My Dinner With Andy (and Audie)

Not often enough do I have the opportunity to dine with my old schoolmates. ‘Partners in Crime’ might be a more apt description. We had a knack for ruffling feathers in high school, but always managed to escape without too heavy a punishment. I had done some work for a local bistro and had received three gift dinners in trade. After making the appropriate calls, we met at Audie’s house for a drink and then proceeded to the cafe.

Andy was in good spirits, having gotten over a brush with ill health, and Audie was his usual impish self. It’s fun to see friends change over the years, and also see how they haven’t really changed at all. Still schoolboys at heart, even to the point of recalling old girlfriends, or those girls we wanted to be. I brought up the possibility, God forbid, that if any of us lost our spouses, would we be looking for another? It was, to each of us, our greatest fear. In truth, we are not the schoolboys we once were, when any meeting with the fairer sex suggested an unlimited future. No, we finally have started to act our age, I suppose.

The mirror is unforgiving.

Time continues its march unabated.

But our friendship endures, and when we slipped away from each other that evening, our memories endured. And when those memories fade, and our time finally runs out, only a snapshot of three friends (taken by an obliging waiter) might survive.