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where her looks and personable delivery netted her an early morning show.
    It surprised him that they hadn't kept up with the music. They'd been so good . But nothing of it, as though, ascending to college, they'd abandoned their adolescent passion.
    Life overtook Glen. He forgot about them for the most part. He met a woman, Eloise, in grad school and married her. They had no children, but had successful careers.
    He still drew sometimes, although only for himself; he never showed the pictures to anyone. Complex landscapes with machinery buried underneath, showing through like a skeleton, gears gleaming in the rent of a tree's bark, screws bolting a clump of grass to the sidewalk.
    Periodically he remembered that music. He'd hear something on the radio, some new release, and he'd think that it reminded him of a song played in the echoing loft. They had moved effortlessly from one style to another, sometimes a hard driving metal beat that had acquired a gritty edge, an undertone of concrete and late night steel, then bubblegum as vacuous and sweet as cotton candy, singing it, half-laughing all the while.
    When he ran into Casey, he knew her immediately, despite the decade and a half since he'd last seen her. He could tell she knew him from the way her eyes widened, even though she tried to play it off as though she didn't. He bought her a Frappuccino and they caught up.
    As he might have expected, the four of them had stayed in touch with each other. Fred had been off in Tibet, she said, and added, "Studying some sort of transcendental stuff." Penelope had recently approached Casey about a film project.
    "A chance to break into films." Casey's dimples were still deep enough to lose your heart in. "It's very kind of her, to give me that."
    Something odd about her tone. Perhaps she and Penelope had had a falling out? Glen thought better of questioning it, not wanting to bring up a potentially upsetting topic.
    "I bet the others would like to see you," she said. "Fred's got a box at the baseball stadium, and we're all going there next Saturday."
    His wife would be out of town. There was no reason to say no.

    At the game, deferential ushers showed them down a hallway to the luxury box. Again, a fridge full of beers, but this time wine and champagne as well, and harder stuff, all dispensed by a bartender with teeth as white as his apron.
    No one seemed surprised by Glen's appearance after all this time. In fact, Fred said, "I was just wondering when we'd see you again."
    Glen accepted a Heineken from the bartender and settled down to nurse it. The seats were covered with soft red velvet, clean and fresh. The rug underfoot was sculpted with deep swirls. Penelope and Derek were in a corner, arguing in low whispers. Penelope looked unhappy. Dark rings splayed themselves underneath her eyes.
    The rest of them played "Whatever Happened To." Time had not dealt well with most of their classmates: several suicides, a public and inadvertent outing that destroyed a political career, multiple scandals (one involving a teacher).
    "What about Alf?" Glen said.
    A silence fell on the room like a curtain. Even Penelope and Derek glanced over from their argument.
    "He jumped off a building," Fred said. "Isn't that right, Casey?"
    Glen was uncertain whether or not to laugh. Fred's tone implied he should; Casey's angry face said he shouldn't.
    "We don't talk about Alf," she said briefly.
    After the game, they went back to Fred's loft, this time a place of exposed brick and floor-to-ceiling windows and stainless steel appliances and an enormous balcony somehow joined onto the side of the building. Casey followed him out onto it. She laid her hand over his. Her perfume hadn't changed after all these years.
    He closed his eyes, inhaling. The sounds of the street floated up, cars and shouts, and distant rap music. He could feel her next to him. When he opened his eyes again, the light dazzled him.
    "I've always liked you, you know that, don't you?" she