A Deadly Reunion (2 page)

My lips pulled down naturally as I teetered
there on my tiptoes, trying to get as close to the open window as I
could without daring to make a sound.

Just as I got the brash idea to close the
toilet seat and stand up on the toilet itself, the voice abruptly
stopped, and I heard quick and heavy footfall leading away from the
window.

I waited there anxiously until it was gone
completely.

Then I scrunched up my lips, plucked up my
tweezers, and went back to what I was doing.

Because it had just been a voice, right?
Likely someone having an argument on their phone, or a member of
the motel staff venting where they thought no one could hear them –
or something equally as innocent and trivial.

Despite my enthusiasm to discount it, I
found my mind going back to that strange incident as I dressed,
finished a modest breakfast, and made my way outside to my waiting
car.

I even paused with my hand on the door
before I clambered inside. I stared up at the motel, then behind it
to the pitching gray sky beyond. There were clouds sweeping in off
the mountains, all shades of navy blue and messy white. No doubt
rain was on the way, or snow or hail or the storm of the
millennium, knowing Wetlake City. Yet even the promise of inclement
weather wasn’t enough to stop me from gently closing my door and
heading off around the car park towards the back of my motel
room.

Curiosity got the better of me.

Though the voice had been quick, mumbled,
and decidedly angry, here and there I’d been able to pick up the
occasional word.

Coming.

That’s it.

I didn’t know if something was coming or
someone was going to get what was coming to them, or if I’d even
heard right in the first place.

Wrapping my red-and-gold cashmere shawl
around my shoulders to stave off the wind, I made my way onto the
grass that surrounded the motel buildings. Placing a hand on the
brick wall nearest me, as I navigated through an uneven section of
terrain, I couldn’t deny my heart skipped a beat.

I had no idea what I would find back
there.

While my rational mind told me it would be
nothing, my imagination fancied there could be anything from a
moody woodsman to a disgruntled staff member defiling the walls
with threats to their boss.

I was lucky my heels weren’t too high, as I
quickly found that the staff didn’t maintain the upkeep the lawn
past the front gate. The grass was up around my ankles, and it
concealed holes and rocks and quite possibly centuries of used beer
cans.

As a frightfully chilly wind came racing in
off the pine trees at the back of the motel grounds, I shuddered
and pulled my shawl all the way around my shoulders.

Then I reached it. The back of my motel
room. I’d had to count the half-open bathroom windows to ensure I
was in the right position.

Now I took a step in, placing a hand flat on
the wall as I surveyed it carefully.

I really didn’t know what I was looking for.
There certainly weren’t any people, and neither was there a handy
transcript of the mumbled, one-sided conversation I’d heard
before.

For heaven’s sake, what was I doing?

Chiding myself and rolling my eyes, I took
one last, flickering look at the wall and grass around it, and then
turned sharply on my heel to walk off.

I stopped.

I frowned.

I leaned down, pushed the long, lush grass
back, and plucked up a pin with a bright blue top.

It looked new. How new, I couldn’t tell, but
it certainly wasn’t covered in dirt, weathered, or rusted.

Pushing my pursed lips into my teeth, I
stared at it for a moment, then casually tossed it over my shoulder
and went to head back to my car.

“Are you littering?”

I jumped about a mile, my heart practically
popping in my chest.

“Jesus Christ,” I spat, turning to see a man
making his way along the back of the building towards me.

It wasn’t management, and neither was it a
lost and angry woodsman.

It was Denver freaking Scott.

I could have stood there for a full minute
with my mouth open, reminiscing over how much of a crush I’d had
over that guy in high school.

Instead I pulled myself together and
straightened my shawl.

“No.” I gave him a stern look. “I found the
pin on the ground, and I returned it to the ground.”

“And what exactly are you doing around
here?” he was dressed in the exact same suit he’d worn yesterday
when I’d surreptitiously stared at him from my car. Except in the
daylight the effect was slightly different; the greys and blacks of
the wool served to darken his stubble and accentuate the dusty,
dark look to his eyes, making him appear all the more rugged.

