As cocktail parties went, this one wasn’t too bad. Class President Barry Cannon kept his remarks short, thanking the committee who put the weekend together. I noted that gratitude for the decorations went to Cheryl Mellace. If I were the kind of teacher who let personal feelings influence grades, I might have changed the C-plus I’d given the decorations to a D, based on her rudeness toward Rosie.
Taylor’s presence added to the fun as she told us tales of school and her Girl Scout adventures. I hoped she and Maddie (and, yes, the grandparents) would be able to sit together at tomorrow night’s banquet. One problem with venues like this was that you could hardly hear anyone other than the people on your immediate right and left, and it was nice to know ahead of time who would occupy those slots.
At one point, Barry Cannon visited our table and directed most of his conversation to Rosie. I thought back to the young Barry-front row seat and a solid B-plus on his Dickens paper. The math- and chess-club type rather than a sports hero. I couldn’t hear them, but Rosie seemed at times pleased and at times confused, and all of the time distracted. I guessed Barry wasn’t measuring up to David, or at least not to her fantasy of him.
The party at our table broke up at about quarter to ten. The Thayers invited us all to join them for a late dinner at a San Francisco restaurant with a long Italian name.
“I’m pretty full myself, but this finger food doesn’t do it for Frank,” his wife said. “We’ve scouted out a place in North Beach that stays open very late.”
“Thank you, but I have another engagement,” Rosie said and left. To re-primp for David’s gathering, I assumed.
I was never one for late dinners, not even in San Francisco’s highly regarded Italian neighborhood, and also declined the invitation. “I have to pick up my granddaughter at the pool,” I said. “The lifeguard goes off duty at ten.”
“The pool’s open? We thought it closed early,” Taylor said, screwing up her nose much the same way Maddie did.
“There’s a special kids’ program this weekend,” I said. “They’ve matched the pool schedule to the events of our reunion.”
I saw a little frown, as if Taylor regretted having spent an evening with us when she could have been frolicking with her peers, but she was too polite to let it show much.
“Let’s go check it out now.” Henry turned to me. “Do you mind if we go with you, Gerry?”
“Not at all.” Why was I blushing again?
I learned a lot about Henry Baker in the short trip to the swimming pool, two floors down from the reunion room. We’d been on the same faculty for many years, but other than two or three sessions together with students for the Steinbeck project, Henry and I saw each other rarely, in the cafeteria or at the occasional faculty meeting. Now it seemed we had so much in common, I thought Henry was making it up. He retired the year after I did, and for the same reason: to take care of a terminally ill spouse. He lived only a few streets north of me in Lincoln Point and now spent his time with his granddaughter and doing woodworking projects for various crafts fairs and charities. It was a wonder I hadn’t remet him before tonight.
“I was still teaching, so I heard about Ken,” he told me. “I’m sorry I didn’t send my condolences, but it was all I could do at the time to keep things going with my classes and taking Virginia back and forth to the hospital until I was able to retire.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
Maddie had charmed the lifeguard into opening the diving section so she could practice her cannonball. We watched two performances before she reluctantly left the pool, her red curls plastered to her head.
After introductions all around we headed for our rooms. Maddie and Taylor seemed to connect immediately with a discussion of a certain diving maneuver that was particularly difficult.
“We’ll be at the high school tomorrow. Grandpa says it’s a groundbreaking, whatever that is. Will you be there?” Taylor asked us.
“Yeah, it’s a date,” Maddie said.
Enough said.
Rosie opened the door to our room for us, her other hand holding an assortment of makeup tools. “I was sipping and noshing all evening, so I had to reapply here and there,” she explained.
Maddie dug out her pajamas and toothbrush. I moved a few totes off the easy chair and plopped into it. Cocktail parties take a lot out of me. For one thing, I was hoarse from trying to carry on a conversation at full volume. For another, considering David Bridges’s lukewarm attitude toward Rosie and Cheryl Mellace’s appropriation of his arm, I was tense about Rosie’s social prospects this evening.
“Can you get my nightgown from the top drawer, sweetheart?” I asked Maddie. “And the sandwiches from the cooler?”
“Cool,” Maddie said. “Supper in bed.”
“What do you mean?” Rosie asked, flustered. “We have to go to David’s room, Gerry. It’s almost ten thirty.”
“I thought you might have changed your mind and preferred to go alone, Rosie.”
“No, no. It’s not like that. It’s supposed to be for a few special people.” She took a note from her everyday purse, perched on her luggage, and unfolded it. “See? It says, Join me as a few special people come back to my room. We can bring a guest, like the person we’re rooming with, I’m sure.”
