Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 8, May 2014 by Mike Resnick

Author:Mike Resnick [Editor] [Resnick, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Asimovs, Analog, clarkesworld, strange horizons, Lightspeed, Darker Matter, Locus, Speculative Fiction
Publisher: Phoenix Pick
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Original (First) Publication

Copyright © 2014 by Robin Reed

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Nancy Kress is the winner of 5 Nebulas (so far; she’s up for another, but we’re going to press before the results are known) and 3 Hugos. We’ve run her reprints in the past, but this is a brand-new never-before-published Nancy Kress story.

DO YOU REMEMBER MICHAEL JONES?

by Nancy Kress

.

Carol Kincaid and her husband, whose name began with either J or K, stood across the room, drinks in hand, talking to Dave Bukowski. Dave had put on a lot of weight. Carol had lost a lot. Above their heads drooped the red-and-gold Mylar banner: WELCOME CLASS OF ’79! Tiny bits of Mylar hung from the sagging top like bird droppings sliding down a window. I forced myself to cross the room and talk to them, because what was the point of going to your high-school reunion if you didn’t talk to anybody. Carol looked up. “Jim! How nice to see you!”

I hugged her, shook hands with Dave and either-J-or-K. Carol’s eyes were so sunken in her drawn face that they almost disappeared. She had been our prom queen. A year ago she’d been diagnosed with cancer. That was almost the last thing Maureen had told me before she left.

“Good to see you, too, Carol. How are the kids?”

“Gone. Like everybody’s kids. After they leave college, they all move to other states.”

Dave smiled. “My sister’s son moved clear to another country.”

We chatted for a while about kids, me trying not to remember the terrible conversation with Nicole when I’d told her that Maureen and I were separating. Nicole always sided with her mother, her whole life, but of course this time she had reason. Neither Carol nor Dave asked about Maureen, which told me that they’d already heard the whole sorry story. I wished I had stayed home with a glass of Lapharoaig and the last of my smuggled Havana cigars.

Dave said, “Oh, there’s that girl from my chemistry class—will you excuse me? I’m going to ask her to dance.”

“Sure,” Carol said. “Go for it.” As Dave hurried off, she shook her head and laughed. “We none of us change, do we? He couldn’t get girls to notice him in high school, and he’s still trying.”

Carol’s husband—Jack? Keith?—said, “When I went to my thirty-fifth, none of the people I wanted to see showed up. It was a major disappointment.”

“Oh, you,” Carol said, “you’d have been just as disappointed if they had. All those old nerds still wearing plaid pants and carrying calculators.”

Jude-or-Kevin laughed, and at the glance of real and deep affection that went between them, my heart suddenly hurt as if I’d been kicked in the sternum. Maureen and I had that once, but no more.

Carol said, “You know who I wanted to see here and don’t? Michael Jones. Do you remember him?”

“Yes. He was … I think he was at my wedding.”

“Really!” The sunken eyes sharpened. She had been so beautiful once, fresh as morning in a blue tulle prom gown. “Did you know that he saved my life once? Literally?”

I shook my head.

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