Popular Girl

must have stared at Shelby Granger's yearbook picture for close to an hour on the day of Central High's twenty year reunion. Within the first five minutes I was in love with her all over again. But what guy wouldn't be? With eyes as blue as two teaspoonsful of the Mediterranean, the girl was a cross between Annette Funicello and Helen of Troy. What made her even more beautiful was the way she seemed so completely unaware - and unconcerned - that she was.

She had brains to match her beauty, too. Years before it was fashionable for women to have career aspirations, Shelby had talked of becoming a lawyer. I wasn't surprised when I heard she had opened a practice in Colorado a few years ago. Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had decided to be the first woman to run for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but I hear that's already been done.

It wasn't her brains that used to keep me awake at nights thinking of her. Sitting next to Shelby in class and seeing her in those tight sweaters made me believe that there really must be a God. And since "Granger" and "Grant" came so close on the seating chart, we sat near each other in a lot of classes, and I got to see a lot of those sweaters.

Although I had never said a word to her about how I felt, I was bull-goose crazy in love with Shelby Granger throughout high school. Now, twenty years later and with one marriage behind me, I was sure those feelings hadn't changed. And that night, at Central High School's twenty year reunion, I had decided that I was going to tell her just that.

I have no idea why Central's Reunion Committee had decided upon the Adam's Rib Hotel. It's the closest thing to the Vegas Strip that Main Line Philadelphia has to offer and gives bold new meaning to the term 'bad taste.' Three spouting fountains with a dozen naked cherubs greeted Central High's Class of '73 as they entered the Calypso Room. The place looked more appropriate for housing a Roman orgy than a high school reunion.

The committee waited behind a long table that was covered with identification tags embossed on round buttons bearing our yearbook photos. I felt that mine should have contained some disclaimer beneath the photo, something like "Excuse me for once looking as revolting as this. Please do not laugh." I quickly scanned the table and noticed that Shelby's button had not yet been claimed. There was no need to stare at the photo. I had it memorized.

"Micky? Micky Grant? Is that you?" came a voice faintly discernible as male from behind me.

I turned and looked into the face of a total stranger.

"Yes, but I stopped calling myself 'Micky' shortly after I hit puberty. I always thought the name sounded more like it belonged to a stand-up comic. It's Michael now," I said, extending my hand. I quickly looked at the captioned photo of the toothy-grinned boy on the button pinned to his lapel, then looked at my gawky classmate. "And you're Franklin Goldschmidt, right? " ( And just who the hell are you, Franklin Goldschmidt?)

"Class Treasurer!They used to call me 'Goldmine,''cause I ran the mint. Remember?"

Standing this close to him I felt the only mint this guy should've been discussing was one for his breath. I vaguely remembered some pimply kid who wouldn't shower with the other guys in gym. Not unlike that kid, the mature Franklin who stood before me hadn't quite mastered the art of smiling and drinking simultaneously. The man looked like he might be about to dribble his drink down his chin at any moment.

"But don't try to fool me, Micky," Franklin continued. "I saw you stealing a peek at Shelby Granger's button!"

Now it was my turn to dribble my drink. It was like being caught with my shirt tail sticking out of my fly. But the best defense is a good offense.

"Well, come on , Franklin. She was only the most popular girl in school. Of course I looked. I bet you peeked too, right?"

"Yeah, I looked. Hell, it wouldn't be the first time I stole a peek at Shelby Granger's buttons." Franklin's laugh began with a snicker and ended with a snort. "Pretty sad about what happened to her husband, huh?"

Old Goldmine caught me off-guard with that one. I had heard that Shelby had married some blonde-haired skiing instructor years ago and that they had purchased a small lodge that they ran together when she wasn't off testing the scales of Colorado justice. But as far as I had known, her marriage had been story-book perfect. I never met the guy she married, but I was pretty sure I hated him.

"Her husband? No, I hadn't heard," I said inching my way toward the bar. I had the feeling that during the next two minutes I would be needing a drink badly. "Seven and Seven," I told the bartender casually enough to set up my next question to Franklin. "So what happened?"

"Accident. Horrible accident," Franklin said chomping on an ice cube. "The guy was like a championship skier. An Olympics contender once, someone told me. And three years ago he was in some downhill racer competition and skied himself right off the mountain." Franklin motioned with a curled index finger for me to move closer. ". . . And I hear Shelby is now worth millions ."

Clearly they didn't call old Franklin 'the Goldmine' for nothing. I almost expected him to hum The Merry Widow Waltz . I looked back toward the sign-in table wondering about whether Shelby's button had been claimed. My timing was right on the money. Shelby had just entered, and was hugging some long-lost girlfriend. One look at her, and the last twenty years faded from my memory.

Those twenty years hadn't merely been kind to Shelby. They had been downright benevolent. The high school girl in the yearbook photo had been only a prelude to the woman standing before me. Where other girls in the class of '73 had mellowed, Shelby Granger had ripened. She wore a simple, well-tailored suit as if she had been dressed for a day at the office, but her outfit beat every strapless gown in the room.

