Free The Baby Blue Rip-Off by Max Allan Collins Page B

but full-bodied and slightly layered with, well, I guess you couldn’t rightly call it “baby fat” anymore. But if ever the phrase “pleasantly plump” was appropriate, it was now.
    “You’ve changed, Mal,” she said. “You look different.”
    “Longer hair,” I said. “A little heavier.”
    “It looks good on you,” she said. “Both the hair and the weight. You were skinny before.”
    “I’m also older, Debbie.”
    She smiled. A tiny smile. “Everybody is.”
    Then I noticed it; she’d frozen herself in time. She’d purposely stayed the same. People do that sometimes, you know, especially in small towns like Port City—they think of their youth (their junior high and high school days) as the best time of their lives, and they stay the same, or try to. They don’t vary their fashions as much as the rest of us; Debbie still wore fuzzy pink sweaters, and her pink cotton skirt was a short shift that was decidedly out of style. And they don’t change the way they wear their hair; Debbie still had the cute skullcap of blonde curls. She had never been much for makeup, having rosy cheeks and deep pink lips anyway, thanks to God or somebody being ina good mood when she was assembled. Overall, she had been much more successful in holding onto her youthful identity than most people who try. You should see the women with beehive hairdos running around the streets of Port City in pedal pushers like it was still 1960. None of them have heard of the B-52s, either.
    “Listen,” I said, feeling awkward, “can I get you a beer?”
    “I don’t want to be any bother.”
    “Bother? Hey, I’m glad to have you. I, uh, always wanted to look you up, but....”
    “Yes. I know what you mean, Mal.”
    This was ridiculous! Here we were, talking in veiled, elliptical language, exchanging meaningful glances, as if we had shared some deep relationship. As if the last time we’d been together was at Casablanca, and not high school homecoming.
    “Can I get you that beer, then?”
    “Please.”
    I got two Pabsts from the icebox, gave her one, and joined her on the couch.
    “You said it was important, Debbie, on the phone. You said you
had
to see me. You seem pretty calm now.”
    She smiled again. That tiny smile was the only one she had, but it was a dandy. “Maybe I’m being silly. When I called you, I was upset, but... I’ve had time to think, driving over here, and now I wonder if I should’ve come.”
    “What’s bothering you?”
    “It’s my husband... Pat.” She looked down at the beer in her hands. Her hands were small—very small—and white, and in the dim trailer lighting they looked like something carved in marble by a first-rate sculptor.
    “What about your husband?”
    “Maybe you didn’t know that Pat and I... well... we’re separated. Have been for several months now.”
    “No, I didn’t know that.” In spite of myself, I felt fireworks going off in my inner recesses somewhere. Celebration was in order.
    “Pat has a drinking problem, of sorts.”
    “He’s an alcoholic, you mean?”
    “No. Not as I understand the word anyway. He isn’t somebody who drinks all the time, gets up in the morning and reaches for a bottle. Not that at all. He’ll go out maybe twice a week. Rarely more. Five days a week he won’t touch a drop, not even a beer like we’re having.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    “He... when he does drink, he gets mean. He drinks himself silly and comes home and...” She looked down again, for just a moment. She looked up, and her eyes were bluer than anything I’d ever seen. The best-looking sky on the clearest sunny day came in second to those eyes. “Mal, I know we... haven’t seen each other, haven’t talked in years... but I feel like you’re someone I can trust, someone I can come to for help. I don’t have many places to turn for help, you know. With Dad gone....” She got a little choked up and stopped talking for a moment. I got up and brought her a