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?"
