by Ray Garton
His eyes widened and he grinned as he spread his arms as if to embrace her. “Hey, that’s me, sweetheart! Daryl Cotch! The one and only!”
She smiled. “Is that right?” she asked, patting his belly with the back of her hand. “What happened, Daryl?”
“Oh, y’know . . . got married, had a few kids. Settlin’ down’ll do that to ya. But, hey . . . I still got what it takes.”
“Is your wife here?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s around here somewhere,” he muttered with a shrug. “But what about you? I don’t remember you, and believe me I’d remember you!”
“Come on, Daryl, how many Margarets did you know in high school?” she asked as hatred burned in her gut. She was afraid it would explode and vomit out of her mouth all over Daryl’s too-tight suit.
He chuckled, sipped his drink and said, “Well, the only Margaret I knew was this real fat girl who looked like — ”
“Margaret Fuller?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, that’s the one! You remember her? God she was — ” His face froze as he looked at her, as she smiled at him, as her eyes narrowed.
“Can I bum a cigarette, Daryl?” she asked.
“Uh . . . uh . . . yeah, sure.” He fumbled the pack out of his pocket, gave her one and lit it for her. His hand trembled slightly, possibly from drunkenness . . . possibly from recognition. “You wouldn’t be Margaret . . . Fuller . . . would you?”
“Yes, Daryl, I would be. I am. How about that, huh?”
“Well, hey, look . . . I didn’t mean that, what I said, about you bein’ . . . well, you know, back in school, you gotta admit, you were pretty hefty. Weren’t you? I mean . . . remember?”
He looked embarrassed, like a little boy caught in a lie.
Margaret just continued to smile as she smoked her cigarette, not turning away when she blew smoke from her mouth. Mixed in with those swirls of smoke were tendrils of hatred that would have strangled the fat pig if they’d had any substance to them.
“And you weren’t pretty hefty, Daryl,” she said. “You are now. That’s such a shame. You used to be so . . . virile.”
“Oh, but hey, I’m still . . .” He stopped, puffed his cigarette and cleared his throat. “I’m tellin’ ya, Margaret, you sure don’t look the same. You’re . . . gorgeous!”
“Why, thank you, Daryl.”
“Are, um . . . are you married?”
“No. Never been married. Foot loose and fancy free.”
“Oh, well . . . um, y’know, Margaret, we’ve got a lot of time to make up.”
She frowned slightly and cocked her head to one aide. “Oh? And what time would that be, Daryl?”
“Well, we never really got to know each other back then,” he said, shifting his considerable weight from one foot to the other and back again.
“Do you think that might have been because you spent most of your time tormenting me, Daryl?”
“Oh, well, oh-ho,” he blustered, shaking his head and waving his cigarette through the air. He took another sip of his drink. “That was high school. That’s the kinda thing people do in high school, y’know, just foolin’ around, just jokin’. Nothin’ serious.”
“Just joking?” Margaret drawled through her smile.
Daryl took a healthy gulp of his drink this time, then plunked it onto the bar and said, “You didn’t take that stuff seriously, did you, Margaret?”
“Take it . . . seriously?”
“Oh, Margaret, c’mon,” he said quietly, his voice wet. “That was a long time ago.” He leaned toward her, his face close to hers. When he spoke, his lips sprayed bits of moisture onto hers and she was assaulted by the thick smell of whiskey. “Y’know, I may look different now . . . a little heavier, a little older . . . but I’m still the same old Daryl. I’ve still got the touch.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yeah, baby, I do.”
“And what touch would that be?”
“Tell you what. Let’s go someplace where we can be alone. I came in from Tempe, I gotta room here.”
“What about your wife?”
“Oh, she’s wanderin’ around, y’know, havin’ drinks. Don’t worry about her.”
“So, let me get this straight. You want me to go up to your room with you? So we can be alone?”
He grinned and his dizzy eyes widened. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“And for what reason? Sex, maybe? Are you hoping to have sex with me, Daryl?”
