The blonde, whose tag read, ‘JOY (GAYLORD) SIMPKINS’, just laughed at me. “So you had a type?! All those times I flirted with you and you never acted on it, now I know why. I could have dyed my hair, but no way was I doing anything about the short and curvy parts.”
I remembered Joy now, a very pretty, but tall and slender blonde. I didn’t remember her flirting with me, but it had been many years. “Sorry about that.” She just laughed, and then handed me a couple of nametags. “I think this is going to be a disaster,” I told her.
“Karma’s a bitch, Carl,” she laughed.
“How come we’re here?” I asked, deflecting the conversation. I waved my hands at the surrounding tennis club. “Why’d we meet here and not down in Towson?”
“You don’t like it here?” she asked, a touch defensively.
“No, just curious.”
She nodded. “The price is right. It’s free!” She gave me a big smile. “My husband and I own the club!”
“No kidding, well, good for you! It looks very nice. I guess that explains it, then.”
She waved me on through, and then turned to wave at somebody else coming in. I didn’t even look behind me at them, but just shambled on through. My thoughts were on what trouble my wife was getting into.
The first person I ran across who I immediately recognized was Tusker, who was sitting at a table on the right side with a few of the other bikers from back in the day. He saw me and laughed. “Well, look what the cat dragged in! Where’s Marilyn?”
“Filing for divorce. Do you know what Tessa has done?! She told Marilyn that she would introduce her to all my old girlfriends! I’m a dead man!”
The rest of the table exploded in laughter, Tusker included. “Oh, it’s worse than that! After you agreed to come, Tessa got on the phone with some of her old friends and they made a list, and invited as many of them to come as they could! Your wife is about to find out all your old secrets!”
I stared at him. “Oh, tell me you’re joking! I might be divorced, but you are about to become a widower, because I am about to kill your wife! How could you let her do this!?”
Tusker poured me some beer. “Oh, buddy, you deserve this!” he said, laughing.
“Some friend you are!” I clipped my nametag on, and then shook hands with the rest of the table, some of whom I remembered, some of whom I didn’t. After a few minutes, I excused myself and went in search of Marilyn.
I found her at a table, surrounded by about a half dozen women, all of whom I recognized, none of whom I particularly wanted to see talking to my wife. “Ladies, good to see you all.” There were several squeals and waves, and Linda Bravo jumped up and kissed me on the lips, as the rest of the table snickered. I handed Marilyn her nametag. “Just remember, we were all just friends, that’s all, just friends.”
Linda piped up, “That’s not the way I remember it!”
“Oh? Well, maybe I should go find your husbands and let them know just how friendly all of you were?!”
There was a gabble of noise at that, some protesting but most laughingly telling me to go ahead. Tammy waved it off and said, “Go ahead, see if I care. He already knows, don’t you think!”
That was true; Randy had started dating her after we broke up. “Maybe I’ll tell him the truth about you, then.”
“Honey, please! What I learned with you, I refined. Nobody talks about the Carl Buckman Experience anymore. Now it’s the Tammy Bronson Experience people want to know about!” That earned me a tableful of catcalls and laughs, and I just surrendered the field to them.
I wandered around the tents. The reunion was doubling as a crab feast, which I heartily approved of. There was some fried chicken if you didn’t like crabs, which Marilyn didn’t, but it had been a few years since I had steamed crabs, and as soon as I could peel my wife away from the hen party ratting me out, I would have some. I suppose it was like any reunion. Some people you remember, a lot you don’t, and even more you realize you didn’t know them before to begin with.
I found myself sitting at a table with Tusker, Randy Bronson, Ray Shorn and his wife, Mike Misner and his wife, and Katie Lowenthal. Katie was still single (and looking hotter than hell, she had lost all the weight from high school!) and Tessa and Tammy were still talking to Marilyn. I looked at Randy and Tusker, and told them, “I am going to kill your wives for this.”
Tusker just snorted. Randy said, “Live by the sword, die by the sword, man. You earned this.”
“Oh?”
He gave me a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? You were the biggest cockhound in school!”
“Me?!”
“You!” agreed Katie. “Everybody knew it! Just because nobody complained didn’t mean it wasn’t true.”
“We were just friends,” I protested.
“Yeah? It’s a good thing Tessa’s a blonde and not a brunette, since then I’d have to punch you out!” added Tusker.
“Some friend you are!” I told him.
At that point, Marilyn, Tessa, and Tammy came back. I made room and Marilyn grabbed a seat next to me, and Tessa sat next to her husband. Running out of seats, Tammy sat sideways on her husband’s lap. He wrapped his arms around her. I smiled at them. “I always knew you two would end up married. How many years has it been now?”
They looked at each other and smiled. “It was just last year.”
“Last year? What kept you?”
Most of the others laughed at that, although Katie looked mystified. She had been in California going to medical school and doing an internship. “Oh, we got married,” said Randy.
“Just not to each other!” added his wife.
“What?!”
“Well, after graduation Randy went to Maryland, and I went to Penn State. We talked about staying together long distance, but it just didn’t work out,” said Tammy. Randy just grinned and hugged his wife’s ample belly. “We both met other people and we both got married as soon as we got out of school.”
“And we both figured out a year or two later it wasn’t working and got divorced,” added Randy.
“Then we met again a year ago, and realized we were meant for each other.” Tammy twisted around and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank God we didn’t have any kids! This will be our first, for both of us.”
“Huh! Well, you two must have been fated to be together then. Congratulations!” I told them.
That got us started talking about our kids. We admitted to having a 20 month old, and Tusker and Tessa told about having Bucky at our wedding. Ray and his wife had two, Mike was an intern, but he and his wife had one. At that point we all got up and got in line to bring back some steamed crabs to the table. Conversation was a little limited for a few minutes after that. You can eat or you can talk, but it’s hard to do both. Marilyn finished her chicken before the rest of us were even halfway through the crabs. Well, Katie, too, since she didn’t like crabs either. That was okay, even if a bit strange for a true Marylander. We discussed it and decided not to have her stoned to death.
Tusker asked what everyone else was doing these days, and Ray said he worked for a paving company in Columbia as an engineer. Ray’s wife stayed at home with their two kids. Randy and Tammy worked for an insurance company in Baltimore, which was how they met up again. Mike and Katie were still interns, Mike in Delaware and Katie in California. Then everybody looked at Tusker and me. I just waved my hand and said, “I work for an investment company out in Hereford. We live out there now, over towards Hampstead.” Heads swiveled to the Tusks.
Tusker simply smiled. “You are now looking at the newest Honda motorcycle dealer in the state!”
I must have lit up as well. “Congratulations! It came through?!”