Sometimes, she wonders.
She wonders what it would have been like if life had turned out differently. She wonders what it would be like if she was still friends with Rayanne and if Ricky hadn't gotten sick after college and if Kyle and Sharon hadn't ended up being the new millennium's answer to the Cleavers. She wonders what it would be like if her parents' marriage hadn't fallen apart and if Danielle hadn't turned out to be even more depressed than she was as a teenager and if they had actually managed to stay a happy family like they were before she dyed her hair bright crimson and the whole world seemed to spiral off its axis. She wonders what it life would be like if she was never fifteen and what it would be like to relive that year all over again.
Angela is thirty now, the mother of a pair of twin daughters that have their father's eyes and their mother's sense of wonderment about the world. Her parents live on opposite ends of the country, her father a well-respected chef at a restaurant in New York and her mother working at an architecture firm in San Diego. Danielle actually ended up married to Brian Krakow, even after she spent her adolescence pining after him and her teenage years depressed after he went to Boston for college. Angela saw them a few times a year whenever a holiday would come up, when they weren't jet setting across the world to parts unknown. She'd always thought that she might get a life like that, but she had never left her hometown. No, this was the hand that she had been dealt, but it didn't stop her from wondering about what could have been.
There had been one last magical year in high school after her fifteenth year, a time when she was sure that everything was going to work out perfectly as she had planned. Even as jaded as she thought she was at the time, she was so naïve about what yet to come. Her parents' divorce had been bitter, and she had been thrown in the middle of it from day one. She had turned to Rayanne in those rare and precious weeks when they had actually managed to mend their friends. It was only after the free spirit had taken another dive that Angela had pulled away. She had enough drama in her life and had given too many second chances to go down that road again with Rayanne.
It was then that she had been thrown herself into her friendships with Sharon and Ricky. Sharon and Kyle got back together after a summer apart, going onto be named as Class Couple and winning Homecoming and Prom court. Ricky had eventually found love with a boy named Luke from a nearby school. Luke had lied a lot, Angela would later find out, only after Ricky was diagnosed with HIV. It turned into full-blow AIDS during her junior year of college. He died three weeks after she graduated from State. Angela didn't talk to another living soul for two months.
She often referred to that summer as her lost summer. She had loaded up her old Mustang and driven across the country, searching for herself and a few answers along the way. Angela had used all of her graduation gift money on gasoline and fast food, staying in fleabag motels and just getting lost in the open road. It was only after she had ended up in Los Angeles in the middle of the night with less than a hundred dollars to her name and nowhere to stay that she reached out to anyone she knew. It had been four years since she had last seen him and almost as long since she had dared spoken his name.
They had stayed together a year after reuniting, most of it good. But then things went south with his parents altogether and he had dropped out of school to support himself. He'd worked days at the garage, putting in long hours under the hood to save up enough money to make rent and put food on his very meager table. All of his nights were spent at the loft rehearsing. He was more determined than ever to make it big on his music. When he and Angela had gotten into a terrible fight one night, he had thrown in the towel on everything in that town and driven off into the night without another word. When she had finally showed up at his apartment a few days later, she had only found a hasty note explaining his departure and an apology for leaving without saying goodbye.
It had taken her a long time to get past that, and sometimes she worried that she would never fully heal from the heartbreak that had been Jordan Catalano. However, time gave way to maturity, and she woke up one day and didn't miss him so much. It was only when she hit the California that the memories came crashing down on her again. She knew that it was risky to see him at all, but curiosity and sheer desperation were enough to get her to pick up the phone.
He was exactly as she remembered him for the most part, though his hair was shorter and his seemingly endless supply of flannel shirts had been replaced with close-fitting tee shirts that were more fashionable in California. His eyes were the same, though, and that is what she had missed most. They still feel felt like home in that dingy old diner just off Sunset where they had met up again. He was equally as quiet but seemed more at peace than he had been at seventeen. She was just as awkward but abundantly more confident.
She spent that next year travelling with the band – helping move equipment, making copies of show flyers, selling merchandise after shows and sitting backstage and listening as her former high school flame waxed poetic about everything from his car (his first Red) to her (his favorite Red). They fell back in love somewhere between Portland and Buloxi and got married in a tiny bar in Memphis. It was just shy of their six-month anniversary when Jordan got the call they had both been waiting for. They thought they were on the verge of something big, and then, the bottom had fallen out.
The record label that was pursuing them went bottom's up, and that was the end of the line for Jordan. He was tired of touring and was starting to think at twenty-five, it was time that he finally got his priorities straight. Angela had always made him want to be a better man, and the man that she needed should step up to the plate and take care of her. After a lot of discussion, they had ended back in their hometown, buying a small little house a few blocks from the high school. Jordan had gone back to work at the garage, putting in those same long hours to earn back his old boss' trust while Angela finally applied for her teacher's license so that she could work at her alma mater teaching high school English.
