You Think It, I'll Say It(25)
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Who?”
“The blonde by the fireplace, but I’m sure it’s not her.” It was 2008, we were at the fanciest resort in a fancy western town, and I had graduated from high school in Cleveland in 1992. It’s not that the area where I grew up wasn’t nice; it was a suburb inhabited by families with dads who worked in law or finance, and even though my high school was public, it was cushier than a lot of private schools. But the hotel where Jason and I were staying was mostly a ski resort, and this was in July. Running into Ashley Frye in the off-season would have been odd, and besides, the woman who looked like her was with a man who was probably fifteen years older, a little heavy, and generally too fatigued-seeming and unremarkable to be attached to Ashley Frye. “That girl was the queen of my high school,” I said.
“You were close friends, I assume?” Jason was smiling. He knows what I was like as a teenager—flat-chested and stringy-haired, the daughter not of a banker but of a science teacher—and my husband appears to find it endearing, this vision of me as awkward and clueless, I think because he considers me so confident and strong-willed now. More than once, he’s said, “You have bigger balls than I do.” If this is a compliment, obviously it’s not one that most women hope to receive from their husbands.
I put down a three of spades, then Jason played the three of hearts and said, “Six for a pair.”
“Maggie?”
The Ashley Frye look-alike was standing beside our table, the older man slightly behind her. She laid her palm against her chest. “Maggie, it’s Ashley from Clarke High.” Her hair was a more honeyed blond than it had been when we were teenagers—it looked expensively dyed—and she had the same ski-jump nose and wide green eyes. She also had crow’s-feet, lines at the corners of her lips, and a certain haggard leanness through her face. She was definitely still pretty, but not like she’d been in high school; that pretty had seemed to guarantee whatever life she’d wanted, whatever boy, whereas the pretty she was now was that of a well-groomed, mid-level professional—a pharmaceutical rep, perhaps. Nevertheless, I felt an old, visceral insecurity that manifested itself in an impulse to cover up our cribbage game with my hands. This was when Ashley said, “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I just said to my husband—this is my husband, Ed—I said, ‘Maggie will have no idea who I am, but I have to go over anyway.’ I know everyone must tell you this, but whenever we see you on TV, I’m like, ‘I totally know her!’ That’s what I say, right, Ed?” She turned back to me. “Ed and I just got married. We’re on our honeymoon.”
I hesitated—partly because I wasn’t sure what to make of her effusiveness and partly because, although Ashley didn’t seem aware of it, I actually hadn’t appeared on television in nearly two years—and Jason said, “What do you know? We’re on our honeymoon, too.”
Ashley’s mouth fell open with delight. “What are the chances?” she said. “When Ed and I made our reservations, I thought, This is such a weird time to come that I bet the whole resort will be a ghost town.” I had imagined the same, and been surprised when we checked in to find the lobby abuzz. Ashley extended her hand to Jason. “Ashley Horsford,” she said. Glancing at me, she added, “That’s what I go by now. Still getting used to the sound of it!”
Jason introduced himself and half-stood to shake her hand, then Ed’s, and I shook Ed’s, too. He made a one-syllable noise of acknowledgment, possibly something that wasn’t an actual word. This was the husband of Ashley Frye? He was okay, not ugly, but there was nothing about him that made me remotely jealous. He was like a generic man I’d end up next to on the flight from O’Hare to LaGuardia, hardly notice as I sat down, never really look at as I worked on my laptop during the flight, and not recognize by the time we reached the baggage claim. His face was broad and ruddy, and he was balding, with a few brown locks brushed back from his forehead and fuller hair along the sides. He wasn’t fat, but he had that paunch you sometimes see on guys who were high school athletes and have spent the decade or two since then working a sedentary job and drinking a steady stream of alcohol. Another part of what made him seem older was that he was wearing a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt and a blazer, while Jason had on a long-sleeved T-shirt. We hadn’t eaten dinner at the resort but, instead, had walked to a pizza place in town, about three-quarters of a mile away, and by the time we walked back, the temperature had fallen below sixty degrees.
“When did you guys get here?” Ashley asked.
“Just today,” I said.
“Oh, you’ll love it. We got here— Ed, what day was it? I’m already losing track.”
“Sunday,” Ed said.
“Right, of course, we’re staying Sunday to Sunday. How stressful is it having your whole wedding and then you’re supposed to jump on a plane the next morning? We almost missed our flight.”
“Jason and I actually got married four months ago,” I said. I felt a sort of hierarchical confusion about how to act toward Ashley, how nice or standoffish to be. If she hadn’t started gushing so quickly, I’m sure I’d have been willing to take the deferential role—old habits die hard—but clearly I now had the opportunity to present an aloof version of myself she’d never met. My confusion was different from the usual confusion I felt when approached in public, which almost never happened anymore. Back when it had happened, I couldn’t be sure if the person was going to praise or attack me. The biggest clues, I’d realized over time, were age and gender: My peers, both male and female, tended to be like Ashley in thinking it was cool that they’d seen me on TV, while women my mother’s age were likelier to scold me, taking me to task for betraying feminism. The first time this had ever happened was at the gym near my office in downtown Chicago; it was a middle-aged woman, and I ended up talking to her for half an hour by the elliptical machines, defending myself—I went on a monologue about due process, and by the end of the conversation, I was very flushed, even though I hadn’t yet started exercising—but I quickly realized that trying to explain my job, or the American legal system, served little purpose. Within a few weeks of that gym encounter, I stopped saying anything more to my critics than “Obviously, you’re entitled to your opinion.” Then I’d walk away.