Upside Down by John Ramsey Miller

seemed to him the crowd had been vastly different then—certainly much older.
    “Reckon any of these people are legal age?” He had to raise his voice for Millie to hear him over the music and general din of socializing youth. “Times like this I can see how old I am without a mirror.”
    “We used to be this age,” Millie said.
    “I'll make a fast swing through the place to see if there's a table,” he told her. “You stay here and feel free to stick your fingers in your ears if you need to.”
    Millie's expression was as unreadable as weathered-down hieroglyphs on limestone when Hank returned.
    “There's one in the back, but it's in the line of fire, right near the speakers.” He looked at his watch. “Nicky's running late.”
    “Can we go outside?” Millie asked.
    When they went out under the awning, they saw that the rain had intensified.
    “We could go across to the restaurant and wait there.”
    “You think? The reservation isn't for twenty minutes yet.”
    “Don't you imagine Nicky's a good enough investigator to figure out where we went? Surely he's smart enough to cross the street . . . to get in out of the rain.” She laughed.
    Hank frowned at her. “He's a good P.I.”
    “I'm sure a man ingenious enough to have a skunk on hand, then go about tossing it into a window, ought to be able to cross a street. A chicken can do that.”
    Hank had to laugh. “I suppose you're right.”
    A rain-drenched couple ran up to the doors laughing. They embraced and kissed before they entered the bar.
    “Once we were like those kids,” Millie said cheerfully. “In love in a bright fresh world.”
    “I remember.” Hank put his arm around his wife, and she leaned against him. “That hasn't changed.”
    In a grand gesture, Hank pulled Millie to him and kissed her passionately before he leaned back to study her face.
    He saw, but didn't see, the lines, the way her face had changed into that of an older woman. The gray in her hair mattered so little. To his heart, Millie still looked eighteen years old, with a face as smooth as polished agate. After almost forty years, he could still picture her as he'd first seen her—standing behind the counter in a department store selling perfume.
    Millie looked over Hank's shoulder and tugged at his sleeve. “Look there. That child looks like . . .”
    Hank turned. He saw a figure pedaling a bicycle furiously toward them. The helmet with the hood pulled up didn't disguise the familiarity of the drenched features. “Faith Ann,” Hank finished.
    The child leaned the bike against the wall and ran into the restaurant across the street. Through the restaurant's window they could see that the child, who looked exactly like their niece, was talking to the hostess.
    “It's her,” Hank said. He opened the umbrella, and they stepped off the curb. Immediately, Millie cried out and Hank knew she'd wrenched her ankle. She insisted she could walk just fine. So, supporting his wife and holding up the umbrella against the downpour, Hank looked up and down the street to check traffic. Not seeing any headlights close enough to be a danger, he walked Millie toward the restaurant. “What in the world is that child doing out in this?”
    Faith Ann turned from the hostess and ran outside.
    Hank asked his wife, “Where's Kimberly?”
    “Faith Ann!” Millie called out.
    Faith Ann saw them coming and her face filled with emotion. She waved frantically. Hank couldn't tell whether she was laughing or crying.
    Halfway across the street, Hank heard an accelerating engine and tires on wet pavement as a car roared up the street behind him. There was no time to clear the thoroughfare, so he drew Millie close. Keeping himself between his wife and the onrushing monster, he formed the smallest possible obstacle and prayed the driver would go around them, since there was a world of room to do that.
    He saw the child's pale, wet face—her mouth opening to scream and her eyes locked on his. He shook