"Surprised, Richie?"

'Richie'...the nickname floats in the air as fond memories click firmly into place.

I unhunch my rounded shoulders as though a remote controls them, and I look away from red-sequined filigree which could be loosely-descripted as an article of almost clothing sprawled astride a high-backed chair.  I swallow hard, for a third time.  I'm caught up in the shock --yes-- it's shock all right of her, a card-carrying member of this glittery, bedazzling world.  "A little," I lie, and wonder if she sees right through it the way she used to.  She was murder to fool.  Always.

I can't believe she's really here.  I've dreamed about this happening for so long.  Now that it's real, I'm feeling like it's not; like I'm adrift in a dream I can't wake up from.

"You're more than a little surprised," she rolls off her tongue, her gaze never wavers, measuring off confirmatory looks.

Like they say, 'Some things _never_ change.'

"Okay, you got me.  How'd you ever wind up here?" I say like I've torn the lid off a can of worms.  I try to sound apologetic, but it comes out sounding lame.  "N-Not that here's so bad.  It's.  It's just that..."  My shoulders shrug again, and a storm of relief washes over me.  That familiar look in her greenish blue (more blue than green) eyes tells me I'm as good as bailed.

"What right does an honor student have trading in her cap and gown for a peek-a-boo G-string?"  She stops brushing her hair, sets the round, flex-bristle brush down on the three-way mirrored vanity, eyeing me pointedly.

I'm blushing to beat the band.  It has been a long time, and she never looked this sexy.  "Uh...yeah.  Something like that."  I melt under her steady, mystical gaze; her woman of the world aura.  How'd she get this beautiful?  Not that she was a 'dog' in high school, but this; this is a...  I lean back, easing the pressure in an area now obvious.  She looks incredible, like all the 'stars' of Frohike's tapes rolled into a dreamy, carnal one.

She...one of the smartest chicks in high school from sophomore year straight through senior.  A single heartbeat away from being class valedictorian.  Come to think of it, so was I for that matter, but that wasn't meant to be just like our failed romance.  We lost out to Arthur 'The Yick' Tilden, all-'round class pimply putz by a landslide.

The bulbs framing the three-way wink off after she flips them.  "It's okay, Richie," she purrs.  I smile warmly.  That's the Cin I'm re-living.  The Cin of drive-ins, all-nighters when we'd feverishly cram every useless factoid in sight into our overloaded brains for some 'crucial' exam, which was always touted as counting for half our grades.

The Cin who visits me when I need her smile, her sense of humor after receiving the cold shoulder sometimes from those who say they care.  Only, they don't say it often enough to a 'throwaway' like me who's plagued with 'attention deficit.'

Her best subject, and favorite, was English, my worst.  My favorite and best was Math (any kind; you name it, I dug it) her respectable, but she always strove to be the best, so I helped her out with it.  Trust me, she didn't really need my help, but I was always happy to give it for the reward...her fawning all over me, which she had down to an art form.

If it hadn't been for Cin, I'd still be repeating eleventh-year remedial English; no lie.  Hey, I know what you're thinking.  Valedictorian?  Remedial English?  Hey, who says you've gotta be a genius with the mother tongue?  So long as you're pulling down solid, consistent A's in the Maths and Sciences the way I did, it was still possible to be a shoo-in.  If old pimply putz hadn't spoiled it for me or for Cin.

My Cin who made the annual spring 'Monster Mash Midnight Dip,' minus the skinny, in Lake Erie something worth remembering to this day.  I like to remember our chilliest spring dip was in our junior year, the month before her father, a chronic smoker, died of lung cancer.  Yeah, it was freezing as all get out, but I wasn't as cold once she got through warming me up though.

What excuse do I have for feeling a little ashamed of her?  Who am I to judge her, or anybody?  I'm not exactly a paragon of virtue myself.

"I'm sorry..."

"For what?" she says gently, sounding as though she's got a pretty plausible idea.  If anybody's eyes are windows of the soul, hers readily lend themselves hands down.

