walking took them to the site of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and the Space Needle.
“ Anyway, there’s a good view of Puget Sound.” Gary swung the binoculars to the southwest. “Look, there’s a freighter.”
“ Let me see.” Penny playfully fought him for the binoculars. Gary gave them up without much of a struggle. She looked in different directions, pretending to hog them. Gary hovered nearby, so she finally gave them back, acting as if it were a magnanimous gesture on her part.
She mentally pinched herself. It was hard to believe she was actually married. At one time she hadn’t been able to picture herself getting married at all. So far married life had been a blast. The curse of Emily hadn’t affected her, after all. Well, maybe a little. But they had overcome it. She glanced around the platform, its height a good metaphor for the high she was on.
Then she looked straight down. That was a mistake. The platform extended out from the supporting structure, so there was nothing below except the ground, which looked miles away. Penny backed up as the universe reeled. She braced herself against the wall for a few seconds as she tried to put her stomach back in its proper place. One more jolt like that, and she wouldn’t be able to eat any dinner.
She wandered around the platform to see the view in different directions as other tourists did the same. She saw a man staring at the view whose profile looked vaguely familiar. Those big ears, the slight hook in his nose. She glanced at him several times, trying to place him. When he placed his hand on his stomach inside his jacket she was sure.
“Alfred,” she said, approaching him. “Alfred Ward.”
He focused on her, a startled expression suffusing his face. He looked like a deer caught in a driver’s headlights. For a moment, Penny thought he was going to turn and run from her.
“It’s me, Penny.” He still looked dazed. “From Fenwick.”
Recognition seemed to dawn in his eyes. Haltingly, he said, “Hi, Penny.”
“It’s good to see you, Alfred.” Penny went up to him and gave him a hug, backing off when he didn’t return it. “What has it been-six years? Well, I guess we’ve seen each other a few times since high school.”
“ Yes, a few times.” Alfred appeared to find his voice and managed something of a smile.
“ Tempus fugits, as Miss Warren used to say. Imagine running into a classmate in Seattle. What are you doing here?”
“Err…I’m sightseeing. Yes, I’m just here seeing the sights.”
“I’m on my honeymoon.” It was the first chance Penny had had to say those words to somebody she knew. The word honeymoon felt good rolling off her lips.
“Congratulations,” Alfred said. “Well, this is a good place to go. Lots to see.” He giggled.
“ We’re actually going all over the place. We just came from Mt. Rainier-although it was so foggy we couldn’t see the mountain. We don’t believe it really exists. We’re going on to Leavenworth tonight.”
“You’re moving faster than a speeding bullet.”
“We have to cover a lot of territory before school starts. I’m a teacher. What do you do?”
“Uh, I’m in the retail business. Meat, produce, canned food. That sort of thing.”
“Where do you live?”
“Los Angeles.”
“ No kidding. Me too. This really is a coincidence. We’ll have to get together.”
Gary came up beside Penny. He had seen her talking to a strange man. “Gary, this is Alfred Ward. We went to high school together. Can you believe that?”
“ Glad to meet you, Alfred.” Gary extended his hand.
Penny was glad Gary wasn’t the jealous type. Of course, he had no reason to be, especially with Alfred. But since Alfred had been a classmate of hers and because they had known each other forever, she owed him more than just a hello and good-bye.
“We’re going to take the monorail back to the wharf and have dinner there. Would you like to come with us? We can catch up on what’s been happening since high school.”
Alfred had not expected to run into them in Seattle. They were a day ahead of their schedule, as laid out in the notebook he had purloined. That morning he had waited until they drove away before he set foot outside his cabin. He was still limping from the effects of his fall, but he could manage to get around.
After he ate breakfast at the lodge, he had to decide what to do. He knew he should go back to L.A. He was on a fool’s errand, as he’d realized when he heard Connie Francis singing about fools. In addition, his money wasn’t going to last forever. He needed to get his job back. However, he didn’t want to leave on such a negative note, with his tail between his legs.
He wanted to feel that he had at least accomplished something. He didn’t know what that something was. Maybe if he went to Seattle and did some sightseeing he would feel better about himself. Then he could tell people- if anybody asked-that he had been on vacation. Seattle was a city, and he liked cities much better than the wilderness he had been seeing.
When Penny accosted him on the Space Needle, he was shocked. His first instinct was to run away, but that was impossible. Then, when she was so friendly, he remembered how she had acted toward him in high school. She was almost the only member of the in-crowd who had paid much attention to him. She had always smiled and showed concern for his well-being.
The dinner went well. They ate in a cafeteria at Pike’s Place Market with a view of Puget Sound. By the time they arrived there, Alfred had regained his poise. He was witty as they reminisced about the foibles of the students and teachers at their high school. He kept them both laughing with his stories. He had learned to play the class clown in school to gain attention, and this ability stood him in good stead now.
“ We were always doing things like taking the flags from the golf course and hiding in the trees. One time, a group of us were wandering around on a summer night, looking for something to do. The house where the Coles live now was about to be built. The boundaries of the house were staked out, and the stakes were connected with string. We moved one of the stakes. The next day the builders dug the foundation. They never spotted the error.”
“That house has always looked skew-geed to me,” Penny said, covering her mouth with her hand. “So you’re the one who did it.”
“ You didn’t tell anybody about it?” Gary was frowning.
“ Uh oh, I should have warned you,” Penny said. “Gary has very high moral standards. Yesterday, we stopped and bought a box of plums. When he saw me take a couple from another box and add them to our box, he said, ‘Are you going to teach our children to do that?’ Of course I was just replacing bad ones…”
“Where are you headed from here?” Gary asked, interrupting Penny.
“Los Angeles. Gotta get back to work.”
“What part of Los Angeles do you live in?” Penny asked. “We’re going to be living in Torrance.”
“Nice place, Torrance. I’m living inland. East of there. I’m not rich enough to live near the beach.”
“Give us your address and phone number, so we can get together.”
“ Well…I’m in the process of moving. I’ll let you know where I am after I’m settled. If you’d like to give me your information…”
Penny was already writing it down. This was much easier than calling somebody in Fenwick. He wasn’t about to let them know that he’d been living so close to Penny. Better to have them believe he was living in one of the many cookie-cutter communities that people might have heard of but couldn’t exactly place.
Los Angeles was such a big metropolis that two people could live there for a hundred years and never run into each other. Unless they wanted to.
CHAPTER 11
It was raining off and on, but that didn’t daunt Alfred. He felt invigorated as he drove toward Grand Coulee
