Reunion at Red Paint Bay

When Simon picked up the phone and heard, “I’m Dora Reed, Kenny’s mom,” two possibilities immediately occurred to him: she was calling to invite Davey to some special occasion, such as a birthday party, or there was trouble. Given recent history, more likely the latter. And so when the boy ran down the hallway Simon snared him by his shirt collar and motioned for him to stand there and wait.

“Sorry, could you repeat that, Mrs. Reed?” Davey inched toward the stairs. “Yes, I did know he took the knife to your house … Not beforehand, no, I learned about it when he came home. He said he forgot it was in his pocket.” Davey placed one foot on the first step. “Of course we don’t let him play with knives, but it’s really a letter opener, with a pretty dull blade, in fact. It’s not like a carving knife.”

Davey waved at his father. “Tell her it couldn’t cut …”

“They were what?” Simon stared at his son, the wild look of him, his cheek scratched, his hair sticking out, yet another rip at the neck of his T-shirt.

“No I didn’t,” the boy said firmly.

Simon covered the receiver. “Didn’t what?”

“Whatever she says.”

“I didn’t know that,” Simon said to Kenny’s mom. “I was under the impression the knife fell out and Davey put it away immediately … Yes, that is a different situation.”

When Simon hung up the phone, Davey was gone.



“You won’t believe my new client,” Amy said over her shoulder, reaching into the cabinet above the stove. Little tins and bottles were spread over the counter, along with toothpicks, muffin molds, birthday candles, matchbooks, and all manner of other small items that he rarely thought about.

Simon leaned against the sink, eating dark purple grapes one after another. He could consume the whole bunch easily. With some foods there was no limit to what one could eat. Restraint had to kick in. “Looking for something?”

“I’m rationalizing the spice cabinet.”

“Rationalizing it?”

“That’s what the British call organizing a space, according to a client of mine. It’s the idea that a cabinet or closet has an inherent sense of reason to it that needs to be restored every so often. I like the idea.”

Simon picked up a tin of cumin, opened it, and inhaled. The smell surprised him, a kind of lemony scent, or perhaps saffron, with a hint of curry. It struck him how many things there were in the world to smell, and he had sampled so few of them. He held a grape in front of her mouth, and she sucked it in. “I grounded Davey again,” he said.

She nodded her agreement. “I trust you picked a good reason.”

He had been prepared to explain the phone call from Mrs. Reed, Davey’s lie about not taking out the knife, and his worry about their son’s honesty as well as safety. But Amy was leaving it all up to him for a change. “So,” he said, “what won’t I believe about her?”

“Who?”

“Your new client.”

Amy emptied a few flakes of spice from a bottle into the sink and washed it down the drain. “It’s a he, actually, my first male client in two years. He’s going to come twice a week. When I try to take a history he shoots off on these odd digressions. I let him go because it’s the only way to learn anything. Today I asked him what he did for a living, and he said he does pretty much whatever he wants but he used to be a chamberlain.”

“What’s that?”

“The man who takes care of the chambers of his master, pays the bills, hires staff. Apparently it was a common position in England centuries ago, which is when he says he was a chamberlain. In 1822 to be exact.”

“And he knows this how?”

“He had a reading done by a mystic of some sort who revealed his past to him.”

“So he’s delusional?”

Amy picked up a handful of votive candles and pushed them to the back of the cabinet. “I don’t know. He’s dealing with a recent loss, but there’s a lot more behind it going back years. I’m not sure he’s ready to seriously deal with things. I think he’s playing with me.”

“It’s his eighty dollars, he can do what he wants for the hour, can’t he?”

“The idea is that a client gathers some insight into his problems from his hour with me.” Amy started putting back the spice tins, in alphabetic order. This was an odd new behavior for her—organization. He presumed it wouldn’t last. “It’s common for people to erect a shell around themselves to avoid talking about their problems,” she said. “But this guy is doing a particularly good job of it. I think he has tremendous pain inside that he’s masking with an outward hyperrationality.”

