A Farewell to Legs (2 page)

“All in all,” I told her, “this night is not
starting out terribly well.”

“
R
emind me why we’re going
to this thing.”

Jeff Mahoney, all six-foot-whatever of him, was
scrunched into the passenger seat of my 1997 Saturn four-door. He
had pushed the seat back as far as it went, and still his knees
were threatening to hit his chin.

“It’ll be fun,” I said unconvincingly. “We haven’t
seen these people in twenty-five years.”

“And we didn’t like them
then
,” he reminded
me.

“You’re not going in with a terrific attitude,” I
pointed out.

“And you expected. . . what?”

I grumbled something under my breath and shoved a
cassette into the car radio. John Mayer.
Room for Squares
.
He grimaced, but didn’t say anything. To him, any music recorded
after 1979 is suspect.

He was right, of course, although not about the
music. There was no reason for me to have anticipated anything but
a sour attitude from him, since it had been my idea for us to go to
our 25th year high school reunion. Overcome by a sudden,
inexplicable wave of nostalgia, I had responded to the invitation
in my mail (along with the inevitable bills) by convincing him that
we would spend the evening drinking and making fun of our former
classmates. Well,
he
could drink, anyway. I’d appointed
myself designated driver. The major effect of alcohol on my system
is to make me sleepy.

I don’t know what it was that convinced
me
to
go. At Bloomfield, NJ’s prime example of a high school in the
mid-1970s, students divided themselves into the usual cliques: the
jocks, the cheerleaders (who existed mostly to sleep with the
jocks, thus serving to doubly tweak the rest of us), the brains
(this was years before nerds were invented, and decades before
computer geeks), and the remedial students.

And then there was Us. Myself, Mahoney, Friedman,
Wharton, and McGregor. We were a group because we didn’t fit in
with any of the other groups—we fell between the cracks. And we got
along because we expected nothing of each other, and got exactly
that. Besides Mahoney, who was still my closest friend, I had-n’t
seen the others in at least 10 years.

So maybe it was that kind of reunion I had been
trying to manufacture. I’d blackmailed Mahoney into going by
telling him I wouldn’t go without him, and had emailed Bobby Fox,
who was coordinating the reunion (and who was still, at 43, calling
himself “Bobby”), to be sure Friedman, Wharton, and McGregor would
be there. But I hadn’t told Mahoney, and I didn’t know why.

Now, he listened thoughtfully to the music, wrinkled
his brow, and turned it down a notch. “This guy’s not bad,” he
said. “But he’s never going to replace Jim Croce.”

“I’m sorry. I left my Bad Company tape back home in
my white double-knit leisure suit.”

Mahoney grinned. “Somebody get up on the wrong side
of the bed this morning?”

“I can’t remember why I wanted to go to this thing,
either,” I admitted.

“It’s because Stephanie Jacobs is going to be
there,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ve had the hots for her
since Gerald Ford was president.”

Stephanie Jacobs! I hadn’t even thought of her.
Would she be at this miserable wing ding?

“
Everybody
had the hots for Stephanie
Jacobs,” I reminded him. “And when I say
‘everybody. . .’”

When Mahoney and I were seventeen, all of us
considered Stephanie Jacobs the ideal woman. Built so that she
looked naked even in a down parka, Stephanie was rumored to have
caused cardiac arrest in middle-aged men of, say, 30 or so.

“Not everybody,” said Mahoney.

“Your memory fails you,” I told him. “I remember a
time you gave Stephanie Jacobs a ride home in the Mustang, and you
talked about nothing else for six weeks.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “It was only four weeks.”

“Nonetheless. You had just as many hots for
Stephanie Jacobs as everybody else.”

His eyes got a little dreamy. “That Mustang was a
great car,” he said.

I decided to pretend he hadn’t spoken. “Anyway,
she’s not the reason I wanted to go tonight,” I protested as I
pulled into the parking lot of the luxurious Vacation Inn of
Carteret, New Jersey. “I hadn’t thought once of her before you
mentioned her name right now.”

“Sure,” said Mahoney. “You just knew she liked me
better, anyway.”

“Uh-huh.”

