The Summer Reunion (unedited version)

19| Past times

The morning air chilled my bare shoulders as I sat on the dock. I wrapped my blanket tightly around my shoulders as the early sun reflected on the lake like a mirror ball, shining in glittering bits and pieces. I'd been here for the last half hour sitting in silence, thinking.

I was seeing Grayson's moms today for the first time in months. I felt like a college student visiting home. Would they ask about why we stopped talking? Why I left? I didn't have any answers. At least none I could give them. As much as I loved them, I was dreading seeing them again. I looked up to them more than my own mother...what if they were disappointed in me? It's not like I'm proud of the life I'm living right now. My existence is merely utilitarian. Functional, and nothing else. I've built a mirage around the less than favorable aspects of my life. If anyone was to see through the illusion, it would be them.

Thoughts of my own parents kept me up last night. A stupid notion popped into my head before I could stamp it down, what is my dad doing right now? It was useless to guess, but the simple question plagued my thoughts. His life no longer revolved around my family, if it once ever had. Although I would consider us more of a string of troubled memories than a family. A continuing torment of fights and verbal brawls rather than dinners and holidays. Old memories were something I tried never to revert back to, they always held more pain than fondness.

                                                              23 years earlier: Mitch and Sherrie  

Sherrie was twenty-four, sitting at the old café across the street from her studio apartment, known for its permanent smell of dust imbedded into her thrifted furniture, when she met Mitch. She was on her break from waiting tables when he stepped out of his brown Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb. His hair matched the car, as did his suit. If she dragged her gaze lower, she would have noticed his mahogany boots. How peculiar, she thought. Travelling around in monochrome style.

Over the time she got to know Mitch she realized one thing about him, he loved the colour brown. What an odd thing, to love the colour brown. She had never been fond of it, until she met him. She never realized how one shade could change your perception of someone. To Sherrie, brown reminded her of the cigar Mitch held in his hand as he sat by their fireplace. It was a symbol of simpler times, when he would sit with his expensive loafers on and read in the chair that was designated his as soon as their house was furnished. That particular colour made Mitch look expensive. Or maybe, Mitch made brown look expensive. He had that air about him, he could make anything look like it broke your bank account when you signed the check. Sherrie was so drawn to that about him. His own personal cocktail of old money, whiskey, and success.

He shot her a smile as he sauntered over to her table, asking if the seat was taken. It seemed he hadn't noticed her black apron from where she was sitting, and she wasn't inclined to mention it. Sherrie was taken aback by his request to sit with her, no one had ever been so bold with their attraction to her. That's what it was right? Something about her caught his eye. Maybe it was her dark as night silky hair that she dyed and chopped into a bob the week before, it was her best haircut by far and she always styled it with a red headband to match her lips. Or perhaps he was intrigued by her slender build and classic style. She prided herself on her appearance more so than any of the other girls she knew. Growing up she would watch her mother disregard her appearance and throw on whatever was in her closet without giving it a second glance. Sherrie always figured that's why her mother never found a suitor, because she never cared about herself enough for anybody else to.

The two of them spent the next twenty minutes making small talk about the theater and spots around town the other should check out. Mitch recommended an old-styled vintage bar, saying the ambiance was divine and suggested the two of them check it out on Friday.