The Last Time I Saw You

by Elizabeth Berg

  “Better get that,” she says, and there is something in her tone that makes him think she’s pretty sure it’s Sandy. He wants so much for her not to think that. He points to the phone and says, “Bet that’s one of the kids.”

  Her eyebrows rise to the Oh? position.

  He takes the phone out and looks to see who’s calling. Damn it, it is Sandy. “I’ll call them back,” he says, but Nora knows. She smiles, turns away, and walks down the hall toward Fred, who’s probably going to act like he’s saving the damsel in distress. Asshole. He can’t even play touch football. He doesn’t like sports. Or cigars. Or cars! He “kiddingly” referred to Pete’s Porsche as generic Viagra. And what does Fred drive? A Nissan Cube, an absolute joke of a car, and in the driver’s seat he has some sort of wooden-beaded orthopedic device for his back.

  Well, Nora is still his wife. They’re not divorced yet, she is still his wife. He opens his still-buzzing cellphone and says, “What.”

  “Okay,” Sandy says. “I have to do this while I’m feeling strong enough to do it, so please just listen. Okay. I want to say something. Which is: I don’t think we should continue our relationship. It is too damaging to my esteem.”

  He pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it, tries to think of what to say, and then just snaps it shut. It buzzes again, and when he answers, Sandy says, “Did you hear me?”

  “Sandy,” he says.

  There is a long silence, and he hears her snuffling. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know this comes as a shock. I’m sorry to hurt you. But I just don’t know if we can work this out.”

  Pete rolls his eyes. “I understand. We’re done. Be happy. Goodbye.”

  “You always hide your true feelings,” she says.

  “Not this time,” he says. “Take it easy.”

  He stands in the hall and watches his classmates come out of the elevator and head for the ballroom. He calls out to some of his football buddies, wonders who some of the other people are. There goes Pam Pottsman in her triple-X-size emerald green dress and her hair ratted up real high. She’s wearing blue shoes. Women used to get their shoes and purses dyed so everything matched; now they seem to pride themselves on these outrageous color combinations. You have to pay attention to women; they’re always shifting things around, always changing things. A guy can never trust that the chair that he has positioned perfectly for watching television will be left alone.

  Dorothy Shauman gets off the elevator with her two girlfriends who always hung with her like she was the Queen of Sheba and they were her slaves. They’re all still okay looking; the brunette, especially, what was her name, Jennifer, he thinks, something J. Anyway, he made out with her but good one night at a Homecoming bonfire. And the blonde, Linda, he had a session with her in the bathroom at a party he brought Nora to on their first date. He still feels kind of bad about that. The J woman and Linda say hi, but Dorothy hardly looks at him, what’s her problem? He made out with her, too, one time, and it actually wasn’t bad, she was most accommodating. Maybe she forgot. It’s possible. He doubts it, but it’s possible.

  He recognizes Ben Small, who gets off the elevator alone, talking on his iPhone. That guy had been a really good actor. Really good. Pete watches him walk to see if he turned out queer. Hard to tell; Ben’s got an easy, long-legged stride that could go either way. Same with the clothes: elegant, casual, expensive looking, but not sissy. He’ll buy Ben a drink, see what’s up. He might have become some Broadway star, who knows? The last time he saw Ben Small, it was the August before most of them left for college and Ben was mowing the lawn in front of his little white house. Pete had driven by with a handful of buddies and they’d all called out, “Hey, Small!” and Ben had waved and then stood still, watching them go. Everybody wanted to be in Pete’s crowd in those days. Everybody did.

  He looks at his watch and starts for the ballroom. Coming around a corner near the opposite end of the hall, Pete sees a woman in a blue dress pushing some old geezer in a wheelchair. The guy’s all decked out in a suit Pete wishes he had on, nice blue tie, too. As they get closer, he sees it’s Mary Alice Mayhew. God damn. She actually looks kind of nice! She recognizes Pete and smiles, waves. He waves back, then goes over to meet her and what he presumes is her father. He’ll ask if he can sit with Mary Alice for dinner. She’ll be a safe haven from where he can watch the crowd. Well, not the crowd. Nora. Nora Jane Hagman Decker, born September 9, 1952, at 7:07 A.M. via cesarean section. Favorite color: green. Favorite movie: All About Eve. Favorite food: sauces, the woman loves sauces, always asks for extra sauce on the side. It will be good for Pete to sit with Mary Alice Mayhew. If Nora sees him, she’ll know he’s behaving himself.

