Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' Read Free

waiter glided silently
to his side, refilling his glass with almost invisible ease and
then disappearing just as quietly, a white-clad ninja with a silver
tray. Walter took a long, slow, contemplative swallow and
continued, “I sometimes wonder if he ever really wanted
to…”
    “ Wanted to what?”
    Walter frowned into the distance. “To graduate- it
was almost as if he was trying to sabotage it to the very end, you
know? He would get top grades- best in his class, and then blow off
school for a week so he could go chasing after the first hint of
powder in the Alps!”
    Walter the second replied with a wry chuckle and a
raise of white eyebrows, “Well, they say the apple never falls far
from the tree...”
    Walter turned and countered defensively, “Hey! I
never-”
    Walter II interrupted him with a
raised glass and a slow wag of his head, “Sorry, my boy, but it's
true... For you ,
it was sailing. I was never really sure which was more important,
the lure of the water or the allure of the club, but it’s true.” He
sighed resignedly and continued, “Fortunately, parents exerted
more- control back in the day. If you had been brought up now , you'd have probably
done the same damn thing.” He paused in silent contemplation of his
empty glass and full life, and then added wistfully, “Things were
just different... then.”
    The conversation faded as the
mutual gaze of both Walters returned to the elaborate archway, where the sounds
of youthful exuberance and a driving techno beat now pulsed and
pounded, fracturing the soft strains of Vivaldi under their
relentless assault.
     

     
    Chris watched the action at the pool table with a
toxic combination of dry amusement, sardonic irony, and just a bit
of dark despair as the rhythmic clack of brightly colored balls
kept time with the music. Of all the places to be, the dim, smoky
confines of the Billiards room were world’s away from where he
would rather be, and worlds away from here was truly where he would
rather have been.
    In sharp contrast to his peers, Chris was clearly a
‘black sheep’, so to speak. With his surfer-boy good looks,
golden-blond curls and translucent brown eyes, Chris stuck out like
a sore thumb when compared to the dark-haired and flinty-eyed group
surrounding him, a golden seagull among a flock of dark and
brooding vultures. Even the perfectly proportioned blond and
brunette Barbies that bookended him on either side seemed
incongruous to his bearing- shallow and hollow, plastic and
polished. And now they were beginning to bore him.
    “ Hey Loser- you’re up!” The
grating voice of his loathsome cousin Dan shot across the room,
rousing Chris from his dark introspection. Shrugging the girls off
with an almost callous carelessness, Chris leaned unsteadily on the
pool table and stroked the cue ball indifferently. The shot skipped
off the rail, missing badly.
    Dan laughed- a braying, abrasive
sound, and said, “Oh, my God! Total Fail! Watch and learn, loser.”
He rudely elbowed Chris aside and leaned in with a calculated
precision, lining up a tricky combination shot and then quickly
banking the shot home, both balls clicking neatly into the pockets. With a
smug, self-satisfied grin, Dan stood and raised his arms in
mock-triumph to the smattering of applause.
    He bowed theatrically and then
said, “ That's how
it's done. And now, for my final trick...” Casually chalking his
cue, Dan slowly leaned down on the table, taking aim at the far
end, where only the eight ball remained. It was in a difficult
position, near the end rail, and the only possible shot the near
left corner. With a crisp, powerful stroke, Dan firmly struck the
blue-smeared orb, and as it traveled he declared, almost
nonchalant, “Eight ball- corner pocket.”
    The cue ball ricocheted crisply off the far rail and
struck the eight squarely. The ball flew straight and true,
dropping with a click of finality onto the other balls nestled in
the pocket, the ‘8’ clearly