Along about that time, Emily called the group to about as much order as was ever going to happen. Emily was more or less considered the de facto permanent class president, partly because she still lived in Bradford – and was the mayor of the town at that – but more because she was a compulsive organizer, and she spent a lot of effort keeping up on the members of the Bradford class of ’88, but mostly because she was Emily. She was the kind of person who took charge of things, and most people were willing to let her because then they wouldn’t have to do it themselves.

“They’ve got dinner about ready for us,” she said. “So we might as well get on with it. I think you’ll like this meal better than the one we had at the tenth reunion. Let’s start with the table over on my left and work our way across the room. Then, when we get done eating we can get on to the fun stuff. I’ve heard a few good tales tonight, but I don’t think there’s going to be the kind of bombs that got dropped on us the last time. At least I hope not.”

“But Emily,” Sharon’s voice was heard around the room. “The night before us is yet young. Who knows what will happen ere the sun?”

“Oh, Jeez, now she’s doing poetry, too,” Emily laughed. “Who could forget Sharon Holdenhoven?”

There was a laugh around the room. That was at least one tonight that was simple to answer. The table to Emily’s left – “My other left, people” – rose and started toward the serving area. Of course, that got people to mixing a little again, and there was more serious reminiscing going on.

Sharon, Bob, Scott, and Sonja were sitting toward the middle of the room. “Looks like it’s going to be a few minutes,” Scott observed. “Honey, would you like another drink?”

“I think so,” the lovely dark woman said. “That wine looks good. I don’t think I need another mixed drink at dinner.”

“I think you’re right,” Scott agreed.

“How about you, Sharon?” Bob asked. “Can I get you another one?”

“Why of course, my cherished one,” she smiled. “For what tastes like a cheap box wine, it’s not half bad. I shall eagerly await your return bearing squeezings of the grape.”

While the ladies sat and continued to talk – and Sharon talking with anyone within hearing distance – Bob and Scott got up and headed for the bar. “Boy,” Scott said when they got a little ways away, “She’s sure full of it tonight, isn’t she?”

“When isn’t she?” Bob smiled. “It’s just like it was twenty years ago, except that she talks more about the places she’s been and the things she’s done. I haven’t seen her in all that time and can tell she’s still the same old Sharon.”

“Hard to believe,” Scott observed as they got into the line for the bar. It was not short. “If I don’t mistake myself, it seems like she’s coming onto you pretty hard.”

“Well, I’ve slung a little her way, in my own way,” Bob smiled. “The thing with Sharon is that you’re never quite sure when she’s dead serious and when she’s full of shit. Sometimes the only way to find out is to get her to put up or shut up, not that getting her to shut up is very easy, even if she put up.”

“You could always read her better than I could,” Scott shrugged. “But if I had to bet, I’d bet that she’s been looking at you with what passes for bedroom eyes, for her anyway.”

“I’m picking up more than a little of that,” Bob replied thoughtfully. “That’s one thing to have changed in twenty years; she didn’t used to do that. Oh, she’d tease about sex, but it was clear it was just a tease. This seems a little more serious. But then, she’s had twenty years to polish her act, and I’ll bet gain a little experience along the way. But then, so have I. Neither of us are kids any more. What happens, happens.”

“You know, she’s a lot of fun in short doses, but I’ll bet she’d be nerve wracking as hell to live with,” Scott opined. “There might be times that a good, sturdy locking ball gag might be a Godsend.”

“You might have a thought at that,” Bob laughed. “I doubt that it’s going to come to that, though. It’s just the usual full-of-shit Sharon. I’ve missed that a lot, and I hadn’t realized it until I saw her tonight. It’s kind of fun, it takes me back to the old days.”

“You think that and you might be heading for trouble,” Scott shook his head. “I have to admit, though, it might be fun while it lasted.”

“Could be,” Bob replied. “I always thought that I appreciated her a little more than most people. Yeah, she could be a pain in the neck, but she could usually make me feel good. I tend to crawl into my shell a bit, and she doesn’t let that happen. I’ve missed that the last several years, and often thought I ought to try to track her down.”

