"I know you ... don't I?"

Is it possible to have a worst day? Really possible? There are just so many from which to choose. If there were even a scant possibility of such a day, today was hers. No single event marked it as such, but coming as it did at the end of one long, relentless, painful, tedious, ridiculous series of nasty little days, it was like a twelve-car pileup with her at the bottom.

And did it have to be so damn hot? Or was it just her imagination? Well, it was Los Angeles in August.

Did I even order?

"Hey ...."

Jesus, how could it have gone any other way? She almost laughed aloud at the thought. Alice hated self-pity in others—there were all those poor, starving orphans in ... well, somewhere—but she suddenly wanted to cry.

"... St. Fithian in Peoria ... didn't you?"

Who the hell is this guy? She realized he must have been standing in front of her table for the better part of a minute. He was nice looking, very nice looking. Maybe he was a fan? There were still a few of those around. The guy looked old enough ... maybe in his mid-thirties. St. Fithian?

"Sorry, you're a dead ringer for someone I went to high school with," the man continued with a smile and direct gaze. He had nice eyes and a nicer smile.

"Did you say St. Fithian?" she asked. The man before her looked familiar, rather like some jock who'd graduated a year or two ahead of her. Maybe this guy was a younger brother? What was that joker's name?

"I did, and I'm really embarrassed," he said politely. "Your name is right on the tip of my tongue."

"Alice," she said with an extended hand and a smile. Her mood hadn't improved, but he was young and good looking.

"No ... Kate ... Kate Johnson ...?" he said as he tilted an eye toward her.

Apparently, her face betrayed her, because his smile broadened. She wasn't accustomed to being corrected on her own name, but Kate was the name by which her parents still called her.

"Oh ... guilty." She smiled back. To her surprise, she really was smiling. "Nobody calls me that anymore."

Out of habit, she motioned him to sit. It was only then she realized there was an untouched spiced coffee sitting in front of her. She didn't recall having ordered, didn't even remember coming into the shop.

"I thought I knew you." He kept eye contact as he sat in the nearest chair, twisting sideways until he faced her. "It was either you or you have a younger twin sister. I almost didn't make you."

"That was my line," she nearly shrieked. Could that possibly be her laughing?

"Oh, I'm ...."

"Eli ...," she began. The name came to her from nowhere, but then she hesitated. His family name was something funny.

"... Pitt-Rivers."

"Right!" Her head began bobbing in a goofy way she thought she'd long abandoned, after which another synapse apparently fired, and she added, "But didn't they call you E.T.?"

"Big head, skinny body ... it was high school, wasn't it?"

"You weren't that skinny, mister."

"A whole lot skinnier than I am now."

"You're not fat." Her old schoolmate was stretched out casually, but she fought the urge to give him a look up and down. "... and I'm sorry I was catatonic when you came up just now. It's been a long, long miserable day."

"Kate, I'm sorry to hear that ... or is it Alice?"

"No, Kate. Please," she said. It was somehow pleasant hearing that pedestrian name she'd long abandoned.

"Well, in that case, Kate ... I'm actually having a great day."

His gloating tone almost made her want to smack him. It honestly had been an unpardonable day for her.

Did he see a frown on her face? Because he chuckled. "Yeah, I bumped into an old schoolmate. It made my day." He sounded sincere.

"Oh, my god," she groaned, "I can't believe you used that on me." She had to admit it was rather sweet. "I'm glad you had a good day. Mine was ...." Bending closer, she whispered, "I saw lawyers."

"More than one?"

"Three."

"Officer, I barely know this woman."

"Oh, shut up." She didn't want to be laughing, not right now, and certainly not at such a woefully inadequate joke. But it was out of her hands. "I didn't rob a bank. My husband died, and the estate's a mess."

"Oh, Jesus, Kate, I so am sorry."

"No ... don't worry about it. Otto passed almost seven months ago. It's not the grief ... believe me. That would be preferable at this point. It's just," she made a feral sound, "... lawyers."

"Well, I'm sorry for your loss. No one your age, our age, should have to deal with something like that, not so soon."

"Ohhh ... my husband was older."

