Alien Tango

suit?”
    “You’re good. You always could tell the designers.”
    “Never wore them.”
    “Before. Because that’s an Armani dress.”
    “Yeah.” I was confused. Chuckie was acting far smoother and much more confident than I remembered. True, I hadn’t actually seen him for over a year, due to his schedule and my new secret life. But I just didn’t remember him as being suave. “Chuckie, I thought you were in D.C.”
    He chuckled. “You know, you’re the only person who still calls me Chuckie.”
    My cheeks were hot again. “Sorry.”
    “No, I don’t mind. From anyone else I would, but from you it’s like . . . a pet name.”
    He led me to a table near the dance floor. “You sure you want to sit here?” We’d always hung in the back if we’d gone places together, even comics conventions. Even when we’d taken trips together as young adults, he’d kept us in the back of the room.
    “I’m not seventeen any more, so, yeah.” He smiled. “Yes, I still like the back of the room under normal circumstances. The reunion isn’t one of them.” He pulled my chair out and slid it in, then seated himself next to me. “You look great. No engagement or wedding ring, I see.”
    “No.” Managed to get that one syllable out without losing it.
    “Good.”
    Good? I checked his hand. No ring. Not that I’d expect him to get married to someone and not tell me. We told each other everything. Well, we had up until I’d met the boys from A-C. Guilt tried to join my emotional party, but Heartbreak was still in control, and Confusion insisted that it had shotgun right now. Guilt slunk to the background, hovering around, waiting for its opportunity to make me more depressed.
    Chuckie looked around and hailed a waiter. “What do you want to drink? Alcohol or Coke?”
    “Um, Coke.”
    “One Coke, light ice, and a straw. And one beer, imported if you have it.” I thanked God he wasn’t ordering a martini. I also realized he remembered how I took my soft drinks. True, he’d heard me order this for years, but it registered that he’d paid attention to it, to something very small that still mattered to me. He turned from the waiter back to me. “So, how long ago did you two break up?”
    “Beg pardon?”
    Chuckie shook his head. “I know the look. You’re trying to hold it together. You looked like this when you broke up with Brian. And, well, all the others.”
    “I did?”
    “Yeah. The endings were always really hard on you.”
    “Endings usually are.”
    “Ours wasn’t.” The drinks arrived and he paid the waiter, leaving a generous tip.
    “We didn’t date.”
    He grinned. “I suppose calling Vegas a date would be stretching the term, yeah.”
    “I think of it as a fling.”
    “I think of it as the best week of my life.” He said it so casually, as if he were commenting on the weather. I almost spilled my Coke.
    “Um, what?”
    “I hear Brian’s an astronaut.” Everyone was on top of things other than me.
    “Yes. He’s doing well. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago, in fact.”
    “He’s coming tonight?”
    “Not sure. He was planning on it, but work might not let him make it.”
    “He ask you to marry him yet?”
    I gave Chuckie a long look. “Um, in a way, yeah.”
    “And you said no.”
    “Right again. How did you know?”
    “I always paid attention. That’s why I did well with the convenience stores. And with my investments. And everything else.” He gave me a small smile. “I’ve missed you these past few months.” Guilt crowed triumphantly and leaped into the fray.
    He was sitting with one arm leaning on the table and his other hand resting on the back of my chair. It was a position that said he was only interested in looking at me, especially since his eyes weren’t wandering.
    “I know. I’ve been . . . busy.” I was the Queen of Lame Responses tonight. “What are you doing now?” I managed to ask. “I mean to keep busy. Besides investing.”
    “I work for the government in its Extraterrestrial Division.”
    I managed not to react. “Right.”
    “Not the same one as you,” he added. “What’s it like, dating an A-C?”
    I felt cold all of a sudden. “Why are you asking me that?”
    He shook his head. “I’m going to assume you’re reacting like this because you just broke up with him.” He leaned closer to me. “I’m not here to scare you, Kitty. I just know what you do, and I thought it would be nice to let you know I’m in a similar