Bygones (14 page)

“All three years.”

“And you get straight Z.”

“Off course.”

He studied her and asked, “So what do you do for fun?”

“What do you mean? That is fun. I love school.”

“Besides school.”

“I do a lot with my church group. We’re thinking of going to
Mexico
this summer to help the hurricane victims there.”

The concept boggled him. “What’ll you do there?”

“A lot of very hard work.
Mix concrete, put roofs back on, sleep in hammocks, and
go
without baths for a week.”

“Pardon me, but if you go without baths, those Mexicans are going to want you out of there long before a week is up.”

She laughed, covering her mouth with a napkin.

“You smell good tonight, though,” he said in his flintiest fashion, and her laughter died.

She blushed and transferred her attention to her plate. “Is that the line you use on all the girls?”

“All what girls?”

“I figure there must be plenty of them. After all, you tilde aren’t exactly Elephant Man.”

He told her the truth. “The last girl I dated seriously was Carla Utley, and we were in the tenth grade.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t expect me to believe that.”

“It’s true. I’ve taken girls out since then, but nothing serious.”

“You do a lot of one-night stands?”

He leveled his dark, long-lashed eyes on hers and said, “For a beautiful girl you sure are vicious.”

She blushed again, which pleased him; then she flashed a quick, embarrassed glance his way. It lasted only long enough for Maryann to grow more flustered, but as her glance fled away, for the merest fraction of a second her eyes detoured to his lips.

THE meal ended, and a band started setting up. The band leader called the bridal couple onto the floor as the group struck up a waltz. As Lisa and Mark danced, they captured the attention of everyone in the room.

The band leader called, “let’s have the other members of the wedding party join them.”

Randy turned to Maryann and said, “I guess that means us.”

Jake Padgett stood and said to his wife, “Mother?”

Michael glanced at Bess. “Dance?” he asked.

“I think we should,” she answered, and he followed her onto the dance floor, conscious of Lisa’s wide smile. He winked at the bride and turned to open his arms to Bess.

She moved into them, wholly glad to be with him again.

They had danced together for sixteen years, had always attracted the admiring gazes of onlookers. It happened once again, as they stepped with flawless grace into the three-quarter rhythm.

“We always did this well, didn’t we, Michael?”

“And we haven’t lost it.”

“Isn’t it.
great
to do this with somebody who knows how?”

“Boy, you said it. I swear
,
nobody knows how to waltz anymore. Darla surely doesn’t.”

“Neither does Keith.”

After a time Michael asked, “Who’s Keith?”

“This man I’ve been seeing.”

“Is it serious?”

“No. As a matter of fact, it’s over.”

They remained on the floor for another song, then another, and another. The music got louder and faster as the night wore on, luring even doubtful middle-
agers
onto the floor with numbers like “La
Bamba
” and “The Twist.”

Everybody got sweaty, including Michael and Bess, who’d been partners the entire time.

Finally Michael hauled Bess by the hand back to their table. It was easy to forget they were divorced.

Flushed and exuberant, they collapsed into their chairs.

RANDY and Maryann had also danced the entire time, talking little in the raucousness, playing eye games.

When one set ended, she fanned herself with a hand, while he freed leis bow tie and collar button and said, “It’s hot in here. Want to go outside and cool off?”

“Sure.”

They left the ballroom, walked down the grand staircase, and collected her coat: Outside, stars shone. The fecund smell of thawing earth lifted from the surrounding grounds and farmlands. Randy took Maryann’s arm and walked hey to the far end of the veranda.

“You’re a good dancer,” Maryann said as he released her arm and braced his shoulder against a fluted column. “You must get it from your mom and dad. They looked great on the dance floor together.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I never really danced much.”

“Too busy getting straight
As
?”

“You don’t like that, do you?”

He shrugged. “It scares me.”

“Scares you!
Why should my straight
As
scare you?”

“It’s not just
them,
it’s the kind of girl you are.”

“What kind am I?”

“Goody two shoes.
Church group.
And National Honor Society, I bet.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t been around many girls like you.”

They stood awhile looking out over the river, the moon as thin and white as a daisy petal. Then he looked over at her. “So
a guy like
me just doesn’t. . , you know . . . make a play for a girl like you.”

“Not even if you asked first and she said yes?”

Miss Maryann Padgett, in her proper little navy-blue coat, stood waiting. Randy drew his shoulder from the column and turned to her, standing close without touching. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot since I met you.”

“Have you?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well then?” Her invitation was just reserved enough to make it acceptable. He lowered his head and kissed her the way he used to kiss girls when he was in the seventh grade.
Lips only, nothing else touching.

She put her hands on his shoulders. He embraced her cautiously.

As kisses went, it remained chaste, but all the while, sweetness coursed through him, and he experienced a return to the innocent emotions of first kisses, knowing he wanted more of this girl than he either deserved or probably ought to dream about.

He lifted his head and kept a little space between them. Only their fingertips were, joined.

“Pretty wild, huh?” He smiled.
“You and me, Lisa and Mark?”

“Yeah, pretty wild.”

“I wish I had my car tonight so I could drive you home,” he said.

“I have mine. Maybe I can drive you home.”

“I accept.”

She started to turn away, but he stopped her.

