Alistaire at Usc: Reunion

All long-running series have re-runs, amirite? Clip shows, maybe? At least my clip shows are new, and serve new purposes...

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The One At The Reunion

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California does Spring really well, weather-wise. And this day in early May, it was excelling even by its own standards. I, like just about every other student at USC, was out lying on the grass with my books, fooling myself into believing that I was studying. Unless I could absorb Political Science through the back of my skull, which rested on my textbook like a pillow, I was not studying. Nor was anybody else around me.

My phone rang. I pulled it out to talk to my mom and stopped. I looked curiously at the screen. It was not her, but a number I did not have stored. The area code said it was a Connecticut number, so I shrugged and answered anyway.

"Al Taylor? It's Henry Woolworth," my caller said.

Henry had been the captain of the cross-country team during my junior year of high school, and a regular Harry Highschool. I always liked him. He had been very supportive of my progress as a runner, right up until I had subbed up to varsity for the first time. It had been early in the year, before I managed to seize a permanent spot. After being so supportive for two years, Henry made sure to beat my finish by 32 seconds and let me know all about it. For days. What the fuck was he calling me for? "How is USC treating you?" he went on.

"It's been a great year," I said. Henry had graduated before I had even applied to USC. How did he frigging know where I was attending?

"Cool. Listen, I know this is out of the blue, but did you see the latest email from the alumni office?"

"Um, no..." I said slowly. I was resolutely not going to start reading those emails until I had some money and was ready to give a bit of it to the school's alumni fund. That would not be for a few years at least.

"I think you should come to Alumni Day on the 15th," he said.

What?

"I know it would be hard, and probably expensive," Henry went on. "But Parvis is retiring, and this might be your last chance to ever see him."

"What?!?" I almost yelped in dismay.

"I'm not calling a lot of people, even though the Alumni Office gave me an insanely long list, but I know how much he meant to you," Henry said seriously. Back before everything had changed for me, the one group of people who did not treat me as invisible had been my track and especially my cross-country teammates. It was a warm feeling to remember how much I had valued the way they saw me as more than a background image.

Parvis had been the man who created that attitude.

"Thanks, Henry. I'll... I'll be there," I said. I didn't even bother to look at my calendar until after we hung up.

Sheesh, this was going to be a nightmare to pull off.

*

This only being our first anniversary, my class obviously had no activities planned for Alumni Day. I doubted if anyone besides yours truly would even be there from my class. I would have to take a red-eye to New York, grab a shuttle up to Weatherbury, the nearest 'city' to school, check into a hotel, and then Uber over to campus. I'd miss the morning parade, but I could make it in time to watch a home track meet, yell at some old friends who had been underclassmen when I was there and who would be competing, and talk to Parvis there. Then I'd go to the banquet in the evening, only because he was being celebrated there. Then I'd fly back on Sunday.

I'd study on the plane.

Shocking Plot Twist: that last bit didn't happen much. The plane had the best in-flight wifi ever.

I wandered up the hill to the track when I reached campus. The meet had already begun, and I had missed both the first relay and the 1,500. I spied Coach Parvis and hastened across the infield toward him. I was not on the team anymore, so that was technically a no-no. Fuck that noise; I had a new superpower! Alumni are never told no...

"Coach!" I called out, timing my approach to when he was momentarily alone. "I hear you are deserting your post!"

"Mr. Taylor!" he said, his usually languid expression broken by a surprised smile. "This is a surprise. Are you still running?"

"I am," I said. "I haven't run a race since I won that 3,000 right here, but I still train about three to four mornings a week."

"Good! Still working on your German?" he smirked.

I just rolled my eyes at that. Parvis had taught me German 1 and 3. He knew how 'motivated' I was about foreign languages.

We talked for a bit, but mostly about kids I knew from before who were still at school and still on his team. Some were progressing. Some were not. I was just glad to be there talking to the one man who was most responsible for who I had become, outside my father of course. It had been worth the 3,000 mile flight.

"Well," he said suddenly, looking over my shoulder. "Look who else we have here!"

Great.

