Joyland

"That is correct, sir. She'll drop me at my dad and stepmom's. And in one week, we're official Filene's employees!"

She made it sound as if the two of them had landed jobs as pages at the White House, but I held my peace on that, too. I had other concerns. "You're still coming up to Berwick on Saturday, right?" The plan was for her to arrive in the morning, spend the day, and stay over. She'd be in the guest bedroom, of course, but that was only a dozen steps down the hall. Given the fact that we might not see each other again until fall, I thought the possibility of "it" happening was very strong. Of course, little children believe in Santa Claus, and UNH freshmen sometimes went a whole semester believing that George B. Nako was a real professor, teaching real English courses.

"Absoloodle." She looked around, saw no one, and slipped a hand up my thigh. When it reached the crotch of my jeans, she tugged gently on what she found there. "Come here, you."

So I got my through-the-pants job after all. It was one of her better efforts, slow and rhythmic. The thunder rolled, and at some point the sigh of the pouring rain became a hard, hollow rattle as it turned to hail. At the end she squeezed, heightening and prolonging the pleasure of my orgasm.

"Make sure to get good and wet when you go back to your dorm, or the whole world will know exactly what we were doing down here." She bounced to her feet. "I have to go, Dev. I've still got some things to pack."

'Til pick you up at noon on Saturday. My dad's making his famous chicken casserole for supper."

She once more said absoloodle; like standing on her tiptoes to kiss me, it was a Wendy Keegan trademark. Only on Friday night I got a call from her saying that Renee's plans had changed and they were leaving for Boston two days early. ''I'm sorry, Dev, but she's my ride."

"There's always the bus," I said, already knowing that wasn't going to work.

"I promised, honey. And we have tickets for Pippin, at the Imperial. Renee's dad got them for us, as a surprise." She paused.

"Be happy for me. You're going all the way to North Carolina, and I'm happy for you."

"Happy," I said. "Roger-wilco."

"That's better." Her voice dropped, became confidential.

"Next time we're together, I'll make it up to you. Promise."

That was a promise she never kept but one she never had to break, either, because I never saw Wendy Keegan after that day in Professor Nako's "office." There wasn't even a final phone call filled with tears and accusations. That was on Tom Kennedy's advice (we'll get to him shortly), and it was probably a good thing. Wendy might have been expecting such a call, maybe even wished for it. If so, she was disappointed.

I hope she was. All these years later, with those old fevers and deliriums long in my past, I still hope she was.

Love leaves scars.

5

I never produced the books I dreamed of, those well-reviewed almost-bestsellers, but I do make a pretty good living as a writer, and I count my blessings; thousands are not so lucky. I've moved steadily up the income ladder to where I am now, working at Commercial Flight, a periodical you've probably never heard of.

A year after I took over as editor-in-chief, I found myself back on the U N H campus. I was there to attend a two-day symposium on the future of trade magazines in the twentyfirst century. During a break on the second day, I strolled over to Hamilton Smith Hall on a whim and peeked under the basement stairs. The themes, celebrity-studded seating charts, and Albanian artwork were gone. So were the chairs, the sofa, and the standing ashtrays. And yet someone remembered. Scotchtaped to the underside of the stairs, where there had once been a sign proclaiming that the smoking lamp was always lit, I saw a sheet of paper with a single typed line in print so small I had to lean close and stand on tiptoe in order to read it:

Professor Nako now teaches at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Well, why not?

Why the fuck not?

As for Wendy, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose I could use Coogle, that twenty-first century Magic 8-Ball, to chase her down and find out if she ever realized her dream, the one of owning the exclusive little boutique, but to what purpose?

Gone is gone. Over is over. And after my stint in Joyland (just down the beach from a town called Heaven's Bay, let's not forget that), my broken heart seemed a lot less important. Mike and Annie Ross had a lot to do with that.

* * *

My dad and I ended up eating his famous chicken casserole with no third party in attendance, which was probably all right with Timothy Jones; although he tried to hide it out of respect for me, I knew his feelings about Wendy were about the same as mine about Wendy's friend Renee. At the time, I thought it was because he was a bit jealous of Wendy's place in my life.

Now I think he saw her more clearly than I could. I can't say for sure; we never talked about it. I'm not sure men know how to talk about women in any meaningful way.