When You Were Young

‘Mom, could you tell me how you and Dad met?’ My eldest daughter, Rose, stood in front of me, her long brown hair framing her face as she looked up at me brightly.

I was slightly confused as to why she had suddenly asked me such a question; she was nearly 17 years old and had never really shown any interest in how her parents got together. Despite that, I nodded and she sat down, shuffling the chair inwards so she could rest her elbows on the table.

The dish towel in my hands was damp and slowly growing colder, leaving my hands with a chill as I pulled the fabric between my fingers. ‘Where do I begin?’ I sat down across from her and flipped through my internal scrapbook looking back to that first night I saw him.

‘Andie, come and dance!’ My best friend Julia called to me, trying to drag me over to the dance floor.

I resisted, attempting to call over the music that I needed to go to the toilet. Pushing my way through the people, the bass of the music pounded through my chest and every surface of the club. The air hung over me like a cloud, it so stuffy it took serious effort to make every breath. In and out, in and out. By the time I reached the toilets, I saw the queue snaked around two corners, so I decided to turn away and try to find somewhere to sit; my five and a half inch heels torturing my feet.

Miraculously, I found a booth in the far corner of the club that was empty. Dropping to the seat, I tried to take off my shoes gracelessly falling off of the seat in the process. My earlier choice to drink two mojitos in 15 minutes caused me to burst out with wild laughter.

A warm hand placed itself on the small of my back; I looked up to see icy blue eyes piercing my own. ‘Need some help?’ he asked with a chuckle. I nodded, and he helped me off the floor, picking me up fireman style and placing me on the couch in the booth.

We sat in silence for a few moments, well, as much silence as you can get in a nightclub that was blaring a drum and bass remix of a Lady Gaga song.

He leaned over to me and in my ear he said, ‘Spencer.’ Matched with his words, he stuck out a hand. I shook it gently and replied ‘Andie’.

‘Hold on,’ Rose said, waving her arms demanding me to stop. ‘Spencer? As in, Uncle Spencer?!’

I nodded before continuing. I heard a small breath of ‘ew’ before I recommenced.

We sat together in that booth for a while longer; the concept of time was completely lost on me in the club. It could have been a few hours or mere minutes – to this day I’m still not sure.

Spencer and I talked, laughing as though we were old friends. We both retrieved our cell phones and exchanged numbers. Just before Spencer slid his back into his jeans, his phone lit up with news of an incoming message.

‘Ah, that’s my friend Brendon; he says that he wants to leave.’ Standing with reluctance, Spencer pulled me into a hug. ‘Call me, we should hang out sometime’ were my parting words.

‘Definitely,’ he grinned at me before moving from the booth and getting lost in the mass of people in the centre of the club.

No more than 5 seconds later, Julia emerged from the very same crowd and pulled me towards the door.

As we got out into the cool night air, I caught view of Spencer from the corner of my eye. He hadn’t seen me, but I watched him slide into a black car followed by another smaller, dark haired man.

‘Who are you staring at?’ Julia piped up, looking in the same direction as me at the car as it pulled away from the curb.

‘Oh, just some guy I was talking to before.’

Her demeanour changed from tired to excited within a split second. ‘Ooh, a guy? Was he hot?’

I laughed at her, since she got engaged; her single days were being lived vicariously through me. I was so used to it; I just reeled off a few facts that would satisfy her need for information about my possible conquests. ‘About 5 foot 10 or 11; blue eyes; light brown hair; slim build; gorgeous smile; around 22, maybe 23 years old.’

She grinned delightfully before flinging her arm out into the road with the hopes of hailing a cab. A few seconds later one pulled over and we left the club.

Over the next few weeks, Spencer and I texted back and forth, only silly little things; we filled each other in on the goings on in our lives. We hadn’t got the chance to meet up because we were both very busy. Spencer was with his friend Brendon practising, and I was busy with my new job as an English teacher at Pasadena High School.

But one Friday night, we were both free, so we decided to meet up. I went over to his house in Altadena; I parked my car next to his on the driveway and made my way up to the front door.

Three sharp knocks and a few seconds later, Spencer stood at the open door, greeting me with a hug and ushering me inside. ‘Is it okay that I parked my car on your drive?’

He waved his hand, ‘No, that’s fine. No problem at all.’

We sat on his sofa for nearly four hours watching re-runs of Doctor Who on BBC America. I was so taken by Spencer’s humorous qualities, he had a sharp wit and was always the first to laugh at himself, it was something I admired very much.

My stomach made loud protests about its lack of food and I couldn’t help but laugh. Spencer offered to order some Chinese, I accepted and he went off to find the number of his local takeout.

