Don't I know you?

Perhaps, nostalgia may have been swirling around the wrinkles of my brain. I'd skipped my high school reunion not a week before. Maybe, my mind had taken to inventorying every face I had ever seen and culling them for those that were still relevant in day-to-day or year-to-year existence. Whatever was going on, I seemed to be nearly recognizing a number of people. There on the Metro, wasn't that the girl from high school pom-pon squad who also taught at the local gymnastics class? No, her face had been thinner, her nose more angled. As my old classmates walked a fine line between remembering and reliving, I stared at Ultimate players who tend to look similar anyway and was sure I'd find one I used to know. I didn't.

A week later, as luggage slowly tumbled from the conveyor belt, I spotted a girl I'd known in middle school. She was taller than I remembered, older too. She found a man and they embraced. I looked away and waited for a suitcase. The man stayed and the woman left. I was tempted to walk up and ask him if the woman he was waiting for might be the girl I once knew. I was dissuaded from this notion as the kinked metal went round and round. I looked back and saw that the woman now waited for the man. She was propped comfortably against the wall, an instrument case at her feet. The girl I had known played an instrument of some sort, but then at that age most of us did. There was no hurry about her. She was waiting patiently. Unable to silence the voice in my head, I turned and walked up to her.

"Are you Lisa?" I asked.
"Yes." she said, quizzically.
"I'm David. I think we went to middle school together."
She looked at me stunned and then said, "We were in Science Olympiad"
I don't know whether it was a statement or a question, but I confirmed that we were. We had a brief conversation, the kind you have after a surprise greeting from an adolescent teammate who now sports a beard, very few mutual acquaintances, and 13 or so years between the last undoubtedly awkward interaction. It was middle school after all.

I fled before her fiance returned and could only cackle with glee at the thought of her telling him that some guy from middle school had just recognized her.