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blocking the service entry. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a square face and broken nose that gave him a somewhat fierce look, out of keeping with his soft voice.  
    â€œHey, you look familiar,” Al said, placing his glass down on the bar.  
    â€œWhat're you drinkin'?” the waiter asked.  
    â€œDewar's with a twist.” He turned to Jane. “I never forget a face and this waiter looks like somebody I've seen.”  
    â€œMiss?” the waiter asked.  
    â€œVodka and tonic.” Jane too looked at the man. She hadn't ever seen him before.  
    â€œSo what's the mystery?” Al persisted.  
    â€œI'm just a waiter, Mister.”  
    â€œWere you always a waiter?”  
    The man reddened and Jane watched him turn away slowly as he poured the tonic.  
    â€œWhy don't you leave him alone,” Jane said.  
    â€œIt's on the tip of my tongue,” Al continued. “This man's an athlete.” He turned his attention back to the waiter who was lining up drinks on a tray. “Sonny ...? You were too young, Jane, to remember. Come on help me, Sonny. It is Sonny, isn't it?”  
    â€œWhy don't you just...”  
    â€œSonny Jackson, of course. Hope you handle a tray better than a football, Sonny.”  
    Sonny smiled and Jane could see that smiling was a very expensive emotion for him.  
    â€œYou were on the Birmingham Colonials. I saw you against the Giants. One of your good afternoons.”  
    â€œCan I get through, please?” he asked Jane.  
    She moved closer to Al to let him pass.  
    â€œI don't understand these ex-players,” Al said. “Who do they think they are?”  
    â€œChildren.”  
    â€œThat's a very clever statement. Jane, how come you're here tonight? Friend of Mel's?”  
    â€œNo, my roommate is.”  
    He clenched her wrist and moved his mouth to her neck, but she twisted away.  
    â€œKid with the freckles?”  
    â€œI think your wife's looking for you.”  
    â€œLet her look. I spend my life trying to get out of her line of vision.”  
    She managed to signal Conlon who fought her way through the crowd.  
    â€œOur guest of honor, the distinguished, brilliant Mr. Salkind,” Conlon said.  
    â€œHow do I lose him?” Jane whispered.  
    â€œI'll stall him,” she said, allowing Jane to dart to the other end of the suite.  
    She never enjoyed cocktail parties, always feeling vaguely menaced by men in a hurry to extract promises, arrange lunches in out-of-the-way suburban French restaurants. The married men unceasingly persistent, the singles short on conversation, long on promises, and impatient, since the possibility of missing a willing girl just around the alcove haunted them, and they all had this habit of staring over a girl's head while delivering a spiel on the advantages they above all had to offer. Another date, another orgasm, that's all it really amounted to. From childhood she remembered the cheap glamor, never elegance, that all these parties aspired to. Like the common cold, they were incurable and always the same. At the more advanced parties nowadays a group smoked grass and tittered; but that didn't make it any different, only noisier.  
    Sonny was emptying ashtrays on his tray and he avoided looking at Jane, who sat down on the edge of a sofa. She motioned him with her glass.  
    â€œVodka and tonic, wasn't it?”  
    â€œHe embarrassed you.”  
    â€œI'm used to it. I always catch one like him when I work a party.”  
    He waited awkwardly for her glass.  
    â€œDo you do this full-time?”  
    â€œNo, couple of times a week to pick up a little extra.”  
    â€œI don't want another drink.”  
    He wandered off to a group of men anxiously waving their glasses. It was a peculiar, irrational sensation, but she liked him instinctively, perhaps