Dewy? My God, is that you?

The voice was unmistakable, like a parrot with a sinus infection. If it weren’t for the impossibly alluring, sex kitten of a body, the shrill squawk would be a definite deal breaker, but somehow, attached to Susan Ingram, it became almost… intoxicating.

Nonetheless, Susan was the last person I wanted to see here, especially now, like this. Crap, what could I do?

Feign amnesia?

Run?

Don a foreign accent and pretend I was someone else? “No miss lady, I sorry I am no Mr Dewy. I Vladmir”. With a capital DREW emblazoned on my faux brass nametag, (I had thankfully outgrown Dewy), there was little hope of my adopting an entire new identity with much credibility.

No, there was no choice but to swallow the remnants of my pride and make small talk with the girl I had lusted after three out of four torturous years in high school. I just wished I wouldn’t be forced to do it in a valet parking uniform.

I could demean myself for the elite and their entourages. I could “Yes Sir” for the wannabes and the almosts and their steady stream of tax-free greenbacks, but not for her, not for this temptress of unrequited adolescent love.

“Yep, it’s me.” I forced a painful smile and met her stunned gaze, “Dewy Bradford, in the flesh”

“Dewy, oh my God, it’s been like…how long,?” she chirped. “Lets see we graduated in…?” she tapped a long manicured finger against her tanned cheek. Math was not her forte.

Yes it was Susie alright. Susie Chapstick, as we called her: sun-kissed tan all year round, perky, wholesome and uber blonde. Dad owned a sporting goods company.

“It’s been a few years” I grinned, my neck clammy under my ill fitting jacket.

She looked good, really good. Even so after living in the jaded land of the “stepford everyones”, one hot boobed and botoxed blonde seemed seamlessly blended into the next. In the unforgiving California lunchtime light, she seemed too tan, too skinny, too blingy. Anyway, my taste in women had changed since high school, or so I was telling myself.

“So, how…are you?” a look of genuine concern shadowed her normally sunny countenance. She rested a comforting hand on my arm. “Is everything …ok?”

“Oh this” I chuckled, motioning toward my uniform. “Actually,” I whispered “it’s research, for a part…”

She paused momentarily, like a cat, deciding if a dangling clump of grey felt and google eyes was the real thing.

“Babe, let‘s go” a man twice her age whined, a phone in one ear.

She ignored him.

“So you’re… an actor, really?” she hesitated.

“Yep, small stuff mostly, some TV spots, an HBO special” I lied with surprising ease “this next one’s a movie with… can’t say who” I placed a hush-hush finger over my lips. Was she buying it?

“Hey is this lunch or the Oprah show? let’s stop the chit chat…” screeched mid-life crisis. “Time is money.”

Susie reached into her mammoth crocodile bag and handed me a card, sporting a photo with her name, numbers, and model, actor, underneath. “Let’s keep in touch, really…I know everyone says that…”

The power-lunch crowd was arriving and cranky overpriced horns blared at the bottleneck cramming the restaurant entryway.

“Well gotta run“ I winked…“duty calls”

Her escort threw me his keys.

“and take care of her, lover-boy” he sneered, wrapping a free arm around Susie‘s wisp of a waist. “No dents like last time, costs me a fortune to keep my babies looking this good.”

“Yes Sirree” I quipped, swallowing back the bile on my tonsils. “I’ll treat her as if she was my very own.” Did he just call me lover-boy?

In the rearview mirror, I watched the couple retreat into the restaurant, amused that she was a good three inches taller then he was. I gunned the engine, veering into the stagnating traffic to the harmony of obscenities and honking horns.

The off site parking was a few blocks left and the congestion on the avenue allowed time, as always to scan the car’s interior for any interesting finds. Insignificant perks, whose absences would go unnoticed, at least for a day or two, when they could then be blamed on a disgruntled nanny or mechanic. Glove compartment check: one pair obscenely expensive sunglasses, lime green tanning booth goggles and obligatory tan accelerator, a receipt for a four hundred dollar meal at the Ivy at two in the afternoon, and a nondescript “business” card from an “escort” service.

Why do I care if she‘s with this guy? To her I would always be Dewy who cut her dad’s lawn, Dewy who tutored her for the SAT’s, Dewy who went to Greenwood Academy on a scholarship and wore old shoes.

I unbuttoned the gold buttons on my pseudo military uniform jacket. Why were valet parkers expected to dress like some armed battalion of toy soldiers? Why did she see me this way?

I hated the name Dewy too. Dewy Doo-Doo in first grade, Dewy Dude in sixth, Dewy Decimal System when I was appointed valedictorian. I took off my jacket and tossed it into the back seat, amping up the volume on the radio and sang aloud…“I, I, have become…comfortably numb.”

A horn honked impatiently behind me. I paused and without thinking, swung the steering wheel suddenly right. I drove on methodically, deliberately passed the entrance to the parking lot: my heartbeat steady, like a metronome keeping time to my anxious but steady breath. I kept driving. Guiding the impeccably engineered automobile with one hand, I headed away from the city, with the other reaching for my cell phone in my pant‘s pocket.

I popped on the sunglasses. With one eye on the road, I read the number on the card and dialed. Two rings, then…“Hello?”

Nash, this is a fun idea, thought I’d give it a go: If anyone picks this up, three items to include are: olive oil, terminal velocity and Bavaria. Cheers!