Katherine

by Kayla Bills

With tired eyes, I watched as the people around me worshipped their glasses. Each bar patron wore the face of a hard life – wrinkles, sunspots, and the yellowed teeth of many a cigarette smoked. They inhabited the space as comfortably as they did their own leathery skins. Airing complaints about children, coworkers, and even how watered down their shots of whiskey were, they existed in a world all their own. None of them cared to leave. They wouldn’t be in that bar if they did. 

If I would’ve stayed there, I’d be in the very back corner with the women who came to drink every Sunday after the priest gave a homily on family matters. To drink away the fact that they never went anywhere in life. Just school, marriage, kids, bar – sometimes in that order. 

Looking out of the old four-pane window, I watched as chunks of snow hurled themselves down onto the dusted over parking lot. My car outside was right in between a red pickup truck with a different color door and a never-been-washed work van. 

How ritzy my Impala looked compared to them. 

I waited on my barstool and listened to the whirring of the rusted radiator. It sounded like a hive of bees caught in a creaking elevator. 

Christ, how did this place stay up and running after all these years? 

“Meredith?” a silvery voice came from my left. 

It reminded me of the Saturdays spent behind the bleachers kissing and only coming up for air when the football players came to practice. 

There stood a plump brunette with Coke bottle glasses and a moth-eaten, pink turtleneck. Her eyes said that she wanted to sit down next to me, but her legs didn’t have the same thought. She merely waited for my reply, breathing in the cigarette smoke-filled air. 

“Katherine.” I clenched my lips together, giving her the same smile that you give a stranger when you make eye contact on the sidewalk. 

I extended my hand and waited for her to shake it; she expected a hug. 

Katherine and I had not seen each other since we graduated from high school. For twelve years, she stayed behind in the town that thought its 68% graduation rate was up there with Yale or Stanford. We once shared the dream of going to the city and working, but neither of us made it. 

Neither of us had the skill, but at least one of us got out. 

“Can I sit down?” She adjusted her glasses. 

“Mhm.” 

Sitting next to each other reminded me of that stuffy biology class at St. Lazarus. It brought me back to starched button-ups and plaid, pleated skirts that went to our knees. Black shoes and church wine burning our tongues. Making eye contact during British Lit and feeling our hearts hit our chests like a semi-truck. It took me back to when life and love were two separate entities, never daring to intermingle due to a heavy, lung-crippling fear. 

“How’s Boston?” Katherine asked as she tried to flag down the bartender. “The weather nice? It’s been snowing like crazy here so nothing new.”  

“It’s...weather all right. How are things here?” I quirked an eyebrow as something shiny caught my eye. 

She had traded in her oversized mood ring for a wedding band. 

My breath caught in the back of my throat like vomit, begging to be let out only to be swallowed down again. The harshest reality was finally realizing not the elephant in the room, but the scurrying roach. Not the needle, but the haystack that hid it. 

I knew that she had gotten married, but now it seemed too real. No one could see my face through the screen and all I had to do was type “Congratulations” on her Facebook wall. 

Then she messaged me, and I was dragged back into the depths of schoolgirl hell once more. 

“Things are great. Stephen and I are fine. Michael is in karate and Bryce is in the marching band.” She wrung her hands together as the bartender approached. 

“Oh. What instrument?” I asked. 

I didn’t care whether it was the clarinet or the damn triangle. My eyes wouldn’t stop staring at the ring no matter how much my brain told them it hurt to see. I wanted to down a whole bottle of liquor, but that wouldn’t change the fact that Katherine changed. She would never be the girl with her own business like she wanted back then; she’d just be Katherine. Never moving up or moving on. 

My hands recalled the feeling of hers during the walk to the bus. My ears remembered the way she snorted when she laughed at my terrible jokes. My eyes remembered seeing her cry when she told me how her parents reacted when they found out. 

“They told me that they’d kick me out,” she’d said, her nose running, and her tennis shoes covered in mud from the long trek from her house to mine. 

I remembered feeling guilty. 

“It’ll be easier when we graduate," she said to me all those years ago, “Then we can do whatever we want. I promise. I really do.” 

I was an idiot because I believed her. In my heart, I believed she was telling me the truth. 

Perhaps I agreed to meet her because on some level, I still did. 

“Snare drum.” She paused to order her beer. “But how’s that job?” 

“It’s nice!” I feigned excitement. “The hospital pays well.” 

“To be honest when I sent you that message, I didn’t expect you to meet with me.” 

“Neither did I. My fingers just sort of...typed.” My voice felt strangled. 

There was so much more I wanted to say to her, but the words clung to my tongue and refused to fly out into the air. 

My heart screamed at me to tell her I fell in love with how she didn’t take any bullshit when we were in school. It pleaded for me to let her know that I went to Boston because that’s where we decided to settle down back then, and how for three years, I was convinced that she would follow. My whole being begged for me to tell her that the only reason I came to meet her was because I thought that she changed her mind about Stephen. That maybe she’d come back for me. 

I wanted to ask her if Stephen knew how she hated the sound of car horns or if he bought the type of cookies she liked---the raspberry ones---from the right gas station across town. Did he know her like I did? 

We drank and talked more about her sons, and she didn’t bring up Stephen again. 

She asked me if I missed her. 

I didn’t answer. 

She asked again. 

I told her that my whiskey was watered down. 

Kayla Bills is a junior double major in business administration and media studies who lives in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. Writing has been one of her passions since she was a child. She hopes to incorporate writing throughout her future career in business and law.

Caila Grigoletti is a junior at Cedar Crest College. She is a writing major with a double minor in communications and history. Apart from writing, her interests include gaming, singing, and travel.