To her surprise, and relief, Eli didn't enquire further. She'd never felt self-conscious about marrying a man nearly twenty years her senior—it was common in the little clique of which she'd been a part—but there was something about bumping into someone from the old days that made her feel like Kate Johnson and nothing at all like Alice Caitlyn. She wasn't sure what to think of that.

"Still, my condolences," the man replied instead. He seemed sincere and, after a heartbeat, continued. "So, Hollywood? The last I heard of you, someone said you're an actress."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh, "the awards just keep flowing in the door. Didn't you see my latest blockbuster?"

"Ouch .... In my defense," he said, beaming a slow and shy smile, "I don't watch television and haven't been out to the movies since the '90s."

"Ah," she cooed back, "a man un-phased by my fame and celebrity. You have no idea how refreshing that is." If he realized she was joking, there was no hint of it. His face still held a sweet smile, but his eyes gave away nothing. She let him off the hook. "I haven't worked in over ten years, hon."

"So, what've you been up to, then?"

"I wish I knew." She had to fight back a return of the mood that had seized her earlier. "How about you? What have you been up to in the twenty years since high school?"

"Twenty-five ... our class reunion was just a few weeks ago."

Damn, she whispered inwardly and ran the math in her head. Eli was a year her senior.

"Please tell me it hasn't been that long," she muttered, and then added, "So, what's everyone in the class of '92 doing?"

"I didn't go." He laughed with what seemed honest wonder she'd suggested such a thing. "I got a philosophy. If you haven't seen someone in a quarter century, there's probably a good reason."

That notion hit her funny bone at just the right angle, and to her surprise she again laughed, this time freely. More shocking was the inelegant snorting that exploded from her when she did, yet another artifact of her past from which she thought she'd liberated herself. The sound was mortifying, but it soon passed.

"So, how'd you know about it?" she continued after righting herself. "You been keeping up with people from the old days?"

"'Keeping up' is a little strong. There are two or three folks who manage to find my number whenever I change it. Greg Bard e-mailed a couple months ago and let me know about the reunion."

"I know that name, but I couldn't put a face to it to save my life."

"Tall, skinny guy, dark curly hair, helluva nose ...? He went in the army same time I did, and our paths crossed now and again."

"Oh, crap. He was in drama club!"

"Yeah, you actually kissed him in a play, once, I think."

"I did not!"

"It must not have been all that."

Her mouth flew open, and a feeling somewhat akin to both shock and amusement washed over her. "I don't believe that happened," she insisted.

He laughed, shaking his head. "I'm sure you've had any number of handsome young swells and dandies squiring you around since then. It's an easy enough thing to forget one or two."

"Swells and dandies? I thought you were a soldier not a ... no, wait. You went to West Point, didn't you?"

"I did. They even let me graduate."

"So, you're on leave, then?" She did a journeyman's job of masking her excitement. Alice had never been especially wowed by men in uniform, but something took her by the bridle now.

"Nah. I've been off active duty for almost eight years."

She leaned forward, hoping her smile didn't come across as too adoring, but not troubling herself to adjust it. "So, what did you do in the army ... did you?" As she spoke her last, her hand made a gliding motion across the front of her body.

"Did I saw a woman in half?"

"No ... did you go overseas? You know what I meant."

His smile told her that he did. "Yeah, it was one of the perks of the job. I got to travel a lot ... twice to Germany, a half-dozen times to South America ... Iraq, Afghanistan, blah, blah ... a few cooler places."

"What'd you do there? Oh, wait ... you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me, right?" Her smile had taken on a playfulness she hadn't intended.

"Nah, I was an intelligence officer," he said. "I really didn't know anything worth repeating. I mean ... I could tell, but then, at worst, I'd have to be rude to you."

"That doesn't sound at all important."

"It isn't. Anybody who gives you that 'tell you' and 'kill you' line is a poser."

"It still sounds pretty cool." She couldn't keep herself from smiling altogether, but, given the occasion, she retreated to the silly open-mouthed grin she'd so hated in high school. "But what are you doing, now?"

As she asked the question, she gave him a careful look. The little coffee shop in which she'd taken shelter was off the beaten path, near her home in the Hollywood Hills. It certainly wasn't on the tourist map, and her former schoolmate didn't look like a sightseer. Neither did he look like a local. He was in jeans and wore a tight gray t-shirt, one that showed off a more than admirable chest and an impressive set of shoulders. The man clearly had been in the sun, and his hands and arms were dusty, as if he'd been working outside.