They had worked hard, both of them, and it had paid off. Jordan bought out his boss when he wanted to retire from the garage last year, giving them enough income that she could quit her job and stay home with the girls. It was a far cry from the exciting rock star life that Jordan had dreamed of, but he seemed content with their family. There were times when he would hear a song and she would see a dreamy look in his eyes and she was sure that he missed the limelight. They were usually followed up by a late-night jam session in the garage, him picking away on his trusty guitar to tunes that she had never heard and a few of her old favorites. He never sang in front of her anymore and certainly not in front of a crowd. That part of him was gone.
He's not the only one who needs to escape sometimes, even if it's only in the confines of her imagination. She dreams about being a famous writer and thinks about the novel she'll pen someday, maybe after the girls start school and she has a few quiet hours to herself. She misses when Jordan used to ask her more about her day other than what the girls had for lunch and if the washing machine is still giving her trouble. It's been a long time since he touched her more than in passing or a quick chaste kiss before falling into a deep sleep.
She wakes up some mornings and thinks, "Is this really my life?" It was part of what she wanted at fifteen and yet a far cry from the person she thought she'd become. There are times when she feels like she is a mother and only a mother, not a woman to be desired or an intellectual with any thoughts deeper than Sesame Street offered. She'd take the twins for a play date at Sharon's, and they'd spend the entire time talking about their husbands and preschool classes and the pros and cons of eating organic. It was like that summer after college all over again, only this time she wasn't mourning the loss of someone else, she was mourning the loss of herself.
And so it's her that leaves this time in the middle of the night, leaving behind a succinctly written one-page letter that she had taken most of the afternoon to write while the girls were down for their nap. She apologizes for leaving him in a bind and tells him to call Sharon if he needs help. She kisses her husband's cheek and the girls' foreheads, and promises in a whisper and then again in the letter that she will be back soon. She just needs to find herself again before she loses herself completely in the monotony of the suburbs. Jordan isn't sure what that means, only that he really doesn't understand.
She calls every evening just a few minutes before the girls' bedtime to tell them good night. They never cry or ask where she is; they just talk about their days and what was for dinner and whatever else is on a three-year-old's mind. Jordan is much quieter, more silent than ever in fact, which says quite a lot. He ends their conversation with the same question every night, one that she still doesn't have an answer for. Her only response comes with a single word before a dial tone when she tells him, "Soon."
Angela spends that month away, four long weeks separated from her husband and children, at Delia Fisher's loft in Chicago of all places. She looked up the effervescent redhead on a whim, remembering that she lived in the Windy City when she was headed through. Delia doesn't ask a lot of questions when Angela asks to crash on her couch for a few nights. In fact, she invites her to stay as long as she needs when Angela welcomes her home the next evening with a perfectly prepared meatloaf and fresh-baked bread.
When she isn't cooking or baking (something she picked up along with all the other skills in her housewife arsenal), she spends hours walking all over the city. She goes to museums some days and little pocket parks on others. She finds a coffee shop that she likes near the loft and starts to work on her book. Jordan is the first person she emails when she finishes the first three chapters. He writes back only to tell her that she should continue to write on.
After exactly a month, Angela shows back up at home as if she was never gone. A roast beef is waiting on the table when Jordan gets home from the office, and the girls are playing happily on their new swing set in the backyard. He finds the bound manuscript in his recliner in the living room and doesn't get up for two hours so that he can read it straight through. When he finally comes upstairs to go to bed, he kisses the top of her head and then fully on the mouth. "After all these years, I finally get it," he tells her. "I finally understand."
Angela is still thirty when the book is bought by a publishing house, printed and debuts with rave reviews on a few best sellers' lists. They celebrate by taking the girls to the park during their usual nap time and then later with a dinner he's made for her on their back patio. Angela doesn't feel the need to escape when she starts to write her second novel. She finally realizes that everything she was looking for was already right in front of her.
But, still, she wonders.
She wonders what it would have been like if life had turned out differently. She wonders if her daughters will turn out like her or more like Sharon or even Rayanne. She wonders what it would be like if Ricky was still here, would he have kids to play with her twins? She wonders what it would be like if her parents could get along well enough to actually be grandparents and if Danielle was around more and if it could be as tight-knit as she wishes it was for the girls because she had been fortunate enough to have that when she was a little girl. She wonders what life will be like in another fifteen years but she doesn't want to go back in time. That's the one thing she doesn't have to wonder about anymore. She already knows how that version of the story turns out.