the hangover I'm not sure which. Maybe both.

My mother smirked.

"Don't worry about the mess, I've got this. I need to keep busy and this should last me all day. Go shower and lay down, looks like you both could use some sleep before your flight. You leave at nine?" my mother said.

Yeah - leaving. I had to go back to school tomorrow

"About that mom, I was thinking..." I started to say something about taking the semester off.

My mother raised a sponge at me like it was a weapon, "Don't you even think it young man. You have worked too hard to even think about not going back to school and finishing." Mom voice.

Mom voice on a hang over. I winced. So did Anna.

"I'll be fine. Julie is sticking around for at least a week, maybe more. I won't be alone and you can call me whenever you like," she said firmly.

I sighed and relaxed a little. I wasn't going to argue with my mother. Not in my current state anyway. "Yes mom," I said.

My mother gave a little nod of her head, as if that was as it should be, and then came over and gave me a hug.

"Honey, I promise, I'll be okay. You just promise me that You will be okay." she said

I held my arms around her and nodded. She squeezed me, and then she said, "Whew! Did you kids drink an entire winery?"

"Pretty much," Anna whispered and headed up the stairs to my room.

I smirked, "Lets just say the wine cellar at Abby's parent's beach house is in need of a little restocking,' I said.

My mother just shook her head, "I'd lecture you about under age drinking, but at least you've got good taste."

I squeezed my mother again and then went up to lay down.

Anna and I slept until we had to get ready for our flight. My mother drove us, and Abby, to the airport. Abby had managed to get on the same flight back as Anna and I with a little coordination. A little sweet talking the flight attendants and another passenger and we even got seated together. I got the aisle seat because my legs were the longest.

A friend of Abby's picked the three of us up, and then she and Abby drove back to Berkeley after dropping Anna and I off at the front of the housing row. Anna and I walked back to our dorms, it was after midnight, and the night air was noticeably cooler than it had been in L.A.

Anna linked her arm in mine and we just walked in silence back to her dorm. Her roommate was asleep, so we were quiet. It's a little weird making love when there is another girl sleeping about eight feet away with only a sheet hanging from the middle of the room, but you get used to it. I don't think we ever woke her up. But if we did, she was a sport and never said anything.

#

The rest of the year was uneventful. Anna and I continued to see each other, but it never clicked for me the way it did with Kimmy. We had lots of sex, laughed, joked, and went to parties; danced dirty, and enjoyed each others company. But it was never the way it was with Kimmy. I never felt stupid giddy when she smiled at me, I never felt the world fall away when we just kissed.

Maybe it was because of my dad, maybe it was because of Kimmy. Maybe it was me, maybe I was too guarded, maybe I was too involved with school. Maybe, too many maybes.

By the end of the year, I think Anna had noticed. Which led to other problems.

Anna had always liked to party, and there were a lot of parties on campus that were easy to get invited too if you were a hot freshman girl. I went with her to a lot of them, but not all of them. I just had too much on my plate with my studies. I was in a hard science program. I couldn't be out five nights a week partying and getting drunk.

Anna did, and she got drunk a lot. I had a hard time with that. In retrospect I wonder if it was her way of coping with my emotional distance or trying to get my attention back. Roads not taken I guess.

At first it was okay, drunken sex is pretty nice. Until it becomes the only kind of sex you ever have. Until every time you have sex your partner is smashed and you aren't. Until you have to forcibly insist the answer is no, because she's too wasted to realize you're trying to study for an exam tomorrow and not the least bit turned on by her drunkenly trying to unbuckle your pants under your desk.

Then she storms out of your dorm pissed off and drunk and you know that she's probably too drunk to find her way back to her dorm, so you chase after her after a couple of minutes and find some frat boy chatting her up and she's not shutting him down. Then you have to peel your girlfriend away from the guy who could probably fold you in half and put her to bed back in her dorm room.

It was a long year, but beyond my increasing disillusionment with Anna, an unexciting one. Mom and I spent the holidays at her brother and sister's, so we didn't have to spend it in the house. She took up with some gardening club and otherwise seemed to be coping okay. I was too busy to cope, which is the same thing I suppose.

Anna and I stayed together through the summer. Back home, with our friends, she seemed to calm down a little and kind of be back to her old self, which was nice for both of us; we reconnected a little. We celebrated mine and Beth's birthday with just the five of us rather than a big bash. I think we were partied out from our respective freshman years. Abby I know was. I didn't see too much of her during our second term, despite being closer geographically to anyone else besides Anna. Beth had quite a few stories from USC too - and a boyfriend on the football team. Big shock.

I learned that Kimmy and Todd had hooked up briefly, but that it only lasted a few months. They'd even moved in together. Apparently they'd had an epic break up that involved things being thrown in the street. They said he was currently living in Palm Springs with his cousins. I didn't see him that summer. I'd gotten a letter from Christina Yu; she was going to Yale and had heard through some other mutual friends about my dad. Her letter was pretty thoughtful, considering that we hadn't been super close.

Oh, I ran into Tommy's mom too. Tommy had been accepted to Duke, but he was on probation for getting caught during a fraternity hazing stunt. Something to do with girl's panties. She really didn't go into other details. I was very grateful.

My sophomore year at Stanford was even less eventful. Anna and I broke up over her drinking, then got back together over Christmas break - then broke up again on New Year's when I caught her drunkenly making out with some guy neither of us knew. The next week she swore up and down she'd thought he had been me. I didn't think it made it any better. We got back together over spring break, at least together enough to have sex several times during a massive week long party at the beach house. Abby had invited tons of people from Berkeley and Beth invited a bunch of people from UCLA and USC. It was easily the wildest bash we'd ever thrown.

Anna and I managed to stay together all the way through the end of the school year, even though times I was certain she was cheating on me and then she broke up with me on my 21^stbirthday. I got a little too drunk and started telling 'Drunk Anna' stories to the other girls. None of them cast her in a favorable light. Abby told me later I'd been pretty pissed off while telling them. Anna and I ended up in a shouting match that had Beth taking Anna home to sleep it off and Abby putting me to bed after I alternatively cried and vomited my guts out in her bathroom. Guess after two years of dealing with the roller coaster I had finally had enough.

Our Junior year, I finally decided on a major and then learned that I was too late for that program and I'd have to wait a year. So I picked a different one. Education.

Yeah, I was going to be a teacher.

I bet you saw that one coming from the beginning didn't you.

Not just any kind of teacher though - a math teacher. Another shocker I'm sure.

Turns out I was not only pretty good with math, I was pretty good with teaching it to other people. I'd gotten Anna through a few of her college courses, not to mention all the tutoring I did in high school. So I was majoring in K-12 education with a minor in mathematics. It was weird. My whole life I had been setting my expectations on becoming a scientist of some kind, maybe working for NASA, or JPL. Instead of was going to spend the rest of my adult life teaching. It made sense in a weird way. Abby said it fit me perfectly and she was surprised it'd taken me this long to figure out. She was right I guess. She often is.