Short Story: The School Reunion

Short Story: The School Reunion

Someone decided to hold the ten-year school reunion on a boat on the Yarra River. Had they chosen the old school grounds, I could have picked an escape route and left early. Some sick person, probably Sharon, wanted to make sure there was no escape for any of us. We would all be stuck — beyond that first hour of curiosity —trying to find conversation and not sound too boastful about our achievements since leaving Tempy High.

I drove into town and looked for parking. Weaving through the grid system is harder than it first seems. Melbourne drivers are notoriously illogical drivers, darting in and out of lanes like giant grasshoppers looking for food. I used the narrow one-way streets to avoid the lane jumpers and the trams, and found a car park ten minutes from the pier. Not bad, considering some idiot had decided that the centre of town would be an ideal place for a hundred people to get on a boat.

I called Emma on the way to the pier to ask if she had left her office. “I’m at the pier already”, she said, “and they’re serving champagne before we get on the boat. No sign of Ant yet, but Sharon is here. Just wait ‘til you see her. Are you still able to give me a lift home?”

Sharon was the bossy girl at school who everyone was afraid of. Ant and I had kissed because she embarrassed us into it. He and I had been ‘an item’ for a year, but it was hardly a relationship. The only other time we kissed was when he gave me a bar of chocolate as a birthday present. After we had broken up, he followed me around like a dag on a sheep.

Emma handed me a glass of champagne when I arrived at the pier. “Check out Sharon,” she said, pointing at a woman I didn’t recognise. Dusk was approaching, making her into a miniature silhouette of the buildings behind her.

“It’s too dark. I’ll have to wait until we’re on the boat,” I said.

“Hello Wendy.”

I turned to see Ant smiling at me. He still had his cherub haircut and an affectionate little-boy grin.

“Ant. Hi. Nice to see you again. There’s the bell. Time to get on the boat. See you on there.”

Emma waved to Ant as we all bustled onto the boat. Apart from the lack of escape from the boat itself, there was nowhere to hide within the boat, which consisted of one big room and a couple of toilets. There was a DJ in one corner, with a glitter ball hanging above the dance floor and lights ready to flash when everyone was sufficiently drunk to dance on a boat.

As the boat headed towards the casino and the bay, Emma and I reacquainted ourselves with the faces around us and the first hour passed quickly. Emma was the only person from school who I had wanted to stayed in touch with, but recognising so many of these faces was comforting. Kym was still athletic, having married a hurdler who she met through her coach. Melanie, or Smelly Mel she was known at school, had overcome her body odour problem and looked a lot more at ease than she had ten years ago. Tim, who had spent many hours tattooing letters onto Marty’s knuckles and having Marty tattoo his, was now tattoo-free after hours of laser treatment that he claimed was more painful than Marty’s sloppy lettering had been in the first place.

“Who wants ‘P O R N S T A R’ tattooed on their knuckles?” he reasoned. “The dragonfly on my bum cheek is far more private.” I smiled back at his grin, without knowing if it was a joke or a look of pride.

Emma was one of the first on the dancefloor, leaving me to escape the approaching Ant. I scurried to the dancefloor to join her, feeling guilty and relieved that Ant would have to find someone else to cling onto. I had done my duty earlier when I listened to him talk about football and cricket for what seemed like an eternity. I had used the toilet excuse to escape from his murmurings. Darryl joined Emma and I and I wondered if he too was escaping someone. We had never been friends at school. He invested half an hour of dancing with us before he asked me if I’d like to get a drink at the bar. Thirsty and curious, I agreed. After some flirting and a few drinks, Darryl admitted to having a crush on me at high school.

“I’d love to show you my paintings some time,” he said.

“You paint?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an exhibition on at the Arts Centre until the end of January. I can give you a personal tour if you like.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The boat had looped around the bay and was heading back to the river when I saw Marcus, my final boyfriend from high school and the one who had meant the most to me. He had become greyer and ganglier with age. All those years of wondering what could have been if he hadn’t been the cheating type! He was inching away from Sharon who was now lit only by the light of the glitter ball reflections. Marcus saw me watching and waved awkwardly. I nodded and smiled and quickly looked away, but Sharon had already seen another victim to squeeze ten years of embarrassment out of and called out to me. Darryl had wisely turned towards the bar to avoid any contact with Sharon.

“Nicole White,” she said, coming over. “Did you come with your husband?”

I looked at Sharon. She was still skinny with ample cleavage, but her face was different. Her eyes were pinched higher than when she was a teenager and her lips were swollen. “No, Sharon, I didn’t. Did you?” Adulthood had improved my confidence with people like Sharon.

“No, we got a divorce. And that rumour about me being a call girl isn’t true: I was a stripper for a couple of years. Anyway, I married a stripper and he turned out to care more about his looks than I do about mine, and that’s not on.”

Ant came bounding over like a floppy-eared puppy. “Sharon, wow, you look fantastic,” he said. He grabbed her by the hands and she looked shocked. They didn’t notice when I returned to the dance floor with Emma, where I danced and watched the lights of Melbourne get closer.

The boat passed the aquarium and slowed as it neared the pier. Sharon was still being held, now willingly, in Ant’s embrace when the boat engines stopped. Emma and I scurried past them without stopping and said goodbye to our old schoolmates. Darryl gave me a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of the hand.

“Well what did you make of all that?” I asked Emma as we headed back to my car, enveloped by the cool sea breeze.

“I think Ant and Sharon have finally found what they’ve been looking for all these years.”

“Hah! Maybe they have. Can’t wait another ten years to find out.”