David L. Updike
REUNION
My kindergarten class’s fiftieth reunion is underway. It’s being hosted by two of our classmates, Mike Finnegan and Linda Haupt, who ended up dating in high school and getting married shortly after graduation. They’re now grandparents and live in the house where she grew up, just a few blocks from Shanksville Elementary.
Mike and Linda have outfitted their backyard for the occasion. To the swing set and sandbox (permanent features) they’ve added activities. The collage station, with its colored construction paper, safety scissors, Elmer’s glue, and glitter, is a popular attraction, as is the music table piled with tambourines, maracas, recorders, and triangles. Those of us feeling less hands-on gather beneath the rented canopy in the middle of the yard, where folding chairs are arranged in a semicircle on a large rectangular rug. A single, empty chair sits facing the others, in honor of our dearly departed teacher, Miss Muschlitz, who passed some years ago.
Per the invitation, we surrendered our cellphones to our hosts upon arrival. Our generation pre-dates the digital revolution, and we are—for today, at least—proud of this fact. We can be proud, too, that we’ve managed to achieve 100% attendance for our class of eighteen, with people coming from as far away as Georgia and Michigan to celebrate this, our golden reunion.
As one of those who went away to college and never came back, I find each individual reunion with my former classmates a vertiginous leap across time, as my memory of their six-year-old self hurtles forward to meet the middle-aged adult in front of me. The nametags are helpful for some, but others are instantly recognizable. Tom Muldoon, for instance, whose shoulder-length blonde curls have evaporated, but whose dimpled chin, hawk nose, and infectious laugh have only sharpened with age. He’s some kind of local dignitary now—town councilman or such—and does a lot of backslapping as he makes the rounds. Or Betsy Coombs, my secret kindergarten crush, whose steel-blue eyes, staged by curtains of straight black hair, still freeze me in my tracks. She comes over and greets me warmly, and I manage to frame a question without falling flat on my face, in answer to which she informs me that she is now chair of philosophy at a school in the Midwest.
Of course she is, I think. She was always the smartest one.
She asks about my work, and I feel myself flush—why, I don’t know, urologist is a perfectly honorable and necessary profession—but nevertheless my eyes drop as I respond, noting on the way down that neither of us is wearing a ring. When I look up again, she’s walking away. Some things never change.
Others have not fared so well as Tom and Betsy, or even myself. Something is going on with Susie Schaeffer, for example. She and Frank Rasich are the other married couple to emerge from our kindergarten cohort. Frank is a genial middle-aged version of the kid I remember, but Susie has acquired some kind of physical anomaly that has caused her body to shrink to the size of a child’s while her head remains adult size. Frank carries her in the crook of his arm like a ventriloquist’s doll, and everyone fawns over her as they would a newborn. “You look adorable, Susie!” says Debra MacCready, who still appears to be the tallest among us. “Look at those little tootsies!” says Julie Barstow, squeezing the toe of a canvas sneaker.
“Size two,” says Susie.
“And getting smaller every day,” adds Frank. “What do we do when she gets below zero?”
“Oh look, swings!” says Susie, and off they go. We watch as Frank lowers her onto the seat, then begins pushing her from behind.
“Higher!” she squeals. “Higher!”
“That’s so lovely,” says Betsy Coombs, who has reappeared with two glasses of red Kool-Aid. She hands one to me.
“Thank you, yes, lovely,” I say, though I’m not sure that’s the word I would have used. I guess she means that they’ve stuck it out through whatever this is and, if anything, seem even more in love. I wonder what Betsy’s story is, but the old shyness overtakes me. We attempt to make small talk, but what do you ask a philosophy professor that doesn’t sound stupid before it even comes out? And what do you ask a urologist that isn’t embarrassing? Seen any nice urethras lately?
You pick up things right where they were with a person, regardless of how much time has elapsed in between. At least that’s my experience.
