Auld Lang Syne

by Judith Ivie

My head started to swim, as it did so often these days when I conversed with people under thirty. Best to get back to the immediate problem. “So what did you advise him to do?”

  Emma shrugged. “I told him to man up.”

  I cut my eyes at her. “Probably not the best choice of words under the circumstances.”

  She glared at me. “Not everything in life is a double entendre, Ma. Grow up. What I told him was that it happened, it’s not going to go away, and everyone else who was there is probably as uncomfortable as he and Duane are. They don’t know how to act or what to say, so they’re going to take their cue from the two of them. Charlie and Duane are going to have to set the tone. Above all, they need to stick together and remember they’re best friends, just like they were a week ago. The less drama at this point, the better.”

  I kept forgetting that my daughter was all grown up and more perceptive than I could ever hope to be. “That’s pretty good advice,” I said, impressed.

  “It’s a different world now,” she went on, unintentionally emphasizing my sadly outdated frame of reference. “Kids today are way savvier about these things than they were in your day or even when Joey and I were teenagers. Lots more media exposure.”

  I had to admit that was true.

  “The good news is, Duane is out now,” she went on. “No matter what happens next, he doesn’t have to hide who he is anymore. That’s got to be a huge relief.”

  “For him, maybe, but how about poor Charlie? He must feel like the dumbest cluck in the world, not to mention that about eighty percent of the kids who were at that dance now assume he’s gay, too,” I protested.

  “I seriously doubt that. How did Strutter take the news?”

  “Oh, she and J.D. have known about Duane for years. They figured Charlie would pick up on it soon enough. I guess I’m the only parent-type who didn’t know, speaking of dumb clucks.”

  At this, Emma laughed outright. “Shades of Rick Fletcher,” she teased, referring to the young gay man I’d set my sights on for her a few years back. “Your gay-dar never was fully functional.” She looked at me slyly. “Are you absolutely sure Armando …?”

  “Absolutely,” I squelched her and picked up my pace to end that particular line of inquiry.

  As was customary following the frantic festivity of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, we New Englanders returned reluctantly to our workaday chores, overindulged and cranky. Confronted with higher numbers on our bathroom scales and lower numbers on our bank accounts, we faced the remaining weeks of winter stoically, dragging ourselves back to our desks and the gym to honor our New Year’s resolutions and await the return of the robins.

  My high-tech Weight Watchers scale had informed me this morning I had not lost any weight. Worse, I’d gained a pound, which I meanly attributed to Strutter’s Jamaican dinner on Monday evening. As peeved as I was about my lack of progress on the diet, I was not pleased to see Margo, who made maintaining her weight appear effortless, glide down the office stairs. If possible, she looked more svelte than ever.

  “Mornin’, Sugar,” she greeted me sunnily, oblivious to my pique. “Did you and Strutter have a nice walk yesterday?”

  “How do you do it?” I snapped at her without preamble. “You don’t go to a gym, to my knowledge. You don’t have a personal trainer, play tennis or do Zumba. As far as I know, the most strenuous activity in your week is giving yourself a pedicure. You eat like a bull elephant, yet you never gain weight. How do you pull that off?”

  Margo paused in her preparations to begin the day and peered at me over the top of her stylish reading glasses, which were Sarah Palin red. A perfectly groomed finger hovered over the power key on her laptop as she assessed my outburst.

  “I don’t recall ever seein’ a bull elephant paintin’ his toenails, but thank you for that attractive analogy,” she giggled, deciding not to take offense.

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” I huffed. “Most women our age have to struggle on a daily basis to maintain our figures, but you don’t seem to be bothered about it at all. I’m serious, Margo. What’s your secret?” I flounced into my chair behind the one desk in our modest office.

  Margo settled onto the sofa facing me and powered on the neglected laptop. “See, that’s the thing, Sugar. When it comes to losin’ weight, everybody’s lookin’ for some secret formula. They buy billions of dollars worth of diet books and diet programs and diet pills, and they’re always disappointed. They might lose a few pounds, but those always come right back, and they usually bring a few friends with ‘em.”

