I think I found you today.
If your name is spelled with an “E,” I did.
If your name is spelled with an “A,” I found you months ago. You look completely different. And you won’t answer my friend request.
But if your name is spelled with an “E,” you look just like I expected you to, and like me, you never moved far from home, have two beautiful children, and love the beach.
I’ve been sitting here in front of my laptop for forty-five minutes with my office door shut, trying to figure this out because if your name is spelled with an “E,” then you, unlike me, are dead.
I wish our letters hadn’t burnt up.
I also wish I remembered your middle name. In my mind, I’m holding your perfumed letters, but were they from North or South Carolina, Greensville or Greensboro?
It was twenty years ago and one week. I know that.
I only indulge in this once every year or two, though it’s a rabbit hole, so I admit it’ll eat up most of my day.
It could be worse. You can buy a background check. Then I’d know all kinds of things–your criminal record, for example, if you have one. But, I wouldn’t take it that far.
I’ve been in love before. Real, grown-up people love. I understand the difference between that and “summer love,” which was the definition of us. We were summer love, textbook. You couldn’t dream any better. A week, some letters, the Dear John.
It’s not real love if you skim the surface like that, never test the bow against waves. Still, whenever I think “love,” our week is right there, the first thing in my mind. Once, I had every minute of it, like a home movie. Now, the frames crinkle to ash like a lit cigarette, or a fuse sizzling to nothing.
The best week of my life.
I remember statues and gazebos, marble and mulch under Spanish moss. The camp closed in 2008, by the way. Their website is still online, though. You can find it if you dig. Unfortunately, there aren’t any pictures from our year.
Somewhere in my parents’ house, there’s a group picture of our class; all the campers sit on the steps of the UC. You’re wearing a yellow T-shirt.
I last looked several years ago, cleaning up the basement. You can’t make out anyone’s face. It’s frustrating; I tried a magnifying glass. After work, I’ll go look again.
Just that picture, though. That’s all I have. I lost the rest when my parents’ old house burned. Your letters and the program from The Three Musketeers.
Did you keep acting?
If your name is spelled with an “A,” you did. You with an “A” is on IMDB. You’ve acted in at least five things. Three I could find to watch. But you don’t look like you. One of the movies is on Amazon Prime. It’s about drag queens in Portland. It was bad, no offense.
The FaceBook post I finally found for you with an “E” doesn’t say how you went.
Died.
I’ve died.
It didn’t keep. They resuscitated me. I’m not, like, a ghost. OoOoO. I have these seizures to keep life lively. They scooped out some of my brain and they improved. Shortened. I’ve lost swaths. Like college, most of my childhood, or how you spelled your name.
I quit acting when I got sick on stage.
There’re so many pictures of this you’s life. Your older daughter looks like you when you were whatever age we were. Seventeen?
She is, and you were, beautiful.
Her ear isn’t pointy.
Your ear was pointy. That’s how I’m almost certain that you with an “A” isn’t you. She has round ears. I liked your pointy ear. We joked about it. You were self-conscious, but it was endearing, the first thing I noticed out of probably fifty girls.
I saw you right off, and you liked me, too.
Never happened again.
I love my wife. I don’t mean anything against her and I feel miserable with guilt when I do this.
But, when I met my wife, we were set up on a group date. We went on a few more. It built gradually. We kissed on our third date, as though I’d forgotten. Like I had all the time in the world. I knew after a month we’d end up where we are now. We weren’t “madly” anything, there just weren’t any obstacles. Our biggest waves are ripples. Sometimes, I sleep on the couch. I insist on eight hours; she wants to stay up watching TV.
Us, the counselors couldn’t separate with a crowbar.
With you, I noticed you out of so many pretty girls. I screwed up the courage to make a fool of myself. That’s not me. You know, I’ve never asked a girl out at a bar. Not once.
And I’m looking at your obituary, you with an “E,” and even with your hair grown out, I’m sure it’s you. I had such nice, innocuous things to say if I’d been able to contact you on FaceBook or, godforbid, Twitter. Instagram, maybe? We could have been friends.
I was hoping you’d fill the parts I don’t remember. I’m an envelope full of ashes. Like an engine revving that won’t turn over, a love poem that can’t muster its metaphors.