It had been nearly thirty years since that snapshot—me and her standing stiffly by the stone lion in front of the school, clutching our diplomas with sweaty hands. By then, our friendship had atrophied into an amicable constant association by habit and convenience, and I am sure that we were both too glad to be rid of one another, departing for college, she to Yale, I to the state college whose planetarium we had visited on a brown-bag lunch, nametag sticker field trip far too long ago. By then, I was not the only one to see her true character. I suppose that we had always been drifting apart, ever changing, she faster than I, spending high school constantly edging away from one another, until finally, in that little snap that I have in my album from the glory days, we were on two separate planes of the world, never to meet each other again.
I suppose it would have comforted me to say that in these past thirty years, I did not think about her, that I purged her from my brain, scrubbed it clean, but, as she would have glibly reminded me—she did that often in school, and it left me dumb and still, blistering with embarrassment for lack of courage to swat away yet one more in a chain of thinly veiled insults—that I would have been deluding myself. Indeed, I never did pause in the workday to think where she had turned up, what she was doing now, as many high school chums did, because in my age, I realize that to remember her would be to let her win. But yes, she clung to me like smoke, gloated around me every step of the way. I heard her voice clear as a bell in my heads sometimes, or heard her shout from across the foggy meadows of my mind, her derisive bark of a laugh—all these things I heard. She had welded herself to my deep subconscious, for I had let her be my subconscious since the fetal days of out friendship, if ever a word could be misused.
No, but it was thirty years since my mind sought her out. Thirty years after she delivered her scathing commencement address, she was on television, another speech, this time about the economy. She was always talking about the economy now, and people listened, just as they did in school, charmed into silence the resolve of her voice.
It had taken quite a bit of time before I realized who she was. “She’s a breath of fresh air,” my wife had said, admiration and pride glimmering in her eyes. “She is exactly what this country needs. Finally, a point for our team!” And, when I asked her what she was going on about, she replied, “You need to be more politically aware. We’re going to have our first woman president—we’re all rooting for her, Governor Linwood Gallant.”
The name ‘Linwood’ alerted me, turned my kidneys to ice and compelled me to fix my eyes upon the screen. When the clip of her played through, I switched to CNN, and, as luck would have it, there she was again. Governor Linwood Gallant of Connecticut was thick in the Republican primary, they said, and from Utah she would be heading back here, which was why there was a hubbub about it on the local station—Linwood was returning.
When I knew her, she was Lindy—Linwood was reserved for college applications and the commencement address. I could see Governor Gallant in Lindy’s old photos. I heard her smug voice again, her sneer and her scoff—she was rich and famous Linwood now. That woman in the cream skirt suit and dark lipstick was Lindy.
I do not mean to imply that I was disappointed or surprised that Lindy was running for president—in fact, I expected it. The Lindy in the graduation snap and the Lindy at the podium, delivering a stump speech in Salt Lake City, had the same face, the same fierce, hungry eyes, eager and cruel, piercing directly into the core of your spirit with aims to bind it and twist it and have you crumble in fear and self-shame.