So we revert to watching Frank push Susie, who soars above the top bar of the swing, the chain going slack at the apex of each arc. Still she demands to go higher. I turn to say something to Betsy, but she’s moved on again. I thread my way through the activity stations, not feeling much like joining in. I know that I belong here, as much as I belong anywhere in the world, but there’s a way in which I still feel apart. Was it like that even back then? I try to remember, but it’s all a blur of birthdays and bloody noses, triumphs and humiliations. The time I hit Kevin Brodbeck in the face with a basketball. Or when Betsy, on a dare from the other girls, planted a kiss on my cheek. The time I made the bus driver stop on the way home from a field trip so I could pee alongside the road. Miss Muschlitz told the rest of the class to look the other way, which of course they didn’t, and then it was all anyone talked about for weeks afterward. “Pee-Pee Paulie,” they called me.
The time my mom didn’t make any treats for the class on my birthday, so Miss Muschlitz took down the plaster cake from the top shelf of the closet—kept there for just such occasions—and the class sang “Happy Birthday,” the bolder kids inserting “Pee-Pee” before my name in the penultimate line.
Is that when our paths began to diverge? Or does everyone carry their private humiliations through life like old scars?
I arrive at the back fence and look out over the landscape, though one can hardly call it that. On the other side of the pointed wooden slats, the ground slopes sharply downward, a dizzying hundred feet or more, into an immense gravel pit—a quarry, really. The other side of the quarry—a sheer cliff of dark, veined rock—is a good quarter of a mile away. If there’s anything beyond the cliff, I can’t see it because of the tall slag heaps that dot the horizon like anthills.
Mike, our co-host, appears at my side.
“Paul, how are you?”
“Fine,” I say. “All things considered.” It’s the kind of non-answer I’ve been giving people all afternoon, and accurate as far as it goes. “Nice place you have here.”
“We love it. Plenty of space for the grandkids to play.”
A section of the cliff on the far side of the quarry collapses and plunges into the pit, sending up a cloud of yellowish dust.
“How long has that been there?” I ask.
“Oh, forever, more or less.”
“I don’t remember seeing it before.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been getting bigger lately.”
“Whose is it?”
He shrugs. “Everybody’s. Nobody’s. It’s none of my business, really. I have enough to deal with just keeping all this up,” he says, gesturing toward the yard and the house. “How about you, Paul? You married? Have any kids?”
“No,” I say. “Not me. I was—married, I mean—but no kids.”
I wait for the inevitable reply about how lucky I am to be “free,” but Mike just pats my arm and says, “Excuse me, I think I’m needed inside.” He heads back toward the house, and I mill around the yard some more, skirting the edges of conversations, never quite figuring out where to insert myself.
Linda is standing by the back door, ringing a brass bell with a wooden handle. “Snack time!” she calls. Mike darts in and out of the house carrying gray plastic tubs and setting them on the picnic tables that have been pushed together in a row along the patio. Everyone converges on the tables, but before a feeding frenzy develops Linda steers us into an orderly, single-file line.
The plastic tubs are filled with eight-ounce cartons of milk bobbing in ice water. These are accompanied by boxes of graham crackers and stacks of paper plates and napkins. As we file past, each of us takes a plate of graham crackers and carton of milk, then finds a seat on one of the benches.
“I’m lactose intolerant,” announces Julie Barstow. No one responds, there being nothing to say.
“This takes me right back,” says Tom Muldoon, as he plunks himself down across from me.
“Just like old times,” I agree.
And so it is. The graham crackers are stale, mealy instead of crunchy, and the milk tastes slightly sour. We eat and drink them all the same, and there is something sweetly nostalgic about it, though I suspect some of us—and not just Julie Barstow—will pay a price for it later.
After snack comes nap time. A stack of yoga mats has been provided courtesy of our classmate Sharon Blum, who now runs a Pilates studio somewhere in town. Once again, we dutifully line up, each of us taking a mat and carrying it over to the carpeted shade beneath the canopy. I hang back a bit, trying to maneuver a spot next to Betsy Coombs, because some part of me just can’t let go. One-sided or not, it was my first kiss, after all. And maybe that’s where it all started—with the fact that I never kissed her back.
She doesn’t seem to mind when I roll my mat out next to hers. “We need to bring back nap time,” she says, rolling on her side to face me. “Take our little mats with us to work.”
“After our cookies and milk. I’m all for it,” I say, even though I haven’t been able to nap in decades.
A crash resounds nearby, and we raise our heads to find that a section of earth at the edge of the yard has given way, tumbling into the quarry and taking a part of the fence with it.
