The cat meowed. That's the end. Or, I guess, more the middle than the end. Well -- for the sake of clarity, let's say that the cat meowing is "someplace-in-the-story-that-is-closer-to-the-end-than-the-beginning." Except I suppose I've just begun the story with the cat's meow, so it's the beginning as well. Screw it. The cat is the pivot upon which turns the tale, if you'll excuse the purple prose, and I'll get to it at some point.

I was at a party at Allison Niece's house. You all know Allison, of course, providing you went to Prescott High School between 1994 and 1998. That narrows the field considerably, now that I think about it. . . I suppose introductions are in order. Allison Niece at the beginning of 2000 -- on the verge of turning twenty and looking fourteen, if you discounted the years in her eyes and her figure. She is five foot one, cute as a brass button; casually, honestly, and openly sexy as hell from her dark, bobbed hair to her big brown eyes to her smooth white legs to her cute little damn toes. Picture Audrey Hepburn, shrink her a bit, add a bit of Christina Ricci and you're getting close.

But there are plenty of pretty women in the world. What makes Al special is - well, women always have and always will make me damned uncomfortable, especially the pretty ones. I always feel like I'm being sized up, every thing I say and do carefully evaluated and filed for future reference. It's like playing a game of high-stakes poker - you never know what they have and who's winning, or if you're about to be stabbed in the back. Never knowing if your "hello" is heard as "hello" or "please sleep with me" or "I hate you." With Al, there wasn't any of that stuff, what I call 'The B.S.' She's as easy to talk to as a guy. There's no sweating anything, you can say what's on your mind and trust her to take it at face value and offer you the same courtesy. And she's funny as hell, too. Anyway, that's Al - she always makes me feel pleasantly light-headed, and if it wasn't for the fact that she's always got a boyfriend (and that she hasn't taken the slightest bit of romantic interest in me) I'd gladly spirit her away to some island hideaway. But, wish in one hand, eh?

So I'm at a party at Al's house. Her mother's house, to be more specific - the "Zucker Nowlan Dylan Niece Residence," thanks to plenty of half-this and step-that. It's three stories and huge, A-frameish at the top, and the back opens out onto a wide swath of moonlit grass. I'm drinking something I can't taste out of a Dixie cup, talking to Al and enjoying the sights, and I'm not entirely sure how I got there. Last thing I can remember, I was talking to her over dinner at the Gurley St. Grill. But I'm not too concerned, because the party's great.

It's not a college-kid party, now that I think about it. There's a long table with punch and refreshments and an ice sculpture on one side of the lawn, and I'm pretty sure there's a fountain tinkling away somewhere in the background. We're all in evening wear, except for Al - God bless her, she's wearing the same thing she wore to dinner, a white blouse with a black sheath skirt. She looks like a 1940's movie goddess, all blue and white in the moonlight. I wonder why there aren't any lights on, but the full moon gives everything a nice tint, and the house looms behind us silently in the dark, and it all looks pretty cool.

So I'm learning all about what's been happening to Al in the two years since I last saw her. I heard a lot of it over dinner, but I let her repeat herself because I like hearing her talk. She's resting one hand on my arm, and there's a cool breeze that blows across our faces but doesn't rustle our hair. "So we had only been on the dance floor a couple of minutes before he starts grabbing my ass!" she says. "And I said, 'Look, Daryn, this is not the reason I went out with you, I have a boyfriend and this was just for old time's sake, so why don't you go in the bar and I'll stay out here,' and he - Look who's here!"

And she turns and looks and I follow her finger and it's Aubree Wells, or whatever her last name is these days. And she looks great, too; when I left Prescott four years ago, she was heavier than she'd ever been and her complexion wasn't doing too well. But she looks like she did during high school - an Amazon, shoulders like a linebacker, breasts like an earth mother, a goddess and a class act and a wet dream. So I ask her how she's doing, and that I heard she had a baby and got married, and she smiles and says that's ridiculous. I mean (she says), did I ever want to get married and go all June Cleaver? And I laugh with her, because it is pretty damn silly.

And over there by the punch bowl is Will Meyer, with his shoulder-length brown hair, and it's weird because I saw him just last week and he was bald like he's been for two years, but whatever, y'know? And there's Tiffany Antone, talking and laughing with her tongue poked between her teeth like she always used to do, and she sees me and waves and it's great (because the letter she sent me in October '96 made it pretty clear where I could go and who would take me). And there's Kea Byerly, she hasn't fallen off the face of the earth. And there's Nicole Gambill , the elf-queen, talking to Mike Schmidt (she's talking to Mike? Stranger things have happened, but not many).

