Free Impulse by Frederick Ramsay Page B

the most part, clustered together by class year. Occasionally they would shift and merge only to separate again like a human lava lamp. Frank nibbled finger food and sipped tonic water. He had learned that to avoid a zealous host’s insistence on his having a “real drink,” he needed a look-alike drink in his hand. So he sipped his ersatz gin and tonic and studied the crowd.
    Rosemary made a splash of color as she entered. Heads turned. No mean feat for a sixty-six-year-old woman. Frank waved. She saw him and beamed. It took her a full five minutes to make her way through the crowd. She had friends and acquaintances to greet and one or two approaches from recently widowered men to fend off.
    “I need a drink,” she said when she’d finally run the gauntlet.
    “What’ll you have?”
    “What you’re drinking will do.”
    “I doubt it. This is a virgin gin and tonic.”
    “Really? No, get me the real thing. It’s way too late in the game for some of us to have thoughts about virginity, liquid or otherwise. Get me a Jack and Ginger.”
    “That’s not a drink, that’s a dance team.”
    “Trust me, it’s a drink, but you’re right. It does sound like one.”
    “Okay, come with me,” he said and took her elbow. “The bar is crowded and this could take some time. I could lose you in the interim.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Indulge me.”
    They plunged into the crowd around the bar, greeting the people they knew, nodding to others. Five minutes later they emerged, only slightly disheveled but with drinks in both hands.
    “This ought to hold us for a while,” he said.
    “Yes, but how do I eat with a drink in each hand?”
    “We’ll grab some space at a table—that one,” he said, pointing at the table marked with a large 50th .
    ***
    Dexter Light stood behind the woman in the bright Hawaiian dress and the old man with her and smiled when he saw them push out of the scrum at the bar, each with a drink in both hands. He guessed they’d be loopy by seven-thirty and in need of medical attention by eight. He enjoyed watching the characters that annually descended on the school, the old ones in particular. They spent hours getting tight and retelling stories about teachers now long dead and escapades that grew more and more exotic with each passing year as details were invented and the stories expanded. He vowed that he would not become one of the old geezers. When his mind went, he decided, so would the rest of him.
    He wandered over to the tables marked 25th . A few of his classmates had arrived. The rest would come later. They had important jobs and families. Twenty-fifth year reunion or not, reunions received a low priority on their to-do lists. He recognized most of the men at the table. The women with them, he supposed, were wives or girlfriends. Women did not enroll at Scott until two years after his class graduated.
    “Dex,” Marc Antonio called out, “our peerless leader.”
    “Hello, Marc. Who’s the babe?”
    Antonio’s face flushed.
    “You must have hit the bar early, Light.”
    “Like voting in Chicago…early and often, Marc,” he said and turned to the woman with him. “Hi, I’m Dexter Light and I’m a little drunk, but not too drunk to see you are young enough to be this guy’s daughter. Tell me you’re not.”
    “I’m his wife. And you are drunk. Is that why you’re so rude or are you always this way?”
    “Can’t say, darling, I’m never sober long enough to find out.”
    She gave him a pitying look and turned away. The others at the table averted their eyes. Conversations around him resumed. None included him.
    “Marc,” he interrupted, “do you know the old coot with the woman in the red sarong over at the 50 table?”
    “Why would I know them?”
    “I thought you knew everyone. You’re our alumni representative, aren’t you?”
    “I think that’s Meredith Smith, the writer,” a big blonde in a blue and yellow sack dress warbled.
    “That’s Meredith