"Oh, wow! Talk about old memories. Hard to believe I still have this."
I'm not sure why I was saying things out loud with no one to hear them. Perhaps a little of the loneliness I had been fighting was creeping into my behavior and I just wanted to hear a friendly voice.
I turned the ring over in my fingers and reacquainted myself with it while my brain tried to figure out how it had been missed in the previous packings and unpackings that accompanied the half dozen moves I had made since last seeing its owner. It didn't seem possible that I could stumble upon it in such a fashion after so many years.
The last time I spoke with Gena was almost forty years ago. The subject of that brief conversation had been this very ring. It was several more years since I had actually seen her. She had found me by calling my father and, in typical Gena fashion as I remembered it, she got straight to the point.
"Lance? Hey, it's Gena. Sorry to call out of the blue, but I'm back in town briefly and I wanted to get my senior ring back. You know, from high school?" It floored me to hear that sexy voice again. I immediately fell into wanting to see if she still looked as much like I remembered as her voice sounded. I tried to tamp that desire down and keep my voice under control, noticing that my current girlfriend was watching me with curious eyes. Jen and I had been together for a couple turbulent years. While there was no denying our chemistry, especially in the bedroom, we didn't see perfectly eye to eye on some other relationship terms. Most important of these, if only because it was the one that caused the most conflict, was jealousy. Jen was very wary of anything that captured my attention and seemed to pull me away from her even momentarily. With that attitude in place I had learned to be very careful about how I treated other girls.
A phone call from Gena was dangerous in that sense. I knew I had never really "gotten over" Gena. We had parted through necessity, not desire or a lack of it. When I met her, she had already enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was on a delayed entry program that would take her away from me in September of the year she graduated high school. At nineteen, I wasn't able to conceive of leaving my home to follow her to Okinawa, where she was stationed after basic training. Thus, our last time together had been in the brief leave she took immediately after graduation from NTC Orlando. That ten days had been a little strained as I remembered it, but not because we weren't interested anymore. The last time we had made love was the morning that she was leaving, and the assumption between us had been that our relationship would survive the distance and we would be together again in a year or so. Of course, two horny teenagers were not the best candidates to maintain that kind of long-distance relationship, and Gena's almost inevitable Dear John letter had arrived within six months or so, just about the time I was also thinking about moving on.
Because of the manner of our parting, there were no memories of hurt feelings or angry words. Sure, twenty-year-old me had bawled his eyes out after reading that letter, but there was more loss than anger, even then. So Gena had remained in a state of eternal grace in my memory. Not just for the few years between her and Jen, but as I looked at the pink stone and white gold of that class ring I realized that even now this was true. Unpacking my home office boxes after a forced move due to a falling out between me and my second wife certainly reinforced that feeling of lost opportunity and broken dreams.
When I last spoke to Gena, that night while Jen looked on with curiosity and suspicion, I had been rather sharp and short. I denied possession of the ring, not out of spite or a desire to keep it, but because I truly believed it had been returned to her years ago. And that was the extent of our conversation. In later years, any regrets about Gena were not about our original relationship but about how I handled that phone call. Jen, who I would spend a couple more years with and whom a part of me had always considered the other candidate for love of my life, had been the reason for it. Any invitation or hesitation to get off the phone with an ex-girlfriend would have resulted in a major fight and I knew it.
But even the end of my relationship with Jen had been so many years ago that the only thing remaining of it was a few photographs and an admitted fear of possessiveness in my partners. My memories of Gena carried no such baggage. She was the lost perfect partner, unstained by the disagreements and disappointments of later relationships.
This put me in a predictable but perhaps foolish state of nostalgia. Still married, though recently separated and not by my choice, there was no room in my current life for a chase of old memories involving a girl I hadn't seen since 1985. Certainly, I was curious, but how was I to go about finding someone after such a long gap in our lives? I still remembered enough that I could have jumped in my truck and driven to her parent's house, but remembering the address or phone number was beyond me. Perhaps if I still lived nearby I would have taken the chance and driven over, hoping that her parents still lived there and were still among the living. But I had moved across the country since then and the drive would take two or three days.