  I drummed my fingers on the desk top. “Uh huh. I’m sure there’s a point in here somewhere. I know all about the things that don’t work. I’m asking you what it is that does work for you.”

  In deference to our long friendship, Margo regarded me with continued patience. “Eat less, move more,” she said. Her eyes dropped to the open laptop as her fingers tapped the necessary keys to open her e-mail. I waited for her to expand on this pronouncement, but no details were forthcoming. Eventually she noticed my silence and raised her head.

  “Eat less, move more?” I prodded.

  She removed her reading glasses and gave me her full attention. “Honestly, that’s all there is to it, no matter how complicated the diet gurus try to make it. It’s a basic calculation. If you consume fewer calories than your body burns, you’ll lose weight. It’s as simple, and as difficult, as that, because most of us enjoy good food and want to eat more of it than we need. The real trick is figurin’ out how many calories we can reasonably expect to burn off each day and stickin’ with that number.” She grinned sympathetically. “’Course, it doesn’t hurt that John is away this week, and I’ve never been one to enjoy eatin’ alone.”

  She replaced her glasses and turned back to her e-mails while I pondered her words. As usual, the former debutante’s advice was forthright and practical.

  “That makes sense. I can do that. Thank you,” I told her now, my snit receding.

  “I know you can, Sugar. I have complete faith. Why, in a month or two you and I will be bathin’ suit shoppin’ to give our men an eyeful.” She punched the Send button on her e-mail and got to her feet. “In the meantime let’s fill up our tummies with a cup of fresh coffee. I brought in some nonfat hazelnut creamer that’s positively to die for.”

  Strutter arrived to find us chatting companionably in the coffee room, which also housed our overworked photocopy machine and office supplies. I had taken the opportunity to fill Margo in on the situation with Duane and Charlie. Although Margo was not a mother, and we were all glad about that, she had great instincts and compassion to spare for those of us who were.

  “Damn, talk about lousy timin’,” was all she had a chance to say before we heard Strutter arrive, but it was enough to know her heart was in the right place.

  One look at Strutter’s face let us know things had not gone well with Charlie this morning. Wordlessly, Margo handed her a mug of coffee.

  “Did Charlie make it to school?” was all I asked, my stomach knotting in advance of Strutter’s response.

  “He did, but not happily,” she said tersely. Her shoulders sagged, and she set the coffee mug back on the counter. “I think this is about the most helpless I’ve ever felt as a mother. If there was one single thing I could do for him, I would, but there’s no way I can make this better. I want to go down to that school and stand between him and anyone who gets in his face. I want to give Duane a hug. I want … oh, I don’t know.” She broke off and yanked an envelope of sweetener out of the cupboard.

  “We know, Sweetie, and J.D. must be feelin’ exactly the same way.” Margo offered her some hazelnut creamer, and Strutter shook her head. She reclaimed her mug, but judging from the tremor in her hands, coffee might not be the best idea at the moment.

  “J.D. is fit to be tied. J.D. is homicidal. I would not want to be the young person who is misguided enough to attempt to make either one of those boys feel worse today than they already do
. But J.D.’s hands are tied, too. All we could do this morning is try to get Charlie to lighten up a little, see what a great private joke this will make in years to come between him and Duane. He pretended to cheer up a little, but he couldn’t fool me. He’s sick at heart, and as for poor Duane, I can’t imagine what he’s going through, knowing he’s embarrassed his best friend like this. I keep thinking of all those Internet stories about teenagers who are out-ed publicly and wind up committing suicide.” She gulped once and sniffled audibly.

  I gasped. “That’s not possible, not Duane. I’ve known that boy for years, too, and he’s way too smart and level-headed to do a thing like that. Besides, he out-ed himself, remember? He had to know a dramatic move like the one he made was going to generate a reaction, right?”

  If possible, Strutter looked even more forlorn. “I don’t know if he did or he didn’t, because he didn’t talk to me. His parents might not have been sympathetic, but he could have talked to J.D. and me, and we would have been able to head this off, set him straight. But he didn’t come to us. Why didn’t he, Kate?”

