"Cory!"
I jumped a little bit at the sound of someone shouting my name. I was walking back to work from lunch and deeply engrossed in the podcast streaming through my earbuds. I turned around and was surprised to see an old friend from college who I hadn't seen much of over the past six years.
"Max!?" I couldn't believe it was really her.
"Hey dude!" she giggled as she gave me a big hug.
Max and I both graduated from Kennison State in 2010, she with a degree in education and me with a marketing degree. After school, we both moved away, keeping in touch here and there but rarely seeing each other.
"What brings you to my corner of the world?" I asked.
"Wait, this is where you live?" Max replied, foregoing an answer to my query.
"Yeah, I've been here for like five years."
"Oh my god, that's freaking amazing!" she exclaimed, continuing, "I just got a job at the high school teaching social studies and coaching the varsity swim team!"
"Holy shit! That's awesome!"
"What brought you here?"
"Remember how I got a gig with that firm I interned for right out of school?" I began, with Max nodding in assent. "Well, they relocated me not too far from here about a year later. The money was crazy good, and I started getting involved with local nonprofits and kind of feel in love with this place."
"Dude, that's so cool," she beamed. "I'm guessing you've moved up a bit since then?"
"Actually, I left about a year ago for a passion project. If you have a minute, I can show you."
"Totally, I just finished a few hours of paperwork at the school and was hoping to get familiar with the new hometown," she agreed as I led her back toward work.
We strolled down High Street, catching up on lost time. After a few blocks, we turned the corner onto 4th and I stopped in front of The Grand Majestic, the theater that had seen several heydays go by, from vaudeville to punk rock to art house movies.
"This is it! The Grand Majestic," I announced, sweeping my arm toward the marquee, which currently heralded that evening's upcoming performance by Sleigh Bells.
"Dude, this place looks amazing, you work here?" Max seemed legitimately impressed that I was employed by such an organization.
"That's one way of putting it," I smirked.
"What's another way of putting it?" She replied coyly. It was amazing how quickly we fell back into old conversational habits.
"I own it," I proclaimed, beaming with pride that can only come after pouring your life into something and watching it flourish from your hard work.
"Dude," Max said, giving me a fist bump. "Impressive."
I led Max in through the staff entrance and gave her the tour. I brought her up to the booth, which served many functions. On film nights, this is where the projectionist does her thing. For concerts, the sound tech is here and for live theater most of the tech team can be found here. From there, we went up the spiral staircase to my office and I showed her my favorite feature, the small, four-seat balcony that had a stellar view of the entire theater. Max gasped audibly at the view.
"Dude, this is gorgeous," she said, in awe of the theater's beauty as most are when they see it for the first time. Hell, even after the first time. This place was built when theaters were works of art.
"I have got to see that stage!" she exclaimed.
I took her down the side stairs from my office to the balcony seating, and from there down another set of stairs to the lobby and into the floor seating area which, in advance of that night's concert, was cleared of all chairs. It was at this point that I was reminded about some of the other things I liked about Max.
"This place is amazing," she sang as she cartwheeled in the middle of the floor. The sing-songy voice and the cartwheel brought on a whole host of memories. The way Max would always find the fun in any situation. The way her playfulness always put the room at ease. The carefree nature in which she chose to live her life. And, my favorite, the way you always managed to catch little peeks of things you shouldn't when Max was around.
For example, her cartwheel. Max gave no thought to her wardrobe before flipping over and landing like she had just completed a gymnastics routine. As she flipped upside-down her legs opened, giving me the quickest flash of bright blue panties under her very short shorts. Her cropped tank top then fell victim to gravity exposing the lower portion of her hot pink bralette, an article of clothing which I would soon get a hefty side view of as she proudly splayed her arms in a victory formation, allowing me a good look at her right breast comfortably situated in the pink, lace-covered garment.
In that moment, a flood of nostalgia washed over me. I remembered how frequently these little flashes would occur. I remembered that those little flashes are why I, as a horny 20-year-old new to campus, began spending more time with Max. My dick twitched in my boxer briefs as I followed her cute little butt toward the stage, admiring the freckles on the part of her back that was exposed between her top and her shorts.
"Cory, this is absolutely amazing. How the hell did you manage to score this place?" she asked.
We sat on the stage, crosslegged and facing each other, as I talked about getting involved with the nonprofit friends group that wanted to save the theater, moving up in my firm but feeling unfulfilled, and finally buying the theater outright, and eventually getting it to the point of sustaining a modest staff and allowing me to leave the firm and work full-time in this place I had grown to love.
Max, in turn, regaled me with her teaching tales from the city she grew up in, and the ups and downs that came with teaching there. She talked about discovering yoga and eventually becoming a certified instructor. She mentioned disappearing into a relationship for a few years, but emerging from its failure with a more open mind and ready to experience new things.
