When did I first meet Libby? It must have been when I first went down to the town, when I was 20, and going out with Sandra, my first girlfriend. Sandra wasn't a very satisfactory girlfriend but she was my first, so I was eternally grateful to her. She was sassy and sexy and, in spite of that, rather prudish, at least with me, and refused to take all of her clothes off for the entire time we were going out with each other. It didn't stop us from having sex, but it did stop us from having a totally brilliant time with each other.
Yes, that was when I met Libby, who was a teenager then, 14 or something, rather pompous and with rather a lot of puppy fat. She was bespectacled and bookish and her parents were hippies and she only hung out with us hard-drinking twentynothings long enough to register silent disapproval of us, before going off to dig the garden or make rice or do one of the other hippy teenage things she used to do. She was a pain in the ass.
Then Sandra and I broke up and she moved back to the town, where she'd grown up, whereas I stayed in the city, where I belonged. Six years passed. I had other girlfriends and I didn't think of Sandra much, and I had a lot of fun, and I became more exploratory, and I got a good job and I enjoyed myself.
And then, that New Year's, I was single, and Sandra, out of the pity of her heart or her sense of mischief, invited me down to the town to spend New Year's with her and her friends. For some reason, that year, it was the best offer I had, so I took it.
I wasn't long in Sandra's house, reacquainting myself with her and her friends, before I came to think that I'd made a big mistake. What I had once taken in Sandra to be coolness now seemed like dullness. Her friends were all obsessed with goings-on in the town and they seemed to be stuck where they had been six years earlier. I sat there and made polite and drank beer in the pub but really, all I wanted to do was go back to the city.
But then I spotted a girl on the edge of things, joking with Sandra and her friends, engaging in intense conversation with various people. She was tall for a girl, with glasses, dark-coloured, with narrow eyes and a broad, ironic mouth, and what looked like a good body; her t-shirt and jeans outlined her very nicely and suggested a certain robust, country-bred frame, the kind of girl who did a lot of cycling and climbing but who also liked a square meal, even if it was mostly composed of lentils.
It took me a few minutes to realise that this was Libby.
Of course, I thought. It was six years on; I was 26, she must be 20. Libby was college-aged, by this point. A few discreet enquiries revealed that she was in college, working towards a BA in Womens' Studies.
Well, that in itself was interesting, if not entirely unpredictable, I thought. It made perfect sense that Libby would have become a 20-year-old feminist. But then, I noticed a curious effect of my asking about her; people would answer my queries, but also glance at Libby with something like trepidation. There seemed to be a slightly warning look in their eyes, as if they advised me to keep away from her.
It crystallised when I was talking to someone about her and Sandra herself came over, her face cheerfully flushed with wine, and said "Who are you talking about?"
"Alex was just asking about Libby," said Cathy, the friend I'd been chatting to. Sandra's eyes widened and she stared at me.
"Oh my god, Alex," she said fervently, laying a protective hand on my arm. "I'm serious. I love Libby, but, don't go near her. She'll eat you alive."
"Why?" I said. "What does she do?"
Sandra's face twisted thoughtfully.
"She's ... imbibed a lot of notions up in college," she said. "I dunno. I think. So I've heard, from anyone who's been with her. She's a bit difficult."
"I like a challenge," I said, smiling. Sandra looked at me pityingly.
"God help you, Alex," she said, "you've always been a strange boy."
And she moved off.
I spent the next half-hour or so quietly manoeuvring myself into a position where I could talk to Libby. She was buried deep in conversation with a girl I knew, Lorraine, a very sweet if not exactly intellectual type whose relationship with her boyfriend Carl was the stuff of legend in this town; they'd been together forever, it was understood that one day they'd get married, but in the meantime they were content to carry on as though they were still dating. I could see that Lorraine was trying to keep up with Libby, but that the entire time she had one arm resting on Carl's leg and was increasingly stroking her boyfriend as if to signal her own faithfulness to Libby. Finally, Libby laughed at something Lorraine said and got off the arm of the sofa where she'd been perched for an hour and headed to the kitchen.
I went after her and found her looking in the fridge. She pulled out a beer, straightened up and glanced at me, then looked again and smiled briefly.
"Hello," she said.
"Hi," I said.
"Alex, right?"
"Yes."
"I remember you."
"I remember you, too," I said, smiling. Libby eased open her beer and had a sip, looking at me appraisingly, then moved aside to let me into the fridge. I got a beer as well, and leaned against the kitchen counter, opening it.
"Are you down for new year," she said.
"I am."
"Good," she said. "Sandra's very hospitable."
"You're in college now," I said.
"I am," she said.
"How's it going?"
"Really good," she said, nodding. "I like it very much. I think I'm going to do a Masters."
"Good for you," I said. "You should."
"Thanks," she said. "Did you do one? I can't remember."
"No," I said, smiling. "I went straight into the business."
"But you're doing pretty well," she said. I was amused at how little of a sense of humour Libby still had. At this point in a conversation, most people liked to make the odd nervous, self-deprecating joke, to signal to the other person their own normality and approachability. Libby wasn't interested in that. She had still not acquired any social skills worth mentioning.
"I think so, yes," she said.
"You look great," I said. She smiled, making eye contact with me for the first time.
"Thanks," she said. "So do you."
"Thank you," I said, inclining my head politely.
"I haven't seen you in what, five years," she said. "I was a lot chubbier when I was younger."
"I'm surprised you remember me," I said. "We barely spoke."
"Oh, I remember you," she said. "I mean, I remember everyone. But I also remember you."
"It's always nice to hear that," I said, grinning. Libby seemed to see the humour in this and her wide mouth split into a brief grin. Then she knotted her brows together once more.
"It's very weird, seeing all Sandra's friends come back here," she said. "It feels like I've grown up and you've all stayed the same."
"It is a bit like that," I said. "I mean, I hope we've all matured slightly. In a non-boring kind of way. But you've definitely grown up."
"Oh, I have," Libby said. "I've learned a lot."
"What kind of thing?"
"Mostly about what goes on between men and women," said Libby. "I was so naΓ―ve. I think I was a bit grossed out by it all when I was younger. Now I'm much more accepting of difference."
"What do you mean by 'difference'?" I said.
"Just, the different ways in which men and women can relate to each other," she said. "I'm very interested in the ways in which they can connect."
"So am I," I said.