  Then our dear, clear-thinking, practical friend put her coffee mug down once again and fell apart. In all the years I had known Strutter, I’d seen her cry only once before, but it had been memorable. As this storm broke Margo and I grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her down the stairs to the Mack Realty office, shutting the door firmly behind us lest an untimely client appear to witness the meltdown.

  When Margo unleashed tears, she sniffled discreetly into a tissue and somehow managed to avoid smudging her mascara. Strutter was not a tidy weeper; she was a category four hurricane. We got her to the sofa and let her rip, periodically replacing the soggy tissues in her fist with fresh ones while rubbing her back and making soothing noises. After a while the full-out blubbering slowed, and she regarded us sadly but calmly through swollen, red-rimmed eyes as she honked yet again into her tissues.

  “Thank goodness for Kleenex. The last time you pulled this, all you had to mop your nose on was your sweater sleeve,” I told her. “Feel a little better now?”

  Margo, ever thoughtful, whipped back up the stairs and returned with fresh coffee and Advil. “Bet you have one hell of a headache, though,” she remarked conversationally as she shook two gel caps into Strutter’s palm. “I think it’s nature’s way of distractin’ us from whatever we were cryin’ about in the first place.”

  We were rewarded with a watery smile. It wasn’t one of Strutter’s dimpled best, but things were definitely improving.

  “The worst part for J.D. and me is knowing this situation was totally preventable, and now it’s too late for us to help.”

  “Is it all over Facebook?” I wanted to know.

  “Not so far as I can tell, at least not yet, but I’m sure the little monsters are crippling their thumbs texting each other.”

  “Have Charlie and Duane been in touch since New Year’s Eve?” Margo asked.

  “I just don’t know. Charlie’s fingers haven’t stopped tapping on that damned phone in two days, but I don’t know if one of the people he’s messaging is Duane. I hope so. They really need to stick together on this.”

  “That’s what Emma told Charlie when she saw him yesterday at the diner.” I repeated the gist of our conversation that morning. Strutter looked somewhat comforted.

  “Good. At least he’s talking to someone, and your Emma is a smart young woman. She has good instincts. Let’s hope Charlie takes her advice.”

  With that, Strutter got to her feet and went to survey the wreckage of her face in the wall-mounted mirror by the door. “Back in a flash,” she said and disappeared upstairs to our posh powder room to accomplish the necessary repairs.

  When she returned she made a gallant attempt to change the subject, however unfortunate. “How are things on the reunion homicide front?” she asked. “Any new developments?”

  It was startling to hear it stated quite that baldly, but I kept my voice even. “If there are, they don’t involve me, thank goodness, and nobody official has labeled Mindy’s death a homicide,” I reminded her. “All we know for sure is she died in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and an empty syringe was lying next to her on the floor when she was found.”

  “When who found her?” Strutter pressed.

  “You know who, Joan Haines and Ariel MacAfee, Mindy’s best pals from Brewster High. They went looking for Mindy when she didn’t return from the loo and found her unconscious on the floor.”

  “They came running out of the ladies room, yelling, ‘Quick, Mindy’s unconscious in there, and there’s an empty hypodermic needle next to her, she must have OD-d’ or something like that?”

  I thought back. “Well, no. They were too busy waving their arms at me and fainting to make much sense. Why?”

  “Who came out first, Joan or Ariel?” Strutter persisted, ignoring my question.

  “Umm, let me think. Joanie almost knocked me over with the door, and Ariel was a few seconds behind her.”

  “Neither one specifically mentioned the empty syringe?”

  “Now that I think about it, no.” I looked at her closely. “What are you getting at?”

  “So you were the one who found it and told the paramedics, right?”

  I was beginning to lose patience. “Maybe. I think we all did. So?”

  Margo and I exchanged puzzled looks as Strutter started pacing back and forth across the office.