And - and Ryan Cunningham, as I live and breathe, back from the Navy, taking his shirt off and inviting everyone to pinch his nipples for good luck. And I look around and see more familiar faces and realize that the gang's all here, that they've come from Boston and Phoenix and San Diego and New York and Texas and West Virginia. People I haven't seen since the summer of '96, people I love, people that make it worth getting out of bed in the morning. It's the best party ever, better even than my house-cooling party before I shipped off to college, better even than my fabled eighteenth birthday party (which was complete with marauding cops and enough Cocoa Puffs to choke a horse).

After that, it's a bit of a blur. I don't remember going to sleep, but I wake up in my parent's house. It's my parent's house on Rosser Street in Prescott, and I remember something about them moving to Phoenix, but my head isn't very clear. And I realize that my memory is doing the same damn thing my memory always does - reducing that awesome party to impressions and shades, making it no more real than my memories of dreams. I pad out into the house in my robe, grumbling at my roommates (my roommates?) about how the greatest night of my life has already started to crumble into a dim memory. Sunlight is streaming through the bay window, and that magical moonlit night is a million miles away (alliteration, class, is the hallmark of fine literature). I dig my hands into the pockets of my robe and squint around the room, wondering where I put my glasses.

Then I see the cat. Remember the cat? I knew he'd show up eventually. He's a big tom - not fat, per se, just big, with broad shoulders and huge paws. He's the same grey as a rainy day, when the sky is one big solid cloud and it drizzles for hours. And he's crouched on the back of the couch just staring at me. And it's freaky, the freaky-deaky, as my erstwhile friend Charlie would say, because cat's don't stare, they don't have the attention span. Somebody breathes, or the heater comes on, or whatever, and they look away. but this massive thing just keeps staring at me with his clear blue eyes. And then the cat meows, long and loud, showing off those obscenely big fangs cats have -

And that meow splits the world open and sews it back together again. There's a ripple and a tear and I blink my eyes and my equilibrium goes dingy, because I've gone from standing up in the living room to lying down in my bed. In my bed in Flagstaff. It's January 2000, and I'm living in an apartment with three old high school friends, and I haven't seen Aubree, Tiffany, Nicole, Ryan, or Kea in at least two years, five for some. The cat meowing and scratching at my door is Saotome-Genma, a fat, spoiled, black-and-white spotted cat, and he's about as magical (and intelligent) as a Pop-Tart.

But - but - but -- my sleepy mind stutters and skips -- but you did go to Prescott yesterday. And you did have dinner with Al. And then there was the party. But now I can fill in the gaps. After dinner, I took Al home and we talked awhile, and then I picked up my roommate Zak at his parent's house and we drove the hour and a half back to Flagstaff. Obviously there was no party, it's impossible: Aubree did get married, Tiffany does hate me, Nicole hates Mike, and I don't know how to get in touch with any of them.

But I've been trying to call Al for months and haven't been able to talk to her, right? So how did we end up at dinner? I find that our great conversation at the Gurley St. Grill is taking on the same air of fantasy as the dream that followed it. Am I remembering Al the way she is or the way she was or the way I always wanted her to be?

My head is foggy and hazy and the shower doesn't help. And it's been that way for as long as I can remember, now that I think about it . I keep waiting for something to wake me up again - in my parent's house in Prescott, or their apartment in Moscow, or their new house in Phoenix, or maybe in my tiny room in Daryn's house, or the trailer with Zack Johnson, or the dorm room with Mike. How real is now, if I'm not even sure about what happened yesterday? How real was any of it? Am I about to graduate college? Did I ever graduate high school? Was I at some point six years old? Twelve? Sixteen? I must have been, but screw me if I can come up with one memory that doesn't have that shifty dream-slick all over it.

And dig this: I'm only 22 years old. My parents are about to turn fifty. If I'm so lost in memories and mired in the past and unsure about reality now, what will it be like when I'm their age? Or seventy? Or eighty? There's got to be a point when your life up until a few years ago is just completely gone and all you have to show for it is yourself, and at that point what are you? Wrinkles and bones and a decaying brain. Is that really what a life is for? What the hell good is a memory when you can't keep it?

So that's it. I'm stuck in a limbo of now, past only marginally more certain than future. It's a decent now, and it's all I've got, but ask me if I'd trade it for what came before or what comes next and I just might take you up on it. Right now I've got a few good friends, but fewer than I've had in a long time, and what else? Have you ever had a dream that's so much better than your real life that you almost cried when you woke up? Ever had that happen every day for a week? A month?

I've got a few good friends, but fewer than I've had in a long time, and I watch them slip away year after year. The women especially - Kea, Aubree, Tiffany, Nicole, Ann Marie, Claire, Leia, Rachel, Janelle - but plenty of the men as well, with no one to take their place. I've got a few good friends remaining, and what else? Ghosts and dreams and cats, and combinations thereof. 22 years, four home towns, six schools, hundreds of people come and gone: Ghosts and dreams and cats.