Page 3 - Just Deserts

Prologue

taxes a bit more than half a million dollars. The publicity and giddy
celebration went on for weeks, and then we split apart. Money is a
great centrifugal force. Our commitment to the university
evaporated—particularly following insistent requests for endowment!
After all, we would not need to use our education to make a living, at
least for the next twenty years.
As “instant millionaires” we probably acted out a typical
pattern of behavior. I don’t know precisely what the others did
for the first four years after we started collecting our gargantuan
annuity. Like me, they probably indulged themselves in hit-or-miss
attempts to purchase pleasure and security—as well as donate sums
to needy relatives and worthy causes. We never discussed the past,
except in the most general terms. No doubt we had things to be
proud of as well as embarrassed about, but those years quickly
became a closed chapter in our lives.
It was Doreen who brought us all together again. A note
arrived in the mail, addressed to the false name under which I
had purchased my hillside retreat in Malibu. Inside, however, the card
read: ‘Richard, please drop by for coffee and cake next Tuesday at
8:00. The others have been invited, too. Hope to see you! Doreen.’
And the back of the envelope bore the name of a rather exclusive
condominium complex in the Marina.
At first I was shocked and outraged at what appeared to be a
casual violation of my privacy by a person who couldn’t have any
vital need to track me down. I had taken great pains to establish my
alternate identity; those few people I wished to have access to me
were limited to a private post office box and a telephone answering
machine. After several unsuccessful attempts at regaining my former
anonymity, I had finally gotten some professional help in setting my
life back on the proper course. Thus I knew that Doreen had hired a
detective agency to find me, and—who knows?—it might have been
the same one I had used to make myself unfindable!
Ye gods! I thought; my cover has been blown. I’ll have to sell this
place and move up the coast. What a pain! Pretty soon the hustlers
will be at my front door and the burglars at the back. Next the
neighbors will know I’m not really a minor record producer who
retired after a string of pop music hits. Whatever rapport I’ve built up
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