“What are you going to do, wait him out?”

“I’ll probably do the distracted routine, fiddle with my pen, look over his shoulder as if I’m bored with him. He’s enjoying being the fascinating, mysterious stranger who baffles the therapist, so the more I seem not intrigued the more likely he is to keep coming out with things to interest me.”

“Sounds like you have a game plan.”

“It’s not a game,” Amy said, “it’s a tactic. Some people need a few pokes to open them up.”



Later, at the mailbox, he found another postcard, this one with a Chamber of Commerce picture of Portland Harbor on the front. The unnamed correspondent was obviously not done with his game. Simon’s body tensed as he thought about what might be on the other side of the card—a new invitation? A threat? It occurred to him to just rip up the card and drop the pieces down the sewer. Nothing could compel him to pay attention except his own curiosity. He was in control.

“Hello, stranger!”

Simon looked up to see his neighbor limping toward him on the sidewalk, with large garden shears in his hands. “Hey, Bob, been a while,” Simon said as he slipped the card in with the rest of the mail. “Staying ahead of the pruning, I see.”

“Keeping up with it at least. That’s the best I can hope for at my age.” Simon backed up a step, toward his house. His neighbor took another step forward. “You found that boy of yours, I guess.”

“Turns out he was in the backyard all the time,” Simon said, “in the tree house.”

“I figured you found him or we’d be reading about it in that paper of yours.”

“Sorry, I should have called over to put your mind at ease.”

Bob waved away the thought. “It’s Helen who gets these ideas in her head. Thinks she hears people outside all the time. I tell her, this is Red Paint, stop worrying, but it doesn’t help. Women are happiest when they have something to worry about.”

Bob looked over for agreement. Simon backed up another step. “Maybe they worry too much, and we don’t worry enough.”

His neighbor opened and closed the shears a couple of times, as if priming them. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Men are on the way out.” He ran his finger along the blade of his shears.

“They are?”

“Haven’t you read about it—the shrinking Y chromosome? A few thousand years, it’ll be gone. Then we just get women.”

A world of women brought on by the ever-diminishing Y chromosome. A peaceful world, of course, no violence allowed. “I guess we males have a few years left in us, don’t we?” Simon glanced at his watch.

“I won’t keep you,” Bob said. “Say hello to that lovely wife of yours for me.”

“I’ll do that. Give my best to Helen, too.”

As he walked toward his front door, Simon pulled out the postcard and turned it over. There was only one word. He stared at it for a while, as if more words would suddenly appear, magic ink activated by the light, perhaps. No more, just the one word, which he had seen before.





He can’t help staring at the bare arm lying on the desk, the smooth curve of the bicep, and the single blue artery on the underside of the elbow leading to a surprisingly delicate wrist. It’s as if the limb has life of its own, not attached to anyone. He would like to run his fingers back and forth against the soft skin. What would be the harm?

“How are you today, Mr. Chambers?”

It is the therapist’s typical opening gambit—general, imprecise, determinedly nonthreatening, a question to make it seem as if they are just two acquaintances meeting here for a friendly little chat, not a scouring of his soul. “I feel the same as always, I suppose.”

“Fine,” she says. But what if by the same he means a terrible state of existence? She should certainly explore that. “I’d like to get some background information from you before we continue. How old are you?”

“Is age meaningful?”

“It’s part of an overall picture.”

“Forty-two.”

She writes his age down. “Are you from this area?”

“I’m not from anywhere in particular. I’ve moved all my life.”

“Where do you live now?”

“Wherever I am. I’ve found that’s the best way.”

“It’s not a philosophical question. I’m just asking for your permanent address for my records.”

Name, age, address—does she think this all adds up to an overall picture of him? “I am where I am,” Paul says. He leans up to see her note sheet, the pen poised above the empty space, waiting for him to make sense, to answer the damn question. “Does that cause you a problem, my not having a permanent address, because if it does, you can put in Truth or Consequences.”

