Class Reunions Are Murder Read online

  I was trying not to stare. No, that’s not true. I was trying not to gawk like a slack-jawed yokel.

  “Just a cappuccino, please.”

  “Solo or doppio?” he asked, flashing a smile that was all pure-white teeth. Darn it.

  “Mmm-hmm. Oh uh, doppio. Please.” I gotta get out of here before I make a total fool of myself.

  “Are you on vacation?” He expertly tamped down the grinds in the portafilter and poured the shot into a warmed cappuccino cup.

  “Sort of. Just visiting some high school friends.” I was not going to mention I was here for a reunion for fear that he would ask which year. And oh my God, had I brushed my hair before I left the house? My eyes rolled up to the mirror behind the bar to assess the damage. I looked like I had rumbled in on a Harley. Or possibly under one.

  The brief moment of attraction brought the image of the size on the dress tag flashing before my eyes, and I was ashamed all over again. Tears filled my eyes, and I tried to blink them away before he noticed.

  He poured the foamed milk into the espresso with his strong olive-toned hands, jiggled the cup until a heart formed, and handed it to me. His smile vanished when he saw a fat tear roll down my cheek.

  “What’s the matter, bella? Why are you crying?”

  “It’s . . . nothing.” I tried to laugh it away. “Just a little post-traumatic shopping disorder.”

  He saw the shopping bag in my hand and smiled warmly. “What did you buy?”

  “The most horrifying dress in the world.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” he sympathized.

  “It’s a war crime in a bag. I’ll look horrible.”

  “I don’t believe that you could ever look horrible. Let me see.”

  I felt myself blush at his compliment and before common sense could smack me in the head I pulled out the dress and showed him.

  “That is . . . No, you are right that is horrible.” He laughed. “But you will be beautiful anyway.”

  Gulp. What is happening right now?

  “Besides, the sexiest thing a woman can wear is confidence.”

  That’s it, I’m not going. “Thank you. You’re very kind.” I smiled weakly and put the dress back in the bag.

  “I am Giampaolo.” He put out his hand for me to shake. “But you can call me Gia.”

  “Poppy. Nice to see you. I mean to meet you.” Oh, Lord, why am I so nervous? He’s just being friendly. His hand is so strong and warm. Why am I still holding it? I quickly let go.

  “You will wear your beautiful smile and have a wonderful time at your party tonight. Tomorrow you come back and tell me everything.”

  I started to giggle and cleared my throat. “Thank you,” I said meekly, and started to pay him.

  He refused the money. “No. This one is for luck.” He winked and smiled that honey smile again and my heart flipped over. I felt like a fool.

  On my way back to the car I only stopped for one fudge sample—okay, it was four, but they were really tiny and it had been an unsettling day. It was only out of politeness that I felt compelled to buy a pound of fudge. I mean you can’t just have four samples and not buy anything. That would be rude. It was for Aunt Ginny anyway. She loved fudge.

  * * *

  Two hours and a half pound of fudge later I had showered and conditioned then blown my hair smooth and wound it up into a neat chignon at the base of my neck. I secured it with a Swarovski crystal hair clip that John had bought me a couple of Christmases past.

  I poured myself into the canary yellow satin bustier, attached the matching toile crinoline, and pulled on the Mary Kay–pink ruffled skirt. Opening one eye I glanced at the full-length mirror to assess the damage. I looked like a giant pink-and-yellow wedding cake disaster. Desperate, I fluffed the yellow-ostrich-feather puffed sleeves as if that would somehow help me look less like a deranged chicken. It didn’t. I decided to forgo the belt and save it for Halloween. Didn’t want to be too flashy. I sighed deeply and applied some pink lip gloss, as if that would magically tie the whole outfit together. “What do you think, Fig?”

  Figaro gave me a yawn of support and swatted at a feather fragment floating to the floor. “It’s the best I could do with what I have.”

  I sensed that Figaro was underwhelmed. You and me both, buddy.

  I checked the time on my phone and noticed I had a text from Georgina reminding me that her gala was coming up and I still had time to lose ten pounds. How nice.

