Nighttime Is My Time

7

It took Mark Fleischman longer than he had expected to drive from Boston to Cornwall. He had hoped to have a couple of hours in which to walk around the town before having to face his former classmates. He wanted to have a chance to figure out the difference between his perception of himself as it had been when he was growing up there and the reality, as he understood it, of who he was now. Am I hoping to exorcise my own demons? he wondered.

As he drove with maddening slowness down the congested Connecticut Turnpike, he kept thinking of the statement he'd heard that morning from the father of one of his patients: "Doctor, you know as well as I do that kids are cruel. They were cruel in my day, and they haven't changed. They're like a pride of lions stalking the wounded prey. That's what they're doing to my kid now. That's what they did to me when I was his age. And you know what, Doctor? I'm a pretty successful guy, but when I go to an occasional reunion at my prep school, in ten seconds I'm not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I'm back to feeling like the clumsy nerd everyone else had fun picking on. Crazy, isn't it?"

As the car once again slowed to a crawl, Mark decided that, in hospital terminology, the Connecticut Turnpike was in a constant state of intensive care. There was always a huge construction project going on somewhere along the way, the kind of project that meant cramming three lanes into only one, causing inevitable traffic jams.

He found himself comparing the turnpike problems to problems he saw in patients, such as the boy whose father had come in for the conference. The child had attempted suicide last year. Another kid, ignored and tormented as he had been, might have gotten a gun and turned it on his classmates. Anger and hurt and humiliation were squeezed together and forced into one outlet. Some people tried to destroy themselves when that happened; others tried to destroy their tormentors.

A psychiatrist who specialized in adolescents, Mark had an advice and call-in television program that had recently become syndicated. The response had been gratifying. "Tall, lanky, cheerful, funny, and wise, Dr. Mark Fleischman brings a no-nonsense approach to helping solve the problems of that painful rite-of-passage called adolescence"-that's what one critic had written about the show.

Maybe I can put it all behind me after this weekend, he thought.

He hadn't taken time for lunch, so after he finally got to the hotel, he went into the bar and ordered a sandwich and a light beer. When the bar suddenly began to fill up with reunion attendees, he quickly got his check, left half the sandwich uneaten, and made his way up to his room.

It was a quarter of five, and the shadows were heavy and closing in. For a few minutes he stood at the window. The knowledge of what he had to do weighed heavily on him. But after that, I'll put it all behind me, he thought. The slate will be clean. Then I really will be able to be cheerful and funny-and maybe even wise.

He felt his eyes begin to moisten and abruptly turned from the window.

Gordon Amory went down in the elevator with his ID in his pocket. He would slip it on when he got to the party. For now, it was amusing to stand unrecognized by his former classmates and glance at their names and pictures as, floor by floor, they got into the elevator.

Jenny Adams was the last one to get on. She'd been a bovine kid, and while she had slimmed down some, she was still a big woman. There was something unmistakably small-town suburban in the cheap brocade suit and off-the-pushcart costume jewelry she was wearing. She was accompanied by a burly guy whose beefy arms were straining the seams of his too-tight jacket. Both were smiling broadly and said a general hello to the occupants of the elevator.

Gordon did not reply. The half-dozen others, all wearing their tags, sent out a chorus of greetings. Trish Canon, whom Gordon remembered as being on the track team and who was still beanpole thin, squealed, "Jenny! You look marvelous!"

"Trish Canon!" Jenny's arms flew around her former classmate. "Herb, Trish and I used to pass each other notes in math. Trish, this is my husband, Herb."

"And my husband, Barclay," Trish said. "And-"

The elevator stopped at the mezzanine. As they stepped out, Gordon reluctantly took out his ID and put it on. Expensive plastic surgery had made sure that he no longer looked like the weasel-faced kid in the school picture. His nose was now straight, his formerly heavy-lidded eyes now wide. His chin was sculpted, and his ears lay flat against his head. Implants and the artistry of a top colorist had transformed his formerly thin and drab brown hair into a thick chestnut mane. He knew he was now a handsome man. The only outward manifestation of the tortured kid he had been was that in moments of great stress he could not stop himself from biting his nails.

The Gordie they knew doesn't exist, he told himself as he started toward the Hudson Valley Suite. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned.

"Mr. Amory."

A baby-faced, redheaded kid with a notebook was standing next to him.

"I'm Jake Perkins, a reporter for the Stonecroft Gazette. I'm interviewing the honorees. Could I just have a minute of your time?"

Gordon managed a warm smile. "Of course."

"May I begin by saying that you've changed a lot in the twenty years since your senior picture."

"I guess I have."

"You already owned the majority share of four cable television channels. Why did you buy into Maximum?"

"Maximum has a reputation for strong family programming. I decided it would round out our ability to reach a segment of the audience I wanted in our entertainment portfolio."

"There's been buzz about a new series and a rumor that your former classmate Laura Wilcox may be the star. Is that true?"

"There has been no casting yet on the series you mention."

"Your crime and punishment channel has been criticized as being too violent. Do you agree?"

"No, I do not. It offers genuine reality, not those made-up ludicrous situations that are the bread and butter of the commercial networks. Now if you'll excuse me."

"One more question, please. Would you just glance at this list?"

Impatiently, Gordon Amory took the sheet of paper from Perkins.

"Do you recognize those names?"

"They seem to be some of my former classmates."

"They are five women, members of this class, who have died or disappeared during these twenty years."

"I didn't realize that."

Perkins pointed. "I was astonished when I began my research. It started with Catherine Kane nineteen years ago. Her car skidded into the Potomac when she was a freshman at George Washington University. Cindy Lang vanished when she was skiing at Snowbird. Gloria Martin was an apparent suicide. Debra Parker piloted her own plane, and six years ago it crashed, killing her. Last month, Alison Kendall drowned in her pool. Wouldn't you say it would be fair to call this a hard luck class, and maybe do a program on your network about it?"

"I would prefer to call it a 'tragedy-ridden' class, and, no, I would not want to do a program about it. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Of course. Just one more question. What does receiving this medal from Stonecroft mean to you?"

Gordon Amory smiled. It means I can say a pox on your house. In spite of the misery I endured here, I've made it big-that's what he thought. Instead he said, "It is the fulfillment of my dream to be considered a success in the eyes of my classmates."