He was tiring of the subject, and of Scott’s mild teasing about it. Sharon was, well, she was Sharon, and not everyone understood her. As far as that went, he was pretty sure no one understood her, not even herself, but he thought he came closer than most. But that was neither here nor there, and was something he didn’t really want to talk about with someone who was essentially a stranger now – something that Scott had become.

So it was time to change the subject. “When it comes to women, though,” he said, “I sure have to admit that you landed yourself a winner.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Scott replied. “She’s sharp as hell, but people have always tried to read things into her that weren’t there, and it was a long time before I learned that.”

“How’d you meet her, anyway?”

“Oh, it was at State, she was in one of my classes,” Scott said. “Look, we know what Bradford is like, pretty white. The couple kids in our class with Spanish names are for practical purposes as white as the rest of us. Well, when I went to State, I decided I wanted to get to know people with some different backgrounds, if for no more reason than to see what was on the other side of the street, so to speak.”

“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “I picked up some of the same feeling in the army.”

“Right,” Scott nodded. “Now, Sonja is really nothing more than your typical suburban American girl, prettier and smarter than most. Her background is exotic; one grandparent is Iraqi Jewish, one is Mexican, one is Japanese and the other is God knows what, her dad thinks maybe American Indian, but it could be something else or even a lot of things. She calls herself the wave of the future and I call her a one-woman melting pot. Because of her Jewish grandmother and mother, she’s technically a Jew as far as Jews are concerned, but for a practical sense she doesn’t know squat about it and is a Methodist.”

“In other words, straighter than she looks.”

“Pretty much,” he nodded. “When we were at State, she was always getting hit on by the Black Student Union to join up, even though she doesn’t even look very black, in my opinion. They couldn’t believe she wasn’t a ‘sister.’ You already heard how her mother thinks she’s really an Israeli. Hell, she used to tell the Black Student Union she was an Israeli just to get them off her back. The bottom line, though, is that she’s just Sonja, and she doesn’t fit into a lot of people’s little notions of what they think she should be.”

Bob stood there and thought about it for a moment. “You know, there’s wisdom there,” he replied slowly. “Take Sharon. Most people think she’s a nutcase, an airhead, scatterbrained, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Scott nodded. “She always was.”

“I never saw her like that,” Bob went on. “I always saw her as mercurial, irrepressible, interesting, maybe even exciting. That seems to be the way she’s lived.”

“I guess it’s in how you look at it,” Scott replied. “I know she sees things a little differently than the rest of us, and I know you do, too.”

“I suppose,” Bob said, wanting to change the direction of the discussion again. “So what is it you do, anyway?”

“Financial work at a big insurance company up in Lansing. Nice and dull, nothing really exciting. Makes me wish I’d studied programming like Sonja did.”

By now, they’d worked their way up to the front of the line, and it didn’t take long to get their glasses of wine. They headed back to their table, where Sharon was in an animated conversation with Diane Gritzmaker – well, at least that had been her maiden name – another one of their classmates. As usual, it was Sharon doing most of the talking, with Diane trying to get a word in edgewise, but as Bob and Scott watched, Bob at least noticed that Sharon was drawing a lot out of Diane when it seemed Diane never got to respond. How did she do that, he wondered?

It wasn’t long before it was their time to go up and get their own dinner. It was like a lot of banquets that Bob had been to, good Midwestern food, roast beef, chicken, ham, turkey, gravy, spuds, the inevitable and inedible green beans – good food, in his opinion, nothing he would turn down, but not great by any means. The reunion dinner ten years ago must have been a real stinker, he thought. His own experience was that most people couldn’t remember what they’d eaten three days before. For a meal to resonate down through the years like that it must have been truly unforgettable for people remember it so.

