Killer Market

I was on my way to messing up my life for good that year with sex and drugs and drink. Aunt Barbara took me in, held my hand through the annulment of a disastrous runaway marriage, and pointed out how stupid I was being when she walked up on Chan and me in her gazebo one sunny afternoon.

“Chastity may be highly overrated,” she told me after Chan had grabbed his pants and fled, “but so is this so- called free love.”

“Sex has nothing to do with love,” I’d muttered.

“Nor does corrupting children,” she’d said tartly. “Do you know how difficult it is to find someone reliable to cut my grass?”

Put like that, I’d decided it was time to move on. And I hadn’t given another thought to Chandler Nolan in all the years since.

“What’re you doing down here?” I asked, amazed that he’d turned out so handsome.

Unfortunately, he still had that randy look in his eye, and I saw him checking my left hand for a wedding band. “Let’s go get us something wet and I’ll tell you.”

We snaked our way through laughing, perspiring dancers to the far end of the room where two long serving tables stood draped in blue calico. On one of them, several shiny galvanized washtubs held ice and five or six different brands of beer. The other table featured huge platters of Texas-style ribs, fried chicken, jalapeno cornbread, corn on the cob, and some sinfully rich-looking chocolate brownies. Instead of napkins, the American Leathergoods Wholesale Association had thoughtfully provided blue-checkered washcloths.

Favors were scattered at intervals along the table: bookmarks cut from supple, multicolored leathers and stamped in gold with the ALWA ox-head logo. As I waited for my Maryland cowboy to push his way up to the beer tubs, two buyers? sellers? designers? in front of me began to rub the bookmarks against one of those washcloths as if to see if the bright clear colors would come off on the white checks.

“Nice hand,” said one, flexing the bookmark carefully, “but in this range of color, it has to be naked aniline.”

“They swear it’s pigmented,” said the other. “One-point-five on the gray scale.”

“You believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’ll sell you.”

“But even if it’s only a three,” he said as he whipped out a pocket calculator and began punching in some numbers, “we could use it to create a whole new pricing umbrella, elevate points right across the board.”

“If it comes in at no more than two-fifty a square,” his colleague agreed doubtfully. “Sure does have a nice hand, though.”

They were talking in tongues as far as I was concerned.

Through an opening in the crowd I caught a glimpse of pastel chiffon, and there was Mrs. Jernigan standing halfway down the food table. She had draped one of her pale green scarves over her head, but strands of gray hair strayed from beneath the edge.

Chandler Nolan, who had a beer in each hand, had been waylaid by a couple of corporate types and he gave me a shrug.

Just as well, I decided, now that I’d had a minute to think it over. I really wasn’t in the mood for Remember when—? And though I wasn’t wearing Kidd Chapin’s ring on my finger or through my nose, Chan had a plain gold band on his significant finger and I never mess around with married men.

(“Not if you know they’re married,” came the voice of pragmatism in my head.)

I gave him a cheery wave, warbled, “Good seeing you again,” and headed instead toward the woman who’d promised to find me a bed tonight.

As I came up to Mrs. Jernigan, I saw her slip a zip-lock plastic bag filled with fried chicken into the new Fitch and Patterson bag between her feet. From the damp stain spreading across the bottom of her second tote, I could only assume that she had helped herself to a few cans of iced beer as well. She reminded me of my Aunt Sister, who keeps similar plastic bags stashed in her carryall bag because, and I quote, “I just can’t stand to see good food go to waste.”

(Let her loose at any restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet or serve-yourself salad bar and Aunt Sister comes home with enough food to feed her and Uncle Rufus for three meals. “Well, I never eat enough to feed a bird,” she rationalizes, “and you know good as me that they’re just going to throw out anything that’s left over.”)

To my surprise, J.J. Patterson was there at her elbow and seemed to be helping her stow away a couple of drumsticks while the reporter with the long dark hair watched in fascination.

One of Mrs. Jernigan’s plastic bags had fallen to the floor. I bent to retrieve it and was almost stepped on by some sales rep who’d shoved in to fill his plate. As I straightened up, a soft hand touched my arm and for the second time that night, a surprised voice said, “Deborah? Deborah Knott?”

I turned and saw a familiar face. The shining chestnut hair, slanted feline eyes, and long leggy body were familiar, too, but I was blanking on her name.

“Well, I’ll be blessed! It is you and you haven’t changed an inch since law school. What the L-M-N are you doing here at Market?”

Her law school reference and that L-M-N substitute for blunter language brought her into focus.

Dixie Babcock.

We’d sat next to each other in several classes, shared notes and lunch, and were even in the same study group for contract law. We had liked each other well enough, but she was nearly ten years older and a single mother struggling for a law degree after too many dead-end jobs that barely paid for day care. At that point in her life, she just didn’t have enough time to develop any strong new friendships so our tenuous connection stayed tenuous despite splitting an occasional pizza at the Rat on Franklin Street Then she had to drop out for a semester when her daughter got hit by a car and after that we pretty much lost touch with each other.