“Well . . . if you wanna put it that way — ”
She started laughing. Softly, at first, then louder as she shook her head back and forth.
Daryl pulled away from her, his eyes narrowing at first, looking suspicious, then growing big and hurt, like a puppy’s.
Margaret patted her hand on his big, fleshy chest and said, in a casual, friendly way, “Drop dead, you fucking asshole.”
Then she turned and walked away, into the crowd.
She was beginning to get the hang of this reunion, and she was looking forward to getting on with it . . .
22
Someone shrieked with laughter right beside Margaret. It was so loud that she nearly dropped her drink again. She spun around to see the source of the laughter: a rail-thin woman with a helmet of hair nearly bigger than her head. Her nose was thin and sharp — obviously the work of a surgeon, Margaret thought — and her eyes looked quite sunken in their sockets. Her large hair was the kind of red that came from a bottle, and not exactly the red that it used to be back in school. Margaret recognized her immediately.
Libby Shore, one of Amelia Turner’s disciples. She’d always complained about her periods back in school, to anyone, male or female, as if she were proud of them, as if her menstrual cycle was a badge of honor she wore proudly. Sometimes she even got out of classes because of them. “My periods are epic,” she’d often said. “They’re long and sweeping, and they usually sweep me off my feet.”
She was talking with two other women. The man standing beside her was quite tall and as thin as she. His head, topped by thinning, graying hair, was bowed slightly, and his shoulders were slumped. He almost looked ashamed, staring at his shuffling feet, as if he had just been caught doing something nasty.
Margaret turned to the group, standing on the fringe, watching and listening as she looked at the other two women. One of the women, with brown, gray-streaked hair, was short and fat. Her body seemed to be made up of rolls that circled her in succession. Her legs stuck out of her skirt like posts. She held a mug of beer. The other woman was taller, much thinner, and her hair had gone silver. Her face nearly matched her hair in color, and beneath her eyes, the sallow was quite saggy, especially her cheeks, which seemed to hang slightly below the line of her jaw as if in defeat. They held drinks and smiled and laughed with Libby, and Margaret recognized both of them without even seeing their nametags.
The short fat one was Natalie Kramer, and the skinny, jowly one was Vikki Robinson.
Natalie Kramer had once been a short, thin and lovely girl who had looked so much like a walking, talking doll that the guys had flocked to her, had stood tall over her . . . and had pulled her string, so to speak. She’d been so tiny that her friends had joked about her being a doll, a midget, but their jokes had been friendly ones, affectionate ones, and she’d not only eaten these up, she’d used them to her benefit. When she asked people for favors, she would usually follow up the request with a sweet look and the plea, “Now, you wouldn’t let down a little doll like me, would you?”
Vikki Robinson, on the other hand, had been tall, with flaming red hair and pale skin, a sharp mind and a tongue to match. The guys had flocked to her, as well, but she had manipulated them like marionettes. She’d owned them. No one had joked about Vikki. They’d respected her too much. Everything about her — her stature, her looks, her deep and throaty voice — demanded respect. She still had it, the thin body with all the right curves, and the look in her eyes that demanded respect, in spite of the fact that her cheeks were r
unning off her face and her hair looked like a fright wig.
Margaret positioned herself at the edge of their little klatch and listened as they talked.
“Oh, yeah, I remember that,” Natalie said, giggling. “I thought it was cute, what he did. But the faculty, of course, they were so upset. Oh, boy were they upset!”
“Well, he mooned everybody, Nattie!” Vikki said with a laugh. “Whatta you expect? He shows his bare ass to everybody and — ”
“But it was such a gorgeous bare ass!” Natalie said.
Suddenly, all three women burst into laughter, flapping their free hands as they said, “Damned right it was!” and “Mm, it was like pastry!” and “A nice dessert attached to a great meal!”
They continued to laugh
Margaret took one step forward and said, with a smile, “Hi.”
