Ladderback Chairs.

Deanne arrived on my doorstep. You could have blown me away. We haven't seen each other for a couple of years, five maybe. She came into work and had lunch with me. How she found me, I'm not sure. She didn't say.

She is so beautiful.

It confused them at work, of course. So then I gave them the lowdown, I never have before.

Alex, school boy crush. He was vice captain of the school and the football team. He's dead now, I was shocked to read, in the old grammarian. The last I heard he had three sons, Alex, Charlie and James.

I daydreamed - the last time I saw him at an old boys dinner, I got really close to his ear and said, how about one more time, mate. He looked good. I wasn't serious. He took his wife's hand and didn't let go of it for the whole night, after that. He laughed and smiled, as if I'd just told him a joke. Then he said Christian, they way he always did, guttural and assertive, as he surveyed the crowd. His eyes said, I can't believe you.

Leah, the most beautiful blond you would ever see. We studied at uni together, in my aborted attempt at Economics. She went on to run corporations. She's smarter than me. We're still close. When I was first thinking about experimenting with guys, Leah would, some times, come around Sunday mornings and we'd sleep together. We found it very hard to let go. I thought it was forever. We were going to get married, everybody expected it. In every one's eyes, we were meant to be. The first great love of my life.

Aaron was a complete headcase, but beautiful. So sweet in his sober moments, but they got further and further apart. His time and Leah's crossed over. But really, I wasn't going out with Leah then. So I would have been cheating on Aaron, but I wasn't really going out with him either. Sex a handful of times does not a relationship make. We had great sex and he took all the alphabet drugs, way before I did, they sounded exotic, but that was really it. We both had Cooper S' then, his blue, mine green.

I was shocked when I saw him in the city recently and he didn't, appear, to know who I was. One of the lost souls hanging like a skeleton in the conscience of my past.

Deanne, so beautiful. My wog gene was kicking in for sure around the time I met her. Half Italian, dark and sultry. It was a meeting of the minds. It burned soft and low. Her passion was Ladderback Chairs, mine was Frank Loyd Wright, as we discussed design together. We are two of a kind. She used to shiver when she came with me inside her.

Mark changed my world forever. He stepped into my life one night and has never, really, gone away. I thought it was forever.

Lauri's green Italian eyes are the most beautiful you will ever see. Lorenzo Florentino Garcia, I love saying his name. Catch him running from the bedroom to the shower and you'll see that beauty didn't just stop at his face. He moved to new Zealand, broken hearted by the time I'd finished with him. We text often. See each other once a year.

Luke fell in love with both Mark and I. I adore Luke. He and Mark set up house together, in the country. I kind of drifted away, before I realised I had.

Josh was mischievous and fun. He stepped into my life, just when it all started to fall a part, after Mark left. Josh grabbed me, spun me around and set me down again. He's smart too. Amazing general knowledge, even though he doesn't see it himself. I tell him to go on How to be a Millionaire. He scoffs. He lives in Berlin.

Manny, sweet, good, uncomplicated.

Deanne sat opposite me, on the footpath in the sun and laughed that laugh. How many years have passed? We still look at each other the same way. She still feels good in my arms, when I hug her good bye. She's living in Paris, she was only home for a few days. There's no particular French man in her life, although she's liked a few, she said with a coy smile.

There are ladderback chairs in her Parisian apartment. She wants me to have at least visited a Frank Lloyd Wright, a down payment is probably out of the question, before we see each other again. She couldn't say when that would be. She came home for her grandfather's funeral. She has no plans to return.

See you when another grandparent dies, she said with a smile. I've only got two left.

I watched her walk up Flinder's Lane, until she disappeared. She still walks the same way, one foot in front of the other, with a little swish. Like Audrey Hepburn.

She looked sexy. Chuckie remembered and rolled around to have a look. Nah. But good to know.