Theater

All these years later, I can still smell her, a mix of sweat and deodorant and perfume, still feel the weight of her on top of me as she holds my arms pinned down against the old sofa now sitting center stage where we’ve been working all afternoon. She is relishing her victory, a single lock of brown hair hangs down in her eyes and she tries to blow it away, unsuccessfully. She is laughing and grinning as I try to free myself, knowing that if I can get a hand free, I will tickle her ribcage mercilessly until she is forced to release her hold. 

I think back now to the love I had for her then – not something that either of us could act on as she was promised to someone else, but I knew she loved me too, just the same, though we always joked that we were more like brother and sister – just to make it safe to tease and torment and find reasons and situations to touch one another – just jokingly – just toying with you.

That was almost 35 years ago now, but like I said, I can still smell her, still remember her riding in the car with me singing along to whatever cassette tape one or the other of us had picked out, still love the time we had together, that we made together whenever we had an excuse – how easy it felt to be with her, how easy it still feels. But now as then it’s nothing that either of us can act on, now decades and families later, but I love to remember. She does too. A memory of other memories never made, but hinted at, dared even, on late afternoons on an empty stage, both rehearsing parts we knew we’d never get to play.