Not Larson.

I ran into an old friend today. Normally this doesn't happen, and if I see anyone I just turn around and walk away. But she saw me before I saw her.

"Mimi?" She asked as I was looking at clearance; and she was looking at baby clothes. I forgot her name.

"Oh my god! Its you!" I stalled trying to figure out her name.

"Wow. It's been a while." She didn't look pregnant, besides she's only a year younger than me. She was holding several onesies. Ana. That's her name.

"Damn it has been. What are you shopping for.?" I ask, indication her clothes, she had grown more, standing almost a foot taller than me.

She holds up her pile of clothes, "baby clothes, not for me!" she laughs, "for my adviser, she just had a baby boy." Advisor? "So what are you doing now?"

I know what she is asking, am I still drawing, dancing, doing any of the things we planned on? I act nonchalant replying, "Dancing, at the Cat Scratch Club"

Her eyebrows raised, "Oh. Wow."

I shrug my shoulders, silently hoping she was working at Mc Donald's or something, "So what are you doing with your self?"

"I'm going to college, for art. Got a scholarship and everything." Damn, I think, she actually is doing it.

She starts heading for the counter, I flush red, she is doing it. Living what we had dreamed on, together, without me. She turns around, "oh damn I forgot, you got to come to my show, its opening night next week, well its not my show," she smiles, "But I am showing some of my stuff there." She digs out a piece of paper and is searching for a pen; she got one out of a colored pencil bag. Yup. She's and artist. She writes it down along with her cell phone number. "So have you heard from Angel? I heard he moved up around here."

I bite my lip, "He died."

"What? You got to be shitting me."

"No. He died last fall, got AIDS and whatnot."

"Damn."

"Ya." I'm not going to say that I have HIV, or that I have only been clean for a few weeks, that I dropped out of our life plans. That I am a failure compared to her. I see Roger outside the store; he is waiting on me, smiling. Mark is sitting on the bench behind him, scanning the view with his camera.

She pays and leaves, turning left instead of straight. She smiles and waves, I wave back. I watch her run up to her own group of friends, they too are Bohemian in appearance, but they are likely clean, if they are in college like her. I go up and hug Roger.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Who were you talking too?"

"An old friend."

"From the Cat Scratch?" He is genuinely worried about me.

"No, from school."

"Then what's wrong?"

"She's just going somewhere in life that I will never see."

An Steph, hope your having fun.