by: Mark Thomas [[email protected]]
date: 09/11/95 06:27 AM



My friend Grant once told me a New year's Eve story that I 
remembered the other day, can't remember what prompted me to 
recall it.

Grant is in his 40's, and he was saying that when he
was in college 17 years ago he had met this woman named 
Cindy, and they fell in love; he asked her to marry him
(they had been dating for 2 years), and she said yes, she 
would marry him.

Thing is, a few days later, she just kind of vanished, and he
never saw her again. Without so much as a word to him, she
moved to California, never returned his calls or his letters,
never acknowledged any of the gestures he made to her through
their mutual friends, and he spent the better part of a year
in the greatest confusion, wondering what he could have said
or done, but knowing that there could not have been anything
so unforgiveable that it could have murdered such a fantastic 
relationship as theirs.

after a year or so of thinking she would somehow repent and
at least offer an explanation, he moved on to other things,
and in his own mind he treated the whole disappearance as a
death, the kind of thing for which there is no mercy and no
answer.

17 years later, at 2 minutes before midnight on December 31st, 
1991, Grant was with his wife and several friends in their
apartment in New York City; as midnight approached, the
telephone rang. Grant answered, and as soon as he heard her
say "Hello, Grant," he knew it was Cindy.

Grant told me that for some reason he grabbed himself at the
throat, and he squeezed his neck very tightly as she slowly
and tinily said "I was calling to say I'm sorry. I hope
you're doing well."

Grant started to laugh. Cindy said "Can you talk to me?"
He shouted "No! This is not a good time. I can't talk right
now." She said he could call her later, and she gave a phone
number, but he didn't write it down, and he threw the phone
onto the hook before she finished whatever her next
statement was. It was 30 seconds before midnight, and he
rejoined the party back in his living room. He told his
wife about the incident later. She said that she somehow
understood how a woman could do something like that, and
he said that in a strange way, so could he. But he was
instantly transported back to his first encounter with real 
pain and real disappointment and frustration, and it 
occurred to him that that was only the beginning.

I don't know why he told me this story, but as with so
many stories Grant told me, I've remembered it with the
stinging regret that infects those stories which I myself
will someday tell.