Forever Sumner
Saturday morning found me standing on the side of Leary waiting for the six thirteen AM bus downtown. I was wearing all black. Black round toe wedges. Black pencil skirt. Black ballet top and black jacket. Black underwear and a matching black bra. Black bag carrying a back-up black top and a pair of back-up black wedge sandals. Being that it was six am in the morning I was afraid that the bus might pass me without notice. I was so dark I blended in with the early morning darkness and the shadow of the trees surrounding my bus stop. Fortunately my bare legs are quite pale and contrast with the black enough to indicate that there was something more than shadows at the stop. My bus was late but I managed to get to the train station before Erin. We were assigned seats across from each other in the second to last car. Erin was wearing all black too with the exception of her denim jacket and blue bag. She read her novel, I read my weeklies. I barely noticed what blurred by in the windows. It was too cold on the train and after an hour or so of reading about other people we decided to sleep. We had to wrap tshirts and coats around us to stay warm enough to fall asleep and it felt like only moments had passed before we woke up in Portland. The warmth outside was immediately noticeable and as we trekked up the hill it became apparent that wearing all black was going to make standing in a park in the sun less than comfortable. Julia picked us up after we finished lunch and before I knew it we were getting back out of the car and walking down the sidewalk into the park. Pictures had been posted. One hundred best friends were there and by the time everyone was talking about Ryan I was frozen. It took about an hour before we could convince ourselves to move out of the sun. We were bright red and sweaty. Everyone wore sunglasses. Not everyone wore black. There was enough laughter to distract from the sadness. There was enough stories to fill a day. A book. A made for TV movie. Its all still a little bit too surreal. Eating a late lunch afterwards with girls I haven't seen in one place together for seven years. I felt old. But not too old to drink Peach Champagne. I passed out the buttons I made. At one point I found myself in the post-party stairwell smoking a cigarette surrounded by buttons. Everyone had one pinned to their hearts. I knew at that point I could leave. We made the last bus home just in time. This time there was no sitting next to eachother. There were too many people. I had to bite my tounge more than once to avoid getting in a fight with the fellow passengers. I think the five Pabst Blue Ribbon Beers I drank, the sunburn I endured and the realization amongst the chaos that is the Greyhound that Ryan was dead were too much to bear. We made it home fairly unscathed, our black clothes wrinkled and our backs stiff from attempted sleep and when the cab dropped me off and our car was parked in the driveway and Lily was on the lawn and Erik was in the bed it all fell away. I promptly removed all of my black and sunk into my white and green bed.