Free Face Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan Page A

with collar flipped, annoyingly long tanned legs and bouncing hair, arrives at our table. She’s carrying two waxed-paper-lined red plastic baskets, and hesitates as she dubiously eyes the documents strewn across the plastic tabletop. Franklin sweeps his copies together, tamping the edges to make them straight before he inserts them into his folder. “I like the boyfriend,” Franklin says, snapping the folder shut. “He’s—”
    “You like the boyfriend?” I raise my eyebrows and pretend to be shocked. “What would your adorable Stephen say—”
    “Clam rolls?” The waitress interrupts, eyeing Franklin first. “Extra tartar, extra lettuce, extra onion rings? Coke?”
    Franklin nods. She hands me the light mayo, no fries and Diet Coke. Damn Franklin and his cooperative metabolism.
    He nibbles a few onion rings, meticulously peeling the batter-dipped strips away from one another and dipping each in a puddle of ketchup. “So,” he says. “You scored at the library?”
    My clam roll is oozing mayonnaise. So much for “light.” I try to tuck escaping clam shards back into the buttered, toasted hot dog bun while relating my encounter with Marybeth Gallagher, Swampscott High’s enduring librarian and uncompromising guardian of her well-ordered domain.
    “She was not happy to see me,” I say, holding the clam roll in one hand and my napkin in the other. I’m alternating taking bites and dabbing bready morsels from my lipstick. “Told me in no uncertain terms I was trespassing and it was only because she had seen me on TV that she didn’t call security. I explained we were trying to help Dorinda Keeler. Sweeney. I could tell she was curious, you know? But even then, no way she was going to let me stick around. She actually took me by the elbow, propelled me to the door, and then she—kind of begrudgingly—let on that she did remember Dorinda. And her ‘beau’ as she called him, the star of the senior play, Colby Carl Hardesty.”
    I sit up straighter and flutter my eyelashes, mimicking the librarian’s dramatic intonation and Down East accent. “‘CC, just like Romeo, was every girl’s dream and every mother’s nightmare.’” I smile, myself again. “Muthah’s nightmayeh, I love it. Then she tossed me from the place faster than you could say no comment.”
    “She loaned you the yearbook, though?” Franklin asks. His clam roll, extra tartar sauce and all, is not dripping. Somehow his clams are staying nicely inside their boundaries. Even Franklin’s food is neat. “Bring it out, girl.”
    I wipe my hands on my pile of paper napkins and draw the Seagull from my tote bag. By now I know exactly what picture to show him. “‘Up Where We Belong’” was the prom theme, can you believe it?”
    Holding the yearbook with both hands, I turn it so Franklin can see, then point to each picture. “That’s Dorinda. That’s the CC person, her ‘beau.’ Look at that updo. And the tiara? I like her better with the sweatshirt look. The one in my phone snapshot.”
    Frowning briefly, I stare at the hauntingly dated photograph, feeling the wrinkle between my eyebrows nestle itself in a little more permanently. My toe starts to tap. I slowly push my plate of congealing clam roll remains out of the way.
    “You know,” I say, “she has that prommy dress, and the tiara and those banana curls. And no one looks like themselves at the prom, but—”
    “Yeah, I’ve seen your prom picture, in the Farrah-wannabe getup,” Franklin says. “You looked like you had two heads. That clump of fake curls.” He smiles. “How much did that thing weigh? And your dress—was that a color found in nature? “
    “It was 1978,” I say, my voice muffled because I’m digging into my purse. I need my cell phone. “It was cool.” There’s a beep as my phone powers up. More beeps as I click to my photos. I scroll down to the one I snapped of Dorinda. I was right.
    “Check it out,” I say, holding my phone up next to the