There was a long folding table set up by the front door. The tabletop was filled with nametags lined in rows, waiting to be claimed by people. The woman sitting placidly behind the table didn't appear familiar to him. She was wearing glasses with fairly thick lens and frames that were imbedded with rhinestones. She was on the chubby side, and the way she sat suggested that there were about a thousand things she'd rather be doing. Ted figured right off that she was probably married to one of his old classmates, probably one of those who just lived to go to reunions, who wanted to show off how wonderfully well he had done since the days he was a squalling brat being beaten by a nun in the cloak room.
Alicia wandered over to the table, and immediately drew a chill from the woman.
“Name?” the woman said, grudgingly, as though she realized that handing out a name tag was the only way to get Alicia to move away-- Alicia, with her looks and graceful bearing, had a way of always intimidating other women, especially when she dressed formally.
“Thatcher,” Alicia said pleasantly.
“Thatcher?” the woman repeated dully, searching over the name tags. “Thatcher, Ted?-- is that it?” she asked, and glanced past Alice to where Ted stood looking like a lost child. “Oh, yeah,” she added, and snorted disgust as she handed the two sticker to Alice, one sticker that said Thatcher and the other Guest.
“Thank you,” Alicia said, again amiable-- she was always amiable in the face of rudeness; it was the best way to get even.
She stepped over to Ted, and stuck his name tag to his suit, just over the pocket.
“I have no idea where I'm supposed to put mine,” she said, helplessly looking down at her low-cut gown. She just kept the tag in her hand. “The receptionist-- if that's what you call her-- had quite an attitude.”
Ted glanced over at the woman. “I don't know her,” he said simply.
“Well, she sure seemed to know you,” Alicia said. “What?-- were you notorious or something?”
“Something like that,” he said. “Why don't we grab a table.”
They walked down to the center of the auditorium, and found an empty table. Ted held the chair for Alicia as she sat, a gesture that seemed excessively gallant considering it was a folding chair. Several of the people at the surrounding tables took a brief pause in their conversations to gaze at them, and then resumed talking. A couple of the people seemed to have a difficult time not letting a wary eye drift back.
Ted sat next to Alicia.
“It's really not as bad as I thought,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” Alicia asked, leaning toward him. “What's going on? These people are creepy .”
“Just ignore them-- they're strangers, after all.”
“Well, that's going to be kind of hard. They keep staring over here.” She paused thoughtfully a moment, and then said, “You know, you never did say much about your childhood.”
“And now probably isn't the best time to go into it all.”
“If not now, when?-- right as the lynch mod is forming. What did you do here?”
“Nothing,” he said adamantly. “I didn't do anything.” He stared at the table, and rubbed his forehead, trying to calm himself. He realized he'd spoken too harshly to her. He'd never done that before-- she'd never desire that. She just doesn't understand, he thought. “It's all about Adam Susky,” he said, now more reasonable. “The same thing all over again-- still-- it never goes away, really.”
“Adam Susky?” she was baffled.
“He was kid I went to school with. He died when I was in the third grade.”
She frowned at the skimpy explanation, and shrugged her shoulders helplessly when he didn't continue.
“All right,” he said, and sighed. “There was a thing kids did back then-- a stupid thing, really. You've seen the tower on the front corner of the building, right? That's the old bell tower. The bell isn't up there any more-- probably hasn't been for years. They put an electric bell on the outside the building a long time ago. I suppose at one time, the bell was up in the tower, and the nuns used to pull the rope to ring the bell to let kids know class was about to start. Anyway, the bell tower doesn't have a bell, and it's really-- when you think about it-- a useless thing. When I was going to school here, the nuns always made a big deal about the bell tower; it was strictly off limits to students. Sneaking up into the bell tower was about the worst thing you could do, short clocking a nun in the head. They made such a big deal over it that naturally everyone was tempted to sneak up there and have a peek. Apparently this had been going on for years, and there was even bell tower folklore. You'd hear that so-and-so's grandfather sneaked up into the bell tower in 1933 and found the bleached out skull that belonged to a priest who mysteriously vanished years before-- things like that. So between the weird stories and the nuns threats-- well, you know how kids are.”