  The doorbell rang, signaling that Sawyer had arrived to pick me up. My stomach lurched, and I considered locking myself in the bathroom. On the list of things I never wanted to do in my life, going to my high school reunion fat, frumpy, and a failure was number two. Number one was running into my ex-fiancé whom I hadn’t seen face-to-face since I told him I’d be faithful to him in college. Tonight I was about to do both. In ostrich feathers.

  “Poppy,” Aunt Ginny called me from the bottom of the steps. “Sawyer is here.”

  Deep breath. Just get it over with. Do it for Sawyer. I grabbed the silver clutch I used for formal occasions that held just the necessities, and descended the stairs. Sawyer was drop-dead gorgeous in a flirty little red cocktail dress. The form-fitting bodice showed off her tiny waist and perfect little curves, and the flouncy taffeta skirt made her legs look a mile long. Her chestnut hair was long and flowing and so shiny that I immediately regretted the fudge decision.

  “What the . . .” Aunt Ginny stared dumbstruck at the sight of all my feathery glory.

  “Oh, Poppy, wow! Look at that dress.” Sawyer smiled up at me like I was Cinderella at the ball instead of runner-up for Miss Roadkill.

  “Yes, just look at it,” Aunt Ginny muttered to herself.

  “Aw, this old thing? I made it outta the curtains this afta-noon.”

  Sawyer giggled. “Why, Miss Scarlett, I do declare.”

  “Your dress is fantastic,” I told Sawyer. “Kurt’s going to eat his heart out.”

  “I sure hope he does.” She smoothed her shaky hands over her flat stomach. “I really want him to see what he’s missing.”

  “I’m sure he knows that, dear,” Aunt Ginny said, giving Sawyer a sympathetic smile. “You girls will be the belles of the ball.” Then added under her breath, “Or the talk of the town.” She gave another look at my dress and shuddered. “I need a drink.”

  We both hugged Aunt Ginny good-bye and I told her, “I’m sure it will be terribly boring and I’ll be back early. I hope Figaro behaves.” Of course, that would be a first.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got my flyswatter if he acts up.” Aunt Ginny made a fist at Figaro, who promptly flopped over on his side with a thud.

  Chapter 7

  The air hung thick like a wet wool blanket and the windows on the Corolla had a salty sticky coating so that I had to run the wipers over them before we could get going. The wind was picking up and dark clouds were beginning to form as Hurricane Mavis was making her way up the coast from North Carolina.

  “Whoo, it’s windy! I hope I used enough hair spray tonight.” Sawyer ducked into the passenger seat and quickly shut the door. “Remember when we used to tease our hair up into a pouf and shellac it with Freeze ’n Shine?”

  I checked my hair in the rearview mirror and saw it was already starting to frizz. “Oh yeah. I was six inches taller in the eighties.”

  “Blue eye shadow and purple lipstick. Those were the days.” We reminisced all the way to the high school, both of us trying to tamp down our growing anxiety.

  They say when you revisit your childhood, everything looks much smaller than you remember it. That was not my experience when I walked into the main doors by the office and what used to be the auditorium of Caper High. The school had doubled in size since I had been there, as had I.

  Someone I didn’t recognize, sporting a yoga body and poured into a size-negative wrap dress, breezed past with a relaxed air of confidence.

  My feathers fluttered. I considered throwing up but decided against i
t in case I decided to return those shoes and didn’t want to chance any splattering.

  The halls were decked out with posters and streamers welcoming the class of 1989 and the smell of floor varnish hung in the air welcoming students back from a long summer of lying on the beach forgetting everything they had learned.

  There was a mural of the Caper Tiger mascot in the main foyer by the office and a long wooden table covered with peel-and-stick labels filled out with the names of everyone who had registered for the event. I noticed the “Barbie Pomeroy—Prom Queen” badge was still unclaimed.

  Special program cards welcomed us to the reunion and listed several events scheduled in the east wing of A hallway.

  The large gymnasium was set up for “cocktails and dancing.” A disco ball had been hung from the ceiling and a DJ was blaring Van Halen’s “Jump” over the loudspeakers. The smell of basketball leather and sweat clung to everything. A makeshift stage took up the far side wall and the cash bar in the corner was in full swing. Not the first time liquor had been brought into this room and not the last, I’m sure.

