Class Reunions Are Murder Read online

  Since he’d been gone these six months, I’d lived on Pop-Tarts and cookie dough. What was the point in cooking for one? Now any cooking I did took place in the microwave.

  Take that, Georgina. Apparently, a pathetic, silent defiance was all I was capable of.

  As I put my hand on the refrigerator door I found myself stared in the face by Georgina’s event reminder, or as I called it, “The Summons.” Georgina expected me to attend a black-tie charity gala in two weeks in John’s honor. My mother-in-law firmly believed in hosting benefits for her cause of the month, as long as the press attended and she got lots of exposure in the news media. You know, “for the charity.” Since Georgina was under the impression that she owned me from the moment I said “I do,” I was required to be there in black taffeta and pearls, playing the “I’m-here-in-place-of-my-poor-dead-husband” card for extra media credit. Grief is good for donations. I was praying either for a house to fall on Georgina or the Rapture to take place. God’s choice.

  Really, I’m beyond pathetic. I could just say no.

  But I never did.

  Depressed and disgusted with myself, I got a glass of chocolate milk out of the fridge and added extra chocolate syrup to it. I still had enough dignity to not eat frosting for breakfast. But I did grab a bag of peanut butter cookies from the pantry (peanut butter is protein after all) and scuffed my way back to the living room.

  Ousting Figaro from my spot, I changed the channel to the BBC. Nigella was at the open refrigerator, wearing her bathrobe, eating an entire cake with her bare hands. How long before that’s me?

  Figaro fixed me with a penetrating gaze. That’s you since six months ago, Dumpling.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  The phone rang. I ignored it, hoping they would go away.

  “Call from . . . Montgomery . . . Sawyer.”

  Audible caller ID is a wonderful invention. So is an answering machine set to screen out friends who have a guilt trip planned. Over the speaker I heard:

  “Ohmygosh! Did you get it? Poppy, I know you’re there. You never leave the house. Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!”

  I was not answering, even for her. I didn’t want to talk. I knew what she wanted and there was no way I was going back to New Jersey for a high school reunion. I’d rather have my eyes poked out with fondue forks.

  “Poppy!!”

  I grabbed the phone. “Yeah, I got it but I’m not opening it because I don’t believe for a minute that she means well. There’s probably snake venom on the card.”

  Sawyer Montgomery had been my other best friend—Figaro read my thoughts and cocked one eyebrow—since she and I met halfway through the fifth grade. After my father died, my mother shuffled me off to live with Aunt Ginny, and checked herself into a nervous breakdown. Some sadist decided that my first day of school would be Valentine’s Day. I’d gotten one Valentine addressed to “Extra” and a bucket of self-pity. And thanks to my mother’s version of a Dorothy Hamill bowl cut, I looked like Moe from the Three Stooges. Everyone thought I was a boy. Sawyer and I became fast friends once I explained that I was indeed a girl and wearing a dress and not a plaid polyester kilt.

  “It’s gonna be a ton of fun seeing everyone again after all these years.”

  Sawyer was lighthearted, fun, and perky.

  I was not. Especially when sleep-deprived.

  “Yeah. I’m gonna be the ton, and everyone else is gonna have fun with that. Do you know how much I’ve put on—” I was going to say, “in six months” but went with “since high school?”

  “Connie and Kim got notes from Barbie too, almost a month to the day from when the official reunion announcements came out. What do you think it means?”

  I heaved a sigh and snatched the envelope off the table and tore into it. My eyes flew across the stationery resting ever so briefly on every other word, afraid that if I took it all in at once I would be choked from overexposure to evil.

  “I think it means she wants to pour a bucket of blood on us. Then burn down the gym—and dance on our corpses.”

  “Maybe she wants to apologize for making our lives miserable for six years.”

  “Sure. And maybe I’ll get a flying unicorn that eats rainbows and farts cupcakes.”

  Figaro gave me a wide-eyed look that said, Don’t you dare!

  “I was just trying to make my point.”

  Sawyer sounded confused. “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one. Listen, Barbie and Amber made it their mission in high school to bully and embarrass us every chance they got,” I went on, defending my position. “We don’t hear from them for twenty-five years, and all of a sudden Barbie sends each one of us an exclusive invitation requesting a secret meeting during the reunion. How stupid do you think I am?”