Before I could swoon as my teenage dreams
overcame me, I simply arched an eyebrow.

I was no longer in high school.

Patti Smith was a completely different girl
to the one Wetlake High had once known. I wasn’t flighty, I wasn’t
pathetic, and god knows I knew my rights.

“Well, stranger,” I said, emphasizing the s
like a hiss, “if you must know, I overheard someone talking angrily
outside my motel room. And I thought I’d come and have a look.”

I told the truth; I had no reason not to.
Well, kind of the truth – Denver Scott was no stranger to me. But I
didn’t want to introduce myself as Patti Smith, the supremely
awkward girl from his English class, until the party. I didn’t want
him to know I’d recognized him. I certainly didn’t want him to know
that I had his likeness sketched crudely into a pencil case for
reference.

Denver paused. As he did, his lips thinned
out, and one side tugged down in a half frown. “What kind of an
argument?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t really hear. I guess
they were on their phone or something, and thought the back of the
motel was a private place for a rant.” I shrugged my shoulders, but
I was sure to keep one eyebrow raised the entire time. “Now, if
you’re done here, you can either introduce yourself, or maybe I
should get out of your way so you can continue to stake out the
back of the motel, looking for strangers to relentlessly question.”
I flashed him a hard smile.

It was a strange smile too, but purposefully
so. It was neither totally sarcastic, nor entirely friendly. It was
somewhere in between. It was a move designed to get someone’s
attention and to keep it.

It worked. Denver stared at me, his eyebrows
crumpling. “Do I know you? Are you here for the reunion?”

I waited for a few seconds, then shrugged.
“Yes you do, and yes I am. But as I said—”

Before I could try to insult the guy again,
his eyebrows just crumpled further. Then he clicked his fingers as
a spark of recognition lit up his eyes. “You’re Nancy, right? Have
you dyed your hair?”

I snorted. Big time. And I didn’t care that
it was a seriously unattractive noise.

Nancy was an ice-blonde. She was a good few
feet taller than me. She had legs that went on forever and a laugh
that could shatter glass.

Denver had also dated her for several months
during our senior year, before she’d unceremoniously moved on to
his brother.

“No,” I let my lips form slowly around the
word. I had no idea whether Denver was taking the piss or whether
all that high school football had resulted in lasting brain
damage.

“Stacy then?” he tried again.

Stacy was a bombshell. She was also
brunette, like me. That was the only similarity we shared, however.
She’d been one of the most popular girls in all of high school, and
had only played second fiddle to Nancy herself.

I wasn’t sure if I should be dumbfounded or
flattered. Was Denver playing with me, or did he really have such a
shoddy memory for detail?

“Wrong again?” he questioned when I didn’t
slap my hands together and compliment his detective skills in the
strong southern drawl Stacy was famous for.

I nodded, fixing my shawl as another wind
came in off the pine trees.

“Then you’re going to have to help me out
here. I swear you look familiar – I just can’t place you.”

I wanted to string this out; I wanted Denver
to go through every girl in high school until he realized I was
Patti, but I didn’t have the time. Plus, it was freezing out
here.

“Patti Smith,” I said with completely no
fanfare. Then I passed him and proceeded to make my way back along
the wall.

He turned, expression crumpling. Then I saw
it: just a dance of humor lifting up his cheeks. “You mean the girl
who lost her pants at the football game?”

Though I was walking past him, I stopped. I
turned sharply. I set my hands on my hips, and I unashamedly looked
Denver Scott up and down. I wanted him to see I was appraising
him.

“Yes,” I answered, my voice strong and
without a hint of embarrassment, “I showed all of our senior class
my polka-dot underpants. I did other things in high school, but
let’s face it, that was most certainly my finest moment.”

I gave no hint that I felt ashamed.

Because I didn’t.

I recounted that story to my friends, not to
therapists. I certainly didn’t wake up in the middle of the night
from dreams of going to school without any pants on.

I’d moved on.

Now I was going to move on again. Turning
from him, I gave a short wave over my shoulder. “If you’re done
questioning me, stranger, I’m cold and I’m going back to my
car.”