We got out of the car after I parked, which made
sense. If we’d gotten out before I’d parked, the car might very
well have run over our feet and hurt us, and possibly destroyed
property at the Inn. It’s important to follow certain
procedures.

I led the way toward the door marked “Banquet Room,”
which was sure to be an overstatement. And about 20 feet from the
door, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Mahoney, who came close to barreling into me and
causing permanent damage, slammed on his heels. “What the hell is
wrong with you?” he yelped.

“I can’t go in. Let’s go to the movies or something.
This was a bad idea.”

He laughed. “It’ll be
fun
! We haven’t seen
these people in
twenty-five years
!” he said.

“Yeah, and we didn’t. . .”

“Why, Aaron Tucker,” purred a voice behind me that
was laced with sex and nostalgia. “I hear you solve mysteries.”

Mahoney and I both spun around and muttered
something in the tradition of Jackie Gleason’s classic “homina,
homina, homina.”

Stephanie Jacobs, in a dress covering considerably
less than a down parka would, stood maybe five feet away.

She smiled a satisfied smile that indicated she knew
exactly what effect her voice would have on us. On
me
,
really, since she wasn’t looking at Mahoney at all. Her deep blue
eyes bored into me, and I’m pretty sure left a hole in the back of
my head. Stephanie looked just as good as she had at 18, which was
entirely unfair of her.

Maybe I hadn’t come just to see Friedman, Wharton
and. . . what’s-their-names, after all.

I
t took me a few moments to
regain the power of speech, and a few more to look Stephanie in the
eye, something her plunging neckline wasn’t helping me achieve.

“I don’t solve mysteries,” I said when English once
again became my primary language. “I’m a soldier on the bottom rung
of the literary battleground.” It sounded good at the time. I have
no idea what it meant, since battlegrounds don’t generally have
rungs, but there was no time to think of that.

“That’s not what I heard,” she said, still not
taking her eyes off me. I thought Mahoney might begin doing the
tarantella behind my back just to get her attention. “I heard you
found out who killed some woman in your town a while back.”

Well, therein lies a tale. And one I have told
elsewhere, so I’ll spare you the details. I decided, in this case,
to be modest.

“Oh, I was just working on a story and got lucky,” I
said.

“You were lucky I was backing you up,” grumbled
Mahoney, “or you might not be here today.”

His booming voice finally penetrated Stephanie’s
radar screen, and she turned to him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You
don’t have a name tag, and I’m embarrassed, but I can’t
remember. . .”

“Come on inside,” I said, gesturing toward the door.
“Let’s see who we can remember without name tags.”

I didn’t hold out my arm, but she took it anyway,
and as we walked inside, Mahoney gave me the same look arsenic
would give you if it had eyes.

Inside was a table with “Hello My Name Is” name
tags, next to which was tastefully arranged an array of pictures
from the football highlights of Bloomfield High School’s team for
my graduation year (meaning three pictures, one for each of our
victories against nine losses). Mahoney and I walked past the
table, having decided ahead of time to forego the stupid tags and
let people guess who we were. Stephanie stopped and carefully found
hers, then tried to find an artful place to attach it to her dress.
It took a while, but she managed.

I was across the room by the time she had assembled
herself, but I did take some amusement in the looks our male
classmates gave Stephanie as she made her way around the dining
room. The nametag gave them a legitimate excuse to look where they
wanted to look, which I believe was exactly the effect Stephanie
had desired. But before I could make my way back to her, I felt a
hand grab my upper arm, and turned.

Mark Friedman, looking every bit his age at 43, was
smiling, tall, trim, and healthy-looking. I fought the urge the
choke him.

“Hey, Tucker!” he yelled. “I saw you come in with
the Goddess. How’d you manage that?”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Mark,” I attempted. “Are
the other guys here?”

“I saw Wharton earlier,” he said. “He’s trying to
get everybody to vote for him for something. But what about the
Goddess? You banging her?”

“I’m married to a goddess,” I told him, “and it’s
not Stephanie Jacobs. Before the parking lot five minutes ago, I
hadn’t seen her in twenty years.”

