by Claire Cook
B.J. was the first to spot Kurt. “The eagle has landed,” she whispered. He was standing off by himself, lighting his cigarette with his hands cupped around a Zippo lighter like the Marlboro Man. Once he got the cigarette going, he took a long drag in and blew it out expertly, managing to bounce his head more or less to the beat of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” at the same time.
As I watched him from across the room, my crush grew to epic proportions. “What a stone fox,” I whispered.
“A total stud muffin,” Veronica said.
“Far freakin’ out,” B.J. added as the grass kicked in.
We giggled our way across the room. We stopped when we got to Kurt, and I waited to see what would happen next.
A record scratched on a turntable somewhere and Alice Cooper broke into “School’s Out.”
“Wicked pissa song,” Kurt said.
There was nothing all that funny about it, since pretty much everybody in Marshbury talked that way, but that didn’t stop us. We dissolved into fits of laughter.
B.J. pushed me into Kurt. By the time “School’s Out” was over, B.J. and Veronica had disappeared. Kurt and I looked at each other. He held his cigarette off to one side and we started making out.
When I looked up, Finn was standing across the room, looking like a puppy that had just been kicked.
By Monday, Kurt and I were a couple. We sat together in study hall, doodling on each other’s book covers, our thighs pressed together, our dungaree-clad ankles intertwined under the long cafeteria table. The next weekend we skipped the party and went straight to the beach parking lot and watched Minot’s Light blink 1–4–3 for “I love you.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” he said.
I nodded, speechless, one part of my brain hovering over us, planning the way I was going to tell this to B.J. and Veronica later. And so then we looked through the windshield and he said . . .
With the motor running to keep us from frostbite, we climbed into the backseat of his parents’ station wagon with a blanket that just happened to be there. We split a beer Kurt had stolen from his father’s stash, and then we had sex. After that we drew pictures in the fogged-up windows and then he took me home.
By the following Monday he was back with his ex-girlfriend. Veronica found out before I did, in their French class. By last period, it was all over school.
He never broke up with me. We just started ignoring each other in study hall, and everywhere else our paths happened to cross. Finn and I also ignored each other. All this ignoring was exhausting, but I limped my way through the rest of senior year and then we graduated.
Eventually Kurt apologized. It was summertime and we’d both just finished two years of college in different states. I’d gone to the beach with B.J. and Veronica, because we’d all finally managed to get the same day off from our summer waitressing jobs. I walked up to buy us Popsicles from Seaside Market and saw him standing there.
I slowed my pace to give him a chance to pretend he didn’t see me. Instead he waited just outside the door.
“I was a total jerk,” he said, as if it had happened just last week and not two and a half years before. “You were too good for me.”
“This is true,” I said. I tossed my hair back and then adjusted the Celestial Wheel Signs zodiac beach towel I’d wrapped around my wet two-piece bathing suit.
He watched my every move.
I smiled sweetly. “But you did me a favor. You helped me appreciate my next boyfriend when I met him.”
When I pushed past him to go into the store, sparks flew between us like fireworks.
“Catch you later,” he said. I ignored him.
I let him chase me for the rest of the summer.
And then for decades I never let him go.
CHAPTER 35
The music had stopped, but the roar of conversation and laughter rose up to fill the silence.
Kurt took a long drink of his scotch on the rocks.
I put my purse down on the bar. The bartender came over with my drink.
“Last call,” she said to Kurt.
“I’ll have another one. Why don’t you make that a double. And whatever she wants.”
The bartender looked at me.
“Whatever you got me before, get me the other one,” I said. “Please.”
She shrugged and walked away.
“It’s not my fault,” Kurt said.
“It never is,” I said.
“I tried to call you repeatedly. If I’d known you were coming, then I wouldn’t have. Obviously.”
“You canceled my credit card.”
“Only to get you to take your head out of the clouds. You can’t keep pretending none of this is happening, Melanie.”
I picked up my drink and considered pouring it over his head. I decided I needed it more.
I took a long gulp. “My head is not in the clouds, Kurt. But yours, by the way, is up your—Oh, never mind. What are you even doing here? How many times did I try to get you to come to one of our reunions? You didn’t want any part of them.” It had never once occurred to me that he’d actually come to this one.
Kurt began tearing his cocktail napkin into long even strips. In the scheme of his annoying habits, this one barely registered, and it almost made me feel nostalgic.
He saw me watching him and stopped.
“Knock yourself out,” I said. “I don’t have to clean it up anymore.”
He laughed. “Like you ever did.”
“Hey, it was your mess.”
He drained the rest of his scotch. I resisted a knee-jerk urge to ask him how many he’d had. Kurt was a creature of habit and control—a drink or two and then he’d stop. Rarely did he venture into third-drink zone, and when he did the results were unpredictable. But this was not my problem anymore. He could drink himself into oblivion for all I cared.
In the dim light, his eyes were barely blue. The lines around them were deeper than I remembered, and he was wearing a soft summer-weight buttondown shirt I’d bought for him last year. Part of me was oddly touched and another part of me wanted to say How dare you?
