The scarf

I must admitt that on the exhausting hill laden hike that Megan and I perform twice a day we get to pondering about the relationships of our classmates. As if spending 30 hours a week with these people doesn't clue me in enough about them. But I'm grossly curious. "If only I could be a fly on the wall of some people's lives," I tell Megan. "Mmm Hmm," she responds. I must say this every day.

A few weeks ago I am in the back of the room standing near Dan, a transformed gentleman with a cute little fiance whose project has been to turn Dan from regular guy style to guy chic. Literally we have observed the transformation. I am always the first to comment on Dan's bright colors, tucked in collared shirts, and bright green pants that are from Express. And if I don't Dan will bring it to my attention. "Notice my blue shirt today, Jenny?" Always, Dan.

"So my girlfriend and I are going to take our engagement pictures next week," he tells me with an excitement that I reserve for malted milk balls, Halloween parties, and baby horses. "Lizzy already has the outfits picked out. We will both be wearing green sweaters fro J Crew- me a darker green and her a lighter shade- and we have matching scarves."

"Scarves?"I repeat. I am picturing silk wound around the neck with triangle ends flowing. I am picturing Jean Harlow cruising around in a convertable or sidecar of an old fashioned motorcycle. I am picturing feminine to an exponential degree. Dan is in none of these images and I cannot and do not want to place him there. "I need to see these pictures," I tell him with tenacity. He is happy with my interest.

Today I get a tap on my shoulder. Dan is sitting behind me. Okay, the first tap is actually to tell me there is a bug crawling around in my hair. It became a class involved effort to rid the bug from my hair. The second tap is to hand me a little black book of photographs. At our fifty minute break I am suddenly the center of a swarm of classmates. We are apparantly all grossly nosey about each other's lives. I am flipping from monochrome green picture to monochrome green picture. Dan and Lizzy are adorable. There is a picture that I suddenly can catch a voyeuristic view of the antique ring we all know Lizzy almost dropped into the Mississippi upon proposal.

"The ring!" I exclaim as though I have just spotted the treasure of the treasure hunt. As I pull the picture closer to my face, eight faces grow closer to mine and the picture. "Where? Where? Where?" And suddenly we are laughing. Lizzy's hand is in the corner of the picture and it is too tiny to see any detail. Yet we are all squinting to make out it's aura. Who are we to be so reactive to the same thing? Who are we to be so interested in the outside lives of these people we see every day? There is a sense of closeness that I feel at this moment, however, and I love it.

"I love the scarves," I tell Dad. They are winter scarves and they are different colors. The pictures are quite beautiful and Dan laughs when I tell him what I was anticipating. "I need to see the ring though."

"Maybe I will bring her in for show and tell one day."