“Truth or consequences—that’s a provocative response.”

“New Mexico.”

“Excuse me?”

“Truth or Consequences is a town in New Mexico. I thought everybody had heard of it.” He watches as she writes in the name. When she finishes he says, “I’ve always wanted to live there.”

Her head jerks up. “You don’t live there?”

He shakes his head. “But I’ve always thought what a reminder that would be every day of your life, living in Truth or Consequences.” She strikes out the name, two parallel lines. If she is an obsessive sort that black cross-out will haunt her, a blot on an otherwise clean page. Perhaps in the evening she’ll redo the sheet, writing in Unknown for permanent address, or Patient Refuses to Say.

“You’re not being very forthcoming with information, Mr. Chambers. I need to get to know you to help you.”

“Can anyone really know another human being?” He can’t believe how sappy that sounded, like the refrain to some folk lyric pretending to be meaningful.

“To a certain degree, yes, one person can know another. In fact, you could say that’s the whole premise of therapy.”

“Such a fragile foundation for one’s profession,” Paul says, “don’t you think?” Philosophers spend whole careers parsing such a claim and come up empty. “But I am telling you all you need to know about me. You just have to listen.”

She taps her free left hand on the desk, staring at him. He stares back, holding his mouth straight, restraining the involuntary smile he knows is waiting on his lips.

“How did you choose me as a therapist to contact?”

“You’re in the online yellow pages. Maybe that’s a mistake, advertising. Anyone can call you up. Even problem patients.”

“Do you consider yourself a problem patient?”

“I’m a patient with a problem, does that make me a problem patient?”

“Not necessarily.”

Paul sits up straighter. “Do you believe in consequences?” It’s the type of open-ended question he prefers, leading who knows where?

“Does what I believe matter to you?”

“I wouldn’t have asked the question if it didn’t.”

“I think we need to do more work together, and right now that means—”

“It’s a basic law of physics. For every action there’s a reaction—a consequence. You may believe you can act and avoid the reaction, but it will come eventually. If it doesn’t, the whole universe would be disturbed.”

“What exactly are we talking about here, Mr. Chambers?”

“That’s funny, I’m not sure either.” He shoves back his chair a little so that he can cross his legs, as a man does, his left ankle resting on his right knee, holding it there with his hand. “She was raped.”

“Excuse me?”

“You asked me last time to tell you about Jean’s assault. She was raped.”

“I see,” she says.

There it is again. Does she see the way Jean lay in their bed, curled toward him, but with one knee stuck out, a sentry? Her watchfulness at his every move, the approach of his hands, even the scent of him coming up behind her? Did he smell like a rapist to her, or just like any man?

“I’m struck by how you blurt out information that is obviously so important in your life. It seems you want to shock me. Am I interpreting correctly?”

“You must have seen hundreds of rape victims in your practice. I imagine it would be hard to shock you.”

“I’ve seen dozens of rape victims over the years.”

“They’re all different, I bet. And all the same.” He considers this an interesting observation.

“You told me before that your wife moved out from your apartment.”

“Many times.”

“Many times?”

“She moved out and then back, out and back, out and back.”

Amy the Licensed Social Worker considers this information, every muscle in her face tightening just a little, the reflection of thought. “This pattern would seem to indicate that she was conflicted about staying in your marriage.”

“She wasn’t conflicted at all. She didn’t want to live with me.”

“But she kept returning.”

Paul smiles in what he thinks must be an engaging way. “My magnetic personality, I suppose. I always drew her back. Until the last time, a year ago, when she moved out of state.”

“Did she cut off communication with you?”

“No.”

“Did you remain on friendly terms with her?”

“We were husband and wife, not friends.”

“I’m asking if you remained close.”

Close? They slept in separate beds, sometimes separate rooms, then separate apartments in separate states—a thousand miles between them at the end. How did Jean explain it to her friends? Was their separation something she freely admitted to everyone she met? Yes, I do have a husband, but we’re not close. What story did she tell to make it all seem so reasonable? Was he an abuser, an alcoholic, an adulterer? She would have to say something. Probably abuser.