I couldn’t believe Rosie had carried the note from Lincoln Point. But then, she’d carried the entire ALHS hallway of lockers.
“You seemed to hit it off with Barry Cannon tonight. He and David were good friends in school and I’ll bet he’ll be there.”
Rosie waved her hand. “Barry. He and David went to grade school together, too, otherwise do you think they’d have been hanging around in the same crowd in high school?”
“Didn’t David like smart guys?”
“That’s not what I meant, but you know how it always was at ALHS. The jocks hung out on one side of the quad and the nerds on the other. Anyway, that was a strange conversation Barry and I had tonight. He kept asking me about my father.”
“Do they know each other?”
Another wave. “Apparently. They’ve had some business dealings.”
“Your father is retired, isn’t he? I forget exactly what kind of business-”
Rosie huffed a long breath. “Gerry, we have to go,” she said.
I looked at the narrow but inviting bed with its three plumped pillows plus a matching blue-and-mauve bolster and the soft, lightweight comforter. Maddie was arranging sandwiches and chips on paper plates left over from the last birthday party at my house.
“Truthfully, I’d rather-”
“Gerry, I need you,” Rosie said in a near wail.
“I’ll be fine here, Grandma,” said Maddie, more grown up at eleven than Rosie in her late forties. Maddie had already bit into a tuna sandwich and downed a handful of potato chips. “I have homework for class.”
Although we were long past the time I could help Maddie with much of her homework, I would have given anything to stay, even for an hour or two, listening to programming language.
My late husband often called me a patsy. The term had probably gone out of style by now, but I was still a patsy. “Just for a little while,” I said to Rosie.
“How did you find out David’s room number?” I asked Rosie as we stepped off the elevator on the eleventh floor.
“I asked old Coach Robbins, figuring he’d be going to the party, too. He didn’t seem to know anything about it, but he didn’t have a problem telling me David’s room number. His whole team is up here on eleven. It’s almost like high school, with everyone sticking together in the old groups.”
I thought back to Susan’s remark at our last crafts meeting, that if you didn’t fit in then, you won’t fit in now.
We walked down the hall toward eleven forty-three, Rosie alternately speeding up and slowing down. I was sure some of her pacing problem had to do with her stilettos, a far cry from the tennis shoes she wore in her own milieu, Rosie’s Bookshop. At one point I thought (hoped?) she was going to turn around and forget about the party.
When we got to David’s door, Rosie adjusted her dress and fingered each stone in her bracelet, a gesture she’d made repeatedly since she’d put it on her wrist. She gave me a look that said I should be the one to knock.
I did, gently.
No answer. Except for the giggling we heard through the door.
I knocked again, a little louder.
David opened the door, revealing expansive, handsome quarters. Looking down the opening he’d given us, I caught a glimpse of a panoramic view at the end of the suite. He’d shed his jacket and tie and swirled a drink in a short, stubby glass.
Cheryl, in a peach chiffon spaghetti-strap number meant for a younger woman, was on his arm, as she was at the cocktail party. Had she ever let go?
There was no sign of anyone else in the rooms.
“Hi,” Rosie said in a bright, nervous voice. “Are we too early?”
Cheryl swung her long brown hair back and laughed. “Too early for what?”
David looked confused. “Can I help you, Rosie? Mrs. Porter?”
I let Rosie handle this one.
“I… uh… I thought there was a little get-together tonight. In your room. Your note…” she said.
“We’re already getting together,” Cheryl said, her hair still swinging, her tone disparaging.
“I’m sorry,” David said to Rosie. “I don’t know anything about a get-together. I think everyone went out to dinner or something.”
I understood the “everyone” to mean David’s inner circle.
“Maybe she means the party tomorrow night, David,” Cheryl said.
Another confused look from the football star. “That’s just for-”
“Right,” Cheryl said. “I didn’t see her name on the list.” Cheryl laughed, emphasizing her, and apparently enjoying the third-person references. “Maybe she’s on the list that has Math Bird on it.”
Rosie put her hand on my arm to steady herself. I thought she was going to faint.
David grinned, then seemed to have an attack of conscience. “Do you want to come in for a drink?” he asked.
Too little, too late, I thought, as Rosie recovered her balance, turned, and walked away.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said to David.
“I guess so. Sorry, Mrs. Porter,” David said, closing the door. I figured he apologized to me, forgetting I wasn’t responsible for grading him anymore.
I went after Rosie, the sound of Cheryl’s laugh following me down the hallway. I recognized the reference to Math Bird, a nickname for one of the smarter boys in the class, but I had no idea why his name would be invoked tonight.
