Pineapple Candies

**

    The cab ride is silent. Both of us too stuck in our own heads for idle conversation. Between the past and the present, the purpose of our meeting tonight, there's not a lot of space left over for constructing small talk.

    For his part, he's likely trying to mentally sort and queue the host of questions springing up like dandelions after a June rain. Probably not more than a handful of which were part of his original itinerary for this interview. His wondering at the pleasantries between us and how long they'll last, relegated to the far back burner for the time being.

    For my part...

    For my part, it's starting to hit home that, with this interview and subsequent story it generates, she won't only belong to me anymore. That this will put her squarely out into the world, where she should have been all along, and it won't just be me holding on to her memory. Anyone who's ever felt the pull of the words she put down on those pages, anyone who's walked out of the theater breathless after seeing that film; they'll be the ones holding onto her now. It means I'll finally be able to let her go.

    I don't think it had occurred to me that I might not really want to. I hadn't thought it would still be so hard; that I'd still be so unprepared. You'd think five years would have been enough time... 

    Or maybe it was too much.

    It's only about twelve blocks to that little hole in the wall bar we used to frequent. Dean's already paid the fare by the time I realize we're stopped at the curb and reach for my wallet. I can't decide whether the ride felt more like a sizable chunk of eternity or a nano-second. I feel like I'm dragging my feet as we walk toward the door. Maybe I am, maybe it's not my feet that are dragging.

    Dean opens the door for me and I feel like I've stepped back in time. To say that the place hasn't changed a bit would be accurate, to say that it's so unchanged it almost feels a little creepy would be even more so.

    "Jesus."I say under my breath as the door closes behind us.

    He laughs. "I was here a few weeks ago to meet someone and had that exact same reaction."

    He's still smiling as we head down to the far end of the bar, to what were our usual seats.  There were four of us then, just out of college, starting our careers and ready to take on the world. This became our turf, the centralized meeting spot where we came to celebrate our triumphs and bemoan our failures. It was our safe haven, this place - and each other, where we could spin our dreams freely; our plans for taking on the world.

    "So you haven't been here since -"

    "Nope, not in seven years." He shakes his head. "Until a couple of weeks ago at any rate..."

    I pick up the hesitation in his voice. He takes off his coat sitting it on the bar stool next to him, his laptop bag at the ready on top of it. "Funny I'd wind up back here again so soon after all these years." The added observation more to himself than me.

    I follow his lead, depositing my coat on the empty stool next to me. It won't be a space issue.  It's prime time on a Friday night and the place is nearly empty. It won't get many more patrons. Makes me wonder how they've managed to stay in business all these years.

    I glance over at the bar back, scanning the reserve shelf as I sit down. "Our bottle's still here?" I ask spotting the Highland Park label with the four sets of initials etched white into the black. I smile. That tradition started with the first bottle, the one we all chipped in to buy with money from our first real paychecks. Our scratching them into the label symbolic of making our marks in the world. Were we really that nerdy and naive back then? It's hard to even imagine...

    Now we know, it's not so much us who mark the world but the world that marks us. The trick is not to let the scars get too deep.

    "Not exactly," He says shaking his head as he sits down, "that's a new one. We finished off the last one when we came here after Todd's funeral, remember?"

    "Yeah." I respond after a minute. The memory's fuzzy, at best; about the bottle, not the funeral. Todd was the first. You don't forget that - no matter how many bottles you polish off in the attempt.

    Dean, Marcus, Todd and me; the four of us had been together since our first week as freshman. Becoming adults and learning what that meant while attempting to navigate the treacherous waters of the real world. We experienced most of our defining moments together, good and bad; the bonds formed irreplaceable and immutable.

    The bartender comes over to take our orders. Dean indicates our bottle on the top shelf. He gets it down, sitting it on the bar between us, following it with glasses and ice before nodding and silently retreating to the other end of the bar. I smile, he knows his stuff.

    Dean takes over from there, his movements measured as he puts the ice in the glasses, as if it's something that requires his full concentration.

    "Actually," he says, opening the bottle and pouring the scotch into the waiting glasses, "it was Emily I came here to meet."

    I look at him. He meets my eyes as he hands me my glass. I look away first, taking a drink before sitting it down.

    That had been the cause of our falling out seven years ago; his relationship with Emily, Todd's widow. They started seeing each other not even three months after Todd's death. Dean took the brunt of it and I refused to hear him out. I wound up completely cutting ties with them both. To me there was no grey area; you didn't date a friend's wife when he was barely cold in his grave - for any reason.

    I see the world a little differently now. Now I realize it's comprised of a lot more sketchy grey patches than pristinely demarcated black and white. I hadn't even considered that their relationship was never what it appeared on the surface; I had been too caught up in my own grief to understand just what kind of hell she was going through. That she needed that closeness with Dean, a reminder that she was still alive; that he was simply her vicarious connection to Todd - a tenuous thread scarcely keeping her tethered to the planet.

The concept of it all eluded me then.

    "I'm sorry."

    His eyebrows arch as he looks at me.

    "I didn't understand-"

    "And you refused to try." He looks away from me, picking up his glass and swirling the ice around before taking a drink.

    By rights, he could say a lot worse. I take a deep breath. "How is she?" I ask after a moment.

    "She finally remarried last year. They just had a little girl."  

    He already has the picture cued on his phone when I turn to look at him.  She looks incredibly happy. I'm glad.

    "She asked about you." He says as he puts his phone back in his pocket.

    "And did you tell her you hadn't heard from me because I was an idiot?"

    "No, I used the term ass, I felt it was more appropriate."

    I nod smiling. I pick up my glass and take a drink.

    "I have her contact info, if you want it." He adds after a minute.

    I hesitate. He reads it well.

    "I think she'd like to hear from you."

    I nod.