Exit, Pursued by a Bear

"The End," students write blithely when they finish a composition.

No one writes "The End" for us, though each of us has an end, some already too early like my friend Sara Askew Jones and some whose end is coming too soon like Charley, one of my best college friends.

In Charley's and my senior year, the director scheduled George Bernard Shaw's Candida so we could play opposite one another. Otherwise, we never would have since we were the same coloring and same height. Besides, I specialized in Earth Mothers and he in youthful romantic leads. But in Candida, I could be the "older" woman and he the "younger" man, and I adored being adored by him.

I still adore Charley even more than I detest what is happening to him and what has happened to Sara.