They headed back to the table and settled down to eat. Bob concentrated on his eating, putting in a few words here and there, while Sharon was eating very slowly because she was talking so much. The big thing was that it gave Bob a chance to tune out for a few minutes and consider the past hour or so.

He hadn’t seen Sharon for twenty years – well, more than that by a few months – yet within seconds it was just like the old days. In spite of all that time, there was still a magnetic attraction there. He’d always felt it, even before high school, but he’d been much too shy to put it into words. Looking back, he wished he’d pushed at her just a little bit harder back in those days, because, while in many ways they had been the odd couple, there was a mutual attraction and respect they shared that no one else had to anything like the same degree. Was this reunion an opportunity to make up a little bit for what he’d missed by being so callow when he’d been in high school? It sure seemed like it wanted to be that way.

It was tempting. It wasn’t that Bob had sworn off women, or anything like that – it was more that he’d just never connected with anyone in the first place. He’d had dates, had relationships, infatuations, even thought he’d been in love a couple of times, but things had never worked out. He was beginning to think that they might never do so, and for the most part he could accept it, whether he was happy about it or not. It was just the way the ball bounced for him, and so be it. But, well, maybe … there was no point in rushing into anything, but at the moment Sharon was a little adrift in her life – well, a little more so than normal from the sounds of it – and maybe there might be something there worth pursuing. It would be hard to do from Colorado, so it wasn’t something that he could kick around for a few days and consider the options. In fact, he had plane tickets for Monday, though he could change them if he had to. As far as he knew, Sharon was heading back to Buffalo once this reunion was over with, although she apparently had no reason to rush back.

It might be now or never. You’d better be making your mind up, he thought.

The meal went quickly, and it seemed very soon that Emily stood up at the front of the room again. “I think those of you who were here will remember this as the point where I got into trouble last time,” she said. “But just on the off chance, let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves and give a capsule summary of who we are and what we’ve done. I think everyone here knows me, but I’ll start it off to set the tone. I’m Emily Jones Holst. I married Kevin not long after we graduated, and my daughter Kayla is, I think, the oldest child of the class. She was an All-State runner several times and is attending the University of Michigan on an athletic scholarship. She’s planning on law school, which surprises me some. Our son, JJ, is a senior at Bradford this year. He plays football, and he’s not sure what he plans on doing. I ran the Bradford Spee-D-Mart up until it closed several years ago. After that, Dave Patterson and I bought the Bradford Courier, and I’m the editor there. The paper gets along very well with the mayor, since I’m the mayor. And, oh yes, I like to ride my antique Harley. Kevin and I have made the Sturgis rally in North Dakota a couple times and we usually vacation on our bikes with Vicky and Jason. That’s enough about me. Vicky, I guess you’re next.”

As Emily took her seat Vicky stood up next to her. “Hi, I’m Vicky Varney MacRae,” she began. “I married Jason MacRae eight years ago, and we have two kids. We own and operate MacRae Knives out at the freeway exit …”

She continued on, saying some things that Bob knew but more that he didn’t, and passed it on to the next classmate. He’d met several of them but picked up a few bits and pieces on the ones he’d met, and much more on the ones he hadn’t. For example, he hadn’t known that Dayna Berkshire had her own recording company, with her partner, Sandy Beach, who wasn’t from Bradford. It was fairly successful, but they worked at it.

As she finished, Scott nudged Bob’s arm and said, “Nope, she didn’t come out with it.”

“What’s that?” Bob asked.

“She and Sandy are lesbians,” he grinned. “The betting was about even that she’d come out about it tonight. I mean, everybody knows but it’s not official, if you know what I mean.”

“OK, another hard to believe,” Bob shook his head, and continued to listen to the people who stood one by one.

Eventually they worked down to their table. “I’m Bob Spheris,” Bob introduced himself. “Considering some of the stories I’ve heard tonight I know I’m still dull old Bob, and I don’t have any stunning revelations for you. I’ve never been married. I was in the Gulf War in ’91, got out of the army after four years and went to Colorado State University in Fort Collins. I now work for the university in the purchasing department. Since I don’t have much to say I’ll let Sharon have the rest of my time. She’ll probably use it, too.”