He shrugged. “So, I guess we won’t get the award for the couple who lasted the longest, huh?”
I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t say Whose fault is that?
I shrugged. “I guess not.”
He tilted his empty glass back to get the mostly melted ice cubes, then picked up his new drink. The couple seated beside us turned to stare.
“So,” I said. “Why didn’t you bring her?”
He looked straight ahead. “I did.”
I tried not to react, but it hurt so much it was embarrassing. Or maybe it was so embarrassing it actually hurt.
I started to push myself off the bar stool, just so I wouldn’t have to do it in front of her when she came back from the bathroom, or wherever she was.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“Gone-gone?” I heard myself say. Like maybe she’d only been a hallucination.
“She took the rental car and went back to the hotel. Apparently someone in the ladies’ room told her she wasn’t welcome here. And then somebody else told her to get away from me while she still could, and something about she should see what I did to my wife.”
I slid the ruffle on my fake tattoo side up over my shoulder. “And you didn’t go with her?”
“We’ve been fighting since we got here.” Kurt sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on. She used to be so much fun.”
“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want to hear—”
B.J. poked her head between us. “Hey, Kurt. News flash: Mel’s not your dating coach.”
Kurt and B.J. stared at each other.
“B.J.,” Kurt finally said. “Nice to see you. Is Tom here?”
“He’s home where he belongs.” B.J. picked up one of my drinks. She threw her purse on top of mine on the bar. “Keep an eye on these—we’ll be right back.”
She gave Kurt her most dazzling smi
le. “Touch my credit cards and I’ll cut your balls off.”
I followed B.J. out to the parking lot. “I really think the balls part was unnecessary,” I said. “And now Kurt will know I’ve been talking about him.”
“Of course you’ve been talking about him. I’m your best friend.”
“He brought her with him. Crissy.”
B.J. stopped walking. “I know. I found out when I brought the box spring ladies in today. It must have been a last-minute thing. His name was definitely not on the list the last time I saw it.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “And you didn’t tell me?”
B.J. put one hand on her hip. “It was a tough call. I didn’t want you to get all worked up about it. So I figured I’d tell you just before we went in, but by then you were all about the bathroom.”
“It’s just such an invasion. But there’s also this part of me that really wanted to check her—Crissy—out. Did you see her?”
B.J. shook her head. “Nope, but I heard from several reliable sources that she’s a huge step down from you. Oh, and everybody loves your new haircut.”
I smiled. “You’re a good friend, Louise. But if one more person tells me I was always too good for Kurt . . .”
“I think you’re the only one left who still has to believe it, Romy.”
I pointed to where my fake tattoo was hiding under my ruffle. “Everybody thinks he gave me this.”
B.J. grinned. “I know. And I’m proud to say I started that rumor.” She reached for my ruffle. “Here, get that down over your shoulder. No offense, but it makes you look a little bit matronly like that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I needed that right about now. And I bet you only started that rumor because you knew the fake tattoo you drew couldn’t even pass for a purple pumpkin. Your only hope was a serious bruise.”
“Hey, watch it. That’s my artistic self-esteem you’re shattering.”
“I just don’t want you to get all conceited.”
“Ha. Too late for that.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why are we standing out here in the parking lot?”
“Oh, shit. Come on. I finally tracked down the music subcommittee and told them the eighties called and wants its bad music back. I think we might still have time to get one good song in.”
B.J. unlocked Mustang Sally and reached in for her iPod. I put my drink on the hood, opened the other door, and found my flip-flops.
“What do you think you’re doing?” B.J. said. “Oh, never mind. My feet are freakin’ killing me.”
After we’d both taken off our strappy sandals as fast as we could and slid into our flip-flops, B.J. locked up again and took a quick sip of my drink. “Wow, I haven’t had Sex on the Beach in forever. So get this, Derrick Donohue has a new wife who looks about twelve and has breast implants. So much for eating his heart out.”
I looked up at the stars sparkling over the water and wiggled my toes in the cool night air. “Finn Miller didn’t even wait for me.” I took a slug of my Long Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall. “Bummer.”
“Okay, here’s my plan,” B.J. said as we headed for the front door of the Marine Center. “I think we should go get the rest of the Tab and set up a little stand to catch people on their way out. We’ll say it’s vintage Tab and charge twenty bucks a pop for it. Your money issues will be over in no time.”
“Let’s not and say we did,” I said.
“Aww, I totally forgot about that expression.”
“Maybe we should rent out cots and sleeping bags instead. I’m worried about some of these people driving home. Actually most of them. They definitely shouldn’t be on the road, that’s for sure.”
“Don’t worry, we have a designated driver subcommittee. They’ve been going around collecting car keys. Mostly everyone is staying at the same hotel anyway, so they’ll just herd them over there like cattle. And five years from now their hangovers will be a distant memory and they can do it all over again.”
“Wow, even though this night still sucks, I have to say, that reunion committee of yours is amazingly thorough.”