  “Hey, what’s up, Mary Alice,” he says when he’s beside her.

  “Hi, Pete.” She leans over and gives him a little kiss. She smells good, like just-cut grass. “How are you?”

  “I’m fired up!” he says.

  Mary Alice puts her hand on her father’s shoulder. “This is my friend Einer Olson.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Pete says, and thinks, Hmm, not her father. Is he her date?

  He always did feel sorry for Mary Alice, but this takes the cake.

  “Bet you were a senior superlative!” Einer says, looking him up and down. The dude’s glasses must be three inches thick.

  Pete smiles. “Pardon?”

  “Senior superlative! Didn’t you people have them? When I was in school, we had senior superlatives. They were the young men and women who truly excelled in one way or another. We had one guy, Cecil McIntyre, oh, that guy could throw a football, I’ll tell you! Good friend of mine.”

  “Yeah, I played football,” Pete says.

  “No, he’s been gone for years now,” Einer says.

  “No, I said, ‘I played football,’” Pete says, loudly.

  “That so? What position?”

  “Quarterback.”

  Einer tilts his head back to scrutinize Pete more fully. “Well, the girls always like the quarterbacks, don’t they?”

  “Yes, sir, they do.”

  “I was a track man, myself.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I could play football, just wasn’t my strong suit.”

  “Einer, I’m starving,” Mary Alice says.

  “Move along, then! I’m not the one driving!”

  Mary Alice pushes him slowly into the ballroom, and it seems to Pete that she’s carefully scanning the crowd.

  “Looking for someone?” Pete has to raise his voice to be heard over “Crimson and Clover,” which the DJ is playing a little too loudly.

  “Oh, no,” Mary Alice says.

  “She is, too,” Einer shouts. “She told me on the way over that she really wants to talk to Bert Small.”

  “Ben Small?” Pete says. And then, pointing, “He’s right over there. Let’s go and sit with him; there’s room at his table.”

  Now Mary Alice speaks quietly. “That’s okay, Pete.”

  “Aw, come on!” Pete smiles the old killer smile. Let this be his good deed of the night: get Mary Alice Mayhew and Ben Small together. He doesn’t remember ever seeing her with anybody in high school. In fact, now that he thinks of it, he recalls that kids were kind of shitty to Mary Alice. Oh, not Pete—he had bigger fish to fry. He picked on other jocks, especially those from other schools. Put a little spray paint a few places it shouldn’t go, that kind of thing.

  Pete takes over pushing the wheelchair for Mary Alice, and when they get to Ben’s table and ask if they can sit there, he says absolutely, and seems happy. Pete sees in one instant that Ben Small is not gay. Sensitive, maybe, but not gay. He’s not sure Mary Alice can see it, though. She’s looking in another direction altogether. She’s looking two tables over, where Candy Sullivan—Jesus, gorgeous in that white dress—is sitting with none other than Lester Hessenpfeffer. Mary Alice is probably worried about Candy moving in on Ben. All the girls used to worry about Candy Sullivan.

  The danc
e floor is empty but for a couple Pete doesn’t recognize—a couple of white-haired people dancing to “Proud Mary.” The music isn’t quite so loud now; Pete thinks maybe the couple asked them to turn it down.

  “I had a lot of fun in high school,” Einer says, and Pete moves closer to him. He’ll make do having conversation with the old man during dinner. It’s fine. The guy’s kind of funny—interesting, too—and Pete has a clear view of Nora, who is engaged in intense conversation with another woman at their table—Gloria Gelman? Is that ancient-looking woman the formerly sexalicious Gloria Gelman?—while Fred sits there like some kind of stick-in-the-mud. That’s because he is a stick-in-the-mud, a total loser, a namby-pamby, pissant girlyman, which, if Nora hasn’t learned by now, she soon will. All Pete needs to do is take his time and play it cool. And oh, baby, he knows what cool is.

  “I was a bit of a ladies’ man until I met my wife,” Einer says. “She was the editor of the school newspaper. Real bright girl.”

  “That right?” Pete says.

  “Yup. So who do you think signed on to be a reporter?”