There was a round of laughter around the room from Bob’s remark before Sharon stood up.

“Thank you, Bob,” she began. “I’ll be brief …” and she timed that perfectly. There was another round of laughter; most people were aware of the absolute impossibility of that happening. “Bob was very nice to give me his time, and he’s a gentle soul with a big heart. Most of you may not know it, but Bob and I made an agreement when we graduated that if we hadn’t married by the time we’d been out of school for twenty years that we’d marry each other, and I’m thinking very hard about taking him up on that. But no, I’ve never married, although there was a time I was thinking about it, I think it was when I was in New Hampshire, but if I married that man I would have had to live in New England where they get lots and lots of snow and I don’t like snow. I don’t particularly like it when it’s all that warm either, I spent a summer in Florida once, and hot? You wouldn’t believe how hot it was, I just about melted in all that heat. It was after my parents had moved to Florida, and while I was waiting to go back to school, I was teaching English in Korea, that was very nice but everybody speaks Korean so it’s very hard to understand what is going on around you. That was before I came back to the states to stay. Well, I’ve been out of the states since, I spent a couple months in Europe, it’s very nice but with the way the dollar has fallen against the Euro it’s very, very expensive and you just can’t do it cheaply any more. I’ve heard people tell stories of how back in the sixties and seventies there was this book, Europe on Five Dollars A Day, and let me tell you folks, there is no way you can do Europe on five dollars a day or even fifty dollars a day anymore. But I got to travel around and see some of the sights I always wanted to see, like I really wanted to go see the Grand Canyon. I mean, folks, I know the Grand Canyon isn’t in Europe, but I’ve always really wanted to see it and maybe I can talk Bob into taking me there sometime. I mean, it’s so close to Las Vegas you’d think I’d have taken the time to go there sometime, but somehow I just never have, although I’ve been to Hoover Dam and let me tell you, that’s one damn big dam. But other than Las Vegas I’ve never really spent much time in the west although I’ve lived in several places in the east. I’ve spent the last two years in Buffalo but I’m not going to be there much longer. I’m moving somewhere but I don’t know where. I’ve thought about going back to school, and who knows, maybe I’ll have to marry Bob so I can go to the university he works at on a family discount. Say, Bob, there’s an idea, would you be up for it? I’m not much of a housekeeper but I think I’m a very good cook and there would be other compensations, if you know what I mean. But if I went back to school I don’t know what I’d study, I’ve thought about speech therapy but I don’t know if I’d be very good at it. When I first went to college out of Bradford, I thought I wanted to be a teacher but the classes were dull, people, I mean dull, I don’t know why I ever thought I’d like to go there, I liked it a lot better when I went elsewhere but I graduated after a while, that’s when I went to Europe for the first time. Europe is a lot of fun, it was really neat and it wasn’t anywhere near as expensive as it was when I went back a few years ago. I was still sort of a student, and I carried a backpack and stayed in hostels and all, it was quite an adventure. Oh! Wait! I went to Lake State for a semester in between the two, and cold? People, I’m here to tell you that the Soo can get so cold you could freeze the, uh, you know whats off of a brass monkey! I was so glad to get out of there, it was colder there than it was in New Hampshire where there was just all that snow! Snow, wherever you looked, it was so white it hurt the eyes, but if you want snow, you’ll have to talk Buffalo, folks. Do we ever get the snow there! I’d almost rather be in New Hampshire than Buffalo, at least in New Hampshire you’re close to Boston where I lived for a while. I had a job with a telephone company, I thought it would be right down my line but I got so tired of people slamming their phones in my ear I finally quit and went to New York looking for work. New York is real big but it’s where things are at, I love New York but Chicago is a toddlin’ town, I think I had more fun in Chicago than anywhere else I’ve been in a city. That’s where I started with the mortgage company that I used to work for and I don’t any more but that’s another story, you know what the mortgage business has been like the last few years, I used to think that people were stupid, I mean stupid for getting those low-rate adjustable mortgages. I mean, if you know the rates are low the only way they can go is up, right? Come on, people, think about it! But would they listen to me? No, they couldn’t see their nose in front of their faces! You’ve got a Republican administration with a president like Bush, he’s no Martin Van Buren, I’ll tell you that! Yes, Bob, I see you making the time out sign, so I guess I’ve used up your time, so I’ll just say, hi, folks, I’m Sharon Holdenhoven, I’ve never been married and I don’t have any children. I’ve often thought it would be nice to have children but I never did and I’m wondering if at thirty-eight I might not be a little old to start now. I think kids would be fun but I don’t look forward to changing diapers and wiping snotty little noses, I think kids are more fun when they’re older but they have to be babies first and that’s not as much fun, is it? Well, I mean I’m sure there are those who think babies are fun, and there are people who think it’s even more fun to make babies, but when you’ve got them made what are you going to do with them? Yes, Bob, yes, just let me say this and I’ll sit down, it’s good to see you all again, and I’ve missed all of you, and while I don’t like to see the years pass I’ll be looking forward to the next time I can see all of you. There, Bob, do you think that I’ve covered everything? Do you, Bob?”