“One other thing.
Would you go out with me next Saturday? To a movie or
something?,.

“Let me think about it.”

“All right.”

Now he took a turn at turning away, but she kept hold of his hand. “I’ve thought about it.” She smiled. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes-with my parents’ approval.”

“Oh, of course.”

Smiling, they returned to the festivities, melded into the edge of tilde the crowd on the dance floor, and picked up the beat of “Good Love.” When the song ended, Randy heard Lisa’s voice over the amplifiers and turned in surprise to see her standing onstage with a microphone. “Hey, everybody, listen up”

When the crowd noise abated, she said, “It’s my special night, so to be I get what I want, right? Well, I want my little brother up here be Randy, where are you?” She shaded her eyes and scanned the room. “Randy, come up here, will you?”

Randy suffered some friendly nudging, while panic sluiced through him. No not without getting wrecked first! But everyone was looking at him. There was no way he could slip outside for a hit.

“A lot of you don’t know it, but my little brother is one of the best drummers around.” She turned to the lead guitar man. “You don’t mind if Randy sits in on one, do you, Jay?”

Randy was genuinely embarrassed, but a throng of his peers had circled him and Maryann, saying, “Yeah, Randy, do it!”

Maryann took his hand and said, “Go ahead, Randy. Please.”

With his palms sweating he removed his tuxedo jacket and handed it to her. “Okay, but don’t run away.”

The band’s drummer stood as Randy leaped onto the stage and picked his way around the bass drum and cymbals. He selected a pair of sticks from a quiver hanging on a drum, straddled the revolving stool, then did a riff from high to low across the five I drums circling him, and said to the lead guitar man, “How “bout a little George Michael? You guys know “Faith”?”

,”
Yo
! “Faith” we got.” And to the band: give him a little “Faith,” on his beat.”

Randy ,gave
them a lead-in and struck into the driving, syncopated beat of the song.

From the dance floor, Michael watched, entranced, as his son became immersed in the music. Then some silent signal was exchanged, and the band dropped off, giving Randy a solo. His intensity was total. The crowd had stopped dancing and stood awestruck. At Michael’s side Bess said, “He’s good, isn’t he?”

“When did this happen?”

“It’s been happening since he was thirteen. It’s the only thing he really cares about.”

“What’s.
he
doing working in that nut house?”

“He’s scared.”

“Of what?
Success?”

“Possibly.
More probably of failure.”

A roar of applause went up as Randy struck the cymbals for the last time and the song ended.

“Good job, Randy,” the band’s drummer said, shaking Randy’s hand. “Who did you say you play with?”

“I don’t.”

The drummer stopped cold a moment, stared at Randy, and straddling his seat, said, “You ought to get yourself an agent, man.”

“Thanks. Maybe I will.”

On his way back to Maryann, he wondered if Charlie Watts felt like this after performing with the Stones - the rush, the exhilaration, the high. Maryann was smiling proudly, holding his jacket while he slipped it on, then taking his arm. “You’re really good, Randy.”

None of the applause counted as much as her approval. “Thanks,” he said. Then suddenly his mother was there kissing his cheek. And his father was clapping his shoulder with immense pride in his smile. “You’ve got to bet out of that nut house, Randy. You’re too good to squander all that talent.”

If he moved, Randy knew, even half moved toward his dad, he’d be in his arms, and this stellar moment would be complete. But how could he do that with Maryann looking on?
And his mother?
Then Lisa and Mark were there, and the moment was lost.

Jamming in somebody’s basement had never been like this. He felt like a zinging neon comet and thought if he didn’t smoke some grass to celebrate, he’d never have another chance to get the high on-high. It’d be wild. He looked around, and Maryann was gone.

“Where’s Maryann?” he asked Lisa.

“She went to the ladies” room.
Said she’d be right back.”

“Listen, Lisa, I
gotta
go outside and cool off some, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, little bro.
And thanks for playing.”

Outside, Randy returned to the shadows at the far end of the veranda. He packed his bat, lit it, took the hit, and held it deep in his lungs, his eyes closed, blocking out the stars. It didn’t
take
 
long
.

By the time he left the veranda, he believed he was Charlie Watts. He went inside to find Maryann. She was sitting at a table with her parents. “Hey, Maryann,” he said, “let’s
dance
.”

Her eyes were like ice as she turned to him. “No, thank you.”

If he hadn’t been stoned, he might have done the sensible thing and backed off. Instead, he gripped her arm. “What do you mean?”

She jerked her arm free. “I think you know what I mean.”

Everyone at the table was watching. Maryann looked as if she hated him, as she jumped to her feet. He smiled blearily at the group. “Sorry. . .” he said,
then
followed her out into the hall.

“I don’t hang around with potheads, Randy,” she said.

“Hey, wait, I don’t –“

“Don’t lie. I came outside looking for you, and I saw you with that little pipe! You can find your own way home, and as far as Saturday night goes, it’s off. Go smoke your pot and be a loser. I don’t care.”

She turned and horned away.

BESS and Michael, their eyes-closed, reclined in the back seat of the limousine, a faint sense of motion massaging the backs of their heads through the supple leather. They enjoyed the silence, and the subtle euphoria created by the dancing and drinking, and the presence of each other. In time, Michael rolled his head to look at her. “You know what?”