I left Franklin Goldschmidt in mid-sentence and walked directly toward Shelby, my heart doing the funky chicken with every step I took. For years I had rehearsed for this moment, and now that it had arrived I had forgotten what planet I was on. I stood alongside Shelby, casually sipping my Seagrams while she talked to some classmates, waiting for the spark of recognition I hoped would come. I laughed politely at some innocuous joke someone had made, and tapped Shelby on the shoulder.

"You still have a great laugh," I said close to her ear. "Even when nothing is particularly funny."

She turned toward me and for a moment she seemed to draw a blank. Suddenly she broke into a wide smile. "Micky! Micky Grant! Mrs. Penico's Spanish class! "

". . . and Mr. Whitman's Geometry class, Mr. Issod's Biology class, Dr. Hayman's English class . . . Shall I go on?" I couldn't take my eyes off her smile.

"Micky, I don't remember you having such a great memory," Shelby said without losing that smile. "In fact, didn't you used to always forget Mr. Marshall's vocabulary quizzes every Friday?" She hadn't once taken those hypnotic blue eyes off me, and her smile made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything I was saying. I loved the way she called me 'Micky' too much to correct her.

"Quizzes are easy to forget. But a girl like Shelby Granger? No way." My words seemed to embarrass her. For the first time she broke eye contact and actually blushed. At that moment I would have sold myself into slavery for another smile from her. "Listen, don't say another word. There's a bar in the lobby just outside this mad-house that is much more conducive to conversation. Ten minutes of your time is all I ask." I stopped and played the tape over in my head of what I had just said. It was time to lighten up. "God, that sounded pathetic . . . But will you come with me, huh? Will you? Will you? Huh? Huh?"

The smile slowly returned, and this one spread across Shelby's entire face clear into those blue eyes. "Well, when you put it so charmingly, how can a girl say no?" She took my arm and turned toward the small circle that had gathered around the reception table. "Alice . . . Lee . . . Sue . . . It was great seeing you again. I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

"Yeah," I added. "But don't wait up for us . . ."

The Alibi Bar was a notch above the Calypso Room in taste. But what it lacked in class, it made up for in darkness. The college kid at the piano played an uninspired rendition of "As Time Goes By ." I held up my drink and summoned Bogie from my repertoire.

"Here's lookin' at you , kid."

Shelby held up her glass. "I don't remember Ingrid's line. Would you like to hear me do Donald Duck instead?" Her face turned completely serious, and she quacked out a perfect "Here's lookin' at you, too!" then looked down shyly. With one quack she had created the single most romantic moment of my life.

When she looked up again she put her drink down on the table and leaned forward. "Okay, Micky. What is it you wanted to talk about?"

I downed my entire drink in one gulp and considered reaching for her hand. But instead my hand stopped at the ash tray and pushed it around for a few seconds.

"Okay, Shelby. Here goes . . . I don't want you to say anything yet, okay? Just listen and try not to laugh yourself sick. Quack once if you understand."

"This sounds serious," she said, looking into her glass. "You've got my attention."

I cleared my throat as if I were about to deliver the most important speech of my life.

"Okay, here goes . . . You know, I was married for almost ten years, and even then I knew that when I saw you again . . . if I ever saw you again, no matter when that day came and no matter what our circumstances were, Shelby, I told myself that I would tell you this. Because I think it's something you should know, because, well . . . because I've been carrying it around with me for a long time. And that thing is . . . for all those years in school when I sat next to you, for every one of those minutes, though I never said this to you, I was . . . I was crazy in love with you!"

There. I'd said it. I reached for my glass and realized it was empty, but I went through the motion of drinking from it anyway.

Shelby reached for my hand. "Micky, I . . . "

"Wait . . . there's more," I said.

One of those awkward silences followed, and I took a moment to collect myself. Although I still held her hand across the table, looking at Shelby had suddenly become difficult. I felt grateful for the dimly lit room. For some crazy reason I had become painfully aware of how thin my hair had gotten in the past twenty years. Like Woody Allen once said, you wouldn't really know I was losing my hair unless you stood up on a ladder and looked straight down at the top of my head. Still I wondered if Shelby had noticed that shiny spot of scalp peeking through the top of my head.

". . . There's more," I repeated, "and this is the hard part. You were always the most popular girl in school, and I was . . . well, I know I wasn't in the same league as you. I knew it then, and I always felt that there would be no way . . . that I would have no chance . . . that a girl like you could never . . ."

"Micky . . . please stop," Shelby said as she withdrew her hand and reached for her drink. I felt almost glad she had stopped me before I had made a complete fool of myself. "Micky, I had no idea. I really thought we were just going to have this friendly drink, you and me. I don't want you to misunderstand. Damn! This sounds so cold . . . " Shelby looked directly into my eyes. "I mean, I always thought you were a really nice guy when we were kids, but I never really knew you, and I don't know anything about who you are now . . . and, you don't really know me either. It's so easy to remember things the way you want to remember them." Suddenly Shelby seemed to be speaking more to herself than to me. "You don't know me, Micky. There's so much you don't know."

