Read Online Reunion by Hugh Fox - Free Book Online

asked Buzz as he opened the door.
    â€œGet in, darling,” said Ellen. And he almost did. Almost forgot Malinche.
    â€œLet me get my wife, she’s inside, out of the cold,” closing the door again, running back across the street, the snow so thick now he could barely see across the street at all, Malinche standing there shivering, reluctantly coming out into the bleached, dead, white world.
    â€œSo she came?”
    â€œNo, we’re gonna make snowmen!” he said.
    â€œSnow men?”
    â€œShe’s here,” he said, his hand hooked under her arm so she wouldn’t/couldn’t fall. His precious little mango in the deep freeze. Cars slipping all over the place now, very carefully negotiating across the street. It was like walking through a frozen goose down pillow, tapioca, rice pudding.
    Getting her tucked into the back seat, getting up front with Ellen.
    â€œI don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the reunion tonight, really,” said Ellen, “I hate to drive in this stuff. They’re predicting twenty inches.”
    â€œWhat happens when the petroleum runs out?”
    â€œWhat?” asked Ellen as she cautiously pulled out into the street. Like exploratory surgery, really, in the dark with mittens on.
    â€œWho was that young guy who got out of the car?”
    â€œFreddie, Freddie Jr.,” she said.
    The guy who was supposed to follow in Buzz’s footsteps, be his big rival in pre-Columbian studies. The last time Buzz hadseen him was, what, eight, ten years before and he was talking big then: “Archaeoastronomy, comparative epigraphy, Semitic Pimas and Numidian Zuñis …” Sounded good, getting his mouth wrapped nicely around them big words, ar-qui-o-astronomy, comparative ep-i-graphy …
    â€œSo how come he disappeared so quickly?”
    â€œWell, he’s a little shy and disoriented. He’s just ‘coming out,’ so to speak,” said Ellen elusively.
    â€œComing out of what?”
    â€œHe’s gay. He just decided last year. He finds it hard to confront The Past.”
    â€œI’m not ‘past,’” objected Buzz, “I’m people. I always liked the kid. Did he go into archaeoastronomy and all that stuff?”
    â€œNah. He works on this Newsletter for Burger King and does a little freelance photography on the side. Police calls. First on the scene of the crime and/or disaster … we help him out a little,” Ellen very purposefully turning the conversation over toward Malinche, obviously the whole Freddie Jr. business a very recent, still uncoagulated wound, “So this must be a big change for you … ”
    â€œOh, I’m used to it by now,” said Malinche, “only up there I dress for it. Here I decided to dress ‘cute.’”
    â€œCute eskimo, you mean,” said Ellen, putting the heat on higher.
    Driving over past Northwestern, block after block of impressive not particularly old buildings. Not Harvardish. More like Boston University, the University of Michigan. Impressive, impressively new, like it was still emerging from its cocoon, 90% future, 10% glorious, well-heeled past …
    â€œFred’s retired, but he’s still teaching one course. They’re flexible. You know. Ever since he lost his leg in Stockholm … ”
    â€œYeah, how’s he coming along?”
    â€œWell, it’s hard to be in Sports Medicine with one leg, but … and I’m retired for two years from my brother Jerry’s construction business … ”
    â€œWhere you did?” asked Buzz, thinking ‘office,’ billing, general secretarial, something ‘normal.’
    â€œMainly roofs,” she answered.
    â€œI don’t know, I just can’t … ”
    â€œWell, I couldn’t either. Especially with my arthritis and vertigo. But I did it for almost twenty years. We still work out, of course, over at the gym every