"I look like mutton dressed as lamb!" Janelle Russell grimaced at her mirrored image.

"Where on earth did you get that expression?" Her daughter Sara chuckled, patting her mother's blonde curls.

"Your Grandmother Nelson knew hopeless when she saw it, and told that to great Aunt Mabel, every time Mabel wore her awful purple dress with the thin shoulder straps," her mother replied.

"Your dress isn't even purple, and besides, I helped you pick it out. You look great!"

"That's what they said about Mabel when they buried her in that purple dress. Doesn't she look great?"

"Mother!"

"At least don't bury me in this. I'd freeze to death."

"That'd be the least of your worries," said a deep voice from the doorway.

"What kind of brother are you, anyway?" Janelle turned to address him. "Just because we're twins doesn't mean we're joined at the hip. Go to that stupid reunion dance by yourself. I'll just sit here and count my wrinkles."

"Self-pity isn't becoming," Joel Nelson said, stepping squarely behind his seated sister and peering at himself in the mirror. "Although I admit I am better preserved."

"Continue your 40 year-old feud later," Sara told them. "Right now you're going to go and wow your old classmates. Remember, they're all 25 years older than the last time you saw them."

"This was a dumb idea," Janelle said. "We didn't go to the 10 year or even 20 year charade. Why start now?"

"Before now, we both had spouses who wouldn't have been caught dead in the town where you and I grew up," Joel said. "Now we're fancy free, and can reconnect with our past."

Janelle groaned. "If Sara hadn't moved here, and I hadn't been visiting for the holidays, and that darned dance hadn't been on Christmas Eve, and you hadn't wrangled an invite from Sara behind my back, I wouldn't even have..."

"Save your energies for the dance floor," Joel told her. "You're going to need strength to keep up with me tonight."

Sara was pulling Janelle to her feet. "Come'on, Mom. Don't spoil Uncle Joel's fun."

Janelle let herself be led to the hall closet where Sara slipped a fur jacket about her mother's shoulders.

Joel lifted his eyebrows. "They must pay CPA's pretty well around here. Yours, Sara?"

"An anniversary present from Derek. And yes, Mom, it's real," Sara said. "But it's also very old and retailored from a coat that belonged to Derek's mother."

Janelle ran her hand across the soft white fur. "Your father would have had a fit."

Sara giggled. "Yeah, Mr. Save-the-Whales. Too bad he didn't feel the same way about saving the family."

Janelle was instantly sorry she had mentioned Ted. His mid-life crisis had brought him a young wife and deflated his only daughter's opinion of her father. But it had been several years now. Janelle, at least, was over it, wasn't she? She made a sudden decision.

"OK, let's go. Let's see what the Mishawaka Muskrats turned out to be."

"Wildcats, Mom. Not Muskrats," Sara corrected her, smiling.

"Sounds good to me," Joel said, picking up his overcoat. "My twenty-year old camel's hair compliments recycled fur, don't you think?"

"You two look terrific," Sara agreed. "I'll wait up to hear all about it...oops, I've got to do damage control," she said, responding to the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen.

"I should kiss Jamie good-night," Janelle fretted.

"Trust me, Mom," Sara said. "That's the sound of sticky fingers. He'll probably still be awake when you night-owls get back."

"Don't worry," Joel told her. "I'll have Cinder-fur back before midnight." And he whisked Janelle through the door before she could answer.

Two hours later Janelle sat at a table for eight, surrounded by laughing people, watching Joel, once again undisputed king of the dance floor. She had begged off with new-shoe blues and turned Joel over to the welcome attention of the still perfect figure of the head cheerleader/prom queen, circa 1970. They were the talk of the dance floor, and Janelle was glad for the relative quiet of a back table.

The bright red and green decorations winked bravely, but didn't seem to invoke a festive air for her. This was Christmas Eve, for heavens' sake. Why had the Committee chosen tonight? People should be home with their families, not chasing ghosts of their pasts. Janelle was surprised how many singles there seemed to be. Couples, at least the same couples as they had been in high school, were the exception.

"May I have this dance," spoke a voice over her left shoulder.

Janelle turned with an automatic smile and murmured refusal to find herself gazing deep into dark brown eyes. She steeled herself from slipping into their magnetic force.

"Sorry, but I've told Joel my feet hurt - which they do - so I'm sitting this one out."

"How about some company, then?" he asked, hand on the back of Joel's empty chair.

She tried vainly to match his face in her memory bank, peopled with views from the senior year photos.

"Sure, sit down," she finally replied, hoping her pause didn't make her look like an idiot. He still didn't look familiar. He didn't wear a name tag; unfortunately, she did. She looked away toward the dance floor at Joel, but when she looked back, the man sitting beside her was smiling, soft chocolate kiss eyes upon her.

She laughed, and then quickly apologized. "Sorry, I have to confess I don't remember you."

"I remember you very well," he said.

That wasn't very helpful, Janelle thought and tried again. She pointed at her name tag. "Janelle Nelson Russell. And you?"

"Steven Markson."

Nope. Didn't ring a bell. "We did have a big class," she told him. "Nearly three hundred, wasn't it?"

"Three hundred and forty-seven."

"Ah, yes." And the conversation died.

"Steve, old buddy, how'ya doing!" Joel appeared at the table, prom queen, face aglow, cheerfully trailing.

Steve looked relieved. "At least you remember me! Janelle has had a memory lapse."

