Never too old for "Hotel California"....

My friend Valentina was here for the New Year. I met her by the train station. I haven't seen in six years. I hugged her like I saw her yesterday. Her hair is now all the way down her back. It has really been six years!"Its all the way down your ass!" I scream with surprise. She hates it. She can never do anything with it. We decide to go to a pub. We get beer like we used to when we were 19 and broke.She asks me if that's really what I want. What I really want is a glass of white wine but I feel like I am 19 again....and broke. We comment briefly on the dingy state of the pub...and then proceed to talk about the only thing she wanted to talk about..."old age".She reminds me of when we used to go to the "scottish pub" and laugh at all the women..."what's she doing here? old cargo!" and we'll laugh in our drunken states. Then we'll proceed to the next stop which was always dancing to "Gypsy kings" or "Abba"...every Saturday night, the same thing. She tells me she always tells everybody I met the great love of my life dancing to bamboleo. She is devastated about turning thirty. "I am old!" she says.

"We are old! Like those women we used to laugh at!". I drink my beer and get another. She asks me if I do not care. "Why should I? I can't wait for it to be all over, frankly speaking, the sooner, the better. I am not so fond of life" I say. She hisses at me.She invites me back to a country I left six years ago. She paints a very appealing picture. Just the two of us, hitting the pubs, laughing like maniacs and eating noodles in the mornings, then she spoils it all by saying "we are fucking old!"

She doesn't look old. She is beautiful. We laugh, drink and gossip about everybody we know. Our lives are all different. Just one person got married among the old group."Its because he is catholic" she says. He married "the Bulgarian girl". I have no idea who that is. I am still recovering from the shock of not seeing the woman I thought was his "great love" beside him in those pictures. I tell her I almost had a heart attack. "Everybody is getting old, of course he has to get married". I explain that the heart attack was not for the marriage but for the woman. She says the woman I know has not been in the picture for years. I sigh.

Then we drink some more and she tells me that I should come for a visit. We'll do the pubs...and this time, the young girls will laugh at us.

She is impressed I do not smoke anymore, I am impressed that she does. I stand outside with her in the cold as she smokes. For a moment, I thought I would cry but I don't. I hug her like I will see her tomorrow and I walk home, humming "Hotel California" all the way. I wonder if she still knows all the words...she always sang along when it came on. Everybody did.