Yearning

I've always wondered about the possibility of different pasts and futures. Playing things out in my mind, meetings, dialogues, fights, passion, farewells. So I'm not sure if what I remember here really happened, or if it was only one of those daydreams I so often lose myself in.

It certainly seems farfetched, a chance meeting like this in such a remote place, halfway around the world from where we last saw each other. But perhaps in spirit the two locations aren't so far apart, which is why I am not so sure of either the illusion or the reality of what happened. Gina and I bade farewell more than five years ago in San Diego, amidst the eucalyptus trees which lend the University of California campus its idyllic quality. Yet the San Diego eucalypts seem almost unreal now, cheap imports of indeterminate species, as I sit surrounded by the majestic karri eucalyptus of southwestern Australia, reflecting upon both that last farewell and yesterday's once-in-a- lifetime encounter.

She never mentioned the song. I have spent five years imagining what she thought of it, yet somehow I feel it is not my right to ask, or perhaps to know - in spite of my desires, which are more akin to yearning than curiosity. I have, of course, "gotten over" it, which by no means suggests that I have forgotten. Or wish to forget. I do still think about Gina often, and since the initial confusion and hurt subsided it has been always a pleasant, nostalgic experience. I always wanted to believe that she was happy, though I felt it was my right at times to wish otherwise. And I suppose she managed okay, as did I, even though the past five years didn't turn out like either of us had planned.

Gina and I had been best friends, not lovers - at least not in the physical sense. It was both a source of frustration and inspiration when it came to presenting and defending ourselves against the greater world, which states, Hollywood style, that Harry and Sally simply have to get married in the end. I think that proving ourselves to the world was, to me at least, one of the main reasons I fought so hard for our friendship during the rocky times. The disappointment I felt at the end was not so much because we had failed but because I felt that Gina had finally succumbed to the traditional doctrines and left me standing alone. I realized that my absence from the wedding would serve only to reinforce the appearance of some romantic, now unfulfilled, undertones to our friendship, but feeling cheated as I did I simply couldn't bring myself to attend. What are you supposed to think when your best friend announces that she's getting married, and you never even knew there was a boyfriend?

We had seen our share of difficult times, of miscommunications, resentment, misunderstanding, reconciliation. Gina was never good at keeping in touch from a distance, and two and a half years of intermittent relocation overseas certainly put our friendship through its paces. She also had many friends and often spread herself too thin in an attempt to give enough to everyone, inevitably disappointing most of us. I had finally begun to accept the fact that she wasn't going to answer all my letters when she called me long distance and broke the news, and try as I might I just couldn't feel happy for her. Selfishly, I thought, your best friend ought to at least know what's going on in your love life before you tell him you're getting married. It wasn't like she met the guy in a whirlwind romance either - ten months had gone by and even though she only wrote three times, she never once mentioned this James person.

I remember the phone call. "Eric, guess what (giggle), I have some news..."

Something in my heart was already prepared, I don't know why. "Don't tell me you're getting married."

"How'd you guess??" More giggling. I wanted to say I couldn't believe it, but somehow I could.

"To who, may I ask?"

"Oh, you'll love him. He's wonderful, his name is James."

I had never heard of James before. "Umm... did I miss something somewhere?"

"I know, I know, it's a long story." A sigh, and I could sense her smiling over the phone line. "The past ten months have just been so strange... I was so confused for a while that I didn't tell anyone about him. My family didn't even know until two weeks ago when he proposed."

There must have been a lot that she didn't tell me in her letters. Something inside me, though I didn't want to admit it, went ppffft and disappeared.

Six months later, and I have finally finished my Bachelor's degree in Social Psychology. Though we are the same age, I am graduating a year and a half behind Gina because 1) it took me a year longer to figure out what I wanted to study, and 2) when I finally decided, my year spent in Scotland didn't count because I had studied something else there. During my final year, Gina has been working in Paris doing occasional translation jobs. She has come back from France, not, I imagine, just to see me graduate (for I do not bother with the ceremony) but because her younger brother Marcus is also graduating from UCSD. James, who hails from somewhere in North Carolina, is still in Paris tending to his post-graduate academic duties. The wedding is only four months away.

In spite of the relative coolness of our communications over the last six months, Gina has graciously set aside a whole day for me out of her brief and cluttered visit. At least that's how I see it; her enthusiasm at seeing me somehow isn't as contagious as it used to be. We spend a leisurely morning down on the boardwalk in Pacific Beach, but it seems somehow flat, almost insignificant. Our conversation has never needed to be about important things before, but something is missing today. It's only after lunch, over cafe mochas at Koala Java, hidden in the eucalyptus grove in the middle of campus, that it finally comes out.

"Gina..."

She takes a spoonful of whipped cream of the top of her drink. "Mm hmm?"

"What's happening today?"

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly. Didn't it seem... well... it just doesn't feel like anything."

I look into her eyes as I wait for her to speak. The same hazel green eyes, the same bright face, the same smile, but somehow it doesn't matter anymore. I don't want to admit it.

She should be puzzled, maybe hurt by my dispassionate complaint, but she simply looks at me. With understanding, perhaps? I can't tell. "I'm enjoying myself today, Eric. Tell me what's the matter."

