Quelqu'un m'a dit que...

Two and a half years ago, I ran into someone that I had met a year before that, at a party, and had one of those conversations with: those conversations where words fall together, into place, without any vacuum or space, like a Cezanne art-piece jigsaw puzzle on display at a museum gift store. Was it because we felt stunted by the foot-binding relationships we were each in? We talked and talked till dawn broke, and the heady aftertaste faded into a hangover of panic. In three short syllables, I freaked out.

It seemed to me like an option that would involve a giant leap in the dark, and I was averse to taking even baby steps out of my zone of comfort. I could see it all unfolding like a bad '80's flick (what was that movie, with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore and Elizabeth 'lack of pigmentation' Perkins?) and I wanted none of it.

So when the accidental meeting took place a year later, it was awkward. We must've exchanged email addresses or something, because I got a message a month after that, and never replied.

Today, when Marguerite and I driving out to get fries, she picked out a long-forgotten CD from the case in my back seat, a record that I instantly recognised as the one that had been playing at that party, three years ago. Mag said, "Wow, really? How do you feel? Do you regret it?" I thought long and deep. I didn't regret it, but the song gave me a feeling of, I don't know, jeunesse? La nostalgie? I wasn't sure how to describe it.

I turned to Marge. "Well, it's like this," I began.

And right then, a suicidal cat that had been waiting for that exact moment leapt in front of my car, and I braked, swerved, went over the kerb, then back onto the road, and foolishly looked back to see it scurrying off to safety, and hurriedly realised I ought to keep my eyes on the road.