I go back on my promise.  "It's just that you."  I can't.  It feels so wrong, but you know me.  How do I put it so it doesn't sound like I'm laying a heavy judgement number on her?  "Aw, hell, Cinnamon...  I'm sorry."

"That's the second time you've said that."  Jauntily, she bats the speculation, "Is it possible you've changed that much?  Since when have you let the cat bury your tongue?"

I've learned how to bury lots of things over the years.  I flick her a weird look; returning the one she gave me moments ago.  "Radical _you_ bring up change..."

"Don't sweat it," she tells me with just a hint of self-recrimination in her tone as she leads me out of the semi-private dressing room she shares with two other girls, her arm linked with mine, like old times.

"Where're you taking me?" I ask like it's a protest.

"My place.  It's not far."  I can't help the guggled laugh of nervousness. "I'm kinda rushed for time.  Could we get going a little faster please?"  She checks her watch, then checks me out for my response.

"Hey, we don't have to..."  I don't sound all that convincing.

"I can't lose the feeling you'd like an explanation.  You _do_ want one, don't you?"

"It's not like you should feel you haveta give me one."  Even though I feel I'm owed.

"Well, it so happens I want to.  What do you say?  For old times' sake, Richie?"

"That obvious, huh?" I counter.

"That much hasn't changed," she coddles, and we crack up.  She's right, and I tell her so.

The walk to her ride is brisk, like our conversation.  We pile into her silvery gray mode of getting around, which is parked a block down and over from her gaudy place of employment.  The color of her ride so fits Vegas' motif.  Glitz.

I tell her a lot of things, but not everything during the, what I hope will be, short drive to her digs in her Neon.

"...Unlike your hair," she teases.

I toss my mane for dramatic effect.  "I really got into the hippie scene in college.  The Woodstock-Hard-rocker 'Peace and Love' gestalt.  Don't wanna unplug; ever.  Uncool?"

"Of course not.  You'll always be cool," she awards.  She lifts a hand off the steering wheel, tangling a pair of fingers in some of my frayed growth.  "I think your hair's as long as mine.  Wow, it's so soft."  I wait for her to say I don't have as much as I once did.  I wait, but she holds her smile.

"Take yours down," I suggest.  "Let it hang.  The way you used to have it."  She reels in her eyes from the residential roadway she'd cast them back to, and dusts my bemused face with them again, then does as I've asked, shaking it out.

She's even more beautiful now, dressed as a civilian in faded jeans, a jacket the color of Vegas ochre, of unknown material, and a turtleneck sweater beneath that.  "Yours is thicker like when we went together.  Thicker even."

She sighs when her hand finds its way to my cheek.  "It's great seeing you, Richie.  This is so freaky, I've been thinking a lot about you lately.  I have missed you.  Saying I wanted to keep in touch but doing it are two different things.  Great promise-keeper I turned out to be."

Our voices come together as dissonance, and we share an easy laugh again after saying, "Not."

"Okay, so we're both gutless liars," she confirms.

I'm not about to refute, and she knows it.  How does she know?  The same way she knows me all too well, and I her.  We were practically inseparable, once, until she said we weren't, and I let her go quietly.  Didn't want to make her unhappy.  Making her such was bound to happen sooner or later.  I'm the type who lends disappointment to situations where, emotionally, there's a lot at stake.

"Yeah, we both suck."  She likes that I've made it official, I see.

I nod along with her, and then ride the preemptive gust of whim buffeting me in the direction it decides I should go.  "I've missed you too."  That flowed a little too quickly.  Maybe because it's the truth, and we all know what the truth's supposed to do.  "No lie.  I have."  And, yeah, I could confess to her that I hadn't been as eager to cut her loose as she, me.  She so hurt me, but what would be the point my bawling her out, after so long?