“The thing about committees is that you can’t live without them, but they’re so anal you can’t stand being around them. Never again, Thelma, never again. And if I forget, don’t forget to remind me in five years, okay?”
A really bad and extremely loud version of the Macarena greeted us at the door.
B.J. shook her head. “Oh, no, it’s come to this. We’d better get my iPod in there fast. This simply cannot be the last song of the night.”
My breath caught. In front of the fireplace, three members of the boxer shorts brigade were doing the Macarena with the box spring ladies balanced on top of their heads. It was like a clash of cultures—boxer shorts below, hoop skirts and parasols above. Too late, I wanted to cover the eyes of my beautiful box spring ladies so their sensibilities wouldn’t be offended.
“And we thought someone we graduated with might have money and class,” B.J. said. “Apparently it was too much to expect.”
I put up my hand like a crossing guard. “Stop,” I yelled. “Right this minute.”
The boxer shorts brigade kept dancing.
I turned to B.J. “Hurry. Stop the music. You know drunks can never resist the Macarena.”
I tried to assess the damage. So far all three ladies looked okay, at least physically. Not for the first time I was glad I worked in metal and not glass.
My hand was still out in front of me. “Stop,” I said again in my best mom-voice.
They kept dancing.
“Freeze,” I yelled.
They all froze. The three guys in their boxer shorts wobbled a bit. They looked like midlife Weebles, those egg-shaped toys from our childhood. Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down popped into my head randomly.
Their audience froze, too, and I noticed the classmate wearing her underwear now had a man’s T-shirt over it. Her blue and white streamers had come untied and stuck to her legs like strands of seaweed. When she froze she held one leg out to the side with her toe pointed.
She put her hand up. “Mother, may I—”
“No, you may not,” I said.
CHAPTER 36
When we got back inside the reunion after locking the box spring ladies safely in Mustang Sally’s backseat, Marvin Gaye was crooning a low and sexy “Let’s Get It On.”
“My work here is done,” B.J. said. She took a moment to close her eyes and sway to the music.
The lights came on and everybody started groaning and covering their faces. Several committee members began walking around the room with trays of hot coffee. Another circulated a towering plate of what looked like Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, and still another a big heaping tray of brownies. “Let’s just hope somebody had the good sense to add aspirin and flaxseed to those brownies,” B.J. said. “Hey, look. Do you see Jan and her mother-in-law over there in the corner?”
I followed her gaze to a group of classmates sitting at a big round table playing Monopoly. Jan’s mother-in-law threw the dice and everybody cheered. We waved and Jan waved back.
When we reached the bar, my purse was open and Kurt was talking on my cell phone.
I blinked my eyes and squinted to be sure it was mine. My first thought was that it might be Trevor or Troy, and maybe I should be glad one of them was talking to his father. But my second thought was that Kurt wouldn’t have known that until he reached into my purse and looked at my phone.
“How dare you,” I said.
Perhaps a little too loudly. It might have been my imagination, but it felt like the whole room stopped talking and turned to us, like that old When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen! commercial. The refreshments subcommittee member carrying the Famous Amos cookies stopped in her tracks next to us. The people on the bar stools on either side of Kurt turned around and reached for a cookie as if they were grabbing a handful of popcorn to go with the
ir movie.
Kurt held up one finger, telling me to wait a minute. I could tell by the red, white, and blue of his patriotic eyes that a double scotch had been consumed since B.J. and I had left him in charge of our purses.
“Nah, really,” he said. “Hang on, she’s back now. What? Sorry I’m talking so loud—Mel and I are at our high school reunion and, well, things are a little bit wild around here. And cell service near the beach, what can I say, it sucks big-time. Didja know we were high school sweethearts, Mel and me?”
Even in his inebriated state, Kurt must have seen my jaw drop. “Well, briefly,” he added. “Long story short—”
I lunged for my phone.
Kurt twisted his bar stool away. “—but at least I smartened up in college. You know how it goes, young and foolish and all that razzmatazz. What did you say your name was again, pal?”
I lunged for my phone again.
Kurt twisted his bar stool the other way. “Hey, wait just a minute, hon. I’m talking to my pal Tom Brady here. What? Sorry, Brody. Tim Brody.”
“Give me that phone right this instant,” I yelled with every bit of rage that had accumulated over the long tenure of our marriage. I grabbed Kurt by the shirt I’d bought him last summer and turned him around to face me.
Kurt looked at me with boozy shock, as if I’d just morphed into someone else right before his blurry eyes.
I managed to get one hand around my phone. Then I pulled as hard as I could.
Kurt let go at the same time.
I slid backward across the wood floor, practically moonwalking for the first time in my life. Somebody screamed.
Somebody else must have put out his hands to stop me. When I felt large palms connect with my healing tattoo, I screamed.
“Oww,” I yelled. “Oww, oww, oww.”
“Melanieeee,” Kitty Kahlúa Breath yelled. “Are you all riiiiight?”