  “She says she has something important to tell us, but we all need to be there in person. I think we should at least hear her out. Aren’t you at all curious?”

  “Of course. Just not enough to be in the same room with that b—”

  Sawyer cut me off. “Come on, please. I don’t want to face them alone. If we all stick together we can show Barbie and Amber they can’t hurt us anymore. Now quit trying to squeak out of it.”

  Clearly, Sawyer had an agenda.

  “I’m not trying to squeak out of it.” Lie number one. “I just haven’t had time to sign up yet.” Lie number two. “I’m not sure I can break away right now for the trip up there.” Lie number three. I put down the chocolate-syrup-laden milk and picked up the remote to switch over to Alton Brown—Ooh, biscuits. Really, I was hoping Sawyer would forget about me and I could conveniently forget to show up.

  “Mm-hm.” Sawyer always had the irritating ability to see right through me. “Your schedule is that busy? Sitting on the couch watching Paula Deen in your pajamas while eating Ben & Jerry’s out of the carton has you completely booked?”

  See? Irritating.

  “First of all, I’m not eating ice cream. I’m eating cookies. Secondly, I’m not up for it. I’m exhausted. And I don’t think I’m ready to be around all those people right now.”

  Sawyer launched into a Condoleezza Rice–inspired monologue.

  “Now you listen to me, Poppy McAllister Browne. John would not want you glued to the couch and cooking shows. He wanted you to go out and live your life to the fullest and have adventures and meet people and have FUN! You know I can’t face those two by myself. After all they did to us, and especially not now since my divorce has been finalized. And Kurt will be there to parade some new sleaze around. We made a pinkie promise in the fifth grade that we’d always be there to back each other up, and I’ve kept my end of the bargain!”

  I was wishing I’d gotten the can of frosting after all. “How long did you practice that speech before calling me?”

  “’Bout half an hour. How’d I do?”

  “It was pretty good.”

  “Thank you. I like the part about the pinkie promise the best.”

  “That was a strong point.”

  “So . . . are you coming?”

  I sighed deeply. Sawyer had always been there for me. How could I abandon her now? Even if it was just a stupid high school reunion. “Fine. I’ll RSVP this afternoon.”

  “Oh, good! I signed you up an hour ago. We’re going to have so much fun!”

  I hung up the phone and looked at Figaro, who had fallen asleep and was doing a weird face-plant into the couch. I nudged him to make sure he was breathing, at which he croaked out a plaintive mew.

  Yes, everyone knew I was a sad pushover. Especially my best friends. Would I ever stop being this way?

  Figaro opened one eye. Only if you ever want a shred of self-worth back . . .

  How did I let this happen? I looked at the note on the coffee table again. I didn’t know what was worse: a weekend with Barbie and Amber, the Queens of Mean, or running interference between Sawyer and her lowlife ex-husband, Kurt.

  Kurt was a royal piece of work. Sawyer had married him
a few years out of college. It was love at first sight—for Sawyer. It was probably love at first sight for Kurt, too. It usually was. As soon as he saw Sawyer across the room at the Ugly Mug where he tended bar, he dumped the bimbo he was with and trotted right over to introduce himself as God’s gift to pretty girls everywhere. She fell for him as soon as his cheesy line was cast. Unfortunately, Kurt fell for lots of other women while he was married to my best friend.

  But then, Sawyer was an easy target. She’d never come to grips with how beautiful she was. At five-foot-ten, with chestnut hair and green eyes in a pretty little heart-shaped face floating above all those curves, she could have been a model. Oh, how I wish I had a body like hers, I thought, and took a bite of another cookie to console myself.

  “I’m going to do something I don’t want to do, to stand up for a friend. There, Figaro. That makes me worth something.”

  Even though he was asleep I knew what he was thinking: When are you going to learn to stand up for you?

  Again, with the back talk.

  “I guess we’re having a road trip, Fig. Seeing as how Sawyer isn’t letting us out of it. And it’s a great reason to finally go visit Aunt Ginny. We’re long overdue.”

