The Night Remembers (11 page)

Sunny ignored his teasing. "I'm going to take Daphne into the living room and reintroduce her to everyone," she stated, linking her arm through Daphne's as she steered her through the open archway into the room beyond. "You remember Gail Scott, don't you, Daphne?" she said, presenting the two women to each other.

"Yes, of course, I remember Gail," Daphne replied warmly, reaching out to give the short, plump brunette a quick hug. It was enthusiastically returned. "How could I forget? Gail took me to my first women's lib meeting. Remember? At the Women's Center near the campus." She laughed a little at the memory. "God, those were the days, weren't they?" she said, and they were off, reminiscing about the "good old days."

Daphne wandered from group to group after that, reacquainting herself with the friends of her carefree, radical youth. The music throbbing from the stereo was from that era too, an eclectic mix of the Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Dylan, the Righteous Brothers, Peter, Paul and Mary. All they lacked, Daphne thought, nostalgia tugging at her heartstrings, were the love beads and headbands, poster paints and bad coffee, and someone on a soapbox spewing the political rhetoric of the day
at them.

"Oh, and do you remember that 'Save the Otters' march? The one Carl arranged. It rained all over us, remember? You couldn't read the signs because the paint was dripping all over the place and the police never even bothered to show up because..."

"...that time Sunny chained herself to the door of the student union building and then lost the keys to the handcuffs and the janitor had to saw them off her. I thought I'd die laughing."

"...his van had a psychedelic paint job, remember? With exploding stars or something."

"...when we went to the all-night candlelight vigil. I'll never forget how beautiful it was. Everybody was singing and swaying."

"...Daphne was marching down Market Street in the feminists' Sunrise Protest. Remember how she hit that cameraman on the head with her sign and ended up on the six o'clock news?"

Laughter, including Daphne's own, filled the air.

"Adam got so mad I thought he'd bust a gut," another voice said.

Yes, Adam,
Daphne thought. Where was he?

Someone else had apparently already asked the same question.

"I called the hospital a few minutes ago," Brian told them. "They said he was still in surgery—"

There was a unanimous groan.

"So we're going to go ahead and eat without him—"

Good-natured cheers filled the air.

Brian gave them a long-suffering look. "And he can catch up when he gets here," he finished. "So..." He bowed slightly, one arm extended in the direction of the dining room. "Food's right this way."

"No one had better lay even one finger on that cake, though," Sunny warned. "We're not cutting it until Adam gets here."

Everyone trooped toward the laden dining room table, filling up their buffet plates with triangles of shrimp toast, steamed pearl balls, finger-sized egg rolls, five-spice chicken, sweet and sour pork, and fluffy boiled rice. Chinese food used to be Adam's absolute favorite, Daphne remembered, reaching for a plate. Apparently, it still was.

"It's all natural," Sunny told them proudly. "Not one additive or preservative. Not a sprinkle of MSG, either."

"I can't eat it without MSG," someone deadpanned.

"Haven't you ever heard of Chinese restaurant syndrome?" Sunny began, seeing the opportunity to hold forth on the danger of food additives in the American diet.

"At least a hundred times," teased Brian, stopping his wife before she could say another word. "Two hundred times," he exaggerated. "A thousand."

"Very funny," she said, pretending to throw a steamed pearl ball at him.

Daphne smiled at their loving byplay, filling her plate with a little bit of everything as she made her way around the table. Then, plate filled, she ambled out into the wide entry hall. Waggling the fingers of her free hand at the small redheaded child at the top of the stairs, she crossed into the living room and found herself a seat on the smooth stones of the fireplace hearth.

"So," she said a few minutes later when Sunny came in and sat down on the sofa across from her. "What have you been up to lately?"

Brian, passing by on his way to the other corner of the sofa, screwed up his face. "Don't ask," he warned.

Sunny ignored him. "Well," she began. "The kids and I are up to a mile a day."

"Just you and the kids?" Daphne slanted a teasing look at the gray-eyed man sitting at the other end of the sofa. "Not Brian, too?"

Brian shook his head. "It's a well-known medical fact that running causes shinsplints," he said in his doctor-knows-best voice.

"We don't run, we jog. Sort of," Sunny countered. "Mollie's too young to do much running."

Brian grinned. "And you're too old."

"Oh, you." She dismissed him with an eloquent lift of her shoulder as she turned back toward Daphne. "Actually, what I've
really
been up to is something much more important," she said, and then paused significantly, her eyes flickering briefly toward her husband before she continued. "Antivivisection."

Daphne looked at her over a forkful of sweet and sour pork. "Anti-what?"

"Antivivisection," Sunny repeated, a bit more loudly.

"Oh, God," Brian groaned comically. "If you're going to start on that again I'm leaving." He made as if to stand up.

"But antivivisection is
important,"
Sunny stressed, reaching out to hold him where he was.

"Of course it's important," Brian agreed, sinking back into the sofa. "Animal research has saved thousands of lives."

"That's not what I mean and you know it, Brian Andrew McCorkle."

"Now you're really in trouble," Daphne said, grinning at him over a piece of shrimp toast. She still didn't know exactly what they were talking about—antivivisection being a word she was unfamiliar with—but she was enjoying the fireworks.

"Well, just what did you mean—" he paused, grinning at the group who had gathered round to watch the show "—
Elizabeth."

No one, not even her parents, had called Sunny that for more years than anyone could remember. Elizabeth was Sunny's real name, but she had changed it to Sunshine during her high school, flower child days. It had been shortened to Sunny by her classmates and, suiting her far better than the more staid Elizabeth did, it had stuck.