“Did you talk on the phone, for instance?”

Should he admit that he still speaks to her several times a day? It’s a one-way conversation, of course, but he can interpret the silences, fill in the blanks. He talks to his dog and his dead wife. That would seem very odd to anyone reading her notes later on. He would appear delusional, which he assumes he is not, by any meaningful psychiatric definition. Of course, a delusional person can hardly be trusted judging the state of his own sanity. It’s a fool’s undertaking for anyone, trying to understand himself with his own prejudiced mind.

“We spoke every Sunday night,” he says. Every Sunday night, nine o’clock, lying back on his bed with the phone cradled to his ear, he unzipped his pants and listened to her soft voice, turning his mouth away from the receiver. Once the phone slipped down his chest and he scrambled to pick it up with his slippery hand. She said, “Are you okay?” He coughed and said, “I’m fine.”

He says, “The last time we talked was twenty-two days ago, the night before.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I told her I was coming to see her.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said, ‘I won’t be here.’ ”

“What did you take that to mean?”

“That she wouldn’t be there. And she wasn’t—she killed herself Monday morning.” Monday morning—why didn’t he think of this before? “That’s odd, isn’t it, killing yourself after you just wake up?”

She hesitates, trying to appear to be the one with the answer to everything. “I don’t know of any statistics on times of suicides, but it does seem unusual to wake up and take your own life.”

“Jean did love her sleep,” he offers as a possible reason. Some days she didn’t even dress, just moved from the bed to the couch, to the patio lounge chair, back to the couch, and then the bed again. So much of her life horizontal. Sometimes when she was sleeping he’d climb in next to her, feel the warmth radiating into his cold body.

“You said your wife took an overdose of …”

“Seconals.” He pictures her picking up the pill bottle, noting the dosage. What was Jean’s singular emotion as she unscrewed the cap? Was she anxious or at ease, depressed or euphoric? So much of life is one thing or another, a dialectical world. Would the moment have passed if the cap stuck at first, childproof—would that have given her pause?

“Did your wife leave a note?”

“That wouldn’t be like Jean. She wasn’t one to sum up things. Her whole life was the note. She knew I’d understand that.”

“Do you?”

“Understand? Of course. She was raped.”

“How do you know that was the reason she committed suicide twenty-five years later?”

“I lived with her for twenty of those years.”

“Most rape victims carry the pain of the experience throughout their lives, but they don’t kill themselves.”

“Good for them.”

“I wasn’t debating the legitimacy of your wife’s feelings, Mr. Chambers.”

“Would her suicide be any more legitimate if I told you she became pregnant from the rape?”

She looks up with interest. “Are you telling me that?”

He tips his head just slightly. Sometimes a nod can say so much more than words.

“Did she have the child?”

“No.”

“An abortion?”

“No.”

“What then?” As if the possibilities have been exhausted.

“She had trouble giving birth. They had to cut the baby out of her. A boy. He was born dead.”

Her face twists up in a mother’s expression of ache, a sympathetic response.

“Interesting way to put it,” Paul says, “born dead. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it.”

“That’s a terrible thing for a young girl to cope with.”

“Jean didn’t cope. She blamed herself for getting raped and then for losing the baby.”

“Did you blame her for that, too?”

“I told her once, ‘He ruined your life, and you ruined ours.’ I’d say that’s blaming her.”

“Resentment is natural,” she says automatically, and he wonders how often she has repeated this worthless observation. She even feels compelled to continue her point, as if sharing rare insight. “Spouses of people fighting cancer for years often get so fatigued being the caregiver that they lash out at their loved one sometimes, as if it’s their fault they’re sick.”

What does cancer have to do with it? People die from cancer. Women live with rape. He says, “It’s comforting to know that I reacted like so many other resentful spouses.”

She ignores this obvious sarcasm. “Did your wife know her attacker?”