We finished eating and multiple empty cartons adorned Spencer’s living room floor as well as three or four beer bottles. I stacked up the cartons while Spencer picked up the bottles and I followed him out to the kitchen. He put the bottles by the sink, and turned around to see me standing by the door, arms full of cartons looking for the trash. He laughed before opening a cupboard door that revealed the trash.

‘Who hides their trash like that, man?’ I giggled; he pushed open the bin so I could drop the cartons inside.

I turned around and bumped straight into Spencer. We were chest to chest, but neither of us made an attempt to move, and without a second thought, I moved closer; he moved closer and we kissed.

After we parted, I rested my forehead on Spencer’s chest. ‘So…how was that for you?’ He asked no louder than a whisper.

Moving back slightly, I placed my hands on either side of his face, cupping his jaw. ‘Nothing, I felt absolutely nothing.’

Spencer let out a sigh of relief. ‘Oh God, neither did I!’

We laughed together for a few moments. ‘So I guess, friends it is.’ He kissed me on the forehead and replied, ‘Yeah, and that’s fine with me.’

‘So wait, you made out with Uncle Spencer? What the hell, Mom?!’ Rose said, her face disgusted.

I held up a finger and waited for her to stop going on about how “freaking gross” it was. ‘We didn’t “make out”,’ I added air quotes for emphasis. ‘We kissed once, and then we realised that we were better off being friends. That was almost 20 years ago and we still talk to each other near enough every day!’

She kept quiet after that, prompting me to go on.

Soon enough, not a day would go by when I wouldn’t see or talk to Spencer, he quickly became an indispensible part of my life.

One evening, I’d arranged to go out with Spencer for dinner. We were going to this fancy restaurant in Hollywood. About 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet, I was in a cab on the way to the restaurant when I got a call from Spencer.

‘Andie, I’m so sorry, my sister is flying in unexpectedly tonight and I have to go the airport to pick her up.’

‘Oh…okay then,’ I said getting quite annoyed that I got dressed up for nothing. ‘Is it Crystal or Jackie?’

‘It’s Jackie; she’s coming into town for something to do with applying for college out here.’ He said, a hint of apology in his tone.

‘Tell her I said hi, I’ll probably see her while she’s here anyway.’ I leant forward to tell the cab driver to turn around and take me home when Spencer began to talk again.

‘Brendon said he’d come and meet you. He felt really bad that you were getting stood up.’ I smiled into the phone and thanked Spencer. ‘He said he’ll meet you there, there’s a reservation under the name S. Smith. Brendon said he may be a few minutes late, but he’ll be there as soon as possible.’

‘Thanks Spence, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

‘Have a good night Andie, love you.’

‘Love you too,’ I said before hanging up the phone.

Although I’d been friends with Spencer for near enough a whole year, I’d only met Brendon a handful of times. At parties and the occasional time when I’d dropped in at Spencer’s unannounced, he was always so nice to me and seemed like a great guy.

I arrived at the restaurant and a waiter led me to a table for two and with my gin and tonic, I awaited Brendon’s arrival.

No more than 15 minutes later, Brendon walked into the restaurant. I waved him over and he sat down, not before kissing me on the cheek.

‘It was so nice of you to come and meet me Brendon.’ I smiled, patting his hand lightly.

His lips crooked up into a smile, ‘It’s no problem, I felt bad and plus this is a great opportunity for us to get to know each other a little better.’ I nodded in agreement as Brendon ordered a Jack and coke.

Dinner flew past, along with a few more drinks and in no time we ended up in a club dancing and doing tequila shots. The next thing I remember is waking up in an unfamiliar bed and feeling like someone was pounding my head with a pneumatic drill with every movement I attempted to make.

After the full minute it took me to lift my head off the pillow and sit up, Brendon poked his head around the door. ‘Ah, I see Sleeping Beauty is finally awake.’

I silently held up a hand to cease his words. I then wagged my finger at him, telling him that speaking was no longer an option if he wanted to see it to the end of the day. He quickly gathered that not only wasn’t I joking, but that I was terrible when I had a hangover, it took four cups of strong coffee and half a can of red bull before I was anywhere near ready to talk to anyone.

With a bright green mug clasped between my hands, I asked, ‘So…what happened last night?’

He turned slowly from the pan of scrambled eggs he had on the stove and shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure, but seeing as how we both woke up completely naked, I don’t see many options.’

Another round of my daughter’s protests brought me back to the present day. I’d become so engrossed in retelling the story, that I’d forgotten who I was talking to. With an apology, I dived straight back into the story, it was quickly becoming more and more for my own purposes than it was for telling Rose. I hadn’t thought about how Brendon and I had gotten together for years.

