Jean

I went to see a band at a club last night, and the singer suddenly reminded me of Jean. She was fresh and bold, enunciating the lyrics in a clear contralto, prancing across the stage in denim shorts and torn fishnets. She was relaxed and aware, fully present in the moment, having a wonderful time. It was her smile, and the way she tossed her hair back with a quick turn of her head, that put me in mind of someone I knew one summer when I was young.

Jean and I were party friends. We first met at a party, and I often ran into her at parties, or she would call me and we'd go together. She was pretty and vivacious, someone people loved to invite. Jean was easy going, and always seemed comfortable no matter what was happening. Once, some awkward person spilled a drink on her sweater, and she immediately, and quite naturally, peeled it off. She wasn't wearing anything underneath, but no one was shocked. Jean was no exhibitionist, just a girl who wanted to get the stain out as quickly as possible. She took the sweater into the bathroom to rinse it, and later I saw her dressed in one of our host's t-shirts.

There were a lot of parties that summer, somwhere to go nearly every weekend. Sometimes we would just go out for drinks, and talk about boys. It wasn't a very deep relationship, but we laughed a lot.

Jean drove a van. I never saw the inside of the van, because when we went out together, she came to my place and parked on the street, and we took my car, or we met at the destination. Looking back, it occurs to me now, as it never did then, that she may have been homeless. She used an answering service for her phone calls. That didn't seem unusual at the time. I knew a lot of actors and others trying to make it in the business who used a service. They thought it was more professional to have their calls answered by a live person rather than a machine. Someone who didn't have a stable phone number (or no phone number at all) could just keep the answering service as a permananent contact number.

Once when Jean and I had been out somewhere and came back to my place, she asked to use my shower. That didn't seem odd to me. The weather was hot, the party had been intense, and she probably felt sweaty and wanted to freshen up before the long drive that would mean arriving home quite late and tired. That long drive home might have been fiction. I had never visited her inconveniently distant apartment. Thinking about it now, I wouldn't be surprised if there was just a special location where she parked the van to sleep.

At some point, Jean moved away. I heard from her nearly a year later. She had been diagnosed with an STD and was calling me as a courtesy because we had once, very briefly, dated the same guy, and she was concerned that I might have been exposed. I was okay, but I thanked her for her consideration. That was the last time we talked.

 

Jay

Years ago, I was involved in producing plays at a small theater in Pasadena. In that context, I met Jay, who was the theater critic for a local paper. Jay was alienated from his family, and therefore had written under a series of pseudonyms, until he finally had his name legally changed. He wanted to quit, and I wanted to write, so he arranged for me to take his place.

We became lovers, although we were never really in love. The old building where he lived had once been a hotel, the abandoned front desk with its wall of message cubbyholes still in place on the ground floor. The rooms had been converted to "studio" apartments with the addition of little kitchenettes. I never asked him if he owned the furniture or if it was included.

I tried to spend the night there, but his bed was too narrow and the neighbors were too noisy. He didn't like to stay over at my place because he didn't have a car.

A year went by. He quietly reconnected with his old girlfriend, and I, a bit less quietly, started seeing other people. There was no drama, no argument, no need to collect personal items from each other's apartments. We hadn't even left toothbrushes.

A few weeks later, he sent me a postcard asking me to call. I called, but the phone just rang and rang. Jay had no answering machine, he was out a lot, and he never answered the phone if he had company.

Sometimes something reminds me of him, and I wonder what it was he wanted to say to me.