Ten years later - class reunion

Sam spotted Mercedes the minute he walked in. She seem to be by herself, and she seemed to be working the room, moving from table to table, talking to everybody. She wore her hair shorter now, and had kept off the weight she'd lost in senior year. She was dressed in the vaguely Indian style she'd started wearing, today wearing an emerald green dress, his favorite color. She was talking to Kurt and Blaine when she glanced across the room and locked eyes with him. He had once asked her how she managed to look more beautiful every time he saw her. She thought he was joking but he had meant it, and she was still doing it.

She walked over to him. "Sam?" His hair was brown and he wore it short now but it was definitely Sam Evans. With the shorter hair she could focus on his face, and it was still a damned fine face. Maybe a litter more serious but she could still see that twinkle of optimism she liked. She hugged him tightly and kissed him like he'd just returned from WWII. Shit, she thought, what if his wife and six kids are standing right behind him? She let him go, "Sorry. It's really good to see you."

"It's good to see you, too." Kurt and Blaine had also walked over.

"Kurt, Blaine, you remember Sam, Sam Evans?"

"Hello" Kurt said extending his hand.

"Kurt, I saw your play." They shook hands. "I enjoyed it. Nicely written." He nodded at Blaine.

"You did?" Kurt said. "Where?"

"Philadelphia. That's not far from where I'm stationed."

"Stationed as in military?" Mercedes asked.

"Yes, Navy."

"How is that?" So far no wife had appeared.

"I like it. The structure, the travel. I just got an assignment to a hospital ship and it's a great posting." He smiled at her. "You wrote that play, didn't you?" he asked Blaine.

"Yes, thank you. What are you doing in addition to the Navy? Wife? Kids?"

"No wife, no kids. Right now I live in base housing. How about you, Mercedes?"

"You know me, bird on a wire and all that."

"Some time you'll have to tell me about life on a Navy ship." Blaine said. "How long will you be in town?"

"I have to be back in Baltimore by Thursday. I thought I'd take my time driving back. I've never seen the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and it's on the way."

"Mercedes," Blaine said "what if Sam stops over tomorrow afternoon? That's where Kurt and I are staying. Can you make it for lunch, 12 tomorrow? We're flying back to NY tomorrow night. Wait! Here's an idea! How about 10 or 11 and Mercedes can interview you for the Lima Local. The hospital ship is unusual, you did say hospital ship, right?"

"Yes, I did. If you're not busy tomorrow I'd like that a lot." He said to Mercedes.

"Me too." she said smiling. "I'm up early, come over whenever you want."

"I didn't know you wrote."

"It's just a local paper. I like to think of myself as a photographer. I only took the job to get press credentials. Blaine's right, it's a good subject for an interview."

"Good morning." he said handing her a bunch of roses as she opened the front door.

"Thank you." she hugged him.

"I missed you yesterday. You left pretty early."

"I hadn't planned to go at all. Blaine and Kurt insisted. I left before the dancing started – I find it kind of awkward to be at a party by myself when I'm not working."

"Really? You seemed to be having a good time."

"I have to be sociable for my job, my real job. Plus when you're self-employed you have to make sure everybody who might need a photographer knows your name. When I left I went over to Tina and Artie's. They have 4 girls, can you believe it? I let the babysitter have the rest of the night off."

"I wanted to dance with you. They played our song."

"They played Love and Happiness?" she laughed.

"Not that song." he said blushing. "You Don't Know Me? Junior Prom? Anyone can tell, you think you know me well, well you don't know me." He waited for her to finish the last verse.

"I don't sing anymore." She put the flowers in a vase. "Well, almost never. Just for Tina's kids. They won't go to sleep unless you sing Sweet Baby James – and not a James in the bunch."

"Why did you stop singing? Your voice is so beautiful."

She shrugged, "Just did. Did you eat already? Would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, thank you." He opened the cabinet, the coffee cups were in the same place as ten years ago.

"Let's talk on the porch. Blaine and Kurt are still sleeping. Do you mind if I take pictures?"

They sat on the pack porch with their coffee. Mercedes was also carrying a camera, a digital recorder, notebook, file folders and a notebook.

"For a bird on a wire you carry a lot of equipment."

She laughed and turned on the recorder.

"Okay, here we go. There are 2 hospital ships and you're out of Baltimore so that would be the USNS Comfort?"

"Correct. How'd you know that."

"Research" she patted the file folder. "And what exactly do you do on board?" she asked after he confirmed her basic research.

"I'm a nurse."

"Really? You were so into your macho rep and you went into nursing?"

"Macho rep? I wouldn't say that but maybe it looked that way 10 years ago. Anyway, being a nurse isn't that unusual. Half the nurses I work with are men."

"Okay, do you specialize in any particular area?"

"No, not on board. There's not a lot of demand for it on a hospital ship but my favorite rotation - Labor and delivery."

"You're kidding? Babies? You deliver babies?" she stared at him. "How can you do that?"

"You spend all your time taking pictures of babies and weddings. How can you do that?"

They were both thinking of Dashiell, their baby who had died 10 years ago and was buried 40 feet from where they were currently sitting.

