I stepped back onto the elevator wearing a mid-length dress and carrying a small purse on my shoulder. I would have wanted to say that I had complete confidence in myself…I mean, I had dealt with a boardroom of Samsung executives and the fiery CEO of an Indian company that dealt with electric cars. I would rather have been stared down by her burning gaze again than to be going to my reunion. But here I was, voluntarily descending into the snake pit.

There was a growing roar of voices as I walked down the hall to the ballroom.
“Okay, Keri, you got this. It’s just like Mumbai,” I whispered to myself as I fished my name tag out of my purse and placed it on my chest.

The lights were low, but we were not in complete darkness, just enough to hide a grey hair and a probable wrinkle or two.
I could barely recognize anyone. When I tried to place a face with a memory, it would vanish into the ether before a match materialized. I decided to go to the open bar and request a light drink—I’d wait to try anything harder.

The bartender was friendly enough, but I had to wonder how long he would last. Our football team once finished three kegs of beer in fifteen minutes of less at an off-campus celebration for winning the state championship. No one ever learned how they acquired it.

The DJ played “Smells Like Teen Spirit”—either a nod to the nineties, Seattle itself, or a back-handed slap to our heads to tell us we were all older. I hoped they would play a slower or song or two—not that I assumed anyone would want to dance with me. No one knew me, but there was always hope that someone might give me a look…if they were not three sheets to the wind.

I sat at a table decorated with a centerpiece of a man riding on a horse, a ranger. The rest of the table was covered in a glittery like confetti that would find its way into various nooks and crannies of your clothes and skin. If you didn’t receive an award or a group picture, you could at least know you brought green, silver, yellow or red paper mementos home with you.

The crowd swelled and the music kicked into some form of dance music: heavy on the drums and the synthesizer. I would have to see if the DJ could play something by The Cure or maybe Garth Brooks. The tables slowly filled with people laughing, talking and taking snapshots with their phones. There were a few with actual cameras; the ones with a flash that would illuminate a quarter of the room for half a second. Several people waved to me as they walked by, but I still could not place anyone. I should have brought my yearbook. There were several screens on the wall, maybe they would show pages from our yearbook…and, tragically, the images of Christopher James Riley would appear. The good thing about it though, I could be incognito until decided to reveal myself

Sure enough, the screens came alive with our class pictures, almost synchronized to the music. The images flashed by like a disjointed kinetoscope to the beat that was already thumping in my head too much. The crowd turned its attention to the slide show and, I admit, I felt a bit sentimental towards that earlier time, even though I despised most of it, those times drove me to be me the real me who sat at that reunion.

“Hello, is this seat taken?”
I turned to the voice and squinted in the darkness before responding. “Please, be my guest.”
The kind of thin man placed his drink on the table and turned to me. “Forgive me, but I think I recognize you, but it’s escaping me like William Shatner’s toupee. Sorry, wow, I told myself I wouldn’t drop any Star Trek references.” I could see his face was all flustered as he grabbed his drink and stood back up. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to go and—”
“Have a seat, Daniel,” I replied.
He looked at his name tag and then at me as I held up my glass.
“Seriously, sit down. Not the first time I’ve heard you say that.”
“How do you know me?” Daniel asked as he slowly sat back down.
“Well, we were friends back then, you know?”
“I don’t recognize you and if we were friends back then, I think I would have asked you to Prom.”
“You took Angelica Whitman to prom.”
“Worst dance in my life,” he replied and then took a drink.
“Oh no, that was Winterfest.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I picked you up and drove you home.”
Daniel leaned in closely—any closer and I would have to slap him--and whispered: “Chris?”
“I go by Keri, now.”
“Wow, umm, you look good.”
“Thank you,” I replied with the upmost sincerity.
Daniel turned his chair to me. “So, what have you been up to?”
“You first,” I goaded.
“Well, as you know, my family moved to the Midwest. Nebraska, to be specific. The land of grasshoppers, flatlands, and tornadoes.”
“Omaha?”
“I wish. It was a small town in western Nebraska. No cable, no blockbuster and no Dairy Queen.”
“Horrors.”
“I took a year off before I went to college to just figure things out, of course, I had to work, and the only place was the town’s tiny grocery store.” Daniel gulped down the of his drink before continuing. “But that a good thing, met the girl who became my wife two years later. Then, we moved to Michigan because she though it would be a good thing to work the land and to live in a cabin in the woods.”
“I never saw you as a man of the land. I have been proven wrong.
“Not so fast…I wasn’t a man of the land, or the man of my own cabin. She had a, quote, pen pal, who put the idea in her head to move. And, long chapter of my life short, I finally went to school and graduated with a business degree.”
“Where are you working now?”
“Best Buy.”
“Corporate?”
“Geek Squad. Market’s tight where I live.”
“Where do you live?”
“Tukwila. I mean, I’m okay with my life. I didn’t have anything really planned at the end of high school. I got to play the part of that feather in ‘Forrest Gump’.”
I nodded as Daniel smiled. It was nice to see he was okay after everything that happened to him.

“And what has Keri been up to since Graduation?”
“Well, like you, my family moved east, but to Tennessee, and I took two years off from school to take care of some personal issues. Unfortunately, that caused a rift in my family and essentially, I had to say goodbye to them. I went on to work for the O'Callaghan Collective and I’ve been working for them ever since.”
“What do they do?”
“Everything under the sun and my job is to bring other companies under us. I’ve been to foreign places like Mumbai, South Korea, Los Angeles.”
“I’d ask for a job, but that would be improper.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out a business card. “Send me your resume.”
Daniel took the care and looked at me with a bit of suspicion and surprise. “This isn’t like that time I gave you fake number for that girl named Tiffany, is it?”
“I forgot about that one.”
“This is your real business card?”
I nodded. “The number’s real too.”
“I’m liking this reunion so far and to think I wasn’t planning on coming.”
“Why not?”
“High school never ends, you know? There are people here who would still want to throw me into the lockers or destroy my trombone. Even if their lives are worse than mine. Can I get you another drink?”
“Thank you.”
Daniel took our glasses and made his way through the crowd to the bar. I turned back to the table to see a group of women approach. One of them had a voice that I remembered quite well. I shuddered and turned away from them. I then removed my name tag and hoped none of them would ask for my name.
“This table looks kind of open,” one of the women said. “Excuse me, is anyone else sitting here?”
“Yes,” I replied, “he went to get a drink.”
“Do I know you?”
I should have asked Daniel to get me a shot of tequila.