He remembered her at once. From across the room he studied her. Her hair was longer, and he didn’t remember the honey colored highlights. Those must be new. But the chin, ah yes, he knew that chin. Any time they had disagreed that pointed little chin had stuck out in defiance. Her eyes still shone with a passion. It hadn’t really mattered what they had talked about, she was always passionate about it; one way or another. He thought at first it had been because she was young but he quickly discovered that it was her nature. Those eyes, he remembered how they glowed in the candlelight like a cat.
Her hands moved continuously as she talked. If you held them she couldn’t speak. He loved those hands. He remembered holding them in the car, down by the river when they had been able to be alone, even in bed they had held hands. It had been almost 15 years but you couldn’t tell. Although she had put on a couple of pounds they had managed to enhance her curves. She didn’t have wrinkles. A few laugh lines perhaps, but that was because she was always laughing.
He wondered if she would know him. He had put on more than a few pounds. He now had a beard and mustache and all of it was full of grey. He wondered if she would remember. That passion, the fun, the joy they had shared. It had been short lived. He was her professor for one semester. The affair had lasted a mere six weeks. She had left the University after that. She had ruined him in those six weeks. He had stayed married for another 10 years after that but it was she that had occupied his thoughts, his dreams. His wife had said that he was always occupied with his work, but it had been her, always her.
When he stopped the introspection and looked up she was gone. He glanced around the room but didn’t see her. He panicked in that moment, to have been so close and lost her again. Then, he smelled her perfume as he turned she was smiling up at him.
“Hello Charlie, you’ve no idea how I’ve missed you.” Her eyes glowing in the candlelight.
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