“Does that make a difference?”

“Often it does. A rape by a stranger is random, and so the victim tends to become fearful of all strangers. A rape by someone she knows can lead to fear of friends, even family and intimates.”

Intimates—so that is the category in which he falls. An intimate without intimacy. “She knew him.”

“Was her attacker arrested?”

“The rapist was never arrested. Jean never went to the police.”

Her face takes on a look of recognition, eyes widening, and a slight nod. “That’s quite common, unfortunately. Did your wife reveal who he was?”

“She told me who he is. He has a wonderful life going, it seems. Loving wife, beautiful child. Of course, you can’t really tell about lives from the outside, can you? Maybe it’s a cold, loveless marriage. Maybe they have a troubled little brat of a kid. I’m sure he hasn’t told her about his rape. Secret lives are interesting, don’t you think, how much energy it takes to keep up the illusion that you’re a nice person when you know inside that you aren’t?”

“Do you know where this man lives?” she asks. She has so many of her own questions to get through, and only an hour to do it.

“That’s why I’m here.”

She looks up at him. “The man who raped your wife lives in Red Paint?”

“Is that so surprising, a rapist in the friendliest town in Maine?”

“There are rapists everywhere, of course. Did you come here to find him?”

“No, I was just passing through and thought, Wait a second, isn’t this the place where Jean said her rapist lives? Maybe I should look the fellow up.”

“You enjoy sarcasm, Mr. Chambers.”

“I confess I do. I know it’s not fashionable these days, the humor of the weak and all that, but it does seem to fit the question quite often.”

“It fits when you’re trying to deflect the question.”

“I agree,” he says, “I’m deflecting your question.” To disarm someone, just agree. They will move on.

“What do you expect to happen when you find the man?”

“I’ve given up expecting a long time ago. It’s a waste of time, and we only get so much of that.”

“So you came to Red Paint to find the man you hold responsible for the trauma in your wife’s life, and you came to me before confronting him?”

“Bad idea? Should I have just sought out the rapist directly?”

“Were you hoping I’d stop you?”

“Can you do that?”

“I think you know what I mean. Did you come to me expecting—or hoping, if you prefer—that I might help you find some way of coming to terms with your wife’s rape and suicide that doesn’t involve confronting her attacker?”

“No,” Paul says, brushing lint off his pants. Where does lint come from? Does it just float in the air till a man in black pants sits down to receive it?

“Then why are you here?”

“I don’t know.” How could he know what God has in store? No one does, perhaps not even God. Perhaps He’s winging it, like every human being on earth. We’re made in His image, after all. “Maybe I should leave,” Paul says as he gets up. He could hand over her fee in cash again, be gone. Better, perhaps, for both of them.

“That’s up to you,” she says, staying seated herself. “But whether with me or someone else, at some point you need to address the unresolved issues around your wife’s life and death.”

Addressing unresolved issues—is that what revenge is called these days?

“You’re smiling?”

“That not allowed?”

“I’m just trying to understand your reaction.”

“Don’t read anything into it. I smile at inappropriate times. People tell me that all the time.” She doesn’t seem to smile at all herself, appropriately or inappropriately—an uncommonly serious woman.

“What would you like to achieve by confronting the man who raped your wife?”

He finds it awkward looking down at her and sits again. “I want him to confess,” he says. She nods as if that is a reasonable objective, giving him a moment to expound on the subject, which he is always ready to do, any subject at all. “Did you know Martin Luther was obsessed with confessing? He’d confess for hours on end, then get up to leave, sit down again, and confess for hours more. He thought Satan had intruded into his daily thoughts.”

“Do you think Satan has intruded into your daily thoughts?”

“Satan, God—it’s difficult to tell who’s speaking to you.”

“Are you saying you hear voices?”

“I hear my own voice. Of course, I could be fooled. God can do that. Satan, too.”

“What is your inner voice telling you?”