“Could have fooled me, the way she was hanging onto
your arm,” he said, doing his best to leer but coming up with a
lopsided grin instead. Friedman could never really transcend his
original image, that of a cute little boy. But he was constantly
trying.

After showing off pictures of our respective
children (they throw you out of the Father’s Union if you’re caught
not carrying), Friedman and I caught up on professional
accomplishments. His took longer than mine. He owned three carpet
stores. I made a mental note to change professions.

We headed for the bar, where I got a Diet Coke (they
never listen when you tell them to forget the lemon) and Friedman
opted for a Chivas Regal with water on the side. I knew what I had
paid for the Diet Coke, so, if Friedman could afford a Chivas at
the cash bar, I figured there must be money in selling carpet in
Central New Jersey.

The problem was, we weren’t making eye contact very
much. And when we did, it was that kind of tentative, accidental
eye contact that’s really just a way of finding out if the other
guy is looking at you, or if he’s just checking out some woman he
went on a date with 27 years ago.

“Where’d you say you saw Wharton?” I asked.

He looked relieved, pointed, and we walked across
the room more or less together, waving at people we thought we
recognized and avoiding the glances of people we were certain we
recognized.

Halfway there, Stephanie grabbed my arm again. I
thought Friedman was going to have a hemorrhage right then, and he
found himself caught in one of those awkward situations where you
don’t know if you should continue on the path you’ve begun or stop
to ogle a woman’s cleavage. He was clearly leaning toward the
latter, but I pushed him in Wharton’s direction and stayed to talk
to Stephanie.

“You didn’t show me pictures of your children,” she
said. “You have some, don’t you?”

“Two,” I admitted, reaching for the evidence. “Ethan
is twelve, and Leah’s eight.”

She made the usual noises you make when you see
someone else’s children. “So what do you do when you’re not solving
murders?” she asked.

“I freelance.” Stephanie gave me the same confused
look everybody gives me when I say that, and yet I persist.
“Writing. Magazines and newspapers.” I actually pulled a business
card out of my wallet and gave it to her.

“No kidding. My husband knows a lot of editors.
Maybe he can help you get. . .”

Mahoney loomed up behind her. “Do you remember me
yet?” he asked Stephanie. Clearly, the man was trying way too
hard.

“I do. You drove me home once in the rain, didn’t
you?” Damn, she was good. Mahoney’s grin got so wide I was afraid
it would meet at the back of his head and his brain would fall out.
While they were reliving this fascinating episode in their lives, I
followed Friedman from the bar (where he’d replenished his Chivas)
toward our resident politician.

Greg Wharton, New Jersey state assemblyman (and
osteopath), brushed the forelock out of his eyes as we approached.
Wharton was a little heavier than I remembered him, but then, I was
a little heavier than I remembered me, too. His suit was nicely
enough tailored that it was hard to tell exactly how much heavier
he was than his early-30’s self, the last version of Wharton I had
seen.

He smiled when he saw Friedman and me approaching,
but as with all politicians or would-be politicians, it was hard to
know if he meant it. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Wharton
shook my hand heartily, as if he were campaigning outside a Stop
& Shop and had just asked for my support.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stephanie Jacobs
talking to Mahoney, but she was looking past his left shoulder
toward Michael Andersen, Bloomfield’s one-time quarterback, with
whom she had performed all sorts of delectable acts in the back
seat of a 1968 Ford Fairlane, at least according to rumor.

“So, what are you running for this time?” Friedman
asked Wharton. “Board of Chosen Freeloaders?”

“That’s
Freeholders
,” said Wharton, his sense
of humor sharp as ever. “And no, this time it’s State Senate. There
are too many issues. . .”

“Spare me the campaign rhetoric,” I suggested. “I
can always look it up on your web site, Whart. Besides, I don’t
even live in your district.”

“You could move.”

Friedman rolled his eyes. “Nothing ever changes,” he
said. “You still expect us to get you elected.” Wharton’s eyes
narrowed. That one stung. It’s a long story, involving a stuffed
ballot box in a student council election. And even though the
statute of limitations has in all probability run out, it’s
probably better left untold.