Libby tried to think of a casual way to ask where Barb had seen Alan, but Brad Yarchin, the class clown, came by and grabbed her hand, dragging her towards the dance floor. "C’mon babycakes, you need to boogie on down!"

Libby cracked up as Brad did a hula, circling around her in his Hawaiian shirt and polka dotted tie. He reminded her of a bright-eyed pug, with his squashed face and solid body.

"C’mon Libby, get with it! I’m dancing rings around you," he sang on his fourth pass.

When the song ended, she kissed Brad’s cheek and begged off another, "You’re too much dancer for me. I gotta get something to drink."

She walked towards the bar, stopping to greet friend after friend, sometimes only recognizing them by their name tags, which bore their senior yearbook pictures.

"Just a diet-Coke," she told the bartender, then surveyed the room. She wanted to find Ruthie and compare notes.

When someone tugged one of her curls, Libby turned and found herself staring into a pair of intense blue eyes. She almost spilled her soda when she recognized the handsome man in his casual summer suit, and gasped, "Alan?"

"I’ve been trying to talk to you." He shrugged a shoulder and gave a lopsided smile. "But you’re a hard person to get near."

"I feel seventeen again, sort of," Libby giggled, "A very old seventeen anyway."

Alan scrutinized her face as if memorizing every detail, and she squirmed a little, wondering what changes he saw. Since breaking up with her fiancé last year, she had started working out regularly and now every part of her was tight and firm. She knew she looked better than she had twenty years ago.

"Do you want to sit and talk for a minute," Alan asked tentatively. Libby nodded and he led her to a table where he held out a chair.

She gazed at Alan, seeing the seventeen-year old in the grown man. Her heart began to thump as it always had at the sight of him.

"So..." she said a little too loudly and paused for a breath, "What are you up to these days?"

"Heather and I got divorced a couple of years ago. I just moved back from Georgia this winter."

"Yeah, I’d heard you went to Atlanta after..." She trailed off, unable to finish.

"I’m ashamed about how it ended, you know, between us." Alan took her left hand and nervously rubbed a thumb over the ring she wore on it. "I was an immature punk who didn’t think about things like other peoples feelings back then. Heather came by flashing her, ah, charms and distracted me to the point of stupidity, I guess."

Libby couldn’t concentrate on anything but Alan’s thumb. Little electric shocks traveled straight up her arm and through her body as he massaged her fingers. "Um, how long were you married?"

"Fourteen years, Alan grimaced.

"That bad?" Libby hoped she sounded sympathetic. Inside she was a little glad that Alan had suffered some, after the way he’d hurt her.

"Yeah, at least for the last eight. Guess it's karma. I got back what I gave you, huh?" Alan read Libby’s mind, as only he could.

Libby thought back to the day in ninth grade, when she’d learned about her father's death and began her four-year romance with Alan.

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