Kissing the Beehive

I put the pen down and kissed her temple. "Shipshape. Everything is right where it should be. You'd make a good sailor."

"Fair enough. And what about my things? Do you get a read from them?"

"Let's see. You like bundles of color, yet none of your flowers are alive. Which says you're not into high maintenance. Biographies of mostly maniac geniuses, but your apartment says you're orderly. Books on how great films were made and how things are designed. Let me guess – you're an Aquarius?"

"Nope. Virgo."

"Veronica, one of my wives was a Virgo. You are not a Virgo. Virgos don't make love like you do. They make fists and look at the ceiling."

She yawned and stretched languorously. When she was done, she brought those long arms down around me. Her breath was stale and warm and I wanted to kiss her.

"I make love the way I am, not because I'm a Virgo."

The next time I went back to Crane's View, Cassandra came along. It was the week before school started and she was supremely cranky about having to go back to the grind for another year. When I suggested we spend a day in my hometown she lightened up and agreed to go on the condition I didn't regale her with stories of my glorious good old days. I said that was no problem because I didn't have many of them back then. I was a good enough student, I had some unmemorable experiences, I watched too much television.

"Okay, Mr. Happy Days, so what is your greatest memory of high school?"

"I guess finding Pauline Ostrova."

"Dad, that's not a memory, it's a horror. I mean normal stuff. You know, like the prom or the homecoming game."

"Being in love. Learning how to be in love. One day girls went from just being there to being the center of everything."

"When did it happen with you?"

I lifted a hand off the steering wheel and turned it palm up. "I don't really remember. I just know I walked into school one day and everything was different. There were all these swirling skirts and bosoms and beautiful smiles."

She rolled down the window. The wind whipped her hair across her face. "You know what I think sometimes? When I'm really sad or depressed, I think he's out there somewhere and sooner or later we'll meet.

"Then I wonder, what's he doing this minute? Does he ever think the same thing? Does he ever wonder what I'm like or where I am? He's probably reading Playboy and dreaming of boobs."

I thought about that a moment and had to agree. "Boys do tend to do that. Judging from my own experience, he's either already somewhere in your life but hasn't materialized in your thoughts yet. Like people when they're beaming up in Star Trek? You know, when they're halfway there but still look like club-soda bubbles? Or else he's in Mali or Breslau and you won't see him for a while. But you can be sure no matter where he is, he thinks about you a lot."

She shrugged. "Speaking of such things, what's with your new girlfriend?"

"I don't know yet. She's still in a fuzzy pink frame for me."

"What does that mean?" Cass put her bare feet up on the dashboard.

"It means she's still too much of a sweetie pie for me to have any perspective on the situation. Everything she does is adorable."

"What's her name again, Greta Garbo?"

"Don't be a wise guy; you know her name – Veronica Lake."

"When do I get to meet her?"

"The next time I come into the city and can wrest you away from your mother. We're all going to have di

We stopped for lunch at Scrappy's Diner and surprisingly Do

"Do

Cass whistled loudly, thoroughly impressed. "Fra

Do

Half an hour later we walked through the door of the Crane's View police station. I found myself unconsciously shaking my head. "The last time I was in here, a whole bunch of us were dragged in for fighting at a football game."

A young policeman passed on his way out and gave Cass an appreciative look. The dad in me clenched but I kept moving. Just inside the door a woman in uniform sat at a desk. I asked if we could speak to the chief. After asking my name, she picked up a phone and called. A moment later the door behind her opened. A gaunt man in an expensive dark suit emerged wearing a smile I'd know a thousand years from now.

"Fuckin'-a, it's Bayer aspirin! I just want to know one thing – you got cigarettes?"

"Fra

We shook hands a long time while staring at each other, checking the wrinkles, the signs, the years across each other's faces.

"You aren't dressed too sharp for a famous author. That last book of yours – I laughed so loud at the end, I got a sore throat."

"It was supposed to be sad!"

He took hold of my chin and squeezed it. "Our bestseller. Sammy Bayer on the New York Times bestseller list. You can't imagine how happy I was when I saw your name there the first time."

His hair was brushed back and gelled into place, GQ magazine style. His rep tie was elegant and understated; the shirt as smooth and white as fresh milk. He looked either like a successful stockbroker or a professional basketball coach. The same crazy energy I remembered so well glowed on him, but his face was extremely pale and there were deep blue circles under his eyes. It looked like he was halfway through recuperating from a serious illness.

"Who's this?"

"My daughter Cassandra."

He put out a hand to shake, but Cass surprised both of us by stepping forward and embracing him. He looked at me over her shoulder and smiled. "Hey, what's this?"

She took a step back. "I know you already. I've been hearing stories about you since I was a baby."

"Really?" He was embarrassed and very pleased. "What'd your dad say about me?"

"I know about the Coke-bottle bombs, the VFW Hall, Anthony Scaro's Chevelle –"

"Whoa! Come on into my office before you get me arrested."

The office was huge and bare of anything but a big scarred desk and two chairs facing it.

"It looks exactly the same as it did twenty years ago!"

Sitting on the other side of the desk, Fra

"You more than me, chief. They should have put up a memorial plaque for you in here."

"I got tired of sitting on your side of the desk and havin' someone hit me on the head with the Yellow Pages. I thought I'd take over and get to do the hitting."

My daughter the pacifist stiffened. "Do you really do that? Hit people with telephone books?"

"Nah, Cassandra, the good old days are over. Now they make us use psychology. But now and then if they get fresh we sneak in and poke 'em with an electric cattle prod."

As I so well remembered, his face gave away nothing. All i

"Tell her you're joking, Fra

"I'm joking, Cass. So, Mr. Bayer Aspirin, how come you've graced us with your presence after two decades?"

"Before we get into that, tell me how in God's name you ended up chief of police? I was sure you'd be –"

"In jail? Thank you. That's what everyone says. I didn't have a religious conversion, if that's what you're worried about. Better – I went to Vietnam. Things happened. Good guys died but I didn't. You remember Andy Eldritch? He was eating a can of Bumble Bee tuna his mom had sent and then suddenly he was dead two feet away from me. I'd just asked him if I could have a bite. Things like that. I got pissed off. Life couldn't be that worthless, you know? When I got out, I went to Macalester College in St. Paul and got a B.S. Then, I don't know, I became a cop. It made sense."