Once I'd stumbled upon her whereabouts, after Fro' and I hooked up with Byers, I closed the gaps, keeping sporadic ether tabs on her while she resided on the East coast.  One night, when I'd caved to temptation, and gotten stinkingly soused, I thrashed more files and link-ups than I should have, (stupid, stupid, stupid) and destroyed any fix I'd had on her.  Irretrieveable does happen sometimes.  So much for always being in control.

But I keep this sizeable secret to myself as out the corner of my left ear I hear her asking what I do for a living, what brings me to Vegas.

More secrets...unearthing 'em, garnering 'em.  Exposing 'em when the time proves ripe.  My real stock and trade.

I tell her I'm a frazzled programmer, slash 'mobius delecti' software designer when I'm not exhaling exotic code, here for a little 'r an' r.'  Not a stretch; it's what we Def-Conners call it.  The get-together affords many sterling opportunities for us hacker-crackers to come out and 'play.'  Get our feet 'wet,' so to speak; who's willing to get into a game of tag.  See what the other 'boys and girls' have been up to.  Thus far, Byers, Frohike and I are coming up with bupkes, and it's over the top frustrating.

I'm doing most of the talking, so I gather she wants to save her 'things' for later, once we get to her place.  No reason why she should spill her guts, I tell myself, while the 'it's none of my business; we were over and done long ago' mantra funnels its way into my consciousness.  She owes me squat; we were history the moment we kissed goodbye at the bus station, and she loaded herself on that bus bound for NYU in 'the Big Rotten Apple,' she moving on because she'd wanted to get out of our hicky little corner of Pennsylvania in the worst way.

I'd been glad to put Erie County behind me too, M.I.T.-bound, my biggest regret being the separation did a killer number on our long distance relationship.

What the hell happened to her?  The question nags like it's got a mouth all its own.

Damned if I know why feelings I'd thought had long died out are nudging me in the groin.  Guess I'm not as oblivious as I make myself out to be.
 
 

We must go a total of four miles before arriving at what she calls, 'home sweet home,' in a part of town that gets me thinking that maybe it's not all bright lights, big, flashy Gamblers' Paradise with her afterall.  The cruddy rundown complex reminds me of a sleazy motel, just not as nice.  When was the last time there was trash removal around here?

skittered dash for the gutter.  That rat was bigger than any cat I've ever seen.  Do I sound like I'm forgetting where I live?

We climb the wrought iron flight of stairs to the building's second story which overlooks the glimmerless pool in the shadowy courtyard, adjacent to vending machines.  Seems as though the pool guy is among the missing along with the sanitation crew.

Man, Cin, I know dumps.  I've lived in quite a few of them myself.  What do Vegas showgirls make anyway?  I always figured it'd have to be a lot better than this.  Guess I figured wrong; totally.  I hide my dismay well, despite my concern.
 

When we get to number 35, she lets me know we've arrived.  I get a little impatient, waiting for her to stick her key into the lock, which she doesn't do.  I go to say something, just as she raps a 'shave and a haircut' on the graffitied barrier, but leaves off the 'two bits' finish.

There's a pause which lasts all of five seconds, and then the door is cracked by a girl in her teens; fifteen, sixteen, maybe.

"Hey, Ruthie."

"Hi, Miz Tanner."

The three of us step into the miniscule foyer which is a ring toss from the tiny kitchenette which looks impeccable.

"How'd it go?  Hope he didn't give you too much trouble..."

"Jeffy?  Trouble?  Nope, not the little chunka-monka.  Not a lick.  Never does."  She starts collecting her school books and zaps them into her backpack, sluice-style.  "Once I feed him his dinner, and we play his favorite games...read him his favorite bedtime stories.  He's ready to crash."

"So he dropped right off."

"Yep," the short-cropped teenager whose hair is giving off a purplish glow says as though presenting documentation.  Their two-way dialogue gives me an out to run a visual check on Cin's place.  The word haven flashes into mind; bright curtains at the sashed windows, an inviting looking sofa and matching love seat...a sweetly-crafted piece of home entertainment furniture against the far wall.  A tastefully decorated slice of House Beautiful, scaled down for apartment dwelling in this dilapidated section of Vegas.