I sighed and told myself to be glad I had had Parvis to myself for as long as I had. Some other former runner of his must have shown up, probably somebody with kids of their own at the school now, and I was going to lose The Man's undivided attention. That was how these things went, right? You would be talking to the man of the hour, and someone else would come up to 'just say hello', naturally dispacing whomever they had been talking to before, 'just for a moment.' Then someone else would arrive, and the first person would be lost altogether.

I turned politely, feeling preemptively jealous.

Bridget.

She walked up to us, her steps quickening when she saw me. She looked just like I remembered her. Loose jeans and a baggy school hoody, with her flaming red curls pulled up in a messy bun. The bun was a new thing. But to look at her, you would never know the raging beauty she was beneath those clothes.

My body wanted to respond to seeing her with, um, joy. But my mind already knew what was going on in my friend's life.

"Coach Parvis! I'm so glad I managed to get a train," Bridget said happily. "And how the heck did you find a way to show up all the way from California, Alistaire?"

We traded a look that was... fraught. Then we turned back together to the man we were both here to see. I was not to be displaced after all. The three of us chatted amiably, but there was a distinct tension between Bridget and me. Now I somehow wanted to ditch Parvis and talk only to her. It was pure instinct. But if Bridget and I spoke alone, we would just end up talking about her boyfriend Sammy. I was here for Parvis. And I honestly had zero desire to discuss Bridget's boyfriend regardless.

This was why I don't do jealousy. Jealousy sucks, apparently.

"I heard you made the Penn cross-country team, Bridget," Parvis said. "Did you try for track as well?"

Bridget smiled weakly. "I made the track team by the skin of my teeth. But I have been relegated to just the ten-thousand meter. That's my best distance, right Alistaire?" She looked at me.

Please don't tease me, Bridget.

"I honestly don't know if I will stick with track, Coach," Bridget went on. "I'm a lot better at cross-country, and I may need to choose one or the other because I need the time."

Coach Parvis quite generously did not inquire if I had tried to join either sport at USC. Not that I would have had a chance in hell even at Penn, but USC was literally and figuratively a whole nother league from Ivy League sports, and another universe from the prep school athletics where I had excelled... at mediocrity.

But mostly Bridget's and my conversation centered on stories of our time at school, mostly about our own running. Parvis politely listened to them all, though I sensed he knew many of them already.

We asked him about his plans after retirement.

"I'm going to see the world for the first time since the Army. I anticipate that I will enjoy this tour more," Parvis chuckled. "I already have a cruise and a backpacking tour budgeted and scheduled each year for the first five years. And in between, I will relax in my cottage on the Mystic River and go rowing."

"Jealous," Bridget spoke for both of us. Everyone knew how much Parvis loved the zen of skulling.

"Listen you two, it is time for the 800," Parvis said suddenly. "I have to go. Go wander off to the backstretch where you always used to lurk, and coach some of these kids for me. Keep an eye on your boy, Al! Peter is coming along."

With that, he headed off for the starting line with a wave. I never had a conversation with the man again. He died less than two years later.

Bridget and I stared at each other.

"I didn't know you were coming," I said. Fuck, she looked good.

"I didn't know you were either," she replied.

We were at a loss for words. We were never at a loss for words with each other. Suddenly, the starter called the boys' varsity to the line, and Bridget and I burst into a sprint to get over to the other side of the track. We grinned at each other happily as we ran in perfect step across the infield, despite the street shoes we were wearing.

Peter, my former protegé, actually won his JV race. I'd love to say it was the result of my earnest encouragement, but I think it had more to do with his old habit of running faster to escape Bridget's badgering. Turned out the little coward ran a personal best while he was fleeing her...

If he knew what Bridget looked like under those baggy clothes, he would have accelerated when he was running toward her too!

The girls' team and boys' JV both won overall. Bridget and I stayed to the bitter end, but the boys' varsity lost the last relay and with it, the meet. We ambled back down toward school, where we hung out in the Tuck for a while, finding the shakes to be every bit as delicious as we both remembered. Then we ambled back out to the Field House for the big banquet.

The whole time, we discussed our lives at college, our new friends, and other inconsequentialities. It was halfway through dinner before I steeled myself and brought up how things were with Sammy, her boyfriend of several months now. I knew little about him. I admit I had been almost as reticent to talk about him with Bridget as she had been to talk about Liz with me.