  “I’ve been too preoccupied with Charlie and Duane to give your account of Saturday night’s drama, and then Joanie Haines’ visit two nights later, much thought, at least consciously. But the mind is a funny thing. I lay there last night, tossing and turning, my head about to bust wide open, so many things were churning around in there, and right in the middle of all that, the oddest feeling came over me,” she said.

  I shivered in apprehension and hugged myself. Strutter’s odd feelings were not to be dismissed lightly. Even Margo looked worried, but we knew better than to interrupt Strutter’s train of thought. She stopped pacing and looked me straight in the eye.

  “This isn’t over, Kate, not by a long shot. You’re being messed with. Don’t ask me how I know it, but I do. I haven’t got a clue who has it in for you, but someone does. Watch your back.”

  I considered sharing Strutter’s strange pronouncement with Armando that evening but thought better of it when I saw how tired he looked. All hell had broken loose with a South American client at TeleCom, Inc., where Armando served officially as the comptroller. Unofficially, he also served as interpreter for Spanish conversations and written communications, as well as an off-site troubleshooter in various distant and inconvenient locations. Since going public, TeleCom’s clientele had become international, and some of its customers could be volatile and demanding.

  Armando and I had met at TeleCom nearly ten years ago, when I was the fledgling company’s public relations manager, but my memories of coffee room camaraderie and lunches around an outdoor picnic table bore no relation to the current reality. Shortly after helping with the company’s initial public offering, I had left TeleCom to become what I daydreamed would be the esteemed aide de camp to a Hartford estate law guru, only to learn that esteem was not a concept routinely applied to support staff at a large law firm—at least not the one at which I was employed. The silver lining to that experience had been getting to know Margo and Strutter, fellow sufferers in the legal assistant biz, and going on to launch Mack Realty.

  Armando, however, had stayed on at TeleCom and become a trusted member of the management team. His growing responsibilities took their toll, and like the rest of us, he wasn’t getting any younger. So when he fell asleep in our double recliner after dinner, as he had this evening, I was inclined to let him snooze.

  I eased out of the seat next to him. I knew that as long as I didn’t attempt to remove the television remote control from his hand, he would sleep on undisturbed. I was restless and needed to sort out the thoughts circling malevolently in my head a
long with images of Charlie, Duane, Joanie and Ariel.

  I tiptoed into our front hall, where I donned my hooded parka and gloves and shoved my feet into quilted UGGs. Dropping my house key into my pocket, I let myself out the front door and pulled it shut behind me. A lap or two around The Birches would do me good. Even if it didn’t entirely clear my head, a brisk walk might burn off a few calories, I reasoned.

  As annoying as I sometimes found living in a condominium community, with its endless restrictions and regulations, I could no longer imagine living any other way. Our freestanding oversized Cape Cod-style house, facing the communal green and shielded along the back by a thick stretch of protected wetlands, offered the space and privacy we relished, and our reasonable monthly association fee took care of all the exterior drudgery, from mowing to raking to shoveling, in which we had no interest. Then, too, the covenants spared us from potentially inconsiderate neighbors such as the ones I had encountered from time to time in previous neighborhoods. Here there were no dogs chained outside to bark all night, no go-cart tracks in nearby back yards for pre-teen drivers, crying babies, all night parties and beer cans on the front lawn. In short, it was good to have some protection from my fellow human beings, I reflected as I strode along the well-shoveled sidewalks, admiring the last of the holiday decorations on front doors and windows. Which brought me back to recent events.

  I asked myself what had actually happened to get me so worked up—okay, to get me and Strutter so worked up. I had attended my thirty-fifth high school reunion. It was a hard number to get my head around, but there it was, and I’d sucked it up and dealt with it. To my amazement it had turned out to be far more enjoyable than I had anticipated, right up until the unfortunate business with Mindy. I reviewed the evening in my mind. It’s true that I’d put on a few pounds, but so what? Eight pounds hardly constituted an existential crisis, despite Ariel’s sniping. Hell, I’d put on more than thirty pounds with each pregnancy. They’d come off, and this excess baggage would come off, too.