But decidedly, very low end of the high tech scale.

Maybe she doesn't score the big bucks, but from the looks of it, she makes the most of the ones she does.

"Uh, hmmmm, Miz Tanner..."  Ruthie's making sounding tentative a language all its own.

Cin looks as though she knows what's coming.  I inject my interest back into the flow of strained conversation, and away from the obsoleted Magnavox VCR; a late eighties model.

"I...  Well, you know I hate to keep brining it up, but you owe me for a month."

Cindy nods as she adjusts her babysitter's straps of the backpack.  "It's not that I've forgotten, hon, it's just that, that."  My former high school sweetheart's pretty face contorts into a solid knot of apology.  "I'm sorry, sweetie, things are tight, and getting tighter all the time.  My take home pay's a bad joke...  I'm five bucks shy of being flat broke till payday.  Jeffy's been sick a lot lately, so that's where the money's gone.  There's no health coverage with my job," she says, barbing the last word uttered.  Gently, she pats her 'sitter's shoulder.  "But that's not your problem, honey.  It's mine, and you've been very considerate.  Aside from being the greatest babysitter going."

"Hey, no prob, Miz Tanner...  We're cool; it's all good."  Ruthie looks at her quartzy watch.  There's an air of, 'I said what had to be said; can't stay for the verdict' about her.  It was a dab past eleven last time I checked.  "It's just that there's this class trip coming up to Hoover Dam and the Lake Mead Lost City of the Anasazi pueblo I need money for.  We might get to squeeze Red Rock Canyon in if there's time.  I sure hope we get to go. Bonnie Springs is supposed to be fantastic; they stage old west gunfights and hangings for visitors.  Cool stuff like that, ya know..."

I fish the fingers of my right hand into my back pocket to palm my wallet.  "How much's she into you for, kid?"

Cin's eyebrows spring to attention.  A translation is superfluous.  "Rich--"  She's shaking her head violently.  "Ie --no--" She's shaking it at Ruthie, now me.  "I can't let--"

"Yes you can," I correct, already extracting three ten's.  "This cover it?"  Ruthie's a little slow on the uptake.  "This?"  Another ten has joined its brethern in numeric denomination.

Before taking what I'm offering, Ruthie's eyes search into Cin's to make sure it's all right.  Cindy errs over the line of contriteness.  "Richie, I can't let you.  I wish you wouldn't," she whispers loud enough for the folks next door to hear.  "Please?" You'd think she was asking me not to hire a hit man.  "Please don't."

"Since when do I grant wishes?"  I thrust the money into Ruthie's outstretched hand. "It's enough, right?"

"More than, dude.  Hey, thanks.  Thanks, Miz Tanner, and later!"  Her blurr whisks to the door, but before shutting it, she calls out, "See ya tomorrow."

"I have the day off tomorrow, sweetie, so I can spend it with my precious sweetie.  I'll call ya, honey, for next time."

"You got it, Miz Tanner...  'Ciao!'"  For all the promise of force, Ruthie shuts the door quietly.

'Is the kid safe going it alone in this neighborhood?' I ask myself, and begin noticing...

There's something weird about the silence.  Is there such a thing as its being stilted?  Cin's acting like she doesn't know me; like she's never known me.  She's just staring, not at me exactly, I notice with an edge, but into space, and it's making me one seriously uncomfortable dude.  It's like she's here, but she's not.  She's lookin' creepy, in an 'Invasion of The Body Snatchers' sort of way.  I can never watch that flick alone.  I get Byers to stick it out with me.  Of course, I've gotta bribe him so he will.

Before I get the 'full monty' of any repercussions, she collapses on the sofa, burying her face in her hands and dissolves into tears.  I should have seen it coming. Her sobs rake me over brimstone.

What the hell did I do?

She's wailing now; crying so hard, her breathing is uncontrollable spurts.

All I know is I was only trying to help...
 

End part 2

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