A Baumgartner reunion

“This is the last summer we’re all going together. Henry’s graduating this year, and I’m… well… things are changing. It would be so good, like old times.” I glanced at TJ. “I’ve never really left our daughter for so long…”

“She loves staying with your mother.” He shrugged, no help at all. I knew what he wanted, what he hoped.

“You could always bring her…?” Gretchen suggested.

“No. Out of the question.” I shook my head, adamant, and they both looked at me, surprised. I shrugged. “And really, I think two weeks is a long time to be gone…”

“I could stay here with her for a week,” TJ offered. “Let you go out there for a week, and then fly out to meet you for the second…” Gretchen brightened. “What a great idea.”

“TJ…” I gave him a warning look but he ignored it.

“Something to think about…” He shrugged, filling my wine glass. I looked at it, already feeling way too buzzed to make any real decisions.

“You only live once,” Gretchen prodded. Her hand moved over my knee under the table still, edging along the silk edge of my skirt. “We’ve all missed you, Ronnie.”

I stood up, carrying my plate to the sink, murmuring. “Let me think about it.”

I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about anything. The wine had made me sleepy and way too relaxed, and when Gretchen curled up on the couch beside me and put her head in my lap just like she used to, I didn’t say a word. TJ sat in the chair across from us, watching, listening to us talk-

reminisce, really. It was as if someone had hit “pause” on the tape and had now pushed “play.” We just picked up where we left off, soft voices. low laughs, inside jokes, our fingers twined together.

When Gretchen yawned, stretched and sat up, saying she had to get back, it was very late, and I didn’t want her to go. TJ helped her on with her coat and her kiss goodbye was a little longer and too lingering to be called just friendly. She gave TJ a hug and thanked him again for calling. I knew it was coming and had planned my even, measured response to it, but when she said the words, mine wouldn’t come.

“We’re flying out Monday.” She squeezed my hands in hers, swinging them, and it made me feel like a little girl. “Doc says just give him the word and he’ll book your tickets.”

“I-“ They weren’t there, those words I’d planned, the polite refusal, the kind turn-down. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t say them-it was as if they didn’t exist anymore. “I’ll let you know.”

“Please.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek, her lips brushing the corner of my mouth, making me shiver. “Please come.”

With that, she was gone.

TJ closed the door, calling for her to be careful on the snowy stairs and then turned to me. “What do you think?”

I plopped down on the couch, still warm from where Gretchen and I had been cuddled together. “I think I’m in over my head.”

“Time to grow gills?” He sat beside me and took my hand.

“TJ…” I sighed, not looking at him.

“It’s sort of a once in a lifetime thing, isn’t it?”

“Well, in my case, apparently…twice?”

He grinned, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Lucky you.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Lucky me…”

* * * * *

I knew I was really going to go through with it when I decided to shave everything down there. Honestly, I think I knew the moment I saw Gretchen again, but shaving was a symbolic act, a physical representation of a so-far ethereal decision. Doc had paid for our tickets, plans had been made, but it didn’t feel real until I put a towel up on the bathroom counter that morning and handed TJ a razor.

“Everything?” He was used to trimming me, shaving the sides into a neat little landing strip, but I hadn’t gone completely bare since that summer in Key West.

“Everything,” I agreed, spreading my legs and leaning back against the mirror, hoping he wouldn’t see the way my thighs were trembling or how wet I was already in anticipation.

The razor moved slowly, carefully, up one side and then the other, stripping me of a clear remnant of womanhood. It felt like turning back the clock in some ways, going back to that time when I was so young, so unknowing, so eager to learn. Still, there were things I couldn’t un-know, experiences that had changed me forever. My body had changed, my hips fuller, my breasts, too, after nursing Beth for two years. I had stretch marks on my lower belly, now, soft plaits the remnant of my pregnancy. I knew there was no going back, even as I let him strip me bare in hopes that there somehow was.

“So smooth.” TJ’s fingers rubbed over my vulva, his eyes eating me up, hungry, and I wanted more than just his gaze. I would be on a plane in less than five hours-I’d insisted on a separate flight, wanting them all to have a chance to settle in for a day before I showed up-reunited with three people who, for that one glorious week that summer, had been my lovers, my teachers, my mentors. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what might happen, but my body was strung tight, like a bow pulled taut, waiting to shoot some fated arrow.