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the
table--along with lit candles and poured wine, accompanied by the
mouth watering smells from a gourmet stroganoff on a silver platter
on the sideboard. After a sumptuous dinner, he’d stroked her long
blonde hair for hours and insisted she never leave him alone
again.
    Bernie hadn’t always been the ice and stone
he’d become--there was the time after her second miscarriage, when
she’d awakened to find him sitting up in the room they’d prepared
for the baby, just sitting there on top of the little fruit wood
toy chest they’d picked out together at the flea market on the
Strand.
    Dear God, she prayed, let this not be
true--don’t let this divorce be happening to me.
    She half-laughed. The prayer wasn’t going to
work--she’d already been given the knife in the back--the divorce
was real--perhaps a little too real for any last minute rescue by
God. Besides, God didn’t owe her a thing. She’d been a weak
Catholic and married outside the church--a Las Vegas wedding, to
boot! In truth, the Church didn’t even recognize her marriage--not
as far as she knew. She’d broken every commandment when she’d
married Bernie--she’d not honored her father and her mother--now it
was payback time. God had waited until the time it would hurt the
most, and then he’d stuck the knife in her back and started
twisting the blade.
    Sooner than she expected to, she heard the
back door open. For a brief instant, the sound startled her--she’d
been so lost in her ruminations that she’d forgotten what she’d
done! Mr. Boopers, apparently a light sleeper, was rigidly alert,
emitting a wary, cutting growl.
    Huntington appeared in the bedroom doorway,
the embodiment of her sins, a man perhaps half her age, at the
threshold where she lay atop the moonlit covers. Mr. Boopers,
sensing no alarm from her and not yet knowing who belonged in his
new life and who didn’t, chose the prudent action of disappearing
under the bed from which vantage point he could prepare his next
move, if one was required.
    She started to speak and couldn’t, realizing
with surprise there was a choking lump in her throat. Whether it
was from shame or desire, she couldn’t tell. Huntington approached
her and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out a tentative hand
to her long blonde hair spread over the pillow.
    “ I belong to a group,” Huntington said.
“I’m sure you’ve never heard of it--it was just something that I
got into when I was forced to undergo a considerable amount of
post-pubescent torture at San Marino High School. You might say it
was a reaction to all the drugs and general weirdness I was exposed
to. Some of my friends and myself needed a refuge from the disaster
we sensed was occurring to the kids around us.”
Oh you little fool, Beckie thought. You willful little fool, you’ve
just made a huge mistake--this guy’s barely out of high school. She
started to rise, to start in motion some sort of effort to cast him
out of her room, but his hand stroking her hair was somehow
comforting--she sensed no evil in Huntington, no
aggressiveness.
    “ We called the group The Young Fogies,”
he said. “You know--you’ve heard of Old Fogies--the old geezers in
the films from the 30’s who smoked the best quality Cuban cigars
and drank the best Sherry from the finest crystal, all the while
presiding with studied earnestness over all that was Victorian?
Well, it was like that--we wanted to be like those old fogies--only
we were young--so we formed a group and we all pledged ourselves to
live a life of truth, honor and valor.”
    “ I’m too old for you,” Beckie said. “I
want you to know that it is not my custom to proposition
waitpersons in bars. I’ve just had a very, very bad day. I was in a
lot of pain when I approached you tonight, and I didn’t want to
sleep alone--maybe I wanted to see if I still had it, I don’t
know--the fact that you showed up in a way gratified me, but it
also horrified me. I’m sure I’m not making