“That confession isn’t really a penalty. In fact, confession can be good for the soul—it absolves the confessor. What I think is that the rapist should feel what it’s like to be raped himself.”

She nods again, perhaps just a habit. Surely she couldn’t be endorsing the natural interpretation of his statement. What kind of therapist would do that?

“You want validation on behalf of your wife’s experience,” she says, “how it affected her life and yours, and you think you might achieve that by having the man who committed the rape feel some sense of what it’s like.”

He stares at her. So many words. Too many words.





The Weekly Quotation read, “A bell cannot be unrung, but it can be smashed to bits so that it never rings again.” Simon reread the quote, trying to discern if the violent image was yet another expression of his assistant Barb’s postdivorce anger or, in a curious way, the beginning of her taking control of her life. The afternoon sun from the Common flooded in the large windows as he stood at his desk assessing the latest edition. The quotation, he decided, was a good sign, and he turned inside. Police Tranquilize Black Bear on Porch read the top headline in the Police Log on page two. Carole always led with an animal story, if one was available, and there always was. He flipped through the half pages of Religious News and Civic News and School News till he reached the Obituaries. There was just one this week, and when he saw it he couldn’t stop the words coming from his lips, “What the hell?”

Jeanette Crane Walker, 41

Jeanette Crane Walker, a native of Red Paint, died of unnatural causes on June 14. Jean should be remembered for the brutal attack she suffered 25 years ago in her hometown. Her family moved away from Bowling Green Road shortly thereafter. She is survived by her husband, who will miss her eternally.

Jean Walker. It stunned him, the girl he knew, his graduation date, announced dead in his own paper. He pictured the last time he saw her, running up the slope toward the Bayswater Inn, holding up her long dress so she wouldn’t trip. He had started to run after her but stopped because he didn’t want to appear to be chasing, if anyone was looking. By the time he reached the inn she was gone.

Margaret hurried over from her desk. “Typo, boss?”

“This obit, where did it come from?”

She read it over his shoulder. “I think that’s the late copy that came in Tuesday afternoon. We pulled a house ad to run it.”

“Who wrote it?”

“Barbara does all the late items.”

Simon looked about the newsroom, empty except for the two of them. “Where is she?”

“In the ladies’, I guess.” Margaret leaned against his desk. “Did you know this Jeanette Crane Walker?”

This Jeanette Crane Walker, as if she were merely a name in the paper, not flesh and blood. “Yes, I knew her. Everybody knew everybody in Red Paint twenty-five years ago.”

“That must have been a big story, a brutal attack.”

“No, Margaret, there wasn’t any story. There wasn’t any attack.”

Barbara came through the back door, sipping a Diet Coke through a straw. Simon waved her over. “Where did you get the copy for this obit?”

She dropped her soda can into the metal trash basket beside his desk, and the loud noise of it jolted them all. “Sorry,” she said. “What did you want to know?”

“Where did you get this obit?”

“A man came in Tuesday afternoon when you were all out back, and he had the information already written up the way he wanted it, so I rushed it in since we didn’t have any other obits for the week.”

“You didn’t check his sources?”

She looked over to Margaret for help. “I didn’t know we check sources on obits.”

“That’s because funeral homes send them in. This one just walked in the door. Anybody could come in and place an obit saying someone died when they haven’t.”

Barbara looked shocked. “You mean the woman isn’t dead?”

“That’s not the point. Suffered a brutal attack—that didn’t strike you as a claim you should question?”

“Yes—I mean no, it didn’t then, but it should have, yes. Should I call the police to see if they have any record of it?”

“No,” Simon said, “it was twenty-five years ago. There wouldn’t be any record of it. Besides, the obit has run.”





He runs the shower as hot as the faucet allows and rubs the fresh bar of soap over his body in long sweeps of his hand. An Irish Spring scent seeps into his skin. He stands under the blistering spray as long as he can take it and then shuts off the faucet. He dries himself, then drapes the wet towel over the curtain rod, one quarter inside, just enough to hold it on, the rest on the outside to dry. His whole self appears to him now in the full length of the door mirror. It’s been so long since he’s seen himself like this. His thin body has filled out over the years, rounding his shoulders, thickening his thighs. He brushes a hand slowly down his chest, following the line of dark hair to his rounded stomach, then farther down. He has a few minutes to spare.

