Strange but True by John Searles Page A

right on blathering about Chaz. “I mean, what the hell kind of name is that anyway? His parents might as well have called him WASP idiot.”
    Melissa lets out a laugh, despite herself. Even that small effort depletes her energy more.
    â€œDon’t tell me. He went off to Princeton or some other Ivy League college. By now he’s probably in law school somewhere, thanks to his parents who greased the wheels for him by making donations every step of the way. God forbid people in this town make something of their lives on their own.”
    â€œActually, last I knew, he went into the air force.”
    â€œOh. Well, whatever. It’s still a stupid name.”
    Melissa glances at him in the rearview mirror again. Only this time, she stops thinking about Philip in relation to Ronnie. She finds herself wondering about the kind of person he has become these past five years. Last she knew, he was waiting tables at the Olive Garden over in Wayne and taking classes at a community college in Philadelphia. “Where were you living before you moved home?”
    â€œNew York.”
    â€œDid you like it?”
    â€œMostly, I guess. It’s crowded and expensive. But it’s a lot more exciting than Pennsylvania.”
    She asks him how long he lived there, and he tells her about four and a half years. He goes on to say that one night, months after Ronnie died, he got fed up with his job as a waiter and his part-time classes. In the middle of his shift at the restaurant, with his midterm poetry portfolio due the next morning, he punched his time card and walked out the kitchen door. A short while later he was on his way into the city. “I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t the job or the classes that got to me. It was my mother. She was too—well, as you just witnessed, she can be pretty unbearable.”
    It’s odd, Melissa thinks, because the way Charlene looked and acted from the moment she opened the door this evening was in direct contradiction to Melissa’s memory of her. She wasn’t thin, even back then, but she certainly wasn’t as big as she is now. And she used to seem so spunky and full of life. “Why did you come back?” she asks Philip.
    â€œLike I said, I had an accident.”
    â€œOh, yeah. Skiing.”
    â€œSkiing,” he says again, running his index finger around the rim of his turtleneck.
    She can’t say why exactly, but Melissa gets the feeling he is lying, or at least that he’s not telling the whole story. Either way, she lets the conversation die, because it’s none of her business and because she is distracted by her thirst. Despite the problem her swollen stomach presents, she manages to lean over and drag her hand along the cluttered floor, locating her bottle of Poland Spring. It’s the kind with a pop-top, which is supposed to make it easier to drink from, but Melissa finds it more difficult, since the water has a way of spilling through the gap where her front teeth used to be. As she lifts the bottle to her mouth and takes a sip, Philip finally brings the discussion full circle.
    â€œMissy, what you just told us doesn’t make any sense. It’s been too many years—”
    She pulls the pop-top from her lips, inadvertently making a faint tsk sound as she does. “Want some water?”
    â€œNo. Did you hear what I just said?”
    â€œI heard you.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd I told you already that I’ve only ever been with one person. Ronnie. On the night of our prom.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know what to say then, if you’re going to keep insisting on something so … so ludicrous.”
    â€œYou can say that you believe me.”
    â€œBut that’s just it. I don’t. And for that matter, I don’t believe a word that woman said on the tape. People like her are just out to make a fast—” Philip cuts his sentence short. Melissa can almost hear the