The band had launched into their lounge singer's medley of Rolling Stones numbers. Deak found himself laughing as a feeble facsimile of "Under My Thumb" rebounded off the walls. "I used to scream along to this in my car," he told the twenty-year-old bartender, who smiled indulgently in response.
"Sound crew," a woman behind him said, as if it were his name. Deak looked around, fearfully expecting to see ex-girlfriend Mary Jo hovering there. A slightly plump brunette was beaming up at him, her face vaguely familiar. She had taken off her name tag.
"Okay, I give up," he said. "Sound crew."
"God, you're tall."
"I was supposed to get shorter?"
"People do, actually, as they get older."
"I have a painting at home that gets shorter so I don't have to. Who are you?"
Exasperated, she replied, "God, Deak, have I changed that much?"
It was the hair color, he realized all at once. She used to be a redhead. "Grezinski?" In one sweep, he set down his soda, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her off the floor. "Jesus, Pam, how are you?"
"Different, I guess."
"No, no, it's this stupid light show. I don't know if I'm meeting somebody or having an acid flashback."
"That's a joke, isn't it?"
"Part of it is." He let her finish her laugh. "Normally, I'd ask you what you're doing here, but we know that already. So I'll jump to timeworn pickup line number two. You look terrific. You really do--never mind I didn't know you."
Pam said, "You lie very well." She glanced past his shoulder. "Although, if you want to see somebody who really looks terrific, look at that." She indicated the direction with a bob of her head.
He expected she was referring to a woman, but even in the dimness and the shifting lights, Deak could tell who she meant. He had noticed earlier that the man seemed an anomaly. Of medium height, he was dancing a basic rock and roll step with a beautiful woman who could have been the daughter of an alumnus, and he was by far the better dancer. While those around him were wheezing through their steps, he danced carelessly, as inexhaustible as the sun. His gray suit--visible when he stepped away to spin the woman--had the double-breasted cut of Italian elegance. It was neither the sartorial splendor of a poor man nor of one who had dressed up just to impress the folks hereabouts.
"He looks like about a hundred high-priced New York lawyers I can think of," commented Deak. "So, who is he? Our chaperone?"
Pam Grezinski was smiling puckishly. "Do you remember the name Barry Kinder?"
The name immediately sparked the nasty memory he'd begun moments before with Eccles, stirring up a deep-seated hostility that dismayed Deak. The rage was short-lived; it gave way almost immediately to utter disbelief. The well-dressed dancer couldn't have been more than thirty-years-old. Deak glanced evenly at Pam. Calmly, he said, "I remember, sure. He was a swimmer, wasn't he? A smart little prick, too."
"Ooh. Right so far."
"Sorry, that's all, Grezinski," he lied. "It was a big class. He wasn't someone I hung out with ever. So, he decided to play a joke and sent his son in his place, huh? The kid looks thirty, tops."
"I'll add your name to the list who've noticed."
"Okay, it's not his son, I got you. Money doesn't buy happiness but it pays for lots of face lifts and injections. I think the whole fucking class has had them. On him it worked."
Pam still seemed puzzled. "But you're sure you don't recognize him, he doesn't call up any special memories?"
"I gather you think he ought to."
"I don't know. Earlier in the evening, I overheard him asking about you--if you were coming back for this. I was wondering, too. And here you are."
"He asked about me?" That didn't add up. Deak took out the reunion pamphlet. After a moment of thumbing through it, he exclaimed, "Christ, he's another dentist. Says here he runs his own clinic on Walnut. He sure doesn't dress like a dentist."
"How do dentists dress?"
"Mine always wears this kind of blue smock thing, and rubber gloves."
"Very funny. And what's wrong with dentists?"
Deak asked warily, "You aren't one, are you?" She shook her head. "You didn't marry one, did you?" Again she shook her head. "Are you married at all?"
"I am, and I was going to invite you to come meet him--"
"But now you've changed your mind."
"No, but because of this thing about dentists I think you should be kept under observation."
"Pay no attention--it's left over from a run-in I had with Eccles about thirty-one years ago. Is that too long, you think, to hold a grudge?" He glanced again narrowly at Kinder and picked up his soda from the bar. "So, lay on, Macduff," he said, and then followed her trail to the bleachers.
HOME | INTRO | NOVELS | SHORT FICTION | BIO | BIBLIOGRAPHY | LINKS | CONTACT