"I... I don't really know how to say this... because I'm not sure I want to believe it?" I close my eyes for several seconds. "I just don't feel like there's anything left, Gina. Something... something happened over the last six months. I just can't imagine making the effort anymore." It sounds terrible, it's not like I'm trying to dump her, after all she was the one who dumped me with that phone call, wasn't she?

That's it, isn't it. She had told me, in so many words, that I wasn't worth it anymore, no reason to treat me like the best friend I thought I was. All without saying anything, because she didn't say anything, for so long last year. Christ, before any of this happened, during our last good time together, I had asked her if she would, when the day came, be best man at my own wedding. And while she had eventually accepted, the first thing she thought about was: isn't it inappropriate for a woman to be your best man? It was only one of many times she hurt me without realizing it. Asking her to be my best man was so much more poetic, meaningful, than simply saying You're my best friend. You mean the world to me. It was saying You are the sister I never had, and I want you by my side when I fall in love and get married. And she didn't get it.

"Eric, I want you to know that you'll always be special to me, no matter what happens." This is the truth, I know, because I feel the same way. I wouldn't give back my friendship with Gina for the world. But I won't ignore the fact that it's gone now, much as I want to.

I have to know if she feels anything left.

"What would you say if I didn't come to the wedding?"

She looked at me for a while. "I don't know. Of course I want you there, but if you can't make it then I'll understand."

What is that supposed to mean? "Please, Gina, be completely honest. I've never asked you before. How important is it to you that I be there?"

I can't tell if she's hurt or not. "Eric, I want you to come only if you want to. If you're not there, I'll always remember that you couldn't be there, but I'll understand."

Six months ago, if she had told me that she wasn't coming to my wedding, I would have been devastated.

"I'm sorry, Gina, I just can't make it."

I had written songs for Gina before. Simple ones, when I was first experimenting with my creativity and getting used to the sound of my voice. She had cherished them, I think, but I knew they weren't as lyrically or musically inspired as they could have been. The day I said goodbye to Gina, however, I knew of course there had to be one more, and this one would be the real thing. Everything I could never say before, for what did it matter now?

The lyric practically wrote itself that night. Three days later, I had an arrangement worked out, and by the end of the week my four-track had captured the most heartfelt and brutally honest song that I'd swear I could ever write.

Before I could think twice about it, I mixed down a copy to a cassette and put it in the mail to Gina.

It is now the middle of summer in Australia, and the heat is oppressive even in the normally cooler southern parts of the country. In the heart of the karri forest in the southwest, the air is still and the humidity is surprising. Australia is a warm place, and you learn rather uncomfortably that it's not all desert. Still, if I am stuck on this side of the country, I am glad to be in the south where at least it cools off at night.

I do ask myself what I'm doing here. Melbourne, with its unpredictable but more comfortable (if you don't mind the rain) climate, suits me much better. But it's not often that you get two weeks' vacation coinciding with cheap airfares, and this is my first time out to the west coast. It is beautiful country out here, and the peace and quiet are welcome after nearly a year of city life.

On a particularly lazy afternoon, I wander down a forest road leading out of the main business strip in Pemberton. There is a quaint little cafe several hundred meters along the way, nestled in a welcoming grove of karri and redgum trees. A leisurely afternoon of reading and sipping iced coffee sounds inviting, so I wander inside.

The cafe appears empty but there is something about it that still says "come in, sit down, relax as long as you like." The cheerful woman behind the counter takes my order, and as I turn to sit down, I notice that there is someone sitting in the corner by the window.

She takes a sip from her coffee and the smile of recognition slowly spreads across her face. By the time I have crossed the room, it is a laughing expression of surprise and disbelief. I think I am smiling the same thing, but I am not entirely sure, for as I have mentioned I have dreamt of this moment many times.

She stands and we embrace in welcome. It is reserved, not as openly warm as our hugs used to be, and I know that Gina is as unsure of herself as I am. But she shares in my delight as we are truly pleased to see each other.

"Eric, what are you doing here?" She says it first.

"I'm on holiday, but I live in Australia now. In Melbourne."

"Really? You know, somehow that doesn't surprise me. I always wondered if you'd stay in the States. What are you doing in Melbourne?"

My drink arrives as we sit down. "Right now I'm working for small private school, managing their computer lab. Bet you didn't expect that, huh? It's not a career, though - just a job to pay the rent. But I decided I'd try to settle in Melbourne as long as I could support myself. So how about you?"

"I'm on vacation too, I guess. Actually, it's more like a retreat. I wanted to do something totally different, you know how I like to surround myself with people all the time, well I decided to get away to somewhere really remote and sparsely populated. This seemed like a good place."

It hasn't escaped me that she is alone. "James isn't with you, then?"

"Things didn't work out with James. We divorced last year."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Am I?

"I have a daughter now too. Her name's Lesley. She'll be three in a couple of months."

"But you didn't bring her along."

"No, I felt really bad about leaving her, but it's only for three weeks. James and his mother have her while I'm gone."