“I think you managed to touch most of the high spots,” he replied dryly, and got a laugh as a result.

“Oh! Oh! There’s more!” she continued exuberantly. “Elvis! How could I have forgotten Elvis? When I was in Chicago, I stopped at Graceland while I was driving down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, now let me tell you, folks, back before the hurricane that was a party! You never saw more people so drunk in your life! And girls flashing their boobs out on the street, that was pretty gross, I tell you, although I guess they were so drunk they didn’t care. But Graceland, I love Elvis, he was really cool even though he’s dead now. I mean, if you ever get a chance you want to go to Graceland! I mean, it’s right there in Memphis, it’s not all that far away, people go down to Branson all the time, and Branson is all right if you like country music, I can take it or leave it but I definitely would prefer to leave it, but Elvis was one of a kind. Just let me say, if you go to Branson, make sure you stop by Graceland, you’ll be glad you did. Did I say it’s nice to see all of you again and I’ll be looking forward to the next time?”

“Yes, you did,” Bob grinned. From what he’d seen that evening she wasn’t that bad all the time, but he was sure she’d been putting on a show and had gotten away with it. “Emily,” he spoke up, “I think you can pass the word to those people who ducked out to go to the rest room that it’s safe to come out now.”

“Oh, you,” Sharon replied. “You’re always teasing me. He really is a tease, folks, he’s a nice guy and you may think he’s dull and nothing special, but I want to tell you, he’s something special to me and I’ve missed him a lot over the years.” With that, she leaned down and kissed him. It was no peck on the cheek, either, it was a full on the mouth kiss, hard and serious with a touch of something more, and it went on for a while.

Scott was wise enough to take the interruption of the kiss to get up and start to speak. “At least she wasn’t talking about Martin Van Buren,” he grinned, and got some laughs and hoots out of that. Yes, people still remembered that episode in Mr. Travolta’s class. “I’m Scott Tyler,” he began. “I still live south of Lansing with my wife Sonja. We have … “

“Wait! Wait,” Sharon broke in. “There’s more.”

“I’m sure there is,” Bob said, taking her arm to urge her toward her chair.

“But Bob!” she replied, more to him than to the room. “I never got to talk about how much I like Elvis.”

“You did. You talked about it quite a bit. I’m sure that you can go on for a while, but anyone who wants to hear more about him can talk to you later.”

“Oh, all right,” she sighed, but with a big grin. As he thought, she’d been playing that last bit for the laughs, and she’d gotten some.

“OK, Scott, you can try it again,” Bob smiled.

“You sure?” Scott laughed. “That’s a tough act to follow. Sharon was always one of a kind, that’s for sure, isn’t it?”

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