Free Friday Mornings at Nine by Marilyn Brant

gave in and returned his message a week later, her fingers skimming across the keyboard like a child pretending to play a baby grand. Only, Jennifer hit every intended key:
     
    Michael and I met not long after graduation. (A bit of a dig since David had left her just BEFORE graduation.) His parents are great people, and mine just adore him. (Another dig, but David deserved it. Her parents hadn’t approved of David AT ALL.) We got married after 8 months and have been together for 18 years. (Double his marital length, so ha! Take that.) We have two daughters, one almost 15 and the other who’ll turn 13 this winter.
    About the reunion—a small gathering is fine. No need to change plans. I just wasn’t sure what to expect. Did you have a time in mind? (She wrote this even though it was ridiculous. This was DAVID—of course he had a time in mind. Most likely, a very specific one.)
     
    Four interminable days went by before his response came:
     
    Yes. I’d planned on Saturday night. Drinks at 5:07, followed by a few games of Monkey Pong. Dinner to start at 7:02 sharp. What do you think?
     
    She shook her head. Why, why, why did this guy still get to her? How, how, how did he know exactly what to say?
    Her: Sounds like old times.
    Then the messages followed each other in a flurry of text and type—each posted within twelve hours or less of the last.
    Him: Where do you live now?
    Her: Glendale Grove. A northwest Chicago suburb. You?
    Him: Just outside of Springfield.
    Interesting and odd. Because while Springfield was Illinois’s capital city and it had its share of data-related jobs, it wasn’t exactly the Technological Hotbed of the Western World. She hadn’t pictured him working for some small tech company. She’d imagined him in Northern California all these years. On business trips to Germany, Singapore, Japan. Or living in Champaign-Urbana at the very least. After all, U of I was based there and that had been their rival computer school, with more grads placed at Microsoft than any other university in the country. Even more than C-IL-U, their college. And that was saying something.
    Her: You’re not in Silicon Valley?
    Him: Nope. Look, no one signed up for the location committee, wanna volunteer? I could use a few suggestions. Maybe we could IM for a couple of minutes next week? Just about possible spots for the reunion. I’d appreciate your input.
    Oh, God. That was almost like talking live for them. More than 60 percent of their college “conversations” had been through online messaging, back even before AOL (when they used Quantum Link) and long before the rest of the nongeek world joined in the fun.
    Her: Sure. Next Thursday would work. I’ll be at home all morning.
    Him: Thanks. We can chat then. Say around 9:49?
    Her: Ha. Okay.
    Because, of course, thirteen had been their lucky number. Naturally, he would have e-mailed her first on the thirteenth of last month, planned the party for the thirteenth of another month, chosen every single digit or clock time he could possibly manipulate to be a multiple of thirteen (507, 702, 949…). Something no one but the two of them would have known or understood.
    But she’d known: It was David’s apology.
    And she’d understood: It was his way of making sure she knew he remembered what they’d shared.
    And now this new message on the day he was supposed to IM. So he had an info tech meeting this morning? Shocker. She’d be here at 10:14 A.M ., but she just didn’t want to make everything so easy for him. He’d always reeled her in with such little effort. She typed: Make it 10:27.
    She rolled her eyes. Yeah, she was really playing hard to get. She hit SEND anyway.
    And sure enough, precisely at 10:27 A.M . Central Standard Time, while she was halfheartedly working on one of her commissioned Web designs, her computer alerted her to his incoming instant message.
    David: Hi, Jenn.
    Her pulse sped up. She put her fingers to the keyboard and tried unsuccessfully to