Fading

I don't think our old flames ever really leave us.  They're always there like the half-filled bottle of sunscreen you find in your beach bag every May, its opening caked with sand.

Maybe you go weeks, months, years without thinking of them and then one day they're there with you and your morning coffee and your newspaper and your cheese croissant.

Suddenly they're just there --a fleeting thought, a random memory, a similar face on the subway -- you think that's it and you go on your way. But that's not it and you see them again and again and they're just there and it's not that you want them to be. You'd rather them not, but they're there and they're familiar and you feel yourself pulled.

It wasn't always bad, you think, and you remember the sound of his laugh on the phone late at night when you were both too tired to have real conversations, the way it reminded you of a late show sidekick, and you remember it and it makes you smile, not because you miss him, or care about him anymore, but because he just showed up and now he's here, and what choice do you have really? It wasn't all bad.

"I just had a dream about you the other night," you say to him -- your dream inside a dream.
And he says, "I hope it was good," and then he smiles and you remember the dimples and you're glad he's back.
"Can't you stay?" you ask in your dream and he smiles and suddenly it's not him anymore, it's someone else and he's gone and that's it.

In the morning you think of him and you're kind of sorry it was just a dream. And in the afternoon you're still thinking about him and on the train on the way home you try to remember the last time you really saw him, what he looked like, what he was wearing, if you knew it would be the last time. And you remember yourself and you try to put your finger on what exactly was so different about you then and finally  you conclude you're just older now, that's all.

At night, in bed, you try to to sleep, but there's something pulling at you, tugging.

It was a July afternoon, sticky, you were in his backyard, he was reading Vanity Fair, and he asked if you were thirsty.

"Yeah," you answered, "You have any beer?"

"No," he replied, reaching for his wallet, "but I'll buy if you fly."

You stand up and take his money, your arms are full of freckles, you're wearing those Nine West flip flops with the little black bows and a shirt he later says makes you look washed out. Your hair's pulled back in a ponytail, and you're wearing those cinnabar earrings you used to love. It's before you lose one getting out of the car of a date you never want to hear from again.

It's before the last time you ever see him.

You remember all this at night when you can't sleep.

In the morning you brush your teeth in the bathroom before work. It's February. It's years later. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror between rinses and you notice the freckles have faded. You try to remember if they fade like this every winter, you try to remember five years ago, you try to remember the dream, you try to remember him, but all you can picture now are the cinnabar earrings, long and oval and carved. They were your favorite.

'What ever happened to those? 'you wonder as you lock your front door and leave for work.