"Okay, I get it. Some people get a happy ending. Why not celebrate with them?" She looked at her notes. "Okay, back to work. How many babies?"

"About 20 so far. The mom does all the work. Actually there's a doctor or midwife in charge."

"What if something goes wrong?"

"Part of the training, learning to see when something's going wrong. Anyway, I'm thinking of going to school for midwife training."

"Never heard of a male midwife, not that I know anything about midwives."

"It's rare, male midwives that is, but I think I want to do that."

"When does that start?"

"In the fall."

"Good luck. Do you want you picture for the paper taken inside or outside?" she switched off the recorder.

"You're the expert. Can I have one for my folks?"

"Sure, I should have asked you earlier. How is your family?"

"Fine. Glad we all moved back to Memphis. Stevie and Stacey are doing well. Stacey's married and has a little boy."

"Already? Isn't she awful young?"

"Well, who am I to talk? Ben's two now. Stacey came with me the last time I was in Lima, on Dashiell's birthday."

"That was Stacey? I thought that was your wife."

"You saw us? Why didn't you say something?"

"At first I wasn't sure it was you, the hair and all. Then when I got home I saw the flowers. There's nobody that would send me flowers on Valentine's day, and even if there was they wouldn't leave them in the garden. I figured the flowers were for Dashiell. Anyway, I always thought that's what your wife would look like, a pretty blonde."

"No." A sad expression crossed his face. "My wife looked nothing like Stacey."

"You have a wife?"

"I had a wife, Patrice. She was a Marine. She died about 3 years ago."

"I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." Sam was quiet for a minute. "That's why Stacey was with me. We went to Chicago for Patrice's funeral, and it was February so I came here too. I think Stacey was worried that I was going to do something rash."

"And were you, going to do something rash?"

"I'm here now, aren't I?"

"That's not proof. I'm here."

"What does that mean?" Sam looked at her. He put down his coffee cup and picked up her hand. She had seemed to take the miscarriage harder than her parents death but eventually she'd seemed close to normal. She'd started working on her art portfolio again and applied to schools far from Ohio.

"That's the real reason I dropped out of art school. I was that roommate that cries all the time. So eventually they decided it was a delayed reaction – my parents, the baby, leaving home. They put me on anti-depressants and I took them. All of them, and washed them down with a bottle of wine. It was Valentine's day so I expected my roommate to be out all night. But she had a fight with her boyfriend and came home early." She sighed. "The official story is it was cheaper to buy the equipment I needed and just start a studio than to pay 4 years of tuition, which is also true."

"I'm sorry. Was I responsible of any of that?"

"You? No, your folks moved back to Memphis, what choice did you have but to go with them? I swore I was getting out of Lima, you couldn't just tag along."

"I'm glad your roommate got back in time."

"Thanks. You said your wife's name was Patrice? I've never met a white Patrice."

"She was black. Don't look so shocked. Let me tell you how I met Patrice. I was working in Labor and Delivery. I was a lactation specialist working with a friend of hers who'd just had a baby."

"Back up. What's a lactation specialist?"

"I worked with moms having trouble breastfeeding."

Mercedes stared at him for several minutes. "I'm just trying to visualize how I would feel if I came in for an appointment and there you are, telling me to take off my shirt."

"See, that's the thing. If I said I was a doctor that thought would never cross your mind. Well, maybe your mind because you know me, but not the average mom. But I got that all the time, and that was the problem with Patrice's friend. She kept canceling because she didn't think I knew what I was talking about. Then Patrice dragged her in, I mean, if you're going to breastfeed a baby you don't have months to make up your mind."

He smiled at the memory. "So she drags her friend in there and says "Is this the white boy you're afraid of?" and the friend starts laughing and everything's okay. She was just tense, that was her problem. I found out later Patrice had just met her. Her friend's husband had been deployed and she didn't know anybody on base. Patrice took charge of her, she was like that, kind of like you a little."

"Did Patrice sing?"

"Patrice loved to sing." he laughed even harder. "She was bad, really bad. Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, as my grandma would say, and had no taste in music. And loud! Boy she could sing off-key with gusto. No, Patrice wasn't a replacement for you, she just had some qualities I like that you have too." He grinned at her. "So, Mercedes, why didn't you ever get married?"

"Nobody asked me. Well, nobody but you."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Well, believe it. It turns out I have trust issues. When I was fat, nobody wants a fat girl. When I got thin men were just after my body. Then the money, of course men only wanted me for my money. There was a song back then - "I never loved nobody fully, always one foot on the ground. And by trying to protect myself I broke my own heart. Or something like that."

Sam didn't say anything.

"You know what I like about you?" she asked. "Right now you're thinking "I told her that ten years ago." Admit it!"

"No, right now I'm wondering what you'd say if I invited you to go to the Rock and Roll Museum with me."

"Where is it?"

"Cleveland, just a couple of hours away."

"I don't know. You know what happened the last time we went to a museum."

They laughed and walked down to the garden.

-the end-

The song Mercedes is misquoting is Fidelity by Regina Spektor

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