———

It is a casual affair, the twenty-fifth reunion of Red Paint High. Women in slimming black slacks and colored tops. Men in Dockers pants and L.L. Bean shirts, the same as they have been wearing for decades. Paul comes down the broad stairway of the inn in dark jacket and gray slacks, complemented by a modest tie, maroon in color, asserted by a gold pin stuck in the center. He looks prosperous and well fed, a man who has gone off from Red Paint and done well for himself. Just outside the dining room door stands Gus, the six-foot-high wooden black bear in overalls, with a menu protruding from his belly. Paul scratches under the bear’s chin, as everyone in town always did for good luck, and enters through the double doors.

“Excuse me, have you registered?” He turns toward a woman outfitted in the high school colors, black top and red jacket. Her badge says Marge Francoeur, Class Secretary. He vaguely remembers her, a thin girl rushing down the hallways with her books clutched to her chest. “If you’ve registered then just fill out a name tag. Everyone has to have a name tag.”

He imagines a world in which everyone wears his name on his chest. It would be difficult to go unnoticed in such a life. There are eyes everywhere now—street corners, hallways, stores, parking lots. One must assume that at any given moment he is being watched and recorded, his behavior stored in some vast database, waiting to be retrieved when needed. It takes cunning not to be recognized. Paul takes a label and prints on it, in block letters, with a thick black pen. Then he strips off the backing and smacks the sticky paper to his lapel.

Marge leans over the table to see. “Guess Who?—that’s a good one.” She studies his face. “Bill Edison, right?”

Paul shrugs, the mysterious guest, and drifts into the sea of red-and-black balloons, red-and-black streamers, red-and-black tablecloths and napkins. He pours himself a cup of water at the folding table marked NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES and sidles into the crowd, blending in, preparing a face to greet the people that he’ll meet. He is sure he won’t be identified. He can be whoever he wants—a jovial sort, a studious academic, a back slapper, or his most comfortable self, the aloof observer taking it all in but not drawn in. Of this reunion but not a part of it.

By the small stage stands Simon Howe, holding forth, a shock of thick brown hair waving across his brow. So very satisfied with himself. Next to him a blond woman lingers at his shoulder, nodding animatedly at every word. Not Amy. Paul scans the room for her, at the groups of threes and fours. He thought he would have to take care not to be spotted by her, but he senses now her absence. Is it possible that she stayed home watching their son, fearful these days of leaving him alone? Simon glances over, his eyes spanning the ten steps or so between them, locks on Paul for a fleeting moment, then moves on. No recognition, just as he counted on. He slips across the room, catching bits of conversation and laughter from people who consider it great sport to make fun of their former awkward selves, forgetting how painful it was to actually be them. He sees a single man holding a plastic cup of dark liquid, and they make eye contact. The loner lofts his drink in the air, as in a toast. Paul does, too, but neither of them moves toward the other.

He turns and finds himself suddenly in a group, three women and a man. “Join us,” the fellow says, “I’m outnumbered here.” Paul nods and they laugh for a moment at his name tag, but no one bothers to try to figure out who he is. They assume he is a spouse, of only tangential importance to this reunion. They go around the small circle, stating their professions as if it is their identity—a mason, a receptionist, an emergency room nurse, and last, a mother of four. “All boys,” she says with a sardonic tone, as if you know how that is.

