Dying to Remember

by Judy Fitzwater

  “I’m going, remember? You don’t have to sell me on it anymore. But if you don’t stop calling me, I’m going to miss the whole reunion because you won’t let me get ready. Understand?”

  “Want to hear mine?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then. Be like that. See you at 6:45.”

  Jennifer dropped the receiver back into its cradle and wondered exactly why Leigh Ann was so nervous about the reunion, and why she was allowing that nervousness to creep across the phone lines. All her talk of dresses, hair, and horoscopes stirred up more memories of another night so many years ago that had started out a little too perfect to be true.

  She shook her head. She didn’t have time to think about anything now. She was running way too late, and too much thought threatened her promise to go. She grabbed her dress up off the bed and had no more gotten herself tangled in the blue jersey searching for an armhole, when the phone rang yet again. She snatched it up with the hand that had successfully found its way through the sleeve.

  “This is getting really old, Leigh Ann,” she sputtered.

  “You all right?” It was Sam.

  “Hold on for two seconds.” She let the phone drop onto the bed, slipped her other arm into the sleeve, and pulled the zipper up in back. She was dressed, at least technically.

  “Okay, I’m back.”

  “I thought I’d make that offer one more time. Want me to come to the reunion with you?”

  It was tempting, but the dangers were too great. If she began to slip back into her awkward, emotionally vulnerable, nerdish, teenage state, she certainly didn’t need witnesses, especially not one she cared about as much as Sam.

  “No. I’ll be fine. But tell you what, I don’t expect to stay too long. Could we get together later, maybe for some coffee?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  She said goodbye, hung up the phone, sat down on the side of the bed, and tapped her index finger against her bottom lip. Thoughts she had tried to avoid for years were crowding her mind, thoughts that were even more unsettling than her memories of Danny and Sheena. She didn’t want to go to the reunion because she didn’t want to be reminded of Jimmy Mitchell.

  He had been younger than her—a sixteen-year-old sophomore—fairly quiet and pretty nondescript, with a way of popping up when he was least expected. She would never have given him a second thought, not then, not now, if, on the night of her senior prom, he hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Chapter 4

  “Nice,” Leigh Ann commented, nodding at the navy-blue-and-silver balloons tied to paper-covered tables, folding chairs, and every available post in the gym. More balloons formed an arch atop a portable stage that had been added to one end of the room. Above the arch, dark blue netting sporting large silver stars cascaded from the rafters. The words A NIGHT TO REMEMBER hung as though suspended in space above it all.

  “Wasn’t that the title of that old movie about the Titanic?” Jennifer asked.

  “No, silly. That was the theme for my senior prom, ten years ago. I’d forgotten. It’s kind of neat, don’t you think?”

  “I thought this reunion was for all classes.”

  “It is. But my class is special.”

  “What about the people celebrating their twentieth and thirtieth reunions?”

  “They’re special, too, but they weren’t on the planning committee. By the way,” Leigh Ann added, “I’m glad you went with the blue, even if it does kind of get lost with the decorations.” She nodded toward Jennifer’s dress, immediately making Jennifer wish she’d opted for blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

  The gym was already full of people, people Jennifer could swear she’d never seen before. Could Leigh Ann have gotten the date wrong? Probably not, what with her prom recreated right before their eyes. But all these people looked, well, old.

  A big WELCOME sign hung from the bleachers at the other end of the room over a long refreshment table sporting a huge decorated cake welcoming the special guests, the tenth-year class. A faded strawberry blonde with an orchid corsage pinned to the lapel of her lavender suit was ladling out punch along with cake and big dimpled smiles. She looked so stable, so mature, so, ohmygosh... She looked like a younger version of Flo Steiner’s mother.

  The woman caught Jennifer’s eye, dropped her ladle, and came straight for her with outstretched arms, leaving the guests lined up for refreshments to fend for themselves. She pulled Jennifer into a bear hug, squishing her orchid.

