Макс Коллинз - A Shroud for Aquarius

Now here I was at Cablevision, going in the side studio entrance as she’d instructed me, wondering what to say to the shy girl in Junior Miss dresses I’d dated in high school who had become a lady executive in outfits by Kamali. I, by the way, was not going the Bilko and camouflage route today — as at the funeral, I wore a black polo shirt and gray slacks, the same slacks I’d worn to the reunion. The day was warm, and I’d rather worn shorts, but I needed to make a better impression than that on Jill, or anyway I wanted to.

The air conditioning inside Cablevision was welcome. A modest studio with a modest glassed-in booth was at my right as I walked down a narrow hall to a door with JILL FOREST, STATION MANAGER on it; that her job was temporary was indicated by her name and rank being on a sliding piece of plastic that fit in steel grooves on the door.

I knocked.

“Yes,” her voice said, noncommittally.

I spoke to the door. “It’s Mal.”

“Come in,” her voice said, just as noncommittally.

Not that it was an unpleasant voice; it was a warm mid-range voice that had to work at sounding all business. But she managed it.

Feeling a little intimidated and not really knowing why, I went in.

It wasn’t a big office; thinking of her as an executive was an exaggeration. And she wasn’t wearing Kamali or any other designer clothes. Just a simple white blouse with a black dress (she stood as I came in) with a geometric copper necklace the only new-wave fashion touch of the day. Her short black hair still had a vaguely punk look to it, and her lipstick was redder than Dracula’s wildest dreams. Her eye makeup was subdued compared to at the reunion, though; with those cornflower blue eyes, who needed it?

And she had a great tan.

“You have a great tan,” I said.

I couldn’t help myself.

She sat back down. “Is that what you wanted to talk about, Mal, after all this time? My tan?” Her tone wasn’t exactly unfriendly. It wasn’t exactly friendly, either.

“That was dumb,” I said, sitting down myself. “I don’t know why I said it.”

She shrugged, her expression revealing nothing. “I don’t have that much of a tan. I’ve always been on the dark side. Don’t you remember?”

That was the problem: I didn’t remember. I’d gone out with her back in school, yes; more than once — and then called it off. I didn’t remember her looking even remotely this good. I was thirty-four and unmarried and here was one of the first of many prize catches I’d foolishly let get away over the years. Feel free to kick me.

“Sure I remember,” I said.

Now she smiled, just a little. “You don’t, do you? I didn’t make much of an impression on you when we were kids.”

“That’s not true! We used to go out, and have a lot of fun.”

“We went out two times, and probably said ten words to each other, total. We did not have a lot of fun. We didn’t even have a little fun.”

I sighed. “We didn’t, did we?”

She shrugged again, looking at a desk piled with neatly stacked work. “I was quiet, then. Like they say in the old movies: too quiet.”

“Your parents kept you on a pretty short leash.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she kept her face impassive. “Maybe that’s because I was a ‘dog,’ hmm?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You were a cute kid; I never thought of you like that, ever. But your parents were the have-her-home-by-ten-on-weekend-nights types. Uh, how are your folks, by the way?”

“Dead.”

She meant that to shock me. I didn’t say anything.

She said, “How are yours?”

“My what?”

“Parents.”

“Oh. Dead.”

I meant that to shock her. She didn’t say anything.

Then she smiled a genuine smile. The white teeth in her dark face, like the light blue eyes, made quite a contrast; this was one striking-looking woman.

“Why am I giving you a hard time?” she said. “You were always nice to me, Mal. It’s just that I wanted more than nice.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a monster crush on you, all through high school. When you finally asked me out, I almost died with joy. Then when the time came, I got nervous, and clammed up, and blew my chance.”

“We went out more than once, remember.”

“I blew it both times.”

“If you’d blown it both times,” I said, with just a hint of Groucho, “I’d have kept going out with you.”

“Mal!” she said, with a shocked smile, a teenager pretending to be more embarrassed than she was. “How can you say such a thing?”

“I’m just one crazy kid, I guess. Are you married, Jill?”

“No.”

“Would you like to be?”

Now she really smiled. “Part of me wishes you weren’t kidding.”

“Part of me isn’t kidding,” I said. “Where do you want to have lunch?”

She felt like walking, so we strolled outside and wandered out into the sunny day and down the hill into Weed Park. The lagoon was at the bottom, and a mother and her two kids, a boy and a girl both under ten, were feeding bread crumbs to the ducks. We went up another hill, past some tennis courts, toward the swimming pool, where kids were splashing and hollering, making a pleasant racket. There was a hot dog stand across from the pool.

We ate our hot dogs with plenty of mustard and not much conversation, at a picnic table in a little area by a cannon on a bluff overlooking the river. We had the table to ourselves, though the sound of a baseball game — kids again — intruded, in a good-natured way. Yes, it was warm, but there was a breeze. A warm breeze, but a breeze. It was nice to be alive.

We were not ignoring each other by not speaking; we were just paying attention to our hot dogs. Priorities. I was carefully trying not to get any mustard on my black shirt, not wanting to look like a jerk in front of her; she was waging a similar battle where her white blouse was concerned. Success met us both, and we began talking, nibbling at potato chips and sipping cups of pop.

“I noticed you at Ginnie’s services this morning,” she said. “Otherwise I don’t know if I’d have agreed to see you.”

“Oh? Am I that bad a memory?”

Small laugh. “No, you’re just one of those frustrating high school memories that haunts a person till his or her dying day. Truth is, I’d have accepted your invitation, under about any conditions. I’ve been waiting for this for longer than I can remember.”

That puzzled me. “Waiting for what?”

Her chin crinkled as she smiled with some embarrassment. “I always wanted to show you what I’d become.”

“You mean beautiful? Or a very together, intelligent businesswoman?”

She smiled tightly and viewed me through slitted eyes. “All of that,” she said. “And more.”

“I’d welcome more.”

“You’re flirting with me, aren’t you, Mal?”

“Yeah, I seem to be. So?”

“So,” she said. “I seem to like it.”

We finished our pop and walked over by the cannon, which was pointed out toward the Mississippi, which looked blue but choppy today.

And I’ll be damned if she wasn’t holding my hand.

I peered into those cornflower eyes, an incongruous blue in so dark a face and wondered if in her expression I could read permission to kiss her. Her chin tilted up a little, and I took that to mean yes.

It was a short, sweet, moist little kiss that tasted slightly of mustard. It was also in the Top Ten Kisses of this or any generation.

“See what you missed?” she said, and turned and walked away.

I followed like a puppy. “How was I to know you were going to turn into Pat Benatar’s older, better-looking sister?”

“What you mean older, paleface?”