He doesn’t know and moves away from them, finds an open space by the memorabilia table stacked with yearbooks and newspaper clippings. A man wearing a red-and-black scarf draped over his shoulders pushes past Paul to the microphone and taps it. “Is this on? Can you hear me?” Everyone nods and waves. “Can I have your attention, folks? I’m Stephen Greer. In case your memory is a little shaky, I ran for class president senior year, not realizing it was a lifetime position. So here I am now, the moderator of our Red Paint High reunion.” Greer clears his throat, readying himself for his speech. “Twenty-five years ago it was the best of times and the worst of times for us. We finally earned our diplomas and were ready to make our mark in the world, but at the same time we faced a terrible tragedy, the unthinkable happening to one of our own. Let’s have a moment of silence in memory of our always cheerful friend, Stanley Dumas, who left the world as he lived it, at high speed.” The voices in the room go silent, but behind the platform there’s the sound of dishes being stacked in the kitchen and one gruntlike laugh. “All right,” Greer says looking over his shoulder with annoyance, “we’ll get to the dancing in a little bit, but before that we’re going to take a stroll down memory lane. If you haven’t submitted a question yet, there are three-by-five cards on the registration table. Write down your memories of the good old days, and do it in the form of a question. We’ll see who has the best memory.”

Jean did, of course, hands down. But she isn’t there to play the game. Paul maneuvers his way to the cardboard table by the entrance and takes a few cards.



When the class president steps to the microphone a half hour later, Paul is standing just a few yards from Simon. When he moves to get a drink or hug an old friend, Paul moves, too, a shadow.

“Okay, folks, give me your attention,” Greer says, “I’m going to read some questions, and if you know the answer, just call it out. I’ll start things off with one of my own: What did Jimmy Doyle ask Mr. Cox on his first day in physics class?”

“Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?” comes the call from several directions.

“And the answer?”

“To get to the same side,” the voices reply.

“Right, that was Jimmy for you. Here’s another one: What did Mr. Kerwin say when he picked up the ticking package in chemistry class?”

“Holy shit!” A chorus, everyone joining in, the favorite class moment of senior year.

“Right again. Let’s see if we can’t find a harder one.” Greer shuffles the cards. “What did the National Merit Scholar get away with on graduation night?” He looks puzzled. “We had a National Merit Scholar? I didn’t know that. Who was it—Sherri, Sherri Tate?” He surveys the crowd and keys in on a woman with black hair knotted halfway down her back. She shakes her head regretfully, swishing the hair side to side, her signature move, no doubt. “No?” Greer says. “Then who?”

“Simon was,” comes a call from just a few feet away, the voice of the pretty blond woman standing next to him.

Greer tilts the microphone that way. “Simon Howe, the editor in chief of the finest newspaper in Red Paint, were you a National Merit Scholar?”

Simon leans out of the pocket of people where he’s standing and waves. A self-effacing little gesture. So modest of him.

“Then I guess this question is about you. Want to confess what you …” and here Greer checks the card, “… got away with on graduation night? Something more scandalous than drinking rum and Coke in the bushes?”

Simon shrugs, retreats into his group.

“Okay,” Greer says, “the next card asks, Who sneaked off to the dock during the graduation party, and what did he do there? Another graduation question. Any takers?” There are wondering glances and shaking heads. “That’s a stumper. Moving on: Why didn’t anyone listen when the girl on the dock … All right then,” Greer says, slipping the cards into his jacket, “we’ll stop there. Strike up the music!”



Simon leaves abruptly, weaving past the suddenly swaying bodies in the ballroom and pushing out through the heavy doors. Paul follows at a suitable distance, in the shadows of the path leading to the parking lot. He gets in the Lumina, waits till the other car starts up, then trails the red taillights onto the entrance road. He speeds up, draws closer, and turns on his brights. The car ahead slows, and he does, too. When the car speeds up again, he does also, the bright lights sweeping over it. A little farther and the car stops. After a moment Simon gets out and shakes his fist in some vague threat. Paul dims his lights for a moment, as if in apology, then turns on the brights again. Simon starts for him, but not very fast, not quite sure he should challenge whatever lies in wait for him. Paul revs his engine and hits the accelerator. Are you watching, Jean? Am I doing this right? The car bucks a little, then barrels down the dark, narrow road.