Well, I did settle, but not too far down. Instead of selling out Uncle George's insurance and real estate firm, I went to work in it. It was prosperous enough and light work. There were plenty of girls around town if you got around, and I did.
Looking back, those were the happy years. Naturally I kept seeing quite a bit of Vera and Benji. Rubbing it in? Sure, why not? Hell, half the pleasure in any success comes from giving a hard time to those who gave you a hard time. It may not be nice, but it is normal.
I lolled in the shade and laughed; Benji sweated and suffered. His boss's whip cracked merrily. He plodded ahead in the University Physics Department and fiddled around his lab whenever he could escape into it.
Then there came a black Friday evening in early autumn. I was due at Benji's for dinner, just him and me. Vera had gone up to Chicago that morning to see her ever-dying Aunt Bella and do some shopping. She would not be back till the next day so she called on me to keep an eye on Benji.
So I was due for a quietly pleasant early evening listening to Benji talk about his sorrows. Then, I figured, Benji would go to his lab in the old dean's study and I would go out on the town. I had a date, one of the very best, Starlight Glowe, formerly Daisy Hanzel, formerly an office clerk. She was a pert little strawberry blonde, cute, with a lot of good humor and a lot of everything else too; about as unlike Vera as a girl could be. That week she was between nightclub engagements, back in her old home town. And back in the old groove with me, too. I looked forward to the evening—first Benji's troubles and then my own pleasures.
I pulled up in front of Benji's old place just at dusk. A late working lineman from Beltsville Power was fiddling around on the pole outside Benji's lab room. "Hey, Mac," he hollered, "you going in there? Look, tell the prof they'll cut it in at seven ayem, huh? Can't make it a minute sooner."
I nodded as I went up the steps and across the porch; knocked once. Walked on in—and stopped dead in the hallway to stare up the stairs. It was Benji, but not the Vera's Benji I was used to. He was dressed in the evening clothes Vera got him to wear only at major faculty functions. He carried a cane, wore a flower. Tonight he was Benji, man about town, knight of the evening. Sharp. Cool. Cocky.
He strutted on down the stairs and past me. He winked, grinned that dirty, sneaky grin of his I remembered all too well from the old days. At the door, he looked back over his shoulder, still grinning, and said, "Stick around a minute, Bull boy. I have something to show you." The door slammed shut.
I couldn't believe it; he wouldn't dare. Then I heard my car, my new sport car, starting outside and I swore, grabbing the doorknob.