The Name Tag at Our Class Reunion

The gym

They had done a nice job. I want to say that, because it’s true.

Blue and gold crepe paper hung from the basketball hoops and looped along the bleachers. There were round tables with white paper tablecloths, and on every table a mason jar full of daisies and a little framed copy of somebody’s senior picture. The old scoreboard said HOME 19 VISITORS 96 because somebody had thought that was clever.

It smelled the way that gym always smelled, floor wax and old popcorn.

At the far end, under the home basket, there was a small wooden podium with a microphone. Next to it was an easel with a poster that said WELCOME HOME, CLASS OF 1996 and a printed program taped underneath.

I walked over and read the program. Six o’clock, social hour. Six thirty, dinner. Seven fifteen, welcome from the county clerk of courts. Seven thirty, memorial for classmates who have passed. Eight o’clock, dancing.

There was no name next to “welcome from the county clerk of courts.” Just the title.

I stood there a minute and let that settle.

Who saw it

I’m not going to pretend nobody noticed. People noticed.

Kim Schaefer found me first. Kim and Denise Fry were the two girls who drove me to my doctor’s appointments in 1995, after my mother’s car died and before Mike could get off work. Kim had a rusty brown Ford Escort with no heat, and Denise would sit in the back seat with a blanket over both our laps.

Kim hugged me so hard my earrings swung. Then she stepped back and saw the tag on my purse strap and her mouth went flat.

“Who did that?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“Kim,” I said. “I’m having a nice time. Let me have a nice time.”

She looked at me a long while. Then she said, “Fine. But I’m sitting with you,” and she went and moved her purse and her husband to my table.

Other people saw it too. I watched them see it. A man I barely remembered from shop class read it and looked away fast, like he’d seen something he shouldn’t. Two women by the punch table leaned together and whispered. One of them glanced at me and then at the sticker and then at me again.

Mrs. Moss

Mrs. Moss came in at quarter past six on her nephew’s arm, in a lavender cardigan and a cane I hadn’t seen before. She was seventy-nine. Her hair was white as milk.

People swarmed her. She stood there and let them hug her and called each of them by name, without a single miss.

When she got to me, she took both my hands. She had a grip like a farm wife.

“Madam Clerk,” she said.

“Mrs. Moss.”

“I hear you’re giving the welcome.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Donna told me at the beauty shop.” She squeezed my hands. Then her eyes went down to my purse, and she read the name tag, and she didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Well,” she said finally. “Isn’t that interesting.”

“Please don’t,” I said quietly.

“I wasn’t going to do a thing, dear.” She let go of my hands and patted my cheek. “I just want to make sure I have a good seat.”