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  He shakes his head, as if to chase away a foggy dream, and digs into his swordfish. Will Kat even remember him? Of the two of them, he has changed the most—less hair, sagging middle, wrinkles around the eyes, a salt-and-pepper beard. Back in the day, he and Kat had been what they called “an item.” For almost two years. She was “his first” in every meaning of the word, first crush, first love, first girl he went all the way with, first girl to break his heart. Joel considers now, in some ways, she was also the last girl to break his heart since technically he didn’t fall in love again until he met Meredith. How pathetic is that? he thinks. This graduation isn’t meant to be an exercise in self-evaluation, but damned if he doesn’t feel a tad inferior himself at the moment. All through college and graduate school, he’d flirted around, dating girls for a few months at a time, but nothing serious. Not because he never got over Kat—no, he won’t give her that much credit—but because he never clicked with anyone else completely. Until Meredith. And with Meredith, it wasn’t even about clicking, because his heart had locked instantly and completely onto hers. One hundred percent.

  Still, he wouldn’t be honest if he didn’t admit that Kat has stayed with him all these years, somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. That’s probably not unusual for a first crush, but they were more than that—at least he’d like to think so. True friends till their friendship fizzled out as suddenly as a white dwarf planet dwindles in intensity. On a frigid winter night when Kat had called from Berkeley to tell him she’d met someone else. Wow! Joel hasn’t thought of that phone call in years. Decades.

  He flags down the guy with a beer cart, helps himself to a frosty Sam Adams, and rolls the bottle across his forehead before taking a sip. Maybe it’ll freeze the pores in his skin that seem to be leaking sweat. Damn, it’s hot. The muggy, sticky air reminds him of a summer he spent out in Minnesota as a camp counselor, the nights as scorching as the days, the mosquitoes as big as horseflies. Between the heat and Kat, he’s not sure how long he’s going to last here. Meredith is saying something about how this feels like a college reunion, but Joel can’t really connect the dots. Everyone’s dressed up for sure, but aren’t they all here to celebrate their kids?

  He leans over and asks, “How long is this thing supposed to last?”

  “The invitation said five thirty to nine o’clock. I doubt it will run that long, though. Why, eager to get going already?” she teases. The band has kicked it up a notch, and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” floats across the steamy air.

  Now he wonders why they possibly thought it was a good idea to arrive on time—wouldn’t six o’clock have been preferable?—but he promised himself he’d be cordial the entire weekend, not the annoying plus-one on Meredith’s ticket. And he intends to stick to his word, bump or no bump on the head, Kat or no Kat. As casually as possible, he twists around in his seat to determine if Kat still lingers somewhere near the bar. But the drinks line—more like a mob now—has multiplied exponentially, and the odds of finding anyone in it are about as good as his locating his recently discarded beer cap.

  Maybe, he thinks, Kat won’t be able to pick him out of this crowd anyway, a thought that both relieves and pains him. It would be nice to catch up, find out what she’s been up to. He’s tried searching for her on Facebook and Twitter a few times but has come up empty. And now here she is at the same graduation awards ceremony as he. It suddenly dawns on him that one of these graduates milling about must belong to her. Remarkable. A son? A daughter? Twins? Somehow a son seems more likely, though he can’t rightly say why.

  “Are you all right?” Meredith asks. Her eyebrows are scrunched together the way they get whenever she’s worried, and she rests a gentle hand on his arm.

  “Couldn’t be better.” He smiles. “Just a little warm.”

  “You look a little...flushed,” she finally settles on. “Why don’t you go out and get some air before the awards ceremony?”

  As soon as she suggests it, Joel realizes that’s exactly what he needs. Some fresh air would do him good. A few minutes to regain his composure. He excuses himself, grabs his beer, and hurries outside.

