“So go,” Heather said through clenched teeth. “And back off on the booze!”
“Yes, hon,” he said and turned away.
Heather watched him move slowly down the hall, in no great hurry to accommodate her, which infuriated her further. Finally, Rick opened the ballroom doors, letting escape the loud, pounding disco music from their high school days, where it bounced off the walls in perfect timing with the beating of Heather’s palpitating heart.
...staying’ alive...
The ballroom doors slammed shut; the corridor fell into a strained silence.
Linda cleared her throat and asked, “I wonder who’s going to be crowned Reunion Queen?”
Heather, pretending not to care, began to straighten the remaining badges on the table. “Whoever gets the most votes,” she said, but thought, It damn well better be me.
After all, wasn’t she, even after fifteen years, still the bestlooking woman in her class? And Heather had gone to great lengths and expense to make sure that she was: trips to the tanning salon, weight reduction classes, professional makeup and hair care (her shoulder-length brunette tresses completely untouched by gray — now) — not to mention a six-month-long search for the perfect little designer dress...
And for what? Heather thought sullenly, so she could rot out here, while everyone else was in the ballroom having fun?
Heather looked resentfully at Linda, whose mouth now hung open like a big bass being reeled in. What was the matter with her, anyway?
Heather followed Linda’s stare to a woman who was ascending the stairs in front of them.
And Heather gasped — not because of the woman’s hair, which was butter-blonde brushing bare shoulders, or her porcelain face, its features almost too perfect, or her voluptuous figure, which bordered on Amazonian — but because the bitch was wearing Heather’s designer dress!
Perfectly balanced on her high heels, the blonde undulated toward them.
“Hi!” She said.
Linda continued to stare at the woman, but Heather said pleasantly, “The Bimbo Convention must be at some other hotel.” After all, this was no one Heather knew from school.
“Pardon me?” The blonde looked confused, which Heather considered redundant.
“This is a class reunion,” Heather said, her voice dripping with insolence. “But then, I guess you couldn’t read the sign outside.”
The blonde flashed a dazzling white smile. “I’m afraid there is no sign... but I’m at the right place.”
And she extended one hand, moving it over the remaining I.D. badges spread out on the table, like a fortune teller picking a tarot card, and with a perfectly manicured fingernail, tapped one. “That’s me!” she said.
Linda leaned forward in her chair. “Hilda?” she asked, stunned. “Hilda Payne?”
“Hello, Linda,” the blonde said warmly.
With a squeal, Linda jumped up, ran around the table and gave the blonde a hug.
“I can’t believe it’s you!” Linda said.
The blonde smiled. “It’s been a long time. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back for the tenth.”
“You... you look wonderful,” Linda gushed.
“So do you,” the blonde replied.
Gag me with a spoon, Heather thought. She studied the blonde, trying to mentally transform the homely girl on the badge into the gorgeous woman (all right, she admitted it) in front of her. But then, Heather really didn’t remember Hilda much at all — or any of the other plain non-entities that had roamed the school hallways like cows, getting in her way.
“Are any of the other girls here?” the blonde asked Linda. “Mary? Diane?”
Linda nodded, her head jerking back and forth on her shoulders like a jack-in-the-box on a spring. “I can’t wait until they see you!” she said excitedly.
And Linda began pulling the blonde by the arm down the hall toward the ballroom.
Heather stood up. “Hey, wait just a minute, Linda!” she said angrily. “Who’s gonna look after the table?”
“How about you?” Linda shot back.
And the two women disappeared through the ballroom doors.
...heart of glass...
Heather slammed her fists on the table, rattling the cash box and scattering the badges.
Then, dejectedly, she slumped in her chair.
“But she’s wearing my dress,” Heather whimpered to no one. “She wearing my dress...”
Rick leaned on the bar, a scotch and soda in hand, and surveyed the ballroom.
A few people had already taken seats at tables decorated in the school’s colors — purple and gold — while others continued to mill around, trying to talk over the deafening disco music.
He hated those faggy songs. And he was embarrassed that his class had picked one of them as their song: “Disco Duck,” for Christ’s sake! Why couldn’t he have been born earlier? Like his older brother, Ray, who was a senior in high school when the Beatles and Stones hit.
...she works hard for the money...
He took a drink, and shook his head. She should try working for a car dealership, he thought bitterly. Not that the work itself was hard. The hard part was having his wife’s father own the business, and always being under the old man’s thumb. Rick resented the hell out of him and Heather, who talked him into turning down that pro ball draft offer to go into the family business.
Maybe that was why Rick was always looking for love in all the wrong places...
His eyes locked with Jennifer’s. The pretty, slender redhead was standing alone by the dance floor. He looked quickly away.
But then she was next to him, touching his arm lightly, wearing that hurt expression he detested.
“Look, Jen,” he said carefully, not wanting his voice to carry too far, “sorry about last week...”
“Can I see you tonight?” Her big brown eyes looked wet.
He avoided them, staring out across the room. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said, and slowly moved away from her.
He could have seen Jennifer, if he’d wanted, but he didn’t, because across the room, he’d seen somebody else...
She was standing by the ballroom doors, an incredible creature. But surrounding her were some of the skankiest broads in the entire class; they were fawning over her, attending to her, like she was the queen bee and they were the drones.
Suddenly the gorgeous babe flashed him a smile.
Yeah! He chugged his drink, and set it on a table as he moved toward her like a magnet to metal.
...da ya think I’m sexy...
“Well, hello,” Rick said. “Come here often?”
She looked at him with sultry eyes. “Would you believe me if I said it was my very first time?”
He smirked. “No.” He couldn’t keep his eyes off her boobs; they looked like the real thing, not hard, fake implants like his wife’s.
“I hope you’re just trying to read my name tag,” the blonde teased.
“Uh... yeah,” he smiled, focusing on the badge’s high school yearbook photo. God, what a dog she’d been!
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
He shook his head. Not if she’d looked like that.
“Well,” she smiled, “we didn’t exactly have the same friends.”
Flanking her, the drones glared at him. She could say that again.
“Come on, Hilda,” one of them said. “Let’s go find a table — by ourselves.”
“Perhaps I’ll see you later,” Rick said, reaching out, running his fingers sensuously down her arm.