  “It looks like Missy tried to re-create Prom Night,” Sawyer said as she deftly applied her name badge to her dress while I tried to get my stick-on “Poppy McAllister” to lie flat on my rather ample chest without catching the feathers.

  “Well, then a lot of people will get smashed and a couple will be pregnant before the night is over.”

  Sawyer scanned the gym trying to spot Kurt while trying her best to look like she was not trying to spot Kurt. “I’ll go get us some drinks.”

  While she headed to the bar, I tried to disappear into the balloon arch when Carl Ostenheimer stumbled into me. “Hey,” he slurred. “I know you. You were in my Ocean Ecology class fifth period.”

  “No. I wasn’t Carl.”

  “Yesh, you were. You were blond then.”

  “Nope. Not me.”

  “Yesh, it wassh you. You sat in front of me and smelled like peaches.” He took a clumsy swig of whatever concoction he was drinking and dribbled some of it unattractively onto his clip-on tie.

  “Again, Carl, not me.”

  “Sshure it was you. I remember.”

  People were starting to stare. “You’re mistaken, Carl. You got the wrong girl.” I tried to slip away, but he grabbed me by my elbow.

  “How’re you so sshure?”

  I removed his hand from my arm, looked him straight in his bloodshot eyes, and said, “Because I have never been blond, I have never taken ocean ecology, and we were in homeroom together.”

  He stared at me in confusion, then looked past me and stumbled off pointing a crooked finger at Bernadette Rogers, saying, “Heyy! I know you!”

  Sawyer showed up with two ginger ales. “What did Creepy Carl want?”

  “Someone to annoy.” I sipped my drink and looked around the roomful of strangers staring back at me in all my resplendent glory. I should have brought a yearbook so Sawyer and I could match up the befores and afters.

  A pretty brunette with a purple streak in her hair approached us wearing a tight little red dress and four-inch leopard heels.

  “Hey, girls.”

  I didn’t have a clue who she was but Sawyer recognized her instantly. “Hi, Maryellen. You remember Poppy McAllister, don’t you?”

  Maryellen squinted at me and gave an unconvincing “sure I do.” Then she followed up with, “Do you want to see some pictures of my grandkids?”

  I blinked. Sawyer recovered faster.

  “Ah . . . sure we do.”

  Maryellen showed us several shots of fat grandbabies on her cell phone before she saw someone she liked better and headed over to talk with them.

  I gave Sawyer a pitiful look. “Now I feel really old.”

  “I know. I don’t even have kids yet and she has grandkids.”

  “Yeah, but she started that brood her senior year of high school.”

  “True. Did you see Pete Ferguson?” Sawyer pointed to the former football wide receiver. “Fat and bald. Manages an auto parts shop now.”

  I was feeling better now, knowing I wasn’t the biggest loser in the room. No one else had on a Big Bird suit, but they were below average in their own way.

  “Oh, wow. So that’s what a high school quarterback looks like in his forties.”

  “And over there.” I followed her gaze to a very tan, very buxom blonde wrapped in a tight leopard-print halter dress. Her wrists dripping with gold bangle bracelets. “That’s Mrs. Wilcott from second period History.”

  “What! No way. Mrs. Wilcott who’s married to Coach Wilcott, the gym teacher?” I looked closer. The older woman had obviously had some work done, but this transformation would take a magic wand. “She looks twenty years younger today than she did twenty-five years ago. Mrs. Wilcott had mousy brown hair, glasses, and a lot less on top and a lot more down low.”

  I giggled. Okay, it was more a snort than a giggle. Maybe this was going to be fun after all.

  “Uh-huh.” Sawyer held up one hand and counted off, “Face lift, extensions, contacts, boob job, Zumba and um, Enrique Rojas the new Spanish teacher.”

  We both turned to see Coach Wilcott, the bald PE teacher and basketball coach with the beer belly standing in the corner with a plate piled high from the buffet in the cafeteria. He was dressed in gray sweats and sneakers with a whistle hanging around his neck. We looked back at the former Mrs. Wilcott and the gorgeous Latin man who looked more like a flamenco dance instructor than a high school Spanish teacher, then at each other and in unison said, “Enrique.”

