Silent Partner

“I thought so, too, Larry.” My throat got tight and my chest burned. I was certain that everyone was looking at me, though when I looked around, no one was. Just Larry, eyes as soft as a spaniel’s.

“Hope it works out,” he said.

I stared into my glass. The ice had melted to slush. “Think I will have something stronger.”

I elbowed my way through the crush at the bar and ordered a double gin and tonic that fell just short of single strength. On the way back to the table I came face to face with Kruse. He looked at me. His eyes were light-brown flecked with green, the irises unusually large. They widened- with recognition I was certain- then flicked away and focused somewhere over my shoulder. Simultaneously, he shot out his hand, grasped mine firmly, covered it with his other, and moved our arms up and down while exclaiming, “So nice you could come!” Before I had a chance to reply, he’d used the handshake as leverage to propel himself past me, spi

Politician’s hustle. I’d been expertly manipulated.

Again.

I turned, saw his tailored back retreating, followed by the shimmering silver sheet of his wife’s hair swaying in counterpoint to her narrow, tight derrière.

The two of them walked several steps before being taken in hand by a tall, handsome middle-aged woman.

Slim and impeccably assembled in a custard-yellow silk cocktail dress, white rose corsage, and strategically placed diamonds, she could have been any President’s First Lady. Her hair was chestnut accented with pewter, combed back and tied in a chignon that crowned a long, full-jawed face. Her lips were thin, molded in a half-smile.

Finishing-school smile. Genetic poise.

I heard Kruse say, “Hello, Hope. Everything’s just beautiful.”

“Thank you, Paul. If you’ve a moment, there are some people I’d like you to meet.”

“Of course, dear.”

The exchange sounded rehearsed, lacking in warmth, and had excluded Suza

I returned to the table, took a deep drink of gin. Larry raised his glass and touched it to mine.

“Here’s to old-fashioned girls, D. Long may they fucking live.”

I tossed back what was left of my gin and sucked on the ice. I hadn’t eaten all day, felt a light buzz coming on and shook my head to clear it. The movement brought a swatch of custard-yellow into view.

The First Lady had left Kruse’s side. She sca

“That’s our hostess?” I said. “In the pale-yellow dress?”

“No idea, D. Not exactly my social circle.”

“Kruse called her Hope.”

“Then that’s her. Hope Blalock. Springs eternal.”

A moment later, he said, “Some hostess. Notice how we’re all kept outside, no one gets into the house?”

“Like dogs that haven’t been housebroken.”

He laughed, lifted one leg off the chair and made a rude sound with his lips. Then he cocked his head at a nearby table. “Speaking of animal training, observe the maze-and-electrode crowd.”

Eight or nine grad students sat surrounding a man in his late fifties. The students favored corduroy, jeans, and plain cotton shifts, lank hair and wire-rims. Their mentor was stoop-shouldered, bald, and wore a clipped white beard. His suit was mud-colored hopsacking, a couple of sizes too large. It shrouded him like a monk’s habit. He talked nonstop and jabbed his finger a lot. The students looked glassy-eyed.

“The Ratman himself,” said Larry. “And his merry band of Ratkateers. Probably going on about something sexy like the correlation between electroshock-induced defecation and stimulation voltage following experimentally induced frustration of a partially reinforced escape response acquired under widely spaced trials. In fucking squirrels.”

I laughed. “Looks like he lost weight. Maybe he’s doing weight-loss tapes, too.”

“Nope. Heart attack last year- it’s why he gave up being department head and passed it along to Kruse. The tapes started right after that. Fucking hypocrite. Remember how he used to put down the clinical students, say we shouldn’t consider our doctorates a union card for private practice? What an asshole. You should see the ads he’s been ru

“Where’ve they run?”

“Trashy magazines. One square inch of black-and-white in the back along with pitches for military schools, stuff-envelopes-and-make-a-fortune schemes, and Oriental pen pals. Only reason I found out is, one of my patients sent away for it and brought the cassette in to show me. ‘Use the Behavioral Approach to Quit Smoking,’ the Ratman’s name right there on the plastic, along with this tacky mimeographed brochure listing his academic credentials. He actually narrates the damned thing, D., in that pompous monotone. Trying to sound compassionate, as if he’d been working with people instead of rodents all these years.” He gave a disgusted look. “Union cards.”

“Is he making any money?”

“If he is, he sure ain’t spending it on clothes.”

Larry’s beeper went off. He pulled it off his belt, held it to his ear for a moment. “The service. ’Scuse me, D.”

He stopped a waiter, asked for the nearest phone, and was directed to the big white house. I watched him duck-walk through the formal gardens, then got up, ordered another gin and tonic, and stood there at the bar drinking it, enjoying the anonymity. I was starting to feel comfortably fuzzy when I heard something that set off an internal alarm.

Familiar tones, inflections.

A voice from the past.

I told myself it was imagination. Then I heard the voice again and searched the crowd.

I saw her, over several sets of shoulders.

A time-machine jolt. I tried to look away, couldn’t.

Sharon exquisite as ever.

I knew her age without calculating. Thirty-four. A birthday in May. May 15- how strange to still remember…

I stepped closer, got a better look: maturity but no diminution of beauty.

A face out of a cameo.

Oval, fine-boned, clean-jawed. The hair thick, wavy, black and glossy as caviar, brushed back from a high, flawless forehead, spilling over square shoulders. Milkwhite complexion, unfashionably sun-shy. High cheekbones gently defined, rouged naturally with coins of dusty rose. Small, close-set ears, a single pearl in each. Black eyebrows arching above wide-set deep-blue eyes. A thin, straight nose, gently flaring nostrils.

I remembered the feel of her skin… pale as porcelain but warm, always warm. I craned to get a better view.

She had on a knee-length navy-blue linen dress, short-sleeved and loose-fitting. Unsuccessful camouflage: the contours of her body fought the confines of the dress and won. Full, soft breasts, wasp waist, rich flare of hip tapering to long legs and sculpted ankles. Her arms were smooth white stalks. She wore no rings or bracelets, only the pearl studs and a matching string of opera-length pearls that rode the swell of her bosom. Blue pumps with medium heels added an inch to her five and a half feet. In one hand was a matching blue purse. The other hand caressed it.