How Long Has This Been Going On by Ethan Mordden

met them."
    "Well, I haven't and I'm going to. See you after?"
    "Without question," said Archer, smiling.
    Ted, Steve, and Billy were easy to meet, though they weren't altogether what the Kid expected. For one thing, they were Griff, Phil, and Bram. Griff had a deep voice, Phil shook your hand in a grip of iron, and Bram's eyes were so intense you had to converse with his left ear.
    "I'm Johnny the Kid," he told them. "I sing down at Thriller Jill's."
    "What do you sing, Johnny?" Phil asked.
    "Old and new," the Kid replied. "Sad and silly. High-hat and low-down."
    "Would that include 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'?"
    "Yes," admitted the Kid, surprised at Phil's knowledge and a bit resentful.
    "I like medleys," said Griff.
    That sounded good and dumb to the Kid. "Why medleys? They're just a bunch of songs instead of one."
    "Not the best ones. A really sharp medley will play one number against another, kind of develop it."
    And Phil was nodding along with this.
    "Kate Smith did a really interesting medley on her show a few weeks ago," Griff went on. "Did you happen to hear it, Johnny?"
    The Kid shook his head.
    "She sang 'Falling in Love with Love' and then went right into 'This Can't Be Love' before the first song was over. So you got two different sides of the question, you know? The sorrowful side and then the side that's joyful. It was like the musical equivalent of losing a boy friend and finding a new one in the same day."
    As Molly Goldberg liked to say, This I had not anticipated.
    "We ought to come down and hear you sometime," said Bram. "Are you on every night, Johnny?"
    "I'm on twenty-five hours a day. But I sing Monday through Saturday."
    Griff and Phil laughed appreciatively, and Bram said, "We'll be there."
    "You wouldn't like it. It's not like this."
    "This?"
    The Kid gestured at the lawn and the pool and the Beverly Hills mansion. "This."
    The boys were perplexed and the Kid felt a surge of power. Just then, however, a fourth pool boy loomed up out of the water, a dark-haired Viking with an expert smile. The Kid stood back a bit as the boys greeted the newcomer affectionately, hugging and patting him.
    "Come and meet Johnny," Griff told him. "Johnny, this is Mark."
    "Hi, Johnny," said Mark, proffering his smile and a giant hand.
    "Yeah," said the Kid, taking it. "You're Dumbbell Mark of the Jungle and Gym."
    "Johnny's a wild card," Phil told Mark.
    "Hey, Mark," said the Kid. "Joan Crawford wants her shoulders back."
    Mark, his arm. wrapped around Griff's waist, grinned.
    "Just because you're a big monster beauty and I'm a little guy," said the Kid, "does not mean that I couldn't stuff your ass and have you howling with delight."
    Mark said, "I'd love that sometime, Johnny."
    The Kid had had enough. Quitting while he was behind and furious with himself and not having the faintest idea why he had taken them on so ferociously, he abandoned the field of contest and looked for Archer.
    He found him sitting with some of the older men. The Kid perched on the grass and said nothing until one of the guests playfully observed, "The young man is strangely silent."
    The Kid looked at Archer. "Whither thou goest," he said, "I will go. As soon as possible."
    Archer smiled and rose. "On that note, gentlemen..."
    It took forever to get out of there, as Archer diplomatically worked his way through the luminaries and the Kid dully moved with him. And when they got into the car, all that the Kid said was "I made a wreck back there."
    Archer asked what he meant, but the Kid didn't want to talk.
    "Your first Hollywood party, and you look as if you'd lost all your best friends."
    They pulled off and rode back to Archer's house.
    The Kid was breathing hard, really upset. "Mr. Archer," he began, and stopped.
    "Surely you'd be calling me Derek by now."
    The Kid said, "I really blew my top. I... Somehow, I lost my place. I don't know what I did."
    Derek pulled him closer and caressed him. "I told you this was a social event, but you're rather