Randall watched as the three friends walked single file laughing towards the door marked 'GIRLS'. As soon as they disappeared together into the restroom, he heard his name being called from the snack bar area.
'Randall! Randall!' came the voices of man and woman. The Christmas songs the ancient woman playing on the Wurlitzer organ almost drowning-out them out.
Randall spotted the waving hands and approached cautiously. As he got closer, he saw that they were Bill and Jill, members of the church he used to belong to.
When he first met Bill and Jill, he assumed they were brother and sister instead of husband and wife. They looked eerily alike. The same stature, the same shade of blonde hair, the same blue eyes, the same button nose, the same facial bone structure. The same toothy smiles.
In his high school library, Randall had once paged through an over-sized book of Nazi propaganda posters and he thought Bill and Jill would have made great models.
Bill stood up from his chair at the table as Randall approached and extended his hand.
'It's great to see you again, Randall!' said Bill after their hearty handshake. 'Sit down!'
'Great to see you again, too,' lied Randall, pulling up a chair. He nodded toward Jill, who gave him a brilliant, billion-watt smile. They were wearing identical gray slacks but different Christmas-themed sweaters.
'We got back from our mission in Rhodesia last month-' began Bill.
'-Spreading the word of God to the heathens!' interrupted Jill.
'That's right!' said Bill. 'Bringing the heathen savages to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Anyway, we went back to church and not only weren't you there anymore, your fiancee, Elena was engaged to another man!'
That was news to Randall. 'Elena is engaged?' he asked. 'To who?'
'Some guy new to the church, named Roger,' said Jill, happy to inform Randall of his ex-fiancee's betrayel.
'Huh,' said Randall, not knowing what to make of this. 'Never heard of him.'
'We were at your engagement party and flew to Rhodesia the next day' said Jill. 'It was a real surprise to come back and see Elena engaged to another man!'
Randall saw Cindy scanning the sparse crowd for him. He stood up and waved to her. She made her way to their table. She looked curiously at the Aryan-looking couple her admirer was sitting with.
Randall made introductions and mentioned that Bill and Jill were missionaries just back from Africa.
Jill turned on her billion-watt smile. 'It's good to be back in time to celebrate Our Lord Savior's birthday!'
Cindy retaliated with her own high-beam smile. 'Don't I know you from somewhere, Bill?' she asked.
'I worked with your ex-husband, Dickie Sr, down at the lumberyard while you two were getting divorced,' said Bill a little too casually.
'Oh, yeah,' said Cindy, frowning.
'So what brings you out rollerskating tonight?' asked Randall, desperate to change the subject.
'Well,' said Bill. 'We parked the kids at Grandma's, and our original plans were to meet-up with some friends at the Radisson Duluth, but we decided to go out closer to home and have some fun at the roller rink. Want to bowl a frame or two later?'
'It'll be fun!' said Jill, trying to give Randall a surreptitious wink that Cindy totally caught and Randall didn't.
Cindy grabbed Randall's elbow. 'Let's go rent some roller skates, okay Randall?!' she pulled him roughly out of his grimy plastic chair.
'See you guys out on the rink!' Randall yelled back while Cindy dragged him towards the rental counter.