  “Einer Olson?”

  “Bingo,” Einer says. And then, “Say, Pete, do you think you could get me a gin martini?”

  “Einer,” Mary Alice says. “I don’t think you can drink with your medication.”

  Einer leans back in his chair and slaps his hands on his knees. “You’re right. And guess who hasn’t taken his medication the last couple of days?” He turns back to Pete. “How about it, son?”

  “My pleasure,” Pete says. And then, to Mary Alice, “What can I get you?”

  “Well, a gin martini, I suppose.”

  “Ben?”

  “I’m set,” Ben says, and holds up what looks like a glass of Coke, complete with compensatory slice of lemon. He’s probably an alkie. A lot of sensitive types end up alkies.

  “Be right back,” Pete says. He takes a path to the bar that will bring him close enough to see Nora better without her seeing him—she’s sitting with her back to him. She’s having red wine, and so is Fred. He hates that they’re having the same thing. Fred looks over and sees him and his stupid smile disappears and his expression becomes tense and unhappy. That’s right, buddy. Pete smiles, waves, and steps up to the bar to order the drinks, loosens his shoulders. Yup. He’s starting to have a good time now. He looks back over at Fred, who has turned away from him and emphatically put his arm around Nora.

  Pete leans against the bar and looks around the room. There’s Kim Birch, she was a smart one, went to Wellesley. He sees Hodder Carter, weird name, great wrestler. He’ll catch up with him later. He’s talking to a woman Pete thinks is Angie McNair, who Hodder had a big crush on, and Angie would never go out with him. She told him if he’d just lose weight, he’d be a lot more popular and then she would go out with him. Well, who needs to lose weight now? Angie looks like she’s the wrestler now, heavyweight division. Look at the neck on that woman!

  Some guy Pete doesn’t recognize is standing at Candy Sullivan’s table, talking to her. Wait. Is that…? It’s Buddy Dunsmore! Damn! Poor Buddy, he really got shafted, having to marry Nance. Pete would bet money that they are long divorced by now. So Buddy’s going to go after what every guy in school wanted: Miss Candy Sullivan, who looked every day like she walked right out of the pages of a magazine. Beautiful girl, and really very nice, too. Buddy never got her—hell, even Pete never got her, not even one kiss. She dated very few guys from their school, she mostly dated boys from the private school a couple of towns over, and by senior year was dating college guys exclusively. Nobody from their high school ever nailed her. She moved out East right after high school, she was going to become a nurse. She probably married a surgeon or something.

  Candy was one of those happy types, always in a good mood. He’d enjoyed running into her earlier today and talking for the little bit that they did. There was something about Candy now, though. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she had a look in her eyes—or maybe behind her eyes—that reminded him of how his then five-year-old daughter looked one time when he’d yelled at her to put something back and he’d yelled way louder than he meant to. Katie had jumped, and she’d put the thing back very carefully, and then she’d looked over at him and her hands were clasped tightly together and she was smiling but she was scared as hell. Overcome with guilt, he’d held out his arms and said, “Aw, I’m sorry; come here, baby,” and she had, but she’d kept that look on her face until he’d held her a long time. Candy had a look like that, only sadder.

  The salads are being delivered. Pete pays for the drinks and starts to carry them carefully back to the table. A hugely overweight man comes up and punches him lightly in the arm. “Hey, Decker, you asshole!”

  “Hey!” Pete says. “How you doing?” The guy’s not wearing his name tag. Pain in the ass. Pete’s not wearing his name tag, either, he hates those things, but he doesn’t need one.

  “Remember me?” the guy says.

  Pete smiles, says nothing.

  “Aw, man, you don’t remember me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Pete says.

  “Benny Westman!”

  “Oh, sure!” Pete says. Who the hell is Benny Westman?

  “For fuck’s sake, man! I can’t believe you didn’t recognize me. Although I look a little different now, huh?”

  “I guess we all do.” Benny Westman. Benny Westman. Oh yes, he remembers now. Tight end. Kind of a jerk. Always real mean to his girlfriends, or at least about them—revealed plenty of secrets in the locker room. Stuff a girl for sure wouldn’t want known about herself. Stuff the other guys didn’t want to hear, although of course they never admitted that, they just laughed and shook their heads.