Suddenly, all of them — except for the man standing beside Libby, who still looked as if he’d done something wrong — turned to Margaret and said, with high, shrill voices, almost simultaneously, “Oh, hiiii, hello there!”
“So, how are you girls doing after all these years?” Margaret asked, holding her drink between both hands, her purse still tucked beneath her left arm.
They looked at her for a moment, their tight smiles intact, their eyes wandering to her nametag.
“Margaret?” Lily asked. “Now, which Margaret are you?”
Margaret’s eyebrows rose. “Well, which do you think?”
They all laughed.
“Well, there was a Margaret Duarte,” Vikki said to the others. “Remember her?”
“Yes,” Natalie said. “The Portuguese girl who left after about three months.”
“That couldn’t be you, could it?” Natalie asked.
“No, that’s not me.”
Libby frowned and said, “But the only other Margaret was Margaret Fuller, and she was really — ” She stopped abruptly as her eyes moved over Margaret’s body and her smile faltered, and when she finished her sentence, she did so quietly, “ — fat.”
Margaret swept her right arm upward, as if she were a game show hostess showing off a washer-dryer combo. “That’s me!” she said cheerfully.
All three of them looked as if they’d been suddenly kicked in the back of the head with a steel-toed boot. But that lasted only seconds. They all exchanged glances like secret handshakes, and then turned to her with enormous grins. Natalie rushed forward with her mug of beer and embraced Margaret.
“Oh my God, Margaret, honey, you look wonderful!” she said with laughter in her voice.
Oh, yeah, I look wonderful now, you bitch, Margaret thought. I hate the fact that you’re touching me, that you’re even this close to me, I hope you shrivel up and die, you cunt, shrivel to the little doll you always thought you were. I hope you shrink to Barbie-size and end up on the shelf of some curio shop, you smug piece of shit.
As Natalie backed away, Libby was right behind her, eager to hug Margaret as she said, “You’re so beautiful!”
Oh, yeah, you too, you fucking twat, and I hope the next period you have gushes like a river and you drop dead in the puddle! Let’s see how proud you’ll be of that one, you bitch!
And right after Libby came Vikki, who kissed her on the cheek first, then embraced her and slurred. “You have risen above yourself, unlike so many of us.”
Ooo, a fancy sentence from a Harlie cheerleader, Margaret thought. I hope you lose that figure, you cunt. I hope you blow up like a balloon. Your fucking sagging cheeks, too. I hope you get so fat you explode, you manipulating slut!
“Have you seen Amelia?” Libby asked. “I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you!”
“Oh, yes,” Margaret said, remaining calm in the face of their bloated enthusiasm. “I thrilled her earlier out in the lobby. She was working the registration table.”
“That’s right” Vikki said. “You know, if it hadn’t been for Amelia, this reunion never would have happened.”
Margaret smiled as she said, “I can’t imagine any other person in this world who could possibly be responsible for this reunion.”
“You’re staying for the dinner, aren’t you?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, of course! Nobody loves to eat more than yours truly!”
“Then you’ve got to get together with Amelia,” Libby said. “I’m sure she’d be just sick if she couldn’t spend some time with you.”
“Oh, I’ll be looking for her,” Margaret said with a grin. “Don’t you worry. See you girls later.” She lifted a hand and waggled her fingers as she walked away.
Margaret went into the crowd, grinding her teeth together.
Cunts, every Goddamned one of them, she thought. Sluts in high school . . . God knows what they’re like now. Probably even worse. Once a cunt, always a cunt, I say. I wonder whose husband that poor skinny son of a bitch was.
She suddenly felt the urge to slug down her Bloody Mary. Once she’d finished, she went to the bar and got another. She decided she’d had her fill of the crowd in the King’s Lounge. She headed for the doorway as a commotion began to build behind her.
Voices rose together in distress.
A woman screamed.
A man shouted something that was unintelligible as it mixed with the music and voices, but it sounded urgent.
Out in the clean light of the lobby, Margaret pressed her cigarette into the sand of an ashtray.
