The Axeman's Jazz

where he was looking. A lovely young blonde, no doubt the sort he couldn’t get anymore, might be the object of his affection, but she looked as if she was with the young man sitting next to her. (Of course
he
might be the target, but Skip didn’t think so.)
    They were a gorgeous pair—very WASP, very Southern, a Kappa, probably, and a Sigma Chi, barely out of LSU. She wondered what they were doing here. They seemed too young and beautiful to have problems.
    There were a lot of good-looking people here. She wondered if they were there to cruise, even whether this particular meeting had a reputation for having good pickings. It was certainly an odd idea, given the things that were coming out of people’s mouths. Could a woman who’d just heard Abe possibly be interested in him?
    Sure, if she were codependent. She’d probably want to help
.
    A guy in the corner was eyeing her. No question, he was interested. He was staring at her, trying to get her attention. He was a beefy guy wearing cowboy boots when it must be ninety-five outside. His shoulders strained his shirt fabric. He was quite a bit older than Skip, late forties maybe, but he was dressed young—jeans, boots… no, it wasn’t the clothes. It was the expression. His head had the round look heads get when a certain portion of hair has gone, but no one would think of this man as balding—simply round-headed. He had a mustache like a pirate’s. He had a pirate’s expression. Skip realized he reminded her of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. But it was purely attitude, not appearance. He was a walking testosterone bomb, and Skip could feel the radiation from clear across the room.
    The young blonde raised her hand. She was Missy and she was codependent.
    “I know my higher power is working for me tonight because of what Leon said about his family. I just want to thank you for that, Leon. I found it so moving because I know a family like that, and a person who suffers from all that Superman stuff. But my instinct is not to say that’s his problem and he’s got to deal with it, it’s to take it on as my problem. But that’s not even the worst of it. Instead of trying to help in a constructive way, a way that might say, ‘Listen, you’re great the way you are,’ my instinct is to help him become Superman.”
    The young man sitting next to her was either having a heat stroke or nearly fainting from embarrassment.
    “I’m so vulnerable to his feelings, his wants and desires. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know where his skin stops and mine starts.”
    Skip had a sudden flash:
She’s my brother’s fiancée. Camille. They’re peas in a pod.
    “It’s really, really hard for me to be saying this stuff right now, because I know how much he’d consider it an invasion of privacy. But I know I have to do it, for me. It’s like the kid in me just got forgotten. I was born grown up, always taking care of everybody. And you know what? It’s so hard to get her to talk to me. I have pictures…”
    She fished snapshots from her purse, held them up—pictures of an adorable towhead.
    “I’ve started keeping these with me so I can look at her when I talk to her. But in my mind’s eye she wears a little power suit and little baby high heels—I can’t even see my own kid. I ask her what she wants and you know what she says? ‘Whatever you want.’ She’s just like me—another people-pleasing little dork.” Her face twisted, as if she hated herself, and Skip wondered how that was possible; she was every man’s fantasy woman, every mom’s fantasy daughter, every woman’s best friend, the one who brought chicken soup when you had the flu.
    “See how judgmental I am about myself?” She had turned red, as embarrassed as her companion. “But I’m working on it. I’m really trying.” She paused, getting ready to sum up. “I guess that’s all. Except that I’m really grateful to be here tonight.”
    Even as the next speaker began, the pirate, Skip kept watching her, fascinated that anyone could strip herself so naked in public, could let herself be so vulnerable so publicly. She thought Di’s subject particularly interesting in view of what was happening here. Missy wiped tears that streamed briefly, smiled at her companion, the very picture of bravery, and gave her attention to the pirate. She reminded Skip not only of Camille, but of Melanie in
Gone with the Wind
. Noble to a fault. The flower of Southern womanhood. She’d had no idea before