Blunt Darts

down-air-conditioner) from the cashier. After I climbed the three flights to my apartment, I duplicated the pre-run exercises. I showered, shaved, downed my doughnuts, and dressed in my only gray slacks and blue blazer. I even wore a regimental tie. Peter Prep School goes to luncheon.
    I sat in Public Garden for two hours, reading my papers thoroughly in a way I’d never seemed able to while I was working. Funny, with my time my own and only food, shelter, and car insurance to worry about, I couldn’t really look on my present occupation as working. By the time I finished the Times, it was 12:45, and I’d been panhandled three times. I walked down Arlington Street and toward the restaurant.
    L’Espalier was then on the second floor of a building between Arlington and Berkeley streets on Boylston. It has since moved to Gloucester Street between Newbury and Commonwealth. It has also ceased serving lunch, to allow concentration on the magnificent dinner menu. The couple who own and manage the restaurant had lived above Beth and me in the condominium building. After Beth died, I’d wasted some beautiful afternoons over a carafe of house bordeaux while Donna and Moncef patiently looked on.
    Donna greeted me at the entranceway and gave me a table for two in the corner. I’d just ordered a pina colada (without the kick) when Valerie walked in. I recognized her, but I realized I would have been hard put to describe her beforehand.
    She stood about five-seven without the heels. She had long, curly-to-the-point-of-kinky auburn hair, a broad, open face, and a toothy smile. That may sound unkind; I don’t mean it to be. Let’s say she resembled Mary Tyler Moore in her late twenties. Her sundress hinted at small but nicely shaped breasts. The dress also hid most of her legs, which were slightly heavier than I would have recalled but appeared, thankfully, to be shaved. She was burdened with at least four store bags.
    From the door, she gave me a wave that was a little too much “I’m-meeting-someone-in-a-nice-Boston-restaurant” and therefore not entirely for my benefit. She smiled at and said something to Donna and strode over toward me. I noticed that Donna was giving me a sardonic grin. I also noticed, as Valerie cleared the table before mine, that the bags she carried were from Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue, labels out. I stood up.
    “John, you’ve lost weight,” she exclaimed.
    “And teaching must be fairly profitable,” I replied, nodding at her packages.
    “Oh,” she said with her smile, “this is my annual showboat excursion into the Big City. Usually I just barter my wares for dry goods at the general store.”
    She giggled, and so did I. Despite her first appearance, I remembered her as a pretty regular kid, and I decided she hadn’t changed.
    She declined a cocktail. We ordered a bottle of white wine to be followed by a chicken luncheon for two. She said what she had to about Beth, and I did the same. The waiter brought and poured the wine. We talked about classrooms, the declining birth rate, and teacher lay-offs.
    “So how goes the private-eye business?” she asked.
    I exaggerated a little. I was relieved that she didn’t ask for details.
    “I’m sorry,” I said finally, “but I don’t recall exactly where it is that you’re teaching.”
    A flicker of disappointment at the corners of her eyes? “Urn,” she said, “Meade, the Lincoln Drive Middle School. And that brings me to what I wanted to see you about. Do you know where Meade is?”
    I did. “It’s right next to Bonham, isn’t it?”
    She nodded as the waiter arrived with our chicken.
    “If it’s particularly gory, why don’t we wait until after the meal?” I said.
    “Oh, it’s not,” she replied quickly, and glanced down at the waiter’s tray. “But let’s not be rude to the chicken.” I laughed and motioned to the waiter to begin serving.
    The entrée was delightful, punctuated by few words. Valerie finished a bit before I did and fixed me with dark, dark brown eyes. “I can’t really start at the beginning because I didn’t know the family then,” she said. “But this past year in class—I teach the eighth grade—I had a boy named Stephen Kinnington in my homeroom and English classes.”
    “Familiar name,” I interjected as I finished the last of my chicken.
    “I’m not surprised. His father, Judge Kinnington, was one of the youngest men ever to go on the bench, and his family has sort of, well,