Page 5 of Melt With You

Now, when she saw him, for no reason at all, tears started to form.

Nobody else seemed to be as emotionally demolished by the reunion. Everyone around her seemed to be simply having a good time. A ‘good time’ was the opposite of what Dori was having. Yet Luke seemed to understand. Without a word, he pulled her toward him, and they danced. Danced in the comer of the gymnasium, with the swirls of light around them. With bodies close, the heat pounding. No chaperones to break them up this time. They were their own chaperones, she thought, however new-age that sounded.

She tilted her face up, looking into his eyes, and he winked at her.

He was the same boy she remembered, but he wasn’t. There were the beginnings of fine lines around his eyes, the barest touch of silver at his temples. But those were only surface differences. The boy was the same, wasn’t he? He’d been confident in school, and he was confident now, pulling her closer, bending down to kiss her. Not speaking, not even whispering any words of comfort. Letting her feel the comfort with her body.

And letting her feel something else.

They’d never hooked up in school. He’d gone for the celebrity girls, the cheerleaders, the bouncy blondes with the flippy skirts and long straight hair. If she remembered correctly, every single one of his girlfriends had driven the ‘it’ car of the 80s, a VW Cabriolet. But although he’d dated above her league, he’d talked to her. Buddies. That’s what they’d been.

Air Supply slid seamlessly into ‘Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room,’ and Luke pulled away and grinned that wicked smile at her. ‘You were going out back?’ he shouted, loud enough to be heard over Mötley Crüe.

She nodded.

‘For a drink?’

Dori shook her head. She looked down at his left hand, but his hand was in his pocket. She didn’t see a wife in the background, lurking, yet who knew? Who would Luke have been married to? The chic brunette over at the bar, wearing the tight white tank dress? The redhead near the stage trying to get a word in with the deejay? In this dream world, where girls could turn into boys, she was sure that Luke could easily have become a faithful husband.

‘Then what?’ He was yelling because of the volume of the music. She remembered that from twenty years before: going home after a dance and feeling her head ringing from the sheer volume of the music. She’d loved that sensation, had never been able to go to sleep after a dance. Instead, she would crawl out her bedroom window to sit on the ledge, smoking another one of her brother’s cigarettes or drinking a stolen half-glass of liquor from her folks’ cabinet. (She always remembered to pour in a little water to hide her tracks, a trick she’d learned from Luke, himself.)

‘You staying with your parents?’

Dori shook her head, then leaned up to speak closer to his ear. Luke was tall. She’d forgotten how tall. But now that she wore heels, they weren’t so far apart. In her lustrous turquoise patent-leather pumps, his ear was in range when she stood on tiptoes.

‘My folks moved back east,’ she said. ‘They sold the house when I went to college. How about you?’

‘Divorced,’ he said, leading her toward the bleachers. They climbed up together to the top row, Luke’s hand steadying her when her shoes slipped on the shiny wood. From the top, they could both watch their peers dance and hear each other better. She stared down at the gyrating crowd and was surprised at how many people she didn’t recognize. There were so many strangers down there, moving to the 80s beats. Then she remembered there had been 450 in her graduating class, and now, with many of those classmates married or with partners, the group had expanded considerably.

‘My mom moved back to Florida,’ he said, ‘and my dad’s with whichever floozy will have him.’ There was a bitter tone in his voice that he did nothing to hide.

Luke’s father had been a player back in school, Dori remembered. The one time she had gone to Luke’s house, bringing him some newspaper business, his father had hit on her. Luke, coming inside from the garage to greet his guest, had gotten a murderous look in his dark-hazel eyes when he’d seen the way his dad was talking to her, and his fist tightened on the silver wrench he held in his hand. They’d never spoken about the incident but, watching Luke now, she saw the same look in his eyes when he talked about his father. Time might be on their side, but it apparently hadn’t healed all wounds.

‘And you?’ she said, glancing once more at his left hand. Nope. No ring. Her hand felt naked from where Bryce’s engagement ring had once been. She’d worn the ring long enough for a mark to have formed on her skin – a white line against the more tanned skin of her hand.

Luke had his palm on her knee. Dori looked down at the dancers once more. She saw Chelsea gazing up at her, and she wondered what her friend was thinking. Chelsea had always had a crush on Luke. They’d both worked with him on the paper, Dori as a writer and Chelsea writing the gossip column. Would it be fair to do what she was thinking of doing? Had she slipped back into high school ways that quickly? Someone was always flirting with another girl’s boyfriend.

But this was different, wasn’t it? Chelsea didn’t have any claim to Luke now. They were all free agents, weren’t they?

She watched as Chelsea suddenly reached into her tiny beaded handbag and pulled out the red phone inside. She moved off to a corner of the room to try and carry on a conversation over the noise, but her eyes remained on Dori.

And was the problem that Chelsea crushed on Luke? Or had Chelsea simply always seemed to want what Dori had? The same clothes. The same haircut. The same boyfriend. The same phone. Dori had always thought it odd. On the surface, Chelsea had everything. She was beautiful and intelligent, but lacked the sweetness her sister possessed. It was as if the two had split the gene pool down the middle. Not that Violet wasn’t attractive, but she didn’t have the Barbie good looks bestowed upon her twin.

The deejay slid on ‘Goody Two Shoes.’ Dori started to smile. Her favorite songs had all become oldies, hadn’t they? How had that happened so quickly? Adam Ant was no longer the sleek pretty boy with the battered military jacket and the face full of war-paint. He was now a post-middle-aged has-been given to starting bar brawls and winding up in the tabloid news looking puffy and dejected. What wrong turn had his life taken? If he could have gone back to change the past, would he? Or were his glory years enough to let him sleep well at night?

She turned toward Luke, ready to make some witty remark on the subject, and he kissed her again, longer and deeper than he had on the dance floor.

Dori closed her eyes, savoring the kiss, and the way the slight stubble of his evening beard scraped her cheek. That wasn’t high school. That was all man. She felt herself becoming aroused, and she squirmed slightly on the bleachers. There was something darkly sexy about making out here as a grown-up. The old wooden boards beneath them. The too-loud music. The dim lights.

Had they still been in high school, gossip would have begun circulating right about now. ‘Did you see? Dori and Luke up in the bleachers?’ Chelsea whispering to Violet, who would whisper to Janie … but there was no telephone tree of chatter to be had. Dori wasn’t linked to anyone. Rowan hadn’t shown.

Luke slid one hand up her thigh, his fingers inching underneath the hem of her turquoise-and-black polka dot dress, and she let him. She loved this dress. The material rustled when she touched it. Or when Luke touched it, his fingers still roaming, higher now, finding out to his obvious delight that she had on thigh-high stockings under the poufy skirt. His hand on her bare skin sent a shock of pleasure through her, and she closed her eyes and leant back against the bleacher seat behind her. This would have been a bold move when they were back in high school.

Now, she had no desire to go down with the crowd, to try to be young again. Now, she only wanted to sit up here with Luke, kissing him, feeling his hand slide even further up her dress, his palm warm on her naked skin.

When the overhead lights suddenly flickered on, they parted and she blinked like crazy, trying to focus. She remembered this sensation from high school as well. Being unable to see at first, momentarily blinded by the brightness of the gilded fluorescent lights after being lulled for more than two hours by the saffron-colored darkness.

‘You ready?’ he asked.

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