The answer to her inquiry was his nod toward the shop's front window. Among the high-end sedans and sportscars parked without was a single, late-model pickup. There were tools and equipment visible in the bed.

"That's me now," he added. The man wasn't grinning wildly, but the smile in his eyes was unmistakable. "I'm here helping some dot.com zillionaire put in some potted-plants up on his new digs off Mulholland."

"Oh ... wait, the guy who's trying to get his own helipad put in?"

"Yeah, I think so," he said with a short laugh. "He must have bought up two dozen or more houses along that side of the hill. Must be nice to print your own money."

"Get out." Her tone was heavy with disbelief. "That's just down the road from my place."

"The universe works in mysterious ways," he said with a shrug.

"No. You're stalking the pretty girl from high school."

"Well, who would blame me if I was? ... But why'd I wait so long?"

"Do you have the PTSD?"

"That would explain so much," was his candid reply, "... but I don't think I do. Work takes me all up and down the west coast. It was only a matter of time before I bumped into somebody I knew. I was just lucky enough for it to be you."

"Are you flirting with me?" The mock outrage of her question came with the best stern-widow gaze she could muster, but it didn't appear her still smiling schoolmate was buying it.

"How're your folks doing?" he asked instead.

"They're good. Dad's in his seventies now, so his health's always an issue. But retirement's treating them okay."

"I remember your mom helped out with the ... the dance club? And don't you have a sister?" His eyes narrowed, as if he were uncertain.

"You mean ... what was her name? Emma? Emma Johnson. Everybody thought she was ... tall, skinny, blonde ... gorgeous. But, nope. She was just another kid named Johnson."

"Skinny, like you? I wonder if she's filled out so nicely."

Her arms, more or less of their own accord, crossed her body at his comment, and she suppressed yet another laugh. There was something almost carnivalesque in the way she was responding to him.

"I'll thank you to know, Admiral Pitt-Rivers, if that really is your name, that these are the very best money can buy, and they are perfect." His teasing felt good, but she couldn't get carried away, not today. "And how about your folks?

"Mom passed away some years back. I haven't heard from my old man in ... oh, shit ... I forget how long."

"I'm so sorry to hear that. I remember your mom. She was so, so beautiful ... and young."

"She was young," he agreed. "She must've still been a zygote when she had me. It always made me feel like she was more of a sister than a mom, especially with the accident."

Alice paused, looked him in the eye, and, to her own surprise, reached out to touch his hand. "I remember that, now," she said softly. "You were in some sort of ... car crash?"

"A few months shy of my fifteenth birthday. A city bus and me. I lost."

"For the life of me, I don't remember when that happened. But I remember people talking about it. Weren't you in the hospital a long time?"

"A few months. The odd thing is besides a broken ankle and leg, they never found anything seriously wrong with me ... well, except for the memory loss and all that."

"That part I don't remember at all," she said.

"Memory loss is an easy thing to forget about."

"Are you sure you're not in LA trying to break into standup?" His sense of humor was corny, but sweet.

He reached out and touched her hand in return, his smile even nicer.

"I cannot tell you how nice it is to see you, Kate. But I have to meet with a client like ... well, right now." He produced a pen and small pad from his hip pocket and jotted a few things on it. "I know you Hollywood types say 'let's do lunch' a lot, but I'll be in town for ... oh, at least another three weeks. It will break my heart if I don't see you again."

After he passed her the slip of paper on which he'd written, she took his pad, flipped it back open, and liberated the pen from his grasp.

"You're working on that monstrosity just north of here, right? ... Yes? Good. Here's my address." She began writing. "And my phone number. I will clear my schedule between 11:30 and 2:00 on Friday for lunch. That'll give us time to catch up. Don't you dare be late, and don't even think about leaving early."

She handed the pad back to him, stood, and the two shared the obligatory LA kiss on the cheek with their goodbyes.

When he'd departed, she sat to her now tepid coffee in a slightly better mood than before. The last thing her life needed right now was a man. But Eli was nice and, she couldn't deny, fun to look at. Even if Alice Caitlyn was a jabbering mess, there was no reason Kate Johnson couldn't have a pleasant Friday lunch catching up with somebody from the old days.