  “Few of us lettermen are getting together after dinner in the parking lot for a little recreational toot,” Benny says. “Want to join us?”

  “Yeah, sure, we’ll see.” Pete gestures with his chin to his table. “I’d better get back and deliver these drinks.” Lettermen. He’s got to remember to request “The Way You Look Tonight.”

  Benny looks briefly toward Pete’s table, then turns back to him, his eyes wide. “Is that fucking Mary Alice Mayhew?”

  “It is.”

  “You’re sitting with that skank?”

  “Yeah, I am. You know what? It’s been forty years, Benny. You want to give her a break?”

  Benny’s face changes. “Oh, Jesus, sorry, man. Are you like… with her?”

  “No, she’s just a friend.”

  “You and Nora are still together, right?”

  “She’s here,” he says, and then, “I’ll see you later, Benny.”

  He returns to the table, passes out the drinks, clinks glasses with everyone. He watches Benny lumber back to his table and put his arm around a washed-out looking blonde. She’s wearing a tacky black strapless dress, and she still has her purse hooked over her shoulder, a brown leather purse on which she has put her name tag. It’s one designed for the spouses, and it says, “Hi! I’m with ———.” He feels sorry for the spouses. Nobody wants the spouses there, unless they went to the same school. In fact, all of a sudden he feels sorry for everybody. Here they all are, all these people, all these years later just… what? Trying, he guesses. Just trying.

  “Mary Alice!” he says.

  “Yes!”

  “Dibs on the first dance!”

  She smiles. “How about the second? Einer beat you to the first.”

  “Well, the best man won,” Pete says, and holds his glass up to toast Einer. Einer holds his own glass up, his hand trembling.

  When Nora and Pete were still together, Pete had noticed Nora beginning to pay a lot of attention to old people. She would watch some bent-over octogenarian painstakingly making her way across the street. Or she’d stare at an old lady selecting a little can of beans from the supermarket shelf, or standing in line with a walker waiting for a prescription. “That’ll be me in five minutes,” Nora would say. And he would laugh. He didn’t underst
and why she said that. Now, suddenly, he does. Einer, the high school star, holding a forbidden drink in his trembling hand.

  Someone bumps into the back of Pete’s chair, and he feels cold liquid spilling onto his shirt.

  “Oh, sorry!” a woman says.

  “It’s okay,” Pete tells her, dabbing at the mess with his napkin, and now he’s got orange salad dressing on the shirt as well. What the hell. Nothing can make it look any worse.

  “Are you…” The woman smiles. “Oh my God. Pete Decker!”

  “Hey, Susie.” Susie Sussman. She wore her name tag, like a sensible person. She was okay in high school, pep squad, cute little figure; he made it to third base with her, something like that. He knows her underpants were on his car floor, anyway. Hers or her sister Patsy’s. They were twins. He got them both, but he never made out with them at the same time, which guys were always daring him to do. Patsy died the day after graduation in a motorcycle accident, Pete found that out at the five-year reunion, where Susie showed up looking like a million bucks. They’d had a nice little boozy kiss in the hall that year, couple of kisses, nothing else since. Susie looks a bit worn at the edges now. Well, she looks like hell, really. A good thirty pounds overweight, big circles under her eyes, one of those awful too-short spiky haircuts that women seem to think make them look younger but only make them look like Marines. He saw her at the last reunion, and she still had something, then. All gone now. Nada. Not that she seems to know it. Once in the Club, always in the Club, he supposes.

  “How the hell are you, Pete?”

  “Good,” he says, nodding. “Yup.”

  “You look great!”

  “Thanks. You, too.” What the hell.

  “Save me a slow dance, will you?”

  “I will!”

  She moves away without having acknowledged one other person at the table. It was high school behavior she’d reverted to; the people at Pete’s table had never made the cut then and apparently don’t now, either. Pete feels ashamed, as though it’s his fault Susie ignored them. He supposes that, in part, it is. He should have made introductions. Well, add it to the mea culpas. Add it to the long and ever-growing list. He drains his drink, looks over at Nora. It appears she hasn’t touched her salad. Too busy talking, laughing. Look what a good time she’s having, a Kleenex carnation pinned to her hair. See that? He knew she would enjoy herself like this, he knows her. What a smile she still has. He smiles back at her, though clearly she is not smiling at him.