I looked again at the ring in my hand, feeling a bit of guilt about still having it and about denying that I did. Certainly, it would be the perfect way to re-enter Gena's life. A fine excuse for looking up an old friend. But what chaos could be caused by such a thing? While I was arguably free to pursue another relationship considering that my current one was ending against my will, who knew what her situation was? Gena could easily be in a marriage or other relationship that had lasted many years.
Just because my life was falling apart again didn't mean I had a right to disrupt hers, assuming I could find her. But I knew, as sure as the circle gently gleaming in my hand, that I was going to try. I'm stubborn that way. Still a dreamer, although the dreams I had fostered back in the eighties had never come true. I hadn't even owned a guitar in years, despite all the effort and imaginings of my teenage self. Never had found any real success in that world, though I had kept the long hair and denim and leather wardrobe for many years.
My dreams of rock and roll success had somehow morphed into a history degree and teaching. The excitement of the times I spent with Gena were now simply a memory of youthful indiscretions, a series of what might have beens recalled because a shadow of the past had lain hidden in the bottom of a coffee mug that had been repurposed as a holder of pens and pencils and had somehow made it through various apartments and homes and two marriages.
How do you find someone after forty years? I still remembered various information that might help. I knew there were websites that specialized in such things and I certainly remembered her full name, birthday, and the year she had graduated high school, which could be a start. But while I knew she had gotten married in the time between our parting and the time she had called me looking for her class ring, I had no idea what her name might have changed to... I had never asked and any small talk that might have led to such a revelation had been short-circuited by Jen's presence and inclinations on that fateful evening. It would seem that my only lead was to follow my first thought and just show up at the door of what was once her home. If her parents were still there, I might have a chance at finding her. Of course, that was going to have to wait for my next trip home to California. Luckily, my father still lived in the same home where I grew up. What's more, he was eager for me to visit in the wake of my most recent troubles and such a trip was both logical and anticipated. He might even encourage me, as Gena had remained one of my father's favorites long after our break up. Certainly not something that could be said about either of the women I had married.
Thus, a few weeks later, I found myself retracing roads and steps that had not felt my presence in decades. I found the house without problems, and as I pulled in the open gate I noticed a Harley parked in front of the garage, a good sign since Gena's parents had been bikers. As I eased the rental car to a stop, the garage door started opening and a twenty-something young man ducked under the opening door and approached the motorcycle before looking up at me with a puzzled grin. His brown-almost-black hair and the shape of his face looked familiar and I wondered how to ask the obvious question, for he bore a resemblance to my long-lost paramour.
"Can I help you?" he asked as he approached my opening door.
"I hope so," I answered. "I'm looking for an old friend. She lived here when I knew her, but that was a long time ago and I'm honestly not quite sure how to proceed. She isn't expecting me and might not have even thought about me in quite some time, but I have this for her and wanted to right an old wrong by returning it." I held the ring up and he reached out his hand.
A quick look at the ring and he returned his attention to me. "Okay, buddy, I think I know who you might be looking for, but I'm not sure if I want to help you or not. From the year and school, it's obvious this is my Mom's ring... but I have no idea who you are or whether she would have any interest in seeing you."
"Perfectly understandable," I replied. "It's a bit of an odd situation. My name is Lance and, if I'm not mistaken based on who you look like and what you just said, your mother is an old girlfriend of mine. From long enough ago, you've likely never even heard of me. I haven't been in touch with her since before you were born."
"I've had that ring for about forty years and I'm certain your mom thinks it's long gone, especially since the last time we talked was when she called me looking for it and I told her I hadn't seen it in years... which was absolutely true at the time. I only found it a few weeks ago, completely accidentally. I thought she might still want to have it and I also have to admit to a great amount of curiosity concerning what may have happened in the intervening years. I'm not looking to disrupt your family or cause any problems, I'm just an old dude wondering what the years might have wrought."