  Figaro opened both eyes wide. If looks could eviscerate. . . He despised the cat carrier.

  “Don’t make me use the kitty tranquilizers. You know they give you a hangover. We’re going to have to face her sometime. It’s been years.”

  She’s your aunt. Why do we need to face her?

  “I need you there for moral support.”

  Figaro responded by licking his paw, wiping it on his ear, and ignoring me.

  Yep. Best friends forever.

  Chapter 2

  Friday afternoon dawned bright and early and my alarm clock let out a loud meow, letting me know that I had overslept and his belly was a quart low.

  I lay on the couch and tried to find something physically wrong with myself. Nothing serious enough to set off warning bells, but enough to justify canceling the trip. Is that my spleen? Maybe I’m sick with a spleen illness and shouldn’t travel. No, that seems too rare. What about subdermal hives? Nope, there’s Benadryl for that.

  What was wrong with me? Why did I agree to do things I knew I’d regret? Sure, I’ll pet sit your ferrets. Of course I have time to come water your twenty-seven plants every day while you go on a cruise. I would love to go to a class reunion with people I hate so I can be reminded that I didn’t amount to anything.

  Was I really going to do this? Leave my obscurity and my cans of frosting, and travel to the last place on earth I ever wanted to see again?

  CLASS REUNION.

  I sighed. Maybe I could come up with something that would get Sawyer off my case and me off the hook before it was too late.

  Fig and I had a busy day ahead of us. He needed to eat, sleep, eat, and sleep. And I needed to take stock of my wardrobe, cry for twenty minutes about having nothing to wear, then throw random pieces of outdated and too-tight clothing into a suitcase and rush out the door.

  Right now I had to deal with Aunt Ginny’s voice in my head. Never leave the house a mess. Great. My guilty conscience was doing impressions. I shuddered at what was to come when I finally faced the redheaded dynamo.

  I ran around the house tidying up for Aunt Ginny, who was apparently my own little Jiminy Cricket. I even made the bed I didn’t sleep in. At least I yanked the covers and comforter around while Sir Figaro lay there like a pooh-bah and body-surfed the commotion, generally being a nuisance without lifting a paw to help.

  Once that was done, I decided that something as daunting as packing to spend a weekend around people who last saw you twenty-five years younger and sixty pounds lighter shouldn’t be attempted without an extra-large shot of courage, so I headed into the kitchen to shotgun a burst of energy.

  C’mon, Poppy. What’s the best excuse for staying home you can think of . . . ? Ebola? Asian bird flu? Terminal acne?

  Figaro followed, darting about my ankles in some cat dance meant to tempt me into opening a can of something stinky.

  “Yer killin’ me, Smalls. Help me get out of this thing.”

  Figaro looked up, between lip smacks, at the refrigerator door.

  “You’re right, we could tell Georgina we’re going out of town and won’t be here to do all the grunt work for her charity event. She’ll pitch a fit big enough that we’ll never have to leave again. But then we’d just be stuck here with her.”

  Figaro gave me a sideways look that said he’d already invested more time in this discussion then he’d wanted, and he went back to choking down his minced fish parts.

  I needed some coffee to clear my head.

  I love the smell of coffee. Some days I wish I could just strap the coffee bag on and wear it like a doctor’s mask. I am straight up addicted to coffee. Well, not really coffee. What I’m addicted to is milk with a little espresso thrown in for color. Anything out of a Mr. Coffee—not so much. John bought me an exquisite Italian espresso machine to celebrate his making partner in the Stevenson, Greene and Gorman law firm. I chose powder pink to piss off my mother-in-law.

  I made, and then downed, a double cappuccino, then marched off to face the firing squad in my closet. I haven’t worn anything dressier than pajamas or yoga pants in weeks. Who did I have to impress? Jamie Oliver didn’t care what I was wearing; he started his career as the Naked Chef. That was a rather disappointing first episode.

  I pulled out the plain black dress I had bought just a few months ago. It was my funeral dress. Something in my gut nagged at me that this wasn’t a good idea. Wearing the same dress you buried your husband in to a lame-excuse-for-a-party surely carries a bad omen with it.