  Thanks to the lightest of breezes, even the thick, humid air outside feels invigorating. Joel’s not typically a claustrophobic guy, but it sure felt like that tent was closing in on him. The sky is beginning to purple, and he unbuttons his top two shirt buttons, his jacket shed long ago. Beyond the tent, near a plot of dreary-looking hydrangeas, students clump together in small groups, the tangerine glow of a cigarette flickering like a firefly as they pass it among themselves. Several kids sit scattered across the back steps of Pratt Hall, and Joel eavesdrops on their conversation, of which he can discern only the hazy parameters. Something about a guy named Tommy, a car, and the dean of students. Whatever the story, it seems to have ended well enough, and the group breaks out in riotous laughter.

  Was I ever this young? Was I ever so carefree? It seems impossible to Joel. He vaguely remembers graduation day from his local college in Vermont, just a stone’s throw from where he grew up. Can recall the celebration afterward when he and his parents and a cousin went out to dinner at Applebee’s (Kat had celebrated with her own family). He even remembers their waitress, a young girl who’d graduated a few years ahead of him in high school. Her name eludes him now but her face still lingers, a girl who’d been in all honors classes and yet had never made it to college, standing beside his table and taking his order. Back then, he’d felt sorry for her, stuck in their hometown, no aspirations to speak of. But now, seeing himself next to these soon-to-be graduates, his own graduation celebration at an Applebee’s strikes him as marginally pathetic.

  The thought of a cigarette, though he hasn’t smoked in years, appeals to him, just like every now and then he’ll crave a shot of whiskey to steer him through the night after a particularly rough day at school. He’s thinking about how he might try to bum a cigarette off one of the kids when he recalls an elaborate report Cody wrote in sixth grade about the effects of smoking. Cody was such a gifted kid. It was evident early on, and though his teachers had advised them to transfer Cody to a gifted and talented charter school, Meredith had resisted, reluctant to split up the twins.

  Joel still considers it the right decision. Because Dawn was clever, too, her head usually buried in a book. In fact, one of the few disagreements he’d had with Meredith was over whether Dawn should be allowed to read at the dinner table—Joel had argued against it, declaring dinnertime family time. (It was one of the few truisms that had stuck with him from his graduate studies: family dinners were supposedly an important predictor of a child’s future success.) Meredith had been surprised that Joel, typically reticent when it came to disciplining the kids, felt so strongly about it.

  A gentle hand rests on his arm. “Joel?”

  He startles, still stuck in the memory.

  “I thought that was you,” Kat says, smiling. “How are you?”

  Is this the real Kat or just an illusion of the Kat he thought he saw earlier? Joel struggles to reorient himself as he peers at a slightly older version of the girl he once dated, once cared for deeply.

  “Kat,” he says. “My goodness! Hello!” His voice sounds overly jubilant, as if he’s trying too hard, and he feels himself wince. “What a surprise. You look great!” When he pulls her into a hug, her drink splashes onto his arm, prompting an awkward laugh from them both.

  “What are you doing here?” For a brief moment, he gives her an appraising look and concludes she’s more or less the same, maybe a few more lines etching the corners of her eyes. Still beautiful. “Don’t tell me we’re both old enough to have graduates here.”

  “Well, you are, but I’m not.” She winks. “I haven’t aged since high school.” A passing waiter offers him a napkin, and Joel takes it gratefully, blotting his arm that now smells faintly of vodka. Kat swirls the remainder of her drink with a swizzle stick and gazes up at him thoughtfully. “I
’m afraid I do have a college graduate, though.”

  Joel shakes his head. “Impossible. The girl I used to date was never going to get married, never going to have a family.” He wishes he’d thought to grab another beer as his current bottle, he now notices, is emptying fast.

  Kat tilts her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “Did I say that? Huh, I don’t remember.”

  Her admission, as truthful as it sounds, takes him by surprise. The Kat he remembers was adamant about earning a doctorate in psychology, even if it meant at the expense of a family one day. Occasionally, when they hung out in the parking lot after practices (swim for her, wrestling for him), she would mention graduate school, dreamily describing her life to come, as if she knew something he didn’t, the exotic outlines of her future evident only to her. Joel didn’t pretend to really understand, but if anyone could envision a future for herself, it was Kat, who walked around school cloaked in a wisdom that made her seem years older than the rest of them. Which probably had a lot to do with why he fell for her in the first place.