“Denver, I’m Denver Scott.”

“I know that,” I answered simply as I
finally made it back around the side of the motel.

I headed to my car purposefully.

I half expected him to follow me. He didn’t.
Instead he stayed around the back of the motel building. Perhaps he
was being a good citizen and picking up my blue pin to throw in the
bin.

I didn’t dwell on it, and neither did I look
back. Instead I got in my car, turned up the heating, and headed
into town. I had a couple of things to do before the reunion.

As I went to the drug store, grocers, and
had a cup of tea at a little café with a fine view of the
mountains, I thought about the past. I reminisced about high
school, Denver, Nancy, Stacy, even that disastrous football
game.

From the flash of Nancy I had seen last
night, I could tell she hadn’t changed. Her high heels had gotten
higher, and I fancied she had more than a few conquests under her
fake designer belt to add to the Scott brothers, but she would
still be the same.

As for Wetlake itself, my short walk around
town had confirmed it hadn’t changed a bit. There were still the
same old stores, same old buildings, and same old weather. Even the
fashion and the cars looked the same. This place was stuck in a
time bubble, like a fragment of history that would never give way
to the present.

Apparently some things never changed.

Some things did.

Me. I was now completely different.

No longer small and insignificant, I’d made
a life for myself. The people and embarrassments that had tormented
my teenage years were now nothing but memories.

It was in this reminiscent mood that I
arrived at the reunion.

If I’d been searching the town and my old
classmates for any sign of change, I would soon realize I’d been
looking in the wrong place.

In the space of the next few hours, my life
would change. Abruptly, violently, and rather horribly.

I pulled up to my old high school with a
knot in my stomach. It wasn’t nerves, it wasn’t excitement, and it
wasn’t hunger.

It was an old feeling. A faint memory from
my teenage years.

I’d hated this place.

I’d really hated it. Every hour spent in the
yard, every minute spent in class. I’d barely had a single friend,
but I’d had my fair share of tormentors.

Now I was back. Voluntarily.

Undoing my seatbelt slowly, I took the time
to force a slow and careful breath.

Then I immediately got out of the car.

This memory and this feeling were old.

I’d since replaced them with experiences
richer and more rewarding.

To prove that to myself, I confidently
grabbed up my purse, closed the door, locked the car, and walked
across the car park.

I didn’t flinch as I glanced up at the
school, looking everything but glorious with its “70s brick
cladding and brown roof tiles.

Other people had already arrived, and I
joined a steady stream of thirty-year-olds as we headed for the
lawn.

Everyone was staring around at everyone
else, pointing out people they knew, hiccupping with laughter,
mumbling, and generally looking entirely awkward.

I hadn’t said a word yet; I was too busy
watching. With wide sweeps of my gaze, I tried to pick up
everything. From the look of the yard, to the dresses, to the
suits, to the slate-gray sky above.

We all made our way out towards the lawn. It
was impossible to miss where the reunion was being held, because
there were that many balloons, streamers, and posters that it would
take a team of fifty a week to pick all the glitter and sparkle out
of the grass.

There were several long tables set out on
the lawn, covered in white linen tablecloths that were flapping
gently in the breeze. Set on top were name cards, old photos from
our senior year, piles of the yearbooks, and cheap Wetlake High
School memorabilia.

Presumably we were meant to wander up to the
tables, introduce ourselves, grab our nametags, and then
mingle.

In fact, there was a tall, very smiley woman
standing behind the tables waving people over. She was in a
bright-pink dress with a set of heels to match and lipstick the
color of red candy.

She was beyond cheery. She’d tipped right
over into mania.

I recognized her at once. Annabelle. She’d
been the one to organize the reunion, and that did not surprise me
in the least. She’d probably been planning this thing since we’d
all left high school, and was likely already organizing our next
one. She was the kind of woman who scrapbooked everything: every
photo, every ticket to a concert, every letter from a friend.
During high school, she’d been on every single committee and had
joined every single club. She gave a new meaning to the term
sociable.