"Don't mind her," Joel replied. "Ted was the only football hero on the field in her eyes. Minor players like you and me never crossed her line of vision."

Janelle was annoyed. Her memory wasn't that bad, was it? She had to admit that once Ted transferred into their school in her junior year, she had paid little attention to anyone else. But surely, she should remember those eyes.

"I'm really sorry," she told Steve, "But Joel's right. Ted was kind of like the sun; he blinded you from seeing anyone else."

"That's for sure," spoke up the prom queen, whom Janelle belatedly recalled was named Estelle. "He was the Big Man on Campus around here. We were all shocked when he tumbled for little Miss Librarian."

Janelle couldn't miss the edged undertone. "It just shows that even jocks don't always fall for empty-headed cheerleaders," Janelle surprised herself by replying.

Joel laughed out loud and swung Estelle around to head back for the dance floor. "Serves you right, Estelle," he said as he winked at his sister.

"Maybe this will help," Steve said. "I brought these along as sort of a joke, a talisman, really, to bring me luck."

He pulled a heavy framed pair of glasses from his pocket and a comb. He parted his hair in the center and planted the glasses squarely on his nose.

"The Worm!" Janelle declared and was instantly ashamed.

But Steve only smiled as he recombed his hair and tucked the glasses back in his pocket

"Yeah, that was me, Mr. Bookworm, or as you so aptly put it, the Worm. I'm not surprised you don't remember my name. But I remember you and all the books I checked out that I didn't even need, when you were at the library desk."

That was why the eyes weren't familiar! They'd peered at her through those horrible glasses, and she'd never seen how soft, how gentle, they were. Ted's piercing blue ones had totally captivated her, and she realized how well the cliche of ice-blue had fitted his personality. She'd just been so young, so dumb, that she valued style over substance.

"Would you a glass of punch?" Steve asked, and Janelle realized that she'd been silent too long.

"Thanks, yes, I would." Her gaze followed him as if she were seeing him for the first time, and perhaps she was.

She'd only had eyes for Ted, and was the perfect adoring satellite to Ted's star. It had taken some time, even after Ted had gone, for her to discover the joys of living to please herself. She liked her life now, and there was no room for any complications, like melting brown eyes. Or, was there?

Steve's quiet presence had returned, and he handed her the punch.

"Thanks," she told him and took a sip. "It tastes better than I'd expected."

"Concocted by the Life Development classes - that's what used to be called Home Ec. In fact, they did the whole thing, from decorations to refreshments."

"Christmas Eve was a rather unusual date to pick," Janelle said, "but I admit that the turnout is higher than I would have expected."

"Oh, the date is a mistake, all right. The Print Shop made it the 24th instead of the 14th, and nobody noticed the wrong date until the invitations were in the mail."

Janelle laughed. "At least it turned out OK. Were you on the Committee?"

"Guilty, as charged. I teach here and head up the library as well."

"All these years?"

"Yep. It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it."

"Did you get married?" Janelle asked.

"Well, I waited for a while, but when you and Ted tied the knot the Christmas after graduation, I figured you weren't coming back."

"Marry in haste, repent forever," Janelle replied and then laughed at herself. "But that's old news. What about you? Is your wife here, tonight?"

"She died about ten years ago," Steve said, and at Janelle's look of dismay, quickly went on. "But we had some good years; no kids, though. You're visiting your daughter Sara for the holidays?"

"How did you know that?"

"Oh, a librarian knows the facts," he told her. "But I admit to having kept in touch with Joel through the years."

"Really, why?"

"Confounded curiosity, I guess. Besides, I still owe you a debt." He placed three nickels on the table.

"Fifteen cents?"

"Overdue book fines. You loaned me the money to pay them the last week of school. I never got the chance to pay up." He took her hand and placed the coins on her palm.

The warmth of his hand and of the gesture sent a shiver up her spine. "You remembered all this time?"

"An honorable man pays his debts," Steve said.

Then it dawned on her. Steve was an honorable man. A responsible man, and suddenly, his memory was clear in her mind. She had been so fascinated with Ted in those days, but the Worm had always been at the edge of her life. He had been a quiet observer in the background, and she had never given him a second thought.

"Have your feet recovered?" Steve asked suddenly. "How about a dance after all?"

Janelle slipped her foot out of her shoe, wriggled her toes, replaced the shoe and smiled up at him. "All better."

As they began to dance, Janelle made the automatic mental comparisons to being in Ted's arms. Steve wasn't as tall, and her head nestled right at his shoulder, rather than far down on his chest like Ted's. It was different, it was comfortable, and it was nice.

"Asleep?" Steve asked, cutting into her thoughts.

"No, I was just thinking that I'm glad I let myself be talked into coming."

"You came for Joel?"

"And Sara. They insisted. They're determined to improve my social life."

"And what about you? What do you want?" he asked.

Janelle laughed. "I usually have to think about that."

"Because you're used to doing what others want you to?"

"That's the catch-22 of my generation of females. Do what everyone else wants, until they don't want you anymore."

"That's what happened with Ted?"

"Let's just say he found someone he thought might do a better job of it."

"His loss, your gain."

"I didn't think so for a long time," she mused out loud. "Funny, some things that start out so right turn out to be so wrong."

"And some things that start out so wrong can turn out right."

"Is that so?" Janelle smiled.

Steve grinned, "You know what they say about two wrongs, don't you?"

"I'm all ears."

"It can lead to Mr. Right."