I want to find out more, what happened, why she seems like she has taken in so much over the last five years. She has a serenity now that I don't remember, even with its hint of melancholy there is something, like a pride she never had, that says I can, I know now, and I will. But I am not sure if it is my right to ask.

It is hard, asking each other about the last five years of our lives, to relate simply the structure, the trivial bits about where we moved, what jobs we did, how we spent our vacations. All the stuff in between - the living that we used to share so closely - remains unspoken, unrevealed. How can I really tell her about the relationship that I had before I came to Australia, that lasted nearly two years, that changed my life in ways I couldn't describe in one afternoon? To Gina, Alice is only a woman I went out with for a while. How can I describe how I felt when thoughts and talk of marriage arose, and I knew that Gina wouldn't be there?

I realize that she has the same struggles. But there is something missing between us now, and after five years we are acquaintances, nay, strangers even. Finding out what happened to Gina, in the end, doesn't satisfy my desire to know. Perhaps nothing will. It is one of those things that exists only for the nature of its yearning.

I know better than to ask about the song. This is a subject in a class of its own, which cannot be breached in all but one in a million circumstances. She never alludes to it in our conversation. If she did, perhaps the wall would come down and all the things keeping us separate would melt away, five years of life could come pouring forth in one wondrous encounter. But old emotions, old wounds as well, too dangerous to risk facing again. Unthinkable, actually, for any sane person. If we have learned one thing in this life it is to be cautious.

Our exchange becomes noticeably freer, more relaxed, as we talk about the future. This is terrain where experiences and their emotions haven't happened yet, and anything is fair game. It is also a place where we can catch a glimpse of each other's real past, as we imagine from our plans and projections the forces that worked to shape the hearts we can't clearly see now.

I tell Gina about my desire to become a teacher, working directly with the students instead of simply cleaning up their computers for them. Of my love for the city of Melbourne, which is as close to a spiritual home as I will ever find on this Earth. I suppose that five years ago I might not have considered settling outside of California. I can't remember, really.

Gina shows me a picture of her future that is surprisingly uncrowded. She is more self-reliant now, excitedly sharing plans for graduate school, research work, her choice of fifty cities in which to settle and raise her daughter. She seems undaunted by the difficulty of rearing a child while single-handedly building a new life. I am pleased for her newfound confidence, but there is another, more disconcerting feeling in my heart as well. I am jealous of her life experiences for teaching her, finally, what I tried so often in vain to get across: you must realize your own self-worth before you can be truly happy and give to your full potential. I am your best friend. Please don't believe that you are not worth this; it is unfair to those who love you and care about you. Sometimes I thought that Gina was attempting to fill herself by giving; I never could get her to see that there must be something there to give in the first place. I often wondered how she would manage to raise a family; now I have the feeling that she will do just fine with Lesley.

It is early evening by the time we finish. Gina says simply, "I think I better go now," and it is the right time. Significantly, neither of us has asked for or offered an address or telephone number. By some unspoken agreement we have decided that there is no more to say, and that it is best if we do not voice possibilities that we both know will not see a chance of fulfillment. I think we both realize that it is better if this day remains singular, an important coincidence, fortuitous even, but with no loose ends reaching towards some future day which will concretely acknowledge its occurrence and strip away its dreamlike quality.

So we say farewell again, amongst the eucalyptus trees. I think back to the last time and a feeling of melancholy grips my heart for a moment. This time, I know, it is better, it is somehow right. We embrace openly, fully, and I wonder again if such days really do happen. The karri stand in their silent, majestic awareness, and as I watch Gina walk through them I think about what it means to forgive.

I still do not know what I was really trying to say with the song. I don't know if it hurt Gina, or if it made her happy to have known me so well. Yesterday, as I sat here after she left, I could only stare into the forest. I could sense the woman in the cafe wondering if I was okay, but couldn't bring myself to acknowledge her. Only when I realized that it was near closing time did I finally get up to leave, and she just smiled at me with a peculiar expression that could have meant either you poor thing or what did you expect to find?

Exactly why I returned today still escapes me. I don't know if I was trying to prove that it was a dream or not. The woman behind the counter showed no real indication of my time spent here yesterday; her greeting smile betrayed nothing and her cheerful questions about my travels could have been directed at any tourist. The coffee is excellent, but I don't remember what it tasted like yesterday.

After nearly an hour, I realize that it doesn't matter if my meeting with Gina manifests itself in the memory of this place. Something inside me knows that I saw her, and it was important. If it was a daydream then it was only because my heart found it necessary, for I feel strangely relieved now, like a burden has been lifted. I am thankful. Whether to this place, this cafe, the karri trees, it doesn't matter. My holiday to this remote corner of Australia seems to make sense now, and I can return home to Melbourne, which calls out to me like a beacon from across the vast expanse of this island continent.

But there is one more thing. I gather my things to leave the cafe, and as if I am still daydreaming, I notice a small note folded up in the pocket of my daypack. I hesitate, fearing that perhaps I am simply trying to influence the direction of my dreams. But my senses go out the window and the next moment the note is open in my hands.

"Eric,

Thank you, finally, for the song.

Gina."

I crumple up the note and leave it on the table, but I know I will spend the rest of my life wondering what she really meant.