escaping. That was close.
21
Bobby
They rode to the party in Chape’s Escalade. It made things easier for Bobby, coming in.
With Chape walking point and Stitch and Buck flanking him, it’s almost like the old days. He is aroused by the stir they create even now, after so long. Women Bobby used to know turn, touching dyed hair and rearranging their faces at the sight of him. The ripple swells into the wave he and his main men made back in senior year, stalking the corridors in torn football jerseys and jeans that had gone white at the knees and over the bulge at the crotch. Kids fell away like the Red Sea, making a path for the chosen ones because he and his cadre owned the school. Now here they are again, four good buddies – too bad about Brad . . . No. He’s glad he eluded them, given that Brad when he’s boiled is an ugly thing. And Bobby? There are times when he trips on one of the Twelve Steps but mostly he’s OK. Good, in fact.
Here in the grand ballroom of the Fort Jude Club, it’s as though the bad things in his life never happened. The grappling hooks release his heart and he forgets how old he is and how long it’s been. People he was afraid to see again light up. For the first time in a long time Bobby Chaplin is a kid again. He sizes up the women like an impulse shopper scanning soup can labels, thinking, I can have any girl in this room, the problem being that the ones he can have are no longer girls.
Oh, there are plenty of women. Dozens of foxy twenty- and thirty-somethings gift-wrapped in strappy little dresses sail past without seeing him. Like the surly teenagers with nose rings and tongue studs removed for the event and silky shifts designed to expose their precious tats, they’re all depressingly young.
Well, he thinks, fair’s fair.
Then there are the women he knows. Betsy Cashwell is as fit and cute as she ever was, but growing up in strong Florida sunlight isn’t just bad for these women, it’s a catastrophe. She looks like a white raisin now. Cathy Rhue’s put on weight and she’s not the only one. It’s sad! Guys have gone bald or run to fat like Stitch and Sammy Kristofferson, who did both, and the thin ones look wasted and insecure.
You’d think an atom bomb just hit Fort Jude and when these people walked out of the ashes they were old, cardboard cutouts of people he used to know. In high school he imagined rich inner lives for them, but now he has to wonder. Then he catches them squinting at him like photographers matching negatives to prints, and thinks, Do I look that bad? Does he?
‘Dude.’ Chape snags his elbow. ‘Meet the blushing bride.’
Poor kid! Patty Kalen and the fiancé stand fixed under the oleander trellis like plaster dolls waiting to be plopped on a wedding cake. Waiting for the F.O.B. Patty’s smile has been set for so long that the surface is about to crack.
‘Why Patty,’ Bobby says, noting that her hands are slick with the sweat of too many well-wishers, ‘you don’t know me, but I knew your dad.’
Reloading the smile, she says miserably, ‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It just pops out. He covers his mouth.
Brad is famous, and not in a good way. Patty acknowledges it with a nod. ‘This is Stuart, my fiancé. He’s from Atlanta. And Stuart, this is . . .’
‘Bob Chaplin.’ His gift to the girl is not shaking her hand. ‘Your mother was a wonderful person.’ Young as she is, Patty is weary, weary. Her lips move in response, shaping a silent, I know.
‘Chape Bellinger.’ Chape inserts himself with that smile. The fiancé is awed by the high sheen of prosperity, but by the time he extends his hand to shake, Chape has moved on to shinier pastures. To spare him embarrassment, Bobby takes it.
‘Bob,’ he says, shaking firmly. ‘Bob Chaplin. Goldman Sachs.’
The fiancé has one of those soft, smooth faces, like the mask of an unused baby. He says, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr . . .’ and hands him off as the bride’s sorority sisters strike. Worn thin by waiting, Patty whirls and falls into their group hug with a grateful shriek.
Damn Brad, Bobby thinks, and not for the first time. Damn him for everything.
He washes up in a stagnant corner near the bar, watching bartenders pour refills.