"That was a low blow," she announced with icy dignity, but her eyes were twinkling. "Unworthy of even you."

"You started it," he pointed out. "I was merely trying to defend myself."

"Children, children," Daphne interrupted, laughing. "Before this
discussion
disintegrates into a full-fledged brawl, do you think one of you might explain to me what you're arguing about?"

"Antivivisection," Sunny said, as if that explained everything.

"Yes, I know but—now don't think I'm a complete idiot—but what exactly is antivivisection?"

"Antivivisection," said a voice from behind the sofa, "is the opposition of some people to the use of live animals for medical research because they believe that it causes unnecessary pain to the animal."

Daphne's eyes, as well as everyone else's, lifted toward the speaker. She saw a tall slim woman of, perhaps, twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. Her heavy, straight blond hair was cut shoulder length and held back from her face with a comb on either side. Something about her intensely blue eyes and the way she held her head was vaguely familiar, but Daphne couldn't quite place her. She was much too young to be part of the old gang and too old to be the daughter of one of them, either. Still, Daphne had the nagging feeling that she
knew her.

"But it does cause pain," Sunny said, her voice passionate with outrage. "Great pain."

"Yes, I suppose it does." The young woman spoke in a cool and detached manner. "But not
unnecessary
pain. How else are we going to find a cure for all the hundreds of diseases that man is heir to?"

"I don't know. But butchering innocent animals isn't the way."

"Really, Mrs. McCorkel," the young woman said dryly, her expression faintly disdainful. "No one 'butchers' innocent animals. Every care is taken to see that the animal doesn't suffer any more than absolutely necessary."

"But the animals still suffer horribly." She shuddered. "They give them cancer and other awful, crippling, painful diseases. They do things to their brains and their hearts. They—"

"Sunny," Brian said kindly, putting a hand on his wife's arm. "I don't think a birthday party is the place to discuss this sort of thing. Leave it be."

"But—"

"Leave it be," he repeated softly.

Sunny looked down at her lap for a moment, and Daphne saw her shoulders lift in a sigh. Then she raised her head, and there was a smile on her face. "Brian's right. This is no place for that kind of discussion." She jumped up from the sofa, "If everybody's finished eating, let's push back the furniture and dance." She picked up her plate from the coffee table with one hand and reached across for Daphne's with the other. "I'll just take a few of these things out to the kitchen first. You all start moving the furniture." She turned swiftly, disappearing through the open ar
chway, into the dining room and beyond.

Daphne rose from her spot on the hearth as some of the others began to do as Sunny had suggested, and approached the young woman who had defended the practice of vivisection so coolly. "I know this is going to sound like a line from an old movie," she began, smiling, "but don't I know you?"

"You used to," the younger woman said. She paused, a cool unfriendly smile turning up her perfect pink lips. "I'm Marcia Forrest."

Daphne stared at her blankly for a moment.

"Adam's sister," she elaborated.

"Oh, my God, of course. Marcia. No wonder you looked so familiar."
And are so unfriendly,
Daphne thought. Adam's baby sister had never liked Adam's wife. "The last time I saw you, you were what? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Thirteen," Marcia acknowledged, making no effort to help the conversation along.

"So, what are you up to these days?"

"I'm in my second year of medical school at UC San Francisco."

Adam's alma mater,
Daphne thought. "Oh, you're planning to be a doctor, then."

"A surgeon," Marcia corrected.

"Making plastic surgery your specialty, too?" Plastic surgery, with an emphasis on severe burn cases, was Adam's specialty.

"No," Marcia said shortly. "I intend to specialize in cardiovascular surgery. Surgery on the heart," she added, as if Daphne might not know what it was.

"How admirable. Adam must be very proud of you," Daphne said sincerely.

"Yes, I believe he is," Marcia said, just a bit too smugly.

"Well, it was nice talking to you again but if you'll excuse me—" Daphne gestured in the direction of the dining room "I—think I'll just go see if Sunny needs any help." She hurried off to the kitchen.

"Marcia Forrest certainly has a charming bedside manner, doesn't she?" Daphne said a few minutes later, as she stood at the sink, helping Sunny scrape plates before loading them into the dishwasher.

"The original Miss Iceberg," the redhead agreed dryly. She looked up from what she was doing for a moment, a wicked smile on her face. "I take it she still worships the ground you walk on?"

Daphne flicked a wet hand in Sunny's direction. "Very funny," she said, and then sighed. "That girl has never liked me. Not from day one, when she was hardly more than ten years old. I wonder why?"

"Because Adam did—and still does—
like
you, that's why."

"Jealousy, you mean?" Daphne said, ignoring the bit about Adam still liking her.

"Well, of course. What else would you expect? Adam is her adored big brother and halfway to sainthood as far as she's concerned. He was the first one in the family to go to college and make something of himself." Sunny babbled on, rinsing the dishes that Daphne had scraped before sticking them into the dishwasher. "He's helping put her through med school, did you know that? Which, of course, makes him even more godlike in her eyes."

Daphne nodded. "He always wanted to help his family." She paused for a moment, remembering. "It always made him so... so
angry
with himself that he couldn't afford to help his younger brothers with their educations."

Sunny shrugged. "They did all right without his help."

"And what did they end up doing? The other two boys?"

Sunny smiled. "They're hardly boys anymore," she reminded Daphne. "John does something scientific involving the coral reefs around Hawaii. And David is an accountant. Lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife and two kids."

"And Gracie and Art? How are they?" Daphne asked, referring to Adam's parents. "As I remember, they weren't all that crazy about me, either." Her eyebrows quirked upward. "I'm sure they thought I was going to lead their future doctor away from the straight and narrow."