The next event was the “Reacquaintance Party,” which would be taking place in the Queen’s Parlor.
She decided to find the Queen’s Parlor and wait for the others to show up . . .
23
“I can’t tell you how lovely you look, Margaret.”
Her smile was broad and warm, but it was genuine this time because it was directed at Marty Cullen.
When she first saw him, not five minutes ago, she’d recognized neither his face, nor the name on his lapel, MARTIN C. He’d seemed just as curious about her nametag, approached her and started a conversation. The next thing she knew, two of the most tormented and unwanted students from Harlie High had found one another.
He was no longer the gangly, clumsy creature he’d been back then. He was still slender, but he filled out his suit nicely in all the right places. And quite an expensive suit it was, too. Italian . . . about two grand, she guessed. His face, which had once looked long and pointy, was now angular; he had perfect cheekbones beneath deep brown eyes surrounded by the thickest lashes she’d ever seen. (Why, she wondered, do men always get the gorgeous eyelashes?) His teeth were white and straight, his shoulders broad . . . and, she couldn’t help notice, the third finger on his left hand was bare. He still had his Adam’s apple, but it was now situated in the middle of a throat that was surrounded by a neck which had been built up quite well, most likely with aid of weights.
“I mean it,” Marty continued. “You put every woman here to shame. And I’m glad, too. You deserve to be so gorgeous.”
“You’re one to talk.” she said. “You look . . .” She shook her head slightly, looking for the right word, not too forward but just enough. “. . . absolutely fantastic. I mean it.”
“How about that, huh?” he said. “The two of us? Who’da thunk it, as they say.” He was still smiling. A big smile. And his eyes were moving over face, her hair, and spending a lot of time on her eyes. He’d tried to be sly about it, but she’d seen his eyes work their way up and down her body, a bit at a time, trying not to get caught.
“My God, Marty, what’s become of you? What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Well, I’ve been busy. I have my own company now. It started small. Video games. Back when they were a novelty.”
“Computer stuff. Of course. You were a genius back in school.”
“Well, video games were only the beginning. They’re still the meat of the company, of course. They were just in grocery stores and bus stations when we started, but now they’re everywhere. But we’re doing some work for the Pentagon now — simulators for jets, tank
s, ships, subs, you name it. But if you don’t mind, I’m bored with it already because I’ve been doing it for so long. How about you?”
She was telling him about her career in advertising when a short Hispanic woman rushed up to them and said, “Have you gotten your photo forms?”
“Our what?” Marty asked.
“Your photo forms! For the pictures! Your pictures will be put in a souvenir book and you have to tell us what to write beneath them!” She plucked two sheets of paper from a stack cradled in her arm and handed one to Margaret, one to Marty. “We’d prefer that you hand them in before dinner, but by the end of dinner at the very latest!” Then she hurried away.
They looked at one another and laughed, as if they had just been rushed by a talking squirrel.
“What are you going to put under your picture?” he asked.
“I have no idea. I don’t even know if I want my damned picture taken, to tell you the truth.”
“So, Margaret, are you married?”
“No, no. Never got married. How about you?”
“Not now. I was. My wife died two years after we married.”
“Oh I’m sorry.”
“Cancer. It was pretty sudden. But not quick enough for her, I’m afraid. She went through a lot of pain.”
“My sister has cancer,” Margaret said quietly. Then, suddenly, she corrected herself. “Had cancer, I mean.”
She thought of Lynda, of her withered, corpse-like form when Margaret had first seen her in the hospital . . . and of the smiling, hungry woman with hair on her head, the woman she’d become since Margaret had arrived . . . since they’d begun holding hands . . .
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Marty said. “I hope she’s better.”
“She is. Much”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think I know what I’m going to put under my picture.”
“Really? What?”
“I thought about it flying in from Washington. I decided I’d wait until I got here, sort of get the feel of our former classmates. The lay of the land, so to speak. Now that I have, I think I’ll go with it. ‘Very Rich.’ How does that sound?”