  I could tell Sawyer I was still in mourning and couldn’t go out in public!

  What are you—a character on Downton Abbey?

  Now I had Sawyer’s voice in my head. It was getting crowded up there. Fine. That wouldn’t work.

  I waved the dress in front of me. “What do you think, Fig?” Figaro had curled up inside the open suitcase to make sure the loose cat hair was packed. “It’s the nicest thing I have, so it will have to do. The last thing I want to do right now is go shopping.”

  Figaro yawned in agreement.

  I ushered him out of the bag and packed the weekend essentials for the both of us. Then I took a quick shower and dressed in some loose-fitting gray yoga pants and a green William & Mary T-shirt that had been John’s, towel-dried my hair, and put it up in an old scrunchie that had lost most of its scrunch. It sagged to the right and most of my hair drooped against my head. I looked like an escaped mental patient.

  I heard Aunt Ginny’s voice in my head again. Always strive to look your best. A lady takes pride in her appearance. I looked in the mirror. Great. I hoped Aunt Ginny didn’t organize another fashion intervention for me. Aunt Ginny means well, but she has all the subtlety of a marching band in a cemetery.

  As I puttered around doing the necessary chores to secure the house for the weekend, Figaro did his part by being underfoot and in the way until I pulled out the dreaded cat carrier.

  Sensing a disturbance in the force, Figaro conveniently vanished into thin air.

  Normally, all I had to do was utter the word treat and Fig was right there doing figure eights at my feet trying to put the Mesmer on me to give him a little crunchy fishy snack. Now all the shaking of treat cans and whirring of can openers in the world wouldn’t bring him out of his hiding spot. I knew he was sitting somewhere, smugly thinking he’d outsmarted me. I finally found him under the bed in the guest room, wedged in the corner, his eyes glowing at me in the dark like a deranged Ewok. “Would you please come out?!”

  That was it. I couldn’t leave the cat!

  You’re pathetic. You know that?

  My inner-Sawyer was getting impatient.

  Okay, no more rummaging for excuses. It was enough effort having to rummage for Figaro.

  “I want to get this weekend over with, g
et Sawyer off my back, and come back to my sofa and my therapist, Little Debbie. It’s bad enough we waited till the last minute. We don’t want to incur the wrath of Aunt Ginny by showing up in the middle of Jeopardy!”

  The Ewok just blinked at me.

  “Figaro, we’re going to miss the ferry.” I crammed myself under the bed, huffing and wheezing, and nabbed him around the middle, pulling him out with no small amount of growling and protesting. He didn’t like it much either. Once he was in his carrier he settled in and curled up like he’d wanted to be there all along and I was sweating and covered in dust balls.

  “You can be a little devil—you know that?” Two faux-innocent orange eyes blinked at me as I dragged my suitcase and the carrier out to my 1992 Toyota Corolla.

  I stood there and sulked. I couldn’t conjure up a good attitude about going, but I failed to come up with a viable enough excuse to stay home, so I told myself to get it over with and we hit the road.

  Relax. It’s just a reunion. What could go wrong?

  Chapter 3

  For the first forty minutes Figaro howled like a yeti. Then he moaned like his life was in danger. Then he hocked up a hairball and settled in for a nap. I found a coffee shop with a drive-through window and ordered a large raspberry mocha—for the caffeine—then spilled half of it in my lap when Figaro let out a death howl because he realized we’d started moving again. For the next two hours I had to drive with third-degree thigh burn, and I swear Figaro smiled at me when I glared at him in the rearview mirror.

  When we were safely on the ferry, I decided I needed to get my mind away from the impending face-off with Aunt Ginny and settle my super-caffeinated nerves, so I took the cat carrier and went up on deck for some fresh air. Angry red-glowing eyes peered at me from its dark interior.

  I suppose I was looking for an omen as much as escape from my dark foreboding, a sign that despite my misgivings about this trip everything was going to go smoothly and I’d be back home in pork-rind heaven before I knew it.

  Figaro was curled up in his crate watching the activity until the tourist sitting next to us thought it would be fun to feed a french fry to the lone seagull flying beside the boat. Rookie mistake.