Greg checked himself in the mirror of his hotel room before he left. He debated between wearing a sweater or a sport coat, but finally opted for the sweater. Looking in the mirror, he was glad he had been working out regularly over the past year. After his divorce, he transferred to an office in a different city, where he didn't know anyone. He buried himself in his work so that he wouldn't have a lot of idle time to get depressed. He decided it was a good time to finally get in shape, so he was hitting the gym regularly.
He ran his fingers through his hair one last time. Deciding he looked pretty good, he took a deep breath and headed out the door.
His 20
th
High School Reunion was in the party room on the top floor, so he hit the up button. He was happy there was no one in the elevator; he was afraid there would be old classmates and he'd embarrass himself by not remembering their names.
Last night, before leaving for the trip, he pulled out his senior year yearbook and looked at all the seniors' pictures. Of course, with over 500 students in his graduation class, he couldn't possibly know everyone.
There were four categories of pictures: people who were his friends, people he knew enough to say hi but wouldn't really call them friends, people whose names sounded familiar or faces looked familiar but he couldn't really remember much about them, and people whom he was sure didn't really go to high school with him. How did those pictures get in there? And there seemed to be a lot in that last group.
When he got off the elevator, he walked over to the check-in table. He immediately groaned to himself. The name tags all had large versions of each person's senior picture. He HATED his senior picture; he thought he looked like a goof. His ex-wife always told him she thought he looked cute, but he was never convinced. Of course, having these pictures on the name tags made sense; unless you kept up your relationship with people, this is how they looked when you last knew them.
He said hi to Billy as he checked in; he was glad he remembered him. Then he peeled off his name tag, stuck it on his sweater, and walked into the big room.
The room was very bright, with four huge chandeliers. Two full walls of windows looked out onto the business park, which wasn't there during his high school years, and the shopping mall. Greg smiled as he saw the shopping mall lit up at night. Although it had gone through many renovations, it was still the same mall he visited a million times as a kid. He could picture himself walking with his friends or his mother through the various stores. He thought it was appropriate to celebrate their reunion right next to the mall.
There were a number of banquet tables decorated with simple flowers, votive candles, and balloons, in the red and white school colors, floating high. Those tables were surrounded with chairs. There were also a number of high-top tables, without chairs, where people could set down a drink or plate of appetizers while they talked. The invitation said "Appetizers and light dinner food", and two drink tickets were included in the price of admission.
Danny was the first person to walk up to Greg. Greg didn't need to look at his name tag to know who it was -- Danny definitely looked like an older version of the way he looked in high school. They exchanged a friendly handshake and started catching up. They quickly started reminiscing about the high school days and were exchanging funny stories. Adam walked over to join them, and the laughs continued. Greg felt comfortable with these old friends.
After a bit, he started walking around to see others. It was really awkward to stare at people's name tags to figure out who they were. It was particularly awkward with women, since looking at their name tags made it look like you were staring at their chests. Greg had some quick conversations with a number of people, including some he could not remember at all from high school.
At one point he looked toward the opposite side of the room, and he broke into a huge smile. Julie was looking directly at him, and she, too, had a huge smile on her face. They each started walking toward each other and met in tight hug, followed by a cheek-to-cheek air kiss.
"Hello, Greg, I'm so happy to see you!" Julie said, still smiling.
"Hi, Julie. I'm really happy to see you, too. When I missed the ten-year reunion, my only regret was that I didn't get to see you."
Greg was not lying; he really missed seeing Julie. In high school, he thought she was the most perfect woman he had ever met. She was smart, kind, funny and beautiful. For four years, he sat behind her in honors math and science classes because their last names followed each other alphabetically. Even though Greg was an awkward nerd and she was the most popular girl in school who dated the football quarterback, she was always nice to him. They were usually lab partners in science class, so he sometimes got together with her after school to write up their experiments.
The years had been good to her. She was still beautiful with smooth skin. She still had long, straight, black hair and beautiful brown eyes. Freshman year she towered over Greg, but he went through a growth spurt in his late teens. Now, even in her three-inch heels, she was a couple of inches shorter than his six-foot height. Although Greg generally liked small-breasted women, her full-C chest looked fantastic to him. She was wearing a shiny burgundy sweater and a grey skirt.
"Wow, Greg, nice pick-up line!" she laughed.
"When did Greg become such a hunk," she wondered to herself. She realized he got taller even after high school, and he clearly worked out. She thought he really looked good.
Julie always thought Greg was a nice guy. She knew he felt awkward with girls, and she'd try to boost his confidence back then. But she always thought he was a kind person who would do the right thing in any situation.
After they were talking for a few minutes, Kim walked up. Julie and Kim were always together in high school. Greg thought their friendship was a scientific study for opposites attract. Greg thought Kim was not smart, was definitely not kind -- especially to him, and she was not funny. But the one thing they had in common was that she, too, was beautiful. In fact, she was probably the prettiest girl in the entire high school. And like Julie, she still looked good.
Greg had to admit that her smaller breasts, which were perfect for her body, were even nicer than Julie's. She had high cheekbones, a small nose, beautiful blue eyes, and perfectly smooth, tanned skin. She was wearing a short, little black dress which showed off her thin legs. The V-neck bodice style showed off her breasts beautifully.
"Hi, Greg," Kim said with a smile on her face. "Nice to see you." Then she gave Greg a nice hug, which surprised him.
"Hi, Kim," Greg replied, probably with a less-friendly attitude than he intended. "How are you doing?"
"Doing well, thank you. Wow, you look great! You're not the shortest one in the class anymore," she said with a chuckle.
The three of them talked for a bit, but then Kim saw another classmate walk in the door, and she excused herself.
"What got into her?" Greg asked Julie.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"She was nicer to me in the last five minutes than she was in all of high school. She never used to have a kind word for me."