Apparently some of the thirty-year alums of ALHS weren’t just reuniting, they were sticking to the cliques of their high school days.
Even in her stilettos, Rosie managed to get to the elevator and ride away before I got to the doors. I took the next car and rode down to our room on five, feeling a heavy sadness for my friend. I was sure she didn’t expect to be humiliated. Who ever does? With all the misgivings I’d had from the beginning of Rosie’s journey to the past, I was still caught off guard. Warnings and forebodings were one thing; the full manifestation of all our fears was another.
I entered our room, where Maddie was already asleep on her cot in front of the television, a mostly eaten sandwich on her lap. All that swimming had taken its toll.
There was no sign that Rosie had returned to the room. I thought about checking the bar to see if she’d gone there, or the all-night business center where she could be doing bookshop work on a hotel computer. I decided not to interfere beyond putting a note on the cooler that she should help herself to sandwiches and snacks.
I covered Maddie, turned off the television, and settled down for a sandwich myself. As for David and the non-party, I couldn’t guess what had happened. Did Rosie misread the note? She’d held the note out to me, but I hadn’t read it myself. Was this a cruel game David was playing with her? All the gifts were now called into question. Had the whole drama been Cheryl’s idea all along? I couldn’t fathom.
I waited up for Rosie, reading until well after midnight, but she didn’t come back. I eased my fretting by assuming, and hoping, that she’d found a quiet place to reflect, or cry, or do whatever she needed to in private.
When I woke up on Saturday morning I expected to see the sun streaming through our east-facing windows, but this was San Francisco, where the summer days usually started with a serious fog bank.
I looked over at the second twin bed and breathed a sigh of relief that Rosie was there, also just waking up. She might have been a battered woman, for all the black and blue and puffiness on her face. I realized it was simply eye makeup running into cheek makeup.
She caught my eye, inadvertently I thought. It was hard to think of an appropriate greeting. “What time did you get in?” I whispered, not wanting to wake Maddie, curled up in a corner of the cot.
“Around two, I think. I just had to clear my head. I went to the fitness center.”
“Rosie, I’m so sorry about-”
She waved away my concern. “No problem. I just needed a little workout.” From a supine position, she lifted imaginary barbells in the air. “I’m really fine now.”
Why didn’t I believe her? Maybe one reason was because as long as I’d known her, Rosie had never been to a health club or lifted a barbell.
Maddie and I left the hotel about eight o’clock, while Rosie was still packing, her mood swinging from angry to moping. I wanted to get an early start on the drive back to Lincoln Point for the groundbreaking ceremony. Rosie had told us she doubted she’d return to San Francisco for the banquet tonight, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d wondered about keeping the commitment myself, but Maddie and I decided we would go back. After all, the room was paid for, and if nothing else, we could enjoy some of the tourist attractions.
“And be much cooler than in Lincoln Point,” Maddie added.
“Do you mean the temperature or what we can do there?” I asked.
“Both.”
When we reached the garage, I saw Cheryl Mellace coming down the entrance ramp in a black convertible. If she’d kept on a straight path, she would have passed in front of us, but she veered off and drove up another row and parked. My guess was that she had no interest in greeting me. The feeling was mutual.
We had nasty traffic the whole way home, but Maddie always made a car trip more pleasant than it otherwise would be. We never lacked for topics of conversation, knock-knock jokes, and plans for more time together.
One question, like “What are you working on in class?” could be good for many miles. Today she tried to explain video game design using something called fusion software. To me, fusion was a style of cuisine, and probably always would be.
“It’s version two,” she said, as if that meant anything to me.
“As long as you’re having a good time and learning a lot,” I said, resorting to generalities.
“You’ll see when we have our big demonstration at the end,” Maddie said, with a grin. “It will be like a crafts show.”
“Smarty,” I said. Too bad tickling was an unsafe driving practice.
We’d agreed it would be a good idea to stop at home as soon as we got to Lincoln Point, to replenish the food supplies in the picnic cooler. This habit had a little to do with economizing but more to do with being sure Maddie had food she would eat. I was afraid the gourmet restaurants of San Francisco would be lost on her and leave her hungry. Except for the “food” at the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, where we’d taken her when she was about two years old, but not since. At the time, the whole family shared one serving of Ghirardelli’s famous earthquake sundae, in which “cracks” in scoops of ice cream are filled with whipped cream, nuts, and cherries.
The more I thought about it, the more eager I was to return to San Francisco this afternoon. We’d have time for a Ghirardelli stop before the banquet. I wanted to see Maddie’s face this time when the enormous sundae arrived at our table. And I wanted to dig into it myself.
But an exciting groundbreaking ceremony in Lincoln Point had to come first.