“Michelle!” Jonathan said, recognising her immediately as she stood on his doorstep, the ten years separating this from their last meeting having left her face virtually untouched, save for the delicate lines flowering at the corners of her eyes, the tan darkening her skin, and the intangible shroud of maturity a decade’s experience had draped about her.

“I can’t stay long, I’m afraid, but I couldn’t leave again without calling in to see you. It’s not a bad time, is it?”

Jonathan said it was not, invited her in, asked her how she was, if he could get her a drink, apologised for being in his pyjamas and dressing gown. He felt again nervous and excited in her presence, as if those feelings had been lying dormant all these years. He had thought never to see her again. He made tea, led her through to the living room where his daughter sat playing with wooden blocks.

“Hi there,” Michelle said kneeling in front of the child, “what’s your name?”

The child lifted her hand, clenched around a red block, and spoke into her fist.

“Sh-Shelly,” she said.

Jonathan, putting the two mugs on the coffee table, sitting on the sofa, felt colour rise in his cheeks. Michelle told the child it was a pretty name and asked how old she was. Shelly was four. She had her mother’s straight blond hair and her mother’s wide blue eyes. Michelle sat.

“So you married Hannah?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said.

“Is she in?”

“No, she works Saturdays.”

Michelle lamented that she had not been able to keep in touch with either of them, the three of them having been close at university, but since Michelle had gone to Africa to teach, it had been so hard to keep up with all her old friends. Oh, but how rewarding it was to work out there, to see their faces light up with each new wonder revealed on the blackboard.

Jonathan caught only the sense of what she was saying, rather than the words, too lost in the fact that she was here, in front of him, her wavy brown hair, the colour of chocolate almost, but with an inflection of red, shaking as she laughed in the same way she had laughed at university. Yes, Jonathan remembered exactly how she had laughed at university, those days, those sensations, etched into his mind, thought about, not every day, but often, very often. And he remembered how she had cried too, that one day when she came to him, because her boyfriend had left her, and he had held her and thought “now, now’s my chance.”

But it had taken until the final exam party the following year for Jonathan, drunk, to ask her. But they were “just friends,” she said, and those were two words that could change a life in a heartbeat. And he had known even then, even through the alcohol-haze, that he would never get over that: that they were “just friends”. Then, the following summer, Michelle set off to travel the world, to “help people”, she said, which was so like her because she was, she really was, just a wonderful person.

“Well that’s enough about me,” Michelle said, “what about you?”

What was there to say? He had a job as a bathroom salesman, had married Michelle’s friend Hannah, had bought a house, had reproduced. He looked at Shelly, still playing with her blocks, building a tower. Michelle looked too. The child was definitely Hannah’s daughter but, of course, Jonathan had chosen the name because, really, Michelle was a beautiful name that melted on the tongue like chocolate.

“It’s a shame Hannah isn’t in. I’m sorry I missed your wedding.”

Jonathan was too. He had looked for her in the crowd, when the vicar had asked the question, when everyone sat with bated breath waiting for his answer, for those two words which could change a life, though he knew that she was in some far-flung corner of the world helping some poor unfortunate souls. “I do,” he had said finally, after that excruciating pause. And, if Michelle had been there, would he have thought twice before he committed to blond-haired Hannah? He looked at Michelle, whose brown eyes were fixed on her namesake. She’s here now, Jonathan thought, on this Saturday afternoon.
It could not last though, this brief, this significant reunion: like those blurry vivacious days at university it was over all too quickly when Michelle looked at her watch and stood and said,

“I’m sorry, but I really have to go: I’m only in the country for a few days,”

and then they were standing again on the doorstep saying goodbye.

“Perhaps I’ll see you in another ten years,” Jonathan said.

Michelle laughed and hugged him.

“Hopefully sooner than that,” she said, “I’ll try harder to keep in touch.”

She kissed him on the cheek and felt his stubble on her lips. Jonathan noticed that she smelled the same way she had ten years before and realised he never had found out what perfume she wore. She let go of him.

“And give my love to Hannah,” Michelle said.

She was leaving now. Jonathan wanted to say something to make her stay, or perhaps he wanted to go with her. He looked into her eyes, felt twenty again, felt lost and hopeful, felt all the things he had felt when he had held her and comforted her, when he had stared at her across classrooms, across grass fields on summer afternoons, when he had worked up the courage to ask her out. Then there came a clattering from the living room and the wail of a child.

“I’d better go see about that,” Jonathan said.

“Yeah,” Michelle said, “I’ve got to go, sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”

“It’s okay,” Jonathan said, “Good luck with your teaching, take care of yourself.”

“You too,” Michelle said. She turned away and walked to her car. With a wave she was gone and Jonathan was closing the door, walking back to the living room. There he found Shelly sitting amongst scattered wooden blocks. Her tower had fallen down.

Tags: nostalgia, published, Relationships, second choise

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