“Not to worry! I’m fully insured,” says Mike, to a round of giggles.
We settle onto our mats. There’s lots of whispering and then a loud fake snore that sets off another round of giggles. Linda shushes us, but then she breaks into laughter and everyone else follows suit. Eventually, we settle down and it grows quiet.
I turn to say something to Betsy, but she’s already fallen asleep. And then, somehow, I too drift off.
I’m startled awake by a persistent tolling sound, which invades my dream as a fire alarm before I open my eyes and realize that it’s Linda ringing the big brass bell again.
“Rise and shine, kiddies!” she says.
There are lots of groans, but we get to our feet, roll up our mats and return them to the pile. Under Mike’s direction, we move the folding chairs back into place, and then we assemble in the yard and stand facing Linda, who is obviously basking in her role as master of ceremonies.
“Well, class, we have a little surprise for you,” she says. “Mike!”
Mike emerges from the house carrying a large layer cake. But no, it isn’t a real cake—it’s a plaster cake, topped with shiny glazed strawberries arranged around a single blue-and-white striped candle planted in the middle. He sets the cake down on the center table.
“Hooray for cake!” says Susie Rasich née Schaeffer, who is perched on Frank’s shoulders for a better view.
“Holy moly! Is that the cake?” asks someone. “How did you do that?”
Mike and Linda exchange conspiratorial glances.
“We’ve been sworn to secrecy,” he says, with a wink.
Behind us, a rumbling noise announces that another bit of the fence has fallen into the pit, but our attention is riveted on the cake. Whereas most things from that time seem smaller than we remember them, the cake appears to have grown over the years.
“We decided,” says Linda, “that it would be appropriate for us to celebrate our fiftieth with a little ‘Happy Birthday’ to us, the Shanksville kindergarten class of 1974. Maestro, the key if you please?”
Tom Muldoon, standing behind us, sounds a note on the recorder, and we launch into the song.
Happy birthday to us
Happy birthday to us
Happy birthday dear us
Happy birthday to us
As we applaud ourselves, a fissure appears along the side of the cake, then another. Something is pushing out from the inside, like a baby bird pecking its way out of its shell. One of the strawberries pops off the top of the cake and rolls off the table, shattering on the patio brick. A finger pokes through the hole like a fat worm, and then a fist punches its way through, followed by an arm, a shoulder, a head. Her face and hair coated in plaster dust, Miss Muschlitz looks out at us, blinking in the afternoon sun. Relief washes over her as she recognizes us.
“Hello, Class!” she says.
“Hi, Miss Muschlitz!” we respond. Some of us (myself included) wipe away tears as Miss Muschlitz struggles to free the rest of her body from the cake. Mike and Tom rush forward to help, and soon she’s been fully extracted and stands before us in the yard. She hasn’t aged, which makes her considerably younger than we are. Strange to think that we once sat at the feet of someone so recently a child herself. But she is still our teacher and, as such, retains her authority. She is also naked, which feels inappropriate, though the thick coat of plaster dust keeps it PG, like a museum sculpture.
Miss Muschlitz surveys the assembly, nodding her head as she takes mental attendance. Satisfied that everyone is accounted for, she claps her hands twice, sending up two little puffs of white dust, just like when we used to clean the blackboard erasers.
“Okay, class, story time!” she says.
She strides across the yard, and we part to allow her through. She takes her seat beneath the canopy and motions for us to join her, and we rush to fill in the semicircle of chairs. Without any maneuvering, I find myself seated next to Betsy Coombs. On an impulse, I reach for her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back.
Miss Muschlitz claps her hands again and we fall silent, wriggling in our seats in anticipation of what comes next. Somewhere nearby, rocks tumble into the quarry.
“Listen up, children,” she says, licking the plaster from her lips. “I have such tales to tell you.”
David L. Updike’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Chicago Quarterly Journal, Philadelphia Stories, Hobart, Daily Science Fiction, 365 Tomorrows, Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature, and the anthologies Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Vol. 2, Flash of the Dead, and The Dancing Plague: A Collection of Utter Speculation. He lives in Philadelphia, where he runs the publications program at an art museum.
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