Free Friends till the End by Gloria Dank Page A

him a fond kiss.
    “Hello.” He put his briefcase on the table.
    “How was your class?”
    “Morons,” said Harry cheerfully. “Morons, all of them. In my day, graduate students had to have a modicum of intelligence in order to get into a program. Now it seems that’s no longer required. They’re drones, Heather; mindless drones.”

    “Really? What a shame.” Heather had heard this before. She briefly recalled, from her graduate student days, the general student opinion concerning Professor Crandall. “Pompous ass” and “platitudinous old fool” were two of the kinder comments. She smiled to herself. The comments had stopped abruptly when she had announced her engagement. Humming, she put aside a dish of marinated tofu and began to mince garlic, one of her least favorite tasks.
    “Note-taking machines,” her husband was saying with relish. “That’s all they are, note-taking machines. In my day, students were encouraged to
think
. That’s what education was all about! Not all these notes and memorization. The only questions I get are about the final exam next week. How long will the test be? Will it be essay or multiple choice? Basically they’re asking whether they’ll have to think or not. Sometimes I feel like strangling them, the whole lot of them. The academic world would be better off, I’m convinced of it.”
    “Yes, dear.”
    Dinner was prepared, served and eaten. Little Harry, full to the point of explosion, staggered into the living room. Heather poured out the tea for herself and her husband.
    “Harry, I wanted to tell you something that Ruth mentioned to me.”
    She told him all about the conversation she had had with Ruth; all about Sam’s problems with the business. Her husband listened attentively.
    “Sounds like Walter,” he said when she was done. “He’d stick a knife into the back of his best friend. What’s Sam doing about it?”
    “What
can
he do?”
    “Nothing much, I suppose. Walter holds the reins. Still, they’ve practically been partners in that business for so many years …”
    “I know. I don’t know how Walter can live with himself. The man has no conscience at all.”
    “None.”
    “By the way, you absolutely can’t tell anybody else, all right, Harry? I swore to Ruth that I wouldn’t tell.”
    “All right. Probably everyone knows, anyway. News like that gets around.”
    “There’s something else.” Heather paused uncertainly. “I think it’s too bad that nobody’s gotten together since—well, since the party. It’s as if everyone is afraid. So I had an idea.”
    She wanted to have a little get-together—“nothing elaborate, just our friends”—the following weekend. “It’s about time that we got together again. It’s ridiculous not to, don’t you think?”
    Her husband was amenable. Little Harry, when he heard about it, was delighted.
    “Carob mocha brownies!” he said from where he lay on the couch.
    “Yes,” said Heather. “And corn chips—homemade—and veggies with dip, and cider. And apple walnut crumble.”
    “Hurray!” cried Little Harry.
    The next day Heather called all her friends to invite them to her party.
    “Ruth, you and Sam must come. This Sunday at one o’clock.
Please
.”
    “Yes. Yes, of course. Naturally we’ll be there. Can I bring anything?”
    “No, no. It’s just going to be a light lunch. Nothing fancy.”
    “Yes,” said Ruth. “You know, Heather, since our talk, I really feel that things are going to be better. I told Sam about it. I feel—I don’t know. I feel more optimistic.”
    “Good. Good. See you Sunday?”
    “Oh, yes.”
    Freda sounded drunk when Heather called. Heather looked at her watch. It was three in the afternoon.
    “Sunday?” Freda said, in that too-hearty tone she assumed when drunk. “One o’clock? What’s the point, Heather?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What’s the point? Why have this party?”
    “I just thought that it would be nice if everybody got together