We’d been so happy for about 19 and a half years, with three children. Rose was our oldest at nearly 17; we also had 14 year old, Jenna, and 12 year old, Benjamin. At the beginning of our marriage, we’d had some struggles; we knew we wanted children but we had some fertility problems. I had a low fertility rate, and our doctor said that we probably wouldn’t be able to conceive naturally. She told us to keep trying, but to also think about other options. I was distraught about not being able to mother a child, and not being able to give Brendon the kids he’d always dreamed of.

We toyed with the idea of surrogacy, but I wasn’t sure I could watch another woman carry a child for us because I couldn’t do it myself. After a while we began to look into adoption, but before we were able to get too far into that process, I fell pregnant with Rose. Ecstatic isn’t even a good enough word to describe it, I was so happy that all I could do was cry. And despite our problems, Jenna came along three years later, and Ben two after that. They were all our miracles.

Despite the fact that I’d quite obviously slept with Brendon, for some reason I didn’t regret it. Instead of using these events to make our friendship awkward, we developed and allowed them to help us become closer.

A few weeks later, Spencer appeared on my doorstep. ‘Hey Andie, how are you?’ He asked, walking into my apartment without invitation as he almost always did. ‘I’m not interrupting anything am I?’

He looked me up and down, seeing my pyjamas bottoms and the Panic! At The Disco t-shirt he’d given me early on in our friendship. Well, I say he gave it to me; I saw it in his house and sort of stole it from him.

Spencer turned around walked into my living room, before turning around abruptly and walking back out to me. ‘What’s Brendon doing here?’

I gasped and walked into the living room. ‘Mr Urie, how dare you be in my living room! Remove yourself at once!’ He grinned up at me from his spot on the sofa, while Spencer looked between the two of us confusedly.

‘Calm down, Smith. We’re just watching a bunch of films together.’ Falling on to the sofa, I let my head drop onto Brendon’s shoulder as Little Miss Sunshine played on the screen. We continued to watch the film, while Spencer stood in the corner not moving from his original position.

‘Well…’ he said slowly. ‘I’m gonna leave you two alone, don’t wanna be a third wheel.’ And he retreated to the front door.

Using Brendon’s leg as an anchor, I pushed myself off the sofa and walked him out.

‘When the hell did this happen?’ Spencer asked, referring to me and Brendon.

I shrugged nonchalantly at him. ‘I don’t know, when we went out for dinner we really hit it off…and we kinda ended up sleeping together…’

I opened the door for Spencer but he pushed me outside and pulled the door to. ‘What?!’ he whisper-shouted presumably so Brendon wouldn’t hear.

‘We ended up going to this club and doing tequila shots. You know what Tequila does to me Spence!’

He nodded knowingly, that simple gesture conveying that he knew all too well what tequila did to me. Combined with the fact that I was a very lovey drunk anyway; I came on to everyone after a few shots of tequila.

‘So, what’s going on between the two of you now?’ He asked going all Older Brother on me.

‘We weren’t really sure what to do after that night, so we decided to get to know each other and see if it turns into something.’ His harsh glance softened slightly. ‘Spence, I really think this might turn into something, I really like him.’ His harsh glance melted away completely as he brought me into a hug.

‘Brendon’s a great guy, but I still want you to careful. You’re both only 23, I don’t want any babies, I’m only 22, I’m too young to be an uncle!’ He jested before kissing my forehead and leaving.

‘What did Spencer say?’ Brendon asked when I found my place on the sofa again.

I looked up at him. ‘Don’t act like you weren’t listening the whole time!’ I whacked him playfully and he laughed with me.

‘Okay, I was listening, but only up to the bit where you told him about what tequila does to you. Then I felt bad, so I sat down and started watching the film again.’

‘I told him that I hope this,’ I laced his fingers with my own, ‘goes somewhere.’ Without looking back up at him, I rested my head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat underneath. Slowly, he began to rub his thumb soothingly over the back of my hand. His other hand was splayed across the bottom of my back, a certain warmth radiating from him that I never seemed to be able to acquire when I was alone.

-

Over the coming months, Brendon and I rarely spent a day apart. I’d either stay over at his or he at mine. I was lucky that he was recording an album, so he and Spencer were in town all the time instead of jet setting around the world playing for their fans.

