That First Time

Bob Kline was sitting at his computer, reading and then deleting a number of old letters from his soon-to-be ex-wife Yvonne, when he received an email from a sender he didn't know. Its subject line contained a name—Annabeth Cole—he didn't recognize either. The email read:

Is this the Bobby Kline who went to Westover High in 1988? If so, I'm sorry to tell you that Annabeth Cole died several months ago. She wanted you to know. If you have any questions, call me. Sorry to bring bad news.

At the bottom of the message was a number and a name: Vicky Jeffords.

Bob stared at the email for a long time, not understanding it at all, eyes still damp and blurred from the hour he'd spent reading Yvonne's old love letters. In the early days of their marriage her job had kept her travelling, and she'd sent him dozens of them, each one impossibly sweet. I'm just looking out over the ocean and missing you. He tried now to pull his thoughts together.

Annabeth Cole? He was the Bob Kline this Vicky wanted, but as far as he could remember, he'd never gone to school with an Annabeth. He dug for a while in his closet, pulled out his yearbook. He didn't see an Annabeth—or a Vicky, for that matter.

He went to the kitchen of his apartment and opened a can of beer. Then he punched the number from the email into his cell phone. A woman answered after two rings.

This is Bob Kline, he said. You emailed me—?

Bobby! she said. This is Vicky. Thanks for calling.

Her voice was completely unfamiliar.

Sure, he said. Listen—I'm the guy you want, but I have to say I'm a little confused. I don't remember going to school with an Annabeth.

Annabeth Cole, Vicky said.

Help me out. How did I know her? Did I know you?

After a few seconds of silence, she said, Not as well as you knew Annabeth. You slept with her once. If that narrows it down any.

I did?

She and I went to East Oaks. She met you at a—

And then Bob knew. Annie? he said. Holy shit.

He sat down hard on the couch and put a hand over his eyes. Annie. It had been what—eighteen years? He'd forgotten her last name. And if she'd ever told him her full name was Annabeth, he'd forgotten that too. A picture of her came into his mind: a small, slender girl, long sandy-coloured hair, glasses. He'd only known her a week, if that. They had slept together, just once, when he was seventeen.

She's dead? he asked. How?

Cancer. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Vicky told him the story while he stared at the beer can on his knee. She had been Annabeth's—Annie's—best friend since grade school. And Bobby had met Vicky soon after he met Annabeth—did he remember? At the pizza place? He told her he did, but this was mostly a lie. He remembered a girl, sitting across the booth, while he flirted with Annie. A place-holder shape in his memory. Was she tall? Maybe blonde?

Vicky told him she went to stay with Annabeth in Chicago for the month before she'd died. Towards the very end they talked a lot about the old days, and about what to do when Annabeth was gone, and Annabeth had written Bob's name on a list of people who might want to hear the news. Then Vicky tracked him down on the web.

There are a lot of Bob Klines, she said. You're a hard man to find...

Vicky then told him about the service, three months past, but he didn't listen. When she was quiet again he said, Look, I guess I don't remember Annie and I...ending up on the best of terms. Back then.

I don't either, Vicky said.

Was she—was she still angry with me?

It was a stupid question, and he knew it the moment the words were in the air.

Vicky said, Well, you were her first time.

Yeah, he said, rubbing a knot at the base of his skull.

And it was kind of intense. I mean the whole thing. She was pretty messed up, after you dumped her.

Yeah, he said again.

Vicky said, Well. She thought you might remember her. And that you'd want to know.

I do, he said. Thank you. Listen, Vicky—

He could barely believe he was saying this.

I'm not like I was then. I mean, I was seventeen. She was such a sweet girl. If I could do it over—

Hey, Vicky said, we were kids.

He couldn't even picture the outlines of the girl Vicky had been, but he could see her now, on the other end of the phone: a woman with her head in her hand, tired and sad. He wanted to say something else to her, to console her. But while he was thinking of what that might be, she said, I should go. I'm sorry, Bobby.

When she'd hung up Bob went to the patio doors and opened the blinds. He lived in an apartment overlooking downtown Indianapolis, fifteen floors up. The sun was setting, and the city lights were coming on, which was more or less the best thing that happened to him any more. He'd been separated from Yvonne for six months, and hadn't been doing much since but working and then coming home to sit out on the balcony at night, drinking and watching the lights, telling himself he'd done the right thing.

His head was pounding now. He decided the circumstances called for a switch from beer to bourbon. For a little impromptu wake.

Bob picked up a bottle and glass from the kitchen, and took them both outside on to the balcony. A helicopter darted overhead. Next door he could hear a lot of people talking, the sound of music playing—jazz. He had classy neighbours on that side.

He finished the bourbon in his glass and tried to find grief for poor Annie in his swimming head. He couldn't. It was somewhere outside of him, but faint, like the music he could just hear through the walls from next door.

Annie Cole. He'd broken her heart. Not on purpose, but all the same he had. He meant what he'd said to Vicky—she had been a sweet girl, and he'd been stupidly cruel. When he'd thought of her these past eighteen years, it was to wish her a happy life, a good husband, a big yard with kids and dogs. Had she told him she wanted those things? Or had he simply given them to her, in his mind? He couldn't remember.

He lifted his glass, first to the party next door, then to the big glittery mirror-windowed office building across the street, where a few sad souls still worked; in this light he could just see them, ghostlike, through the reflective glass. To Annie, he thought. He wasn't a religious man, but for her sake he hoped there was a heaven, someplace far away from sickness, from people like him.