Loonglow Read Free Page B

unexpected as his father’s earlier move to the East Coast branch of the family firm, but he’d hoped Charlene’s choice of the most superficially glamorous city she could find was the final indignity he’d be made to suffer. The sound of her voice destroyed his theory.
    â€œI’m calling to invite you to a premiere,” she announced. Culture? he thought. (He’d never known Charlene to show an interest in any activity that wasn’t best undertaken in the nude.) Of a dance company, she went on to explain, whose choreographer she’d blown before he underwent The Change.
    Her voice brought back a rush of memories. Resisting the urge to ask why she felt the need for weird frivolity or what she thought they’d find to say to one another after all these years, Clay murmured, “Day after tomorrow, then.” After a brief, intense exchange, he hung up, covering his head with the pillow. This time there were no further interruptions.
    Two evenings later Clay discovered Charlene had grown lovelier and, if possible, more humorless than ever. He took her hand at the door to the concert hall, gazing into her earnest eyes. How was he going to get through the performance without snoring conspicuously and ruining all the good will between them? he wondered, following her to their seats. As if in direct challenge, the dancers instantly got under way.
    After an interval of numbing (if well-orchestrated) banality, Clay felt his gaze begin to wander from the stage. He shifted in his seat, scanning the rapt faces in the audience. Several minutes passed before he found himself dumbfounded by a seemingly impossible discovery.
    Four rows down from them sat the beautiful girl, like a recurring character in some Fellini movie. Was Clay doomed to see the specter of her glowing face wherever he turned? New York was obviously a mere handful of people surrounded by a great many mirrors. For no good reason, his heart began to pound. (What on earth was wrong with him?) To calm himself, he studied Charlene’s face. (Would the woman’s beauty startle him each time he saw her float by, he wondered, or would the vision begin to pall with over-exposure? There had to be some way to render her charmless, some way of breaking the brazen hold she had attained over him.)
    â€œWe’ll go backstage, of course,” Charlene said once the dance fest had trembled to its heartfelt, brave conclusion. Clay glanced across the aisle for one last look. Yet minutes after Charlene reached the proud choreographer, the girl appeared as if on cue. Walking past them, she went over to greet the most striking of the dancers, a flamboyant black man whose every comment seemed to be driving his admirers into frenzies of appreciation. Every few seconds the girl would say something and the dancer’s face would register shock, but before Clay could take in the dancer’s reply, Charlene and her soul mate would have a new epiphany on art, drowning out all post-modernist conversation.
    Then the dancer flung up his hands and shrieked, “Girl, you get the hell out of this room! We don’t allow your kind here!” Taking her by the arm, he tried to race her out the door. She drew herself up to her full height, slinging an arm around his shoulder. He seemed to melt. Almost reverentially, he walked her toward the exit, where she kissed him goodbye, full on the mouth. (It was never too late to take up dance, Clay mused.)
    Unable to help himself, he stole away from Charlene’s ecstasy to join the other group, waiting nonchalantly until the dancer returned. Then, at a convenient lull in the conversation, he casually asked the name of the girl the dancer had walked out of the building.
    Not fooled for an instant, the man let Clay sweat out a few long moments of inspection.
    Then he spoke. “You must be referring to Mia D’Allesandro.” He put a hand over his eyes as if the thought of her exhausted his bones.