While they recorded, Brendon would come to me with ideas for songs, songs that were halfway completed and songs that were finished. It amazed me how well he and Spencer were able to work together. Brendon had a small studio in his house, so they often spent evenings in there after full days in the studio that the label had booked for them to record in. Sometimes when I had no papers to mark or lessons to plan, I’d sit in on their sessions, and I was never anything but astounded as they worked on their songs. The way they altered them, or changed chords, or changed lyrics and how it made all the difference; it suddenly made me appreciate all of my favourite songs a little bit more. The craftsmanship that went into making just one song was something I didn’t have and it was something that I really admired in both of them.

One afternoon, Spencer and I had gone out to get some frozen yoghurt. For some reason, Spencer was acting a bit odd, not in bad way, but like he knew a secret that I didn’t. It got annoying real fast.

‘Smith, what do you know? Spill the beans.’

He picked up a spoonful of yoghurt and berries and shook his head defiantly.

‘Tell me.’

‘No.’

‘Tell me.’

He shook his head once more before tapping the end of his nose.

I knew he wasn’t going to give up the secret easily, so I let it slide; although I was still desperate to know what was going on. Aside from the secrecy, we had a good chat. He told me about his new girlfriend, her name was Nicole. He began to act all silly when spoke about her, so I guessed he was really infatuated with her. It was really cute to see.

On the way out, I picked up a yoghurt cup for Brendon and we made our way back to my apartment. Just as we were walking up to my apartment, Spencer stopped abruptly in the stairwell and told me had to go. To feed his dogs. I knew it was lie because I knew that every day for the past 4 years since Spencer had gotten his dogs, the first thing he did when he got up was feed them. Every day, without fail. I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously but he just ran off before I could stop him.

Slamming the door behind me, I went into my apartment. ‘Hey Bren!’ I called inside, thinking he was probably on the balcony. I’d come home many a time to see him sitting on the balcony, guitar in hand, just strumming away making up melodies on the spot as the city bustled beneath him.

‘Hey Andie!’ he called back. ‘Is Spence with you?’

‘Nope,’ I told him, dropping my handbag to the floor. ‘He made some bullshit excuse about his dogs then bolted.’ I walked down the hall. ‘Can you believe that, the man has never forgotten to feed his dogs and he expects me to believe…’ my speech trailed off as I surveyed the scene in front of me.

Brendon saw at the table in my living room, in a full three-piece suit. The table behind him was set perfectly, with all of my best crockery and two red candles in the middle, glowing brightly. Suddenly I was able to smell Brendon’s signature dish: vegetarian moussaka. It was my favourite thing that he cooked.

He held his out for me. ‘M’lady.’ He said curtly, pulling out my chair for me.

‘Brendon, what is all of this?’ I gestured around the room. He pulled out a remote and clicked a button, and a second later I heard At Last by Etta James flowing from the speaker.
‘Oh Bren, this is beautiful.’

Still not having answered my question, he ran off into the kitchen and returned with two steaming plates. Placing one down in front of himself, and the other in front of me.

‘I love you.’ Was the only thing he chose to say.

I smiled softly at him. ‘I love you too,’ I paused for second before realising that didn’t feel like enough. ‘I really, really do. You make me feel like the most special person in the world.’

Over the table, he took my hand into his. ‘You are Andrea, you are.’

A blush coloured my cheeks at him using my full name. I don’t think he’d ever called me that before and it was strangely romantic, making the eye contact between that touch more intense.

Rose lovingly interjected by making puking noises at this point in the story; which earned her a playful swipe with the dish cloth I was still holding.

‘Sorry mom.’ She said ducking her head. ‘That was actually really cute. Dad’s such a softie!’
I smiled, ‘I know he is, he’s just adorable!’ We both laughed together at one of the main men in our lives.

‘Did you know today is the 1 year anniversary of the night that I filled in for Spencer, the night that was technically our first date?’

I shook my head signalling I didn’t and immediately felt bad.

‘Well it is and I just wanted to say that you’ve impacted my life in a way that I thought nobody could. I’m a better version of myself with you and I feel completely lost without you.’

I gasp built in my throat.

‘I’m not going to bother to draw this out any more.’

The gasp got bigger.

‘Andrea…Andie, will you marry me?’

I let out a gasp before I practically jumped out my seat. ‘Yes! Of course I will Bren!’ I flung my arms open and pulled him close to me. When we parted, I looked into his eyes and saw that they were glassy with tears.

‘We’re going to get married.’ He said, and as the words left his lips, it all became real. We were going to get married; we were going to spend the rest of our live together. It all became too much joy for me to contain and a few tears slid down my cheeks. Our foreheads rested against one another and we just stared into each other’s eyes. At that point in my life, those few moments were the most connected I’d ever felt to any other person.