Considering that I was still a little bent at Bridget and the others for not giving me some counseling, advice, or even just a heads up, I was aware of my hypocrisy. But she had had other boyfriends before, dammit!

"We are pretty good," Bridget said, clearly not eager to talk much about him, with me at least. Bridget is great. "I'm interested to hear more about this Liz girl."

"Ancient history," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but I still want to know how she locked down the infamous Alistaire Taylor for a whole semester," Bridget teased me.

"I don't know, really," I admitted, explaining how Liz had just sort of assumed me into a relationship, one that I went with to learn the experience.

"So a girl just sort of declared herself your girlfriend, and that's all it took?" Bridget asked. She seemed... disapproving, maybe?

I felt it was time to re-establish the usual dynamic, instead of this tense... whatever we were doing this evening. "In my defense, Liz is pretty awesome at giving head," I grinned. I did not add that she was nearly as good as Bridget. While true, that seemed like that would maybe be too much.

Bridget shook her head, then grinned at me.

Old times.

With that, the last of these new barriers between us seemed to shred, and we chatted happily. Since we had not thought to pre-register for the event, we had thus been seated for the banquet at the only table with two empty chairs available. That turned out to be fortunate for our conversation, as the other people at our table were all members of the 45th Anniversary Reunion class and were mostly growing deaf. There were comments from them about how sweet it was to see young alumni like us coming back as a couple, but otherwise, they were harmless.

Eventually, Bridget and I ran out of new material to talk about and found ourselves just staring into each other's eyes.

That was nice.

Really nice.

Suddenly, Bridget shook her head, looked away, and pretended to yawn. "I'm not on West Coast time, dude. And I have to catch a stupid early shuttle down to New Haven in the morning to make my train back to Philadelphia. I'm going to Uber back to the hotel." It turned out that we both had chosen the same hotel. The Hyatt had an Alumni Weekend special rate.

"Cool," I said, moving to get up. "I'm tired too. We'll share,"

Bridget's hand came down on my forearm firmly. We had not touched each other all day. It was electric. But she said, "Nah. I'll head back on my own."

"But..."

"Alistaire, I do not trust myself to ride back to that hotel with you," Bridget said simply. The name Sammy hung in the air between us. It very much should have.

"Bridget, I know where you are in life," I said seriously. "You know that I'd never, um..."

She just looked at me and smiled warmly, then quirked a delicate red eyebrow skeptically. "For the record, I said I did not trust

myself

. But no, I do not trust you either," she said warmly.

I looked at her silently for a good minute, finally admitting that we might want to not trust each other on this point.

"Have a good trip back to Penn," I sighed. "I'll just hang here and watch the geezers. I'd say I'd talk more to Parvis, but I think he has ghosted this joint already."

Bridget was about to put her hand on mine sympathetically when she froze and smirked for some reason.

"Bridget!" a voice called out behind us. "I had the Duty, but when I heard you were here, I ran right ove... whoa! Hello, Alistaire. You're here too."

I turned around in my seat. Nancy Green was closing the last table's worth of distance between us. Her eyes flicked back and forth between us, welcoming when looking at Bridget, and inscrutable when staring at me.

"I... didn't expect to see you here," Bridget said, suddenly grinning like a loon. Nancy looked curious about Bridget's expression too, but shrugged it off in favor of smiling at us both.

"Last year was my first year here, so the powers that be figured that I would be ideal to stay down at the main school for office duty on Alumni Day. I obviously have no history with any alumni who were registered in advance, so it made sense to me too. But then, when Dean Fletcher came to relieve me just now, she said that one of my old students, a certain girl named Bridget, had shown up out of the blue. I hightailed it up here to hopefully catch you before you left! How have you been?" she finished breathlessly. She didn't speak to me directly yet, but our eyes met... placidly.

"It has been a great year," Bridget said brightly. "But I'm glad you weren't any later. I'm about to hop in an Uber."

Nancy sagged a tiny bit in disappointment. "Well, I absolutely cannot blame you," she said, looking back at me again. "I'm glad we could say hi before you two bailed. I'm..."

