Friday, December 20, 2021
Friday began in the best possible way when Einstein, our Catalan Sheepdog named after Doc Brown’s dog, woke me up by licking my face. Sara and I could mark the Trains, Planes, and Automobiles night down as another great success. Not everybody wore a costume – it’s a hard to find a distinctively stevemartinesque costume that’s not a gray suit – but they all shouted the lines at the screen in unison with the characters, and that’s always lovely to see and hear. And happy people spend a little more money on food and drinks – and they don’t call it show business for nothing.

We spent the Friday afternoon decorating the tree and it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgot to tell Sara that I was going to the play – and that she was going to be on her own tonight. She wasn’t pleased, not even after I told her that Rexi would fill in for me. She just sighed and told me to have fun with Sofie and Jennifer but she didn’t sound 100 percent sincere. I’d make it up to her, I decided.

But at quarter to seven the next evening, Sofie and I stood on the schoolyard, waiting for Jennifer. My mind was elsewhere but I put on a brave face for Sofie’s sake. I was afraid trouble was brewing on home front.

“Where is she?” Sofie said, sat down on a bike rack, and took out her phone. I looked the other way. The lights were on in the chemistry classroom. And in Miss Wall’s room. Or, excusez-moi, Madame Wall’s. ”Je suis désolé je suis en retard,” I muttered. It was the one French sentence I had used the most, and it had always made Mikke snicker. “You are a retard,” he’d say.

Kids said those things in the 1980s.

Jennifer arrived at 6.55, apologizing profusely, and then leading the way toward the old gym where we had once danced. I hopped the stairs, to the first landing, all fifteen of them. It was still in my muscle memory. I half expected our math teacher to sprint by me, taking two, even three steps at a time.

We found our seats just in time. I sat down between Sofie and Jennifer when the lights went down and the curtain up. A lone person walked onto the stage, wearing a top hat, limping on, leaning on a cane. “My name is Ebenezer Scrooge,” he said in a growly voice.

Pete.

I looked to my right and saw that Jennifer was mouthing the lines with her son.

It was cute.

I popped a salty liquorice candy in my mouth and leaned back. Sofie hadn’t wanted any candy, although I told her she could take whatever she wanted from Atlas. (Another one of the perks of being a movie theatre owner). During the intermission, she let me buy her a cup of hot chocolate. I got one for Jennifer, too.

“And brownies, who wants brownies?” I asked them, and rubbed my hands together. Again, Sofie politely declined.

“Sugar is poison,” she let me know.

“Everything in moderation, Sofie,” I said.

Pete was on stage for almost the entire play, and he was great. He was the star of the show, and he oozed a charisma I recognized. It was the understated confidence that made people gravitate toward him, and cheer for him. The audience didn’t want the Scrooge to get his way, but they did want to see Pete come out on the other side. At the curtain call, the crowd went wild, calling the cast back four times. Tears were running down Jennifer’s cheeks.

Even Sofie turned her back to the stage and took a selfie, that’s how good the show was.

Afterwards, Sofie and I stayed back with Jennifer and waited for Pete to come out. I walked around the corridors with my hands behind my back, sneaking peaks inside classrooms where I had once, including the one where I had deejayed on the night of our dance. There, in the corner, was where the DJ had been, and where I had taken over his duties and that’s where Jennifer stood watching me, and that … that’s where we danced to Madonna’s “Crazy For You.”

I was like Marty McFly, watching another version of himself at the Lone Pine Mall. 

Absentmindedly, I walked down the stairs and wandered off to the downstairs cafeteria and stood in the doorway for a while.

“Hello, friend. Whatcha thinking?” Jennifer said.

“Oh, nothing and everything. You know,” I said.

Jennifer snuck in under my arm, and turned around to look at me. She smiled and shook her head. Then she put her hand on my left cheek and got closer. And she kissed my other cheek.

“You’re something else,” she said. “Come on, we have to find Pete.”

➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)