  I spotted a very familiar-looking woman sitting at the bar in a slinky white satin sleeve of a dress. “I’m sure I know her but I can’t recall her name.”

  Sawyer followed my gaze. “She looks just like that guy Kim dated.” Then Sawyer called over to her. “Hi. By any chance are you Bruce Cole’s sister?”

  The woman put her drink down and replied in a husky voice, “No, I’m Bruce Cole.”

  Sawyer sucked in her breath, then hiccupped. “Oh-kay. Well, have fun tonight.” We tried to control our giggles as we moved to the other side of the room.

  I pointed to a well-dressed, handsome man with a beautiful blonde on his arm. “Who is that?”

  “You won’t believe me.” Sawyer’s eyes had a mischievous gleam.

  “Who?”

  We both turned to look as she whispered, “Jeffrey Rosenblatt.”

  “What?” I looked closer at the confident, successful man again. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “From AV Club Treasurer to owner of a multimillion-dollar tech firm in New England.”

  “Good for him.” Jeffrey had spent as much time stuffed in his locker by the jocks as he did in class, so to see him so successful made me happy.

  A voice like fingernails on a blackboard came from behind us. “Well, who do we have here? The lesbos have arrived.” I felt a shiver of revulsion run up the back of my neck as a familiar taunting voice cackled with cheap beer and condescension.

  Sawyer visibly tensed and turned pale as we both recognized the sneering unpleasantness of Joanne Junk, the prime toady of the Terrible Two. Sawyer and I secretly started calling Joanne Buffalo Gal after watching It’s a Wonderful Life during Christmas break at Sawyer’s dad’s house our sophomore year. It just seemed to fit.

  “And what the heck are you wearing, McAllister?”

  We turned to look at the butch, former field hockey captain in her blue-jean pantsuit and were surprised to see Legally Blonde, Miss Amber Fenton herself, standing next to her.

  “Cut it out, Joanne. That’s juvenile.” Amber took a sip of her Diet Coke and wouldn’t look me or Sawyer in the eye. Amber hadn’t changed since high school. Still tiny. Still blond. Still gorgeous. Dressed tonight in a beautiful one-shoulder sea foam green minidress and silver sandals to show off her perfect little tan legs.

  “Oh, relax,” Joanne sneered. “I’m just helping them come out of the closet.”

  All th
rough high school, Joanne thought it was hilarious to pass around that Sawyer and I were lesbians. It never made any sense since I had a boyfriend and Sawyer had a few attempts at a boyfriend, but people still laughed so she kept at it. No originality, this one.

  I held my ground for Sawyer’s sake. This was why I was here, after all. To back her up from the Queens of Mean, Amber Fenton and Barbie Pomeroy and their whole posse of little mean girls.

  “You’ve had twenty-five years to come up with something original. Is that the best you can do?”

  I heard a snort of appreciation from Sawyer behind me. Amber sighed as if she was already bored and had more fabulous things to do with her time.

  “You got fat!” Joanne turned her piggy little eyes on me with the only attack she could come up with.

  A typical schoolyard maneuver—playing the fat card.

  “Or should I say fatter?”

  Sawyer pushed past me and poked Joanne in the chest. “What is your problem, Joanne? Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

  Why is it that bullies don’t seem to understand hypocrisy? Joanne easily outweighed me by forty pounds and always had. I was pudgy as a teenager. She was pudgier. It didn’t stop her from calling me Fatty. And it didn’t stop me from being ashamed about it.

  Sawyer went on, “Poppy is as beautiful inside and out as you are ugly through and through.”

  “Now, see”—Joanne shifted her weight and took a slug of her beer—“that’s why I know you two are lesbians. It’s stuff like that.”

  At this point Amber said, “This is lame. I’m not doing this now, Jo.” She turned and walked away into the crowd of middle-aged soccer moms dancing to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

  All the confidence I’d been gaining by seeing I was not the only one past their freshness date in the room took control. “How sad.”

  “What?” Joanne sneered.

  “You. You’re a big sack of pathetic. After all these years you still have to be nasty to feel good about yourself.”

  Joanne made a face like someone was holding a dead fish under her nose and with lack of a clever comeback trotted off in search of her queen. “Amber, wait up.”