"Oh, Alistaire isn't coming with me. He's staying right here," Bridget said in a chirpy voice that neither Nancy nor I knew she possessed. "I'm going back to my hotel room to curl up in bed and text with my boyfriend for half an hour at least," she added. "Hopefully, Nancy here can keep you company, Alistaire," she said, the chirpiness morphing into syrupy sweetness.

Nancy raised her eyebrows and looked at both of us.

Bridget put her hand on my shoulder and looked down at me. "We will see each other again, right? Soon?" she asked, her sudden certitude fleeing her eyes.

I had not realized how determined I was to ensure that Bridget and I kept in touch, but I did now. I let that new awareness infuse my face as I simply nodded. After a year, she was still my best friend.

"Then I'll leave you two as the youngest people in the room," Bridget laughed, shook Nancy's hand firmly, and drifted away.

I looked at Nancy Green.

She looked at me.

She sat down at our currently empty table in Bridget's vacated seat. And smiled.

I could not help but return the smile. This was Nancy Green. "How have you been?" I asked, smiling serenely.

"Fine," Nancy said. Her eyes, colored like her name, now danced merrily. "All my students did about as well as I could have hoped for them," she added. That was not the same thing as 'they all did well', but that checked out. She yawned and stretched her arms over her head.

That was fucking deliberate, and I was here for it. Nancy habitually wore tight, lightweight sweaters, and this one was no exception. With her arm reaching above her head and moving around, I was treated to a very enhanced viewing of the amazing contours beneath that sweater. Contours that I had looked back on fondly on all sorts of occasions, not all of them appropriate.

Is there an appropriate occasion to get hard at the memory of fucking a faculty member's incredible tits? If there is, it was not the time or two some girl I was fucking at the moment did something to remind me of the feel of Nancy's tits around my cock...

Nancy lowered her arms and went on glumly, "That said, it had been unrelentingly boring since you graduated." We shared a look that told me exactly what she meant by boring.

I grinned and slyly asked. "Oh? This year's class is not up to ours?"

She looked at me. "I'll have you know that this crop had gotten ten more Ivy League acceptances than your class managed," she said sternly. Then she looked around to ensure no one was listening. "That said, they are a bunch of fuckups yet somehow utterly boring at the same time. If these losers had been my first crop as a teacher, I'd have quit the profession in disgust." We both giggled, but I sensed she was actually serious.

I shook my head and said, despite myself, "And here I thought you meant something else about the class not being up to snuff."

Nancy looked at me, and suddenly her eyes twinkled. "I meant what I said about nothing 'interesting' happening since we last... spoke. And as for this year's crop of senior boys, the Jill Mill material is seriously lacking," she added with a sour face.

Well now!

"Such a shame," I said. "I hate to catch up with you on a sleepy Alumni Day weekend and find you suffering through such doldrums."

"Catching up would be nice," she said, turning to look around casually. This gave me some fantastic profile views.

I looked around myself, wondering if they had changed the combination of the recording studio or not. "Shame that there are no park benches near here," I said idly.

She gave me a look that I really, really liked. "No benches, but I'd like some more comfort than a bench anyway," she said casually, still mostly looking around and not at me. "Have you ever been in Gorham House, Mr. Taylor?"

I snorted sheepishly. Gorham House was the upper school girls' dormitory "I studied over there quite a lot last year, actually."

I suddenly had Nancy's gaze only on me. "Ever gotten laid in Gorham House?" she challenged.

Um. Well, we were walking down this road after all...

Right?

"Bridget and I spent about four hours repeatedly checking that item off the list, the day before graduation," I admitted.

That actually shocked her for an instant. "I'm amazed I didn't hear and bust you guys," she snorted. Then she leaned in and laid a trump card. "But have you ever gotten laid in a faculty apartment in Gorham House?"

"This sounds like a fascinating new experience," I said with a smile.

"For you and me both," Nancy laughed quietly. "Would you like a drink?"

"I'm a long way from 21," I replied. "They won't give me one. Bridget and I tried."

"I have beer and wine in my faculty apartment... in Gorham House," Nancy shrugged. "No one to card you there."

I am generally uninterested in alcohol, but I was suddenly acutely interested in the proposed venue...