Maybe I got caught up in the moment. Maybe the drinks were finally getting to me. Or maybe I was more in love than I ever thought humanly possible. But if fools rush in where wise men never tread, then I was about to go for the gold.

"You want to know me, Shelby? Okay, here's the Reader's Digest version of my history . . . Shortly after high school I majored in journalism, but I switched to Education in my senior year at Penn State because I preferred dodging spitballs in some classroom to ducking grenades in some rice paddy in Cambodia. I'm still ducking those spitballs at Central High. I teach in Mr. Savitch's old room, the same room where you sat in the second seat on the third row . . . I had a happy marriage for ten years until one day I listened closely and felt certain that I could hear my wife ticking. Around that time she decided that English teachers rarely own BMW's, so she now drives a sporty red one our former dentist bought her. He'd sleep with my wife in the morning and clean my teeth that same afternoon. The two of them are living happily together now and allow me to see my daughter twice a week, so I don't have to worry about my kid's dental bills. I still laugh at The Three Stooges, and although I teach Shakespeare, I only pretend to understand the stuff. I have a parrot named Samson who can sing 'Baby Love' as well as Diana Ross . . . I bought my first VCR six months ago and still haven't figured out how to hook up the damned thing. Feel free to stop me at any time."

Shelby dropped the serious expression and seemed about to burst out laughing. "No, I think I'll just let you run down on your own. Not the athletic type, huh?"

"Volleyball every Sunday. I'm not interested in any sport that might kill me."

A red flare went off in my brain. Franklin Goldschmidt's words echoed in my head . . .

Skied himself right off the mountain . . . right off the mountain . . .

Shelby's smile flickered, then faded.

"Oh, God! What a dumb thing to say. Shelby, I'm so sorry. I heard about . . .-"

"It's alright, Micky. Besides, it isn't what people think. Like I said, there are things you don't know about me. But if you buy me another glass of wine, I can be coaxed."

Shelby clearly wanted that drink, and the wine seemed to be all the coaxing she needed. Again she took my hand.

"Now, Micky, I'm going to ask you to listen and not say anything. This is hard for me to talk about, and I really haven't talked much about it. But you seem like you're a good listener. I hope this doesn't do much damage to your image of me." She took a long sip from her wine glass. "Oh, sure, Brad was the model husband. Who wouldn't fall for her ski instructor who looked like he had just stepped off the pages of Gentleman's Quarterly? And I guess I made him look pretty good standing alongside him on the slopes, adoring him like I did. But, you see, my husband and I weren't the same after my mastectomy. He saw other women . . . several that I know of, and . . ."

Time stopped right there.

The word exploded in my brain like a missile.Mastectomy! Shelby continued to speak, but I swear I couldn't focus on a thing she was saying. That damned word kept ricocheting like some crazy pinball inside my head. I had to force myself to keep looking at her. I felt that my body was there but my mind was nowhere to be found. I couldn't focus on Shelby with that damned word repeating itself over and over and over . . .

". . . Micky? Are you okay? Hey! " Shelby had to actually call me back to reality. "For a moment there, you looked like you were back in Mr. Marshall's class. Maybe we've had enough confessional for one night. We ought to get back to the reunion. If you play your cards right, I may let you dance with me."

I looked at the button on her lapel, with the face of a girl who suddenly seemed distant and unclear. I looked down at my hand that still held Shelby's. I withdrew it to finish my drink, aware that my palms had gone clammy. The night's former magic suddenly seemed like cheap tinsel, and I had been flung back into a world that was all too real. I barely understood what was happening inside me, yet I knew explanations were needed.

"Sorry. I guess I was just thinking about what you said, that maybe we really don't know each other like we think we do. You know that Thomas Wolfe line in our yearbook, 'You can't go home again'?"

Shelby looked quizzically at me and seemed to study my face for a moment. "You forget, Micky. I was an English major too. Thomas Wolfe also said 'Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.' Are you maybe thinking of those lines, Micky?" There was a trace of anger in her voice.

I don't know where my next words came from, and I don't know why they came.

"Actually, Shelby, people call me Michael now. It's a small thing, but I guess maybe . . . " My words trailed off, because they had nowhere to go. The silence that followed hung over us like a shroud.

Shelby finished her wine and looked at her watch. She looked at me in the same way I'm sure she looked at her defendants in court.

Her words were brief, almost business-like. "It was very good seeing you again, Michael. Thank you for the wine. I think I need to freshen up in the ladies' room before going back to the reunion. Will you excuse me?" She got up to leave, but turned toward me for a moment.

"Here," she said, removing her button. "Here's the girl you may want to remember. Don't let the pin stick you when you try on your memories."

I watched Shelby as she left the Alibi. The Calypso Room and the ladies' room were on the left. But Shelby turned right . . . toward the parking lot.

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