  “Her name’s Cassie. Short for Cassandra,” continues Kat. “You’d like her. She’s supersmart, but, of course, she wants to be a teacher.”

  “Reeally?” Joel draws out the word, pondering all the information that’s just been revealed, such as that Kat has a daughter, most likely a husband, and that she still thinks teaching is a subpar profession, implied by the “but” in her description.

  “That’s fantastic—I mean, that you have a daughter. I take it you’re still against teachers, then?” Joel had considered going into the classroom before he got his degree in counseling, but soon discovered he was a better listener than teacher. Kat thought if you were going to go into the business of psychology you might as well use it to help as many people as possible. She fantasized about opening her own private practice one day.

  She clucks her tongue. “I was never against it. It’s just that most teachers are still grossly underpaid. And Cassie is so smart, she really could make a difference in the world, you know? And make some money doing it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Point taken.” He smiles. She’s the same old opinionated Kat after all.

  “Oh, and I got married, which you probably figured out by now.” Joel takes another swig of beer. “For a few years. But he turned out to be a real bastard, as you might imagine.” (Joel is trying to imagine.) “So, I remarried, and this time I think I got it right.” Joel continues to nod, agreeing with everything Kat says. “Her name is Ruby. She works in finance. I think you’d like her.”

  His eyes widen at this pronouncement. “Oh,” he says, unable to respond with anything more. “Wow, that’s terrific.” He nods his head and can feel Kat scrutinizing him for a reaction. He’s walking a thin line here. He doesn’t want to disappoint her, either by overplaying the news or by appearing too nonchalant.

  “Yep,” she says now, as if he’s asked her to confirm it. “Turns out I prefer women to men.”

  A grin spreads across his face. Somehow, it’s comforting to hear these words coming from Kat, the girlfriend who once wielded such power over his heart. “Funny, me, too,” he offers finally, and Kat laughs.

  “What about you? Married? You must have kids.”

  “Yes and yes,” Joel responds. “Married for seven years now. Two stepkids, Dawn and Cody, both of whom are graduating tomorrow.”

  She takes a step back. “No kidding? I never pegged you for a father of twins.”

  “I know, right? Of course, no one ever thinks of himself as becoming a parent of twins. You kind of fall into it. Anyway, they’re super kids. Dawn ran cross-country, and she’s off to Chicago to work at an advertising firm, and Cody, like your daughter, has decided to teach.” He’s talking too fast, saying too much, but he can’t stop. “In fact, he’s working out at a reservation in North Dakota this fall, teaching Native American high school kids.”

  A passing waiter whisks away Kat’s empty cup, and Joel happily trades in his empty for a fresh Sam Adams. She smooths her dress across her stomach, one of those long maxi dresses that hovers above the ankle. “Wow, that’s amazing. Good for him. And good for you. I’m happy for you. You always wanted a family.” He smiles, unsure of the direction this meandering conversation should take next. Does he want to delve into the complicated web that represents his entire extended family, including Meredith’s ex-husband and former in-laws, who will be around later this weekend? Somewhere from the back of his mind, the answer catapults forward: no. The whole weekend stretches ahead of them—there will be plenty of time for further introductions, should they be needed, in the unlikely event he bumps into Kat again. And with over a thousand graduates, it seems pretty damn unlikely.

  “You never made it back to any of the Grafton High reunions, huh?”

  “Nah.” Joel shakes his head. “Reunions aren’t really my style.”

  She plows ahead. “And your parents? How are they doing? I always loved your dad. He was a funny bastard.”

  A small chuckle escapes from Joel. It’s true—his dad, a janitor at the high school, was opinionated about many things, including whether or not Grafton High would win the championship football game any given year. “They’re okay. Both at an assisted living place down in Florida now. It’s pretty tough for them to get around these days.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Kat’s face pinches into something like concern. “Well, tell them I say ‘hello.’” The various groups outside are beginning to thin out as people head back into the tent for the awards ceremony. “It’s funny,” she says, as if a memory has snuck up on her. “To this day, whenever I think of you, I think of pistachios.”

