Main Cast
Mike, 35 years old, 5' 11", 175 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes, Anne's husband.
Anne, 34 years old, 5' 4", 105 pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, Mike's wife.
Jenny, 34 years old, 5'4", 105 pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, Anne's former college roommate.
My wife and I went out to dinner and some drinks one Friday evening. It had been a long week of work for both of us and we needed to get out of the house. We had just finished dinner and decided to have a couple of drinks in the bar before we went home. It was a fairly quiet, relaxed place, so we found a small booth and ordered.
We had been sitting there for a few minutes when I saw my wife look up with wide eyes. She was staring at someone. I turned to look and the only person I saw in her line of sight was a woman about the same age as us. She was dressed in a white blouse, jeans, and a casual black jacket. I turned back to Anne and she had moved back out of sight of that section of the bar.
"What's wrong?"
"I think I know that woman."
I turned at looked at the woman again and then back at my wife.
"From where?"
"I think that's my former roommate from college."
I was intrigued since she never talked about school. "Really? You want to invite her over?"
She looked at me strangely. "Not sure she wants to see me. I just dropped off the face of the earth when I graduated. She may not be happy to see me."
She made it sound like they parted on bad terms, but it had been over 10 years. "Honey, it's been over ten years. I think you two might be able to at least talk."
She looked at me skeptically and then leaned out to see if the woman was still there. I turned as well and we both happened to look as she turned her head in our direction. She stared at us, a little shock registering on her face, and then smiled and started walking our way.
"Anne?" She said it like she was not sure it was her former roommate, but Anne hadn't changed that much.
"Jenny. It's good to see you." Anne stood and the two hugged a little tentatively. I guess they might be able to get along after all. When they stepped back Anne pointed to our booth. "Do you want to join us?"
"Sure." Jenny slid into the booth on Anne's side of the table and Anne introduced her to me.
"Jenny, this is my husband, Mike." We shook hands.
Jenny turned to Anne. "Nice. Married and settled. Kids?"
"No, we don't have kids. What about you? How are you? What are you doing here?"
They then talked about all those things that I guess women discuss when they haven't seen each other in a long time. I was not included in the conversation as they faced each other and talked so that I couldn't hear; I stared at the TV in the background running all the sports scores across the bottom.
Finally, Anne brought me back to the conversation. "Mike." She touched my arm to make sure she had my attention. I admit that it was easy to get wrapped up in ESPN. "Jenny is moving here and is staying in the hotel across the street. She doesn't have a place to live yet, but is looking. I told her that we have a guest room and she was welcome to it. It would save her some money and we could catch up on the last ten years. We don't have anything else going on, do we?"
I smiled. Sounded like it was a done deal. "No, that's fine. She's pretty easy on the eyes, so I don't have a problem with it." I winked at them.
My wife laughed and turned to Jenny. "Don't mind him. He's a big flirt, but harmless."
I chuckled. "Thanks... I think."
We coordinated when to pick her up at her hotel and then left the bar together. We went straight to her hotel since she decided to leave it tonight and not worry about the fact that she had already paid for it. We all went back to our house and I plopped in front of the TV to watch sports while they caught up on the last 10 years while sitting in the kitchen over wine. We finally went to bed around midnight.
"So that wasn't so bad, was it Anne?"
She turned and smiled. "It was really nice to see her again."
"You realize that you've never told me anything about college and your roommates. Why?"
She glanced away and I could see she was uncomfortable. "Nothing interesting there, that's all. Same as any college student, just tried to work my way thru college and get the degree so I could get on with my real life."
I knew there was more there. Was she really wild in college and embarrassed about it? Did she just want to keep it from me? I wasn't sure. "Honey." I took her by the arms and turned her to me. "If there's anything you ever want to talk about, you can tell me. Anything, okay?"
She looked me right in the eyes. "I know. I love you."
"I love you, too, okay? I always will. Nothing you can say will change that."
She hugged me hard. "I know." She didn't say anything else. She just let me go and went into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed.
Over the next couple of weeks, I found out that Jenny had not graduated. She had finished about 10 credits shy of what she needed and never went back to finish it. I tried to ask her why, but she talked around it. She was not going to tell me that. I guess it was too personal.
One Thursday, I arrived home from work a little earlier than expected and walked into the kitchen, entering from the garage. My wife Anne was sitting at the table in her robe with wet hair. Jenny was standing at the stove, cooking something while wearing what appeared to be nothing but a long t-shirt. I stopped and stared for a second.
My wife looked up at me and then followed my gaze to Jenny as I came in, but didn't say anything about it. "Hey, hon, how was your day?"
"Fine." I looked over at her. "You just take a shower?" I put my laptop bag on the floor.