  “Pistachios?” He has no idea what she’s talking about.

  “You don’t remember?” Her eyes flash, a mixture of daring and mischief. “Pistachios and lobsters?”

  Oh. One weekend they’d gorged themselves on a giant bag of pistachios that Kat’s mom had bought at one of those supersaver stores. With a million discarded shells lying at their feet, Kat compared pistachios to lobsters. “They have a lot in common, you know.” Joel had given her a hard time because he couldn’t fathom how the two were remotely similar. Lobsters and pistachios? How do you mean? When you get a bad one, you have to toss it out? Kat shrugged. Isn’t it obvious? she explained. You put in all this effort for little return. One tiny nut, only a morsel of lobster meat. She squeezed her finger and thumb together, as if to demonstrate exactly how little. An analogy that had struck him as both crazy and incredibly insightful at the time. Now, in retrospect, the memory swoops over him for what it was: two friends enjoying each other’s company. Probably a few beers were involved, as well.

  He grins, feeling himself sliding into their old rapport. “That’s right. I forgot. Too much work for too insignificant a return, right?”

  “Something like that.” This larger metaphor suddenly seizes him with a sickening feeling. Is this what Kat had concluded about him during her freshman year at Berkeley? That Joel was too much work with too little in the way of return? But, no, that’s ludicrous. She’d met someone else. The long-distance relationship thing was hard, impossible. From the sounds of it, Kat didn’t want to sign up for a serious boyfriend in the first place.

  “Well, it was really nice bumping into you.” She’s smiling at him. “Guess I should get back. See you around this weekend?”

  “Yeah, sure thing,” he says. “That would be great.” He knows he should head back to his own family, but he doesn’t want to follow too closely behind, lest Kat thinks he’s stalking her. He waits until she rounds the entrance to the tent and wonders if her daughter, Cassie, knows Dawn. Or Cody. He doesn’t recall either twin’s mentioning a Cassandra or a Cassie, but then, what teenager tells their parents every detail of college life?

  He’s not sure how well he’ll handle meeting Cassie, if it comes to that. Will he be struck by the thought that
she could be the daughter he and Kat might have had together instead of Kat and the bloke she apparently married? He hopes not. To be honest, he’s not sure how adeptly he’ll handle any of this weekend. Wistfully, he thinks again of his guidebook for stepparents. If only there were a chapter he could turn to about bumping into an old girlfriend, your first true love. Who is now married to a woman. And then having to return to your family as if nothing has happened.

  Well, can things get any stranger? He sure as hell hopes not. After draining the rest of his beer, he tosses it into an overflowing recycling bin and steps back into the tent, bracing himself for whatever might come next.

  And that’s when he spots Roger, sitting at their table, his gaze resting squarely on Meredith.

  SIX

  Dawn can hardly believe her dad actually showed up. Roger isn’t supposed to be here tonight because of work, but it’s nice to see him. She’d like to think he came because, in the end, it was too difficult to stay away—he wanted to see his kids on the night before they graduate, before they take flight from the proverbial nest. Unfortunately, though, a part of her assumes he has come only because of how it would look if he didn’t. Bad publicity.

  So much of what her dad does these days seems to hinge on how it will play for business purposes, which is, of course, totally annoying. Will he be photographed in the society pages of The Boston Globe or Boston Magazine? Her dad is “a man about town,” gracing various charity functions, usually with his arm wrapped around Lily’s slim waist. With every photo that runs in the paper or online, Dawn thinks her mother must die a slow death. Not because Meredith still has feelings for Roger, but because it’s as if he’s rubbing his good fortune in her face. Look at the hot tamale I ended up with! Not too shabby, right? Sometimes, if Dawn spies a particularly fetching photo of Lily and her dad online, she’ll text her mom to tell her to avoid social media for a few days.