  “I can’t believe it! It’s Jennifer Marsh!” The woman let loose, then grabbed both Jennifer’s hands and bounced up and down, most peculiar in what appeared to be a mature adult. “Where the heck have you been? I don’t think I’ve seen you since—”

  “The day we graduated,” Jennifer finished, struggling out of the woman’s grasp. They’d been in chorus together, which made them friends of a sort, but not close enough to walk across the football field to say hello. Seems time had brought them closer.

  “You must have left Macon,” Flo chastised. The otherwise-you-would-have-called-me part was left unspoken.

  “Just to go to college. I’ve been back for the past eight years.”

  “Really? Well, it’s hard to believe we haven’t run into each other at least once at the Food Lion.”

  Now that she’d thought about it, she probably had seen Flo a few times, mistaking her for her mother. She certainly wasn’t avoiding her, not like she was Danny and Sheena, but Macon wasn’t big enough not to have at least spied a few of her former classmates over the past years.

  “How many kids you got?” Flo asked.

  Ah, yes. Children. She could fake success, a career, even a committed relationship, but offspring? She hardly thought it wise to share the fact that although she had none, her firstborn-to-be was already named Jaimie and someone with whom she occasionally conversed. Sort of like an imaginary friend, only for grown-ups.

  “No kids. No husband,” Jennifer confessed.

  “You poor thing,” Flo gushed.

  Jennifer pursed her lips and threw an I’m-not-going-to-forgive-you-for-this glare at Leigh Ann, who was paying no attention whatsoever to the conversation. Instead, she was staring across the gym, her mouth open, her eyes wide.

  Jennifer followed her gaze.

  Near the foot of the stage, Sheena Cassidy Buckner literally glowed in a spaghetti-strapped red silk affair that flattered her trim, abs-of-steel figure. Her long, fair curls, with a wave down one side, lay softly on her shoulders. She was beautiful, every bit as beautiful as she’d been at sixteen. And probably just as evil, Jennifer thought, tasting bile in her throat. She felt a flush color her face as adrenaline swept through her body, putting every nerve on edge. Even after all these years.

  Jennifer growled. The woman could at least have had the decency to age poorly. Was there no justice in this world?

  Flo’s overzealous enthusiasm suddenly seemed far more inviting, and her conversation, whatever it was, far more interesting. Jennifer started to turn back, but her peripheral vision caught sight of a familiar figure standing not too far from Sheena. Jennifer turned to stare.

  Danny. Darned if he didn’t still have that black curl twisted down the middle of his forehead. He looked heavier than he had back then, but that was to his credit. He’d been a skinny kid. He had a mustache. That was new. And no smile. That was new, too. She wondered if the charm was still there. It had been the one constant in Danny’s character.

  He was standing with three men, each holding a bottle of beer. She recognized them—some easier than others—as Seth Yarborough, Al Carpenter, and Mick Farmer. Danny’s old high school crowd. They’d been close to inseparable back then, and they looked almost as tight right now.

  Danny turned and looked straight at her. She could feel the color rise again in her cheeks. Not taking his eyes off her, he handed his beer to one of the guys, then broke from the group, went over to Sheena and leaned down to say something in her ear. Then he headed rapidly to
ward Jennifer, across the sleek, hardwood gymnasium floor.

  Leaving Sheena staring straight at her with a strange look of half anger and half…what? Fear?

  Jennifer whirled on Leigh Ann, leaving Flo to coo at her back. “Okay. We came, we visited. Time to go now.”

  “But Danny’s coming this—”

  She grabbed Leigh Ann’s arm and tugged her through the crowd toward the closest doors. She’d thought she could handle this. She ought to be able to handle this. What was she? Some kind of cream puff?

  Absolutely.

  She simply couldn’t bring herself to talk to a man who had married Sheena Cassidy. Whatever he might have seen in her—besides the hair, the face, and the figure—it couldn’t possibly be enough to overlook that low-down, mean, rotten core.

  Jennifer’s mother had always told her, “When you see someone mistreating someone else, don’t think you’re immune. You have that person as a friend, and they’ll get around to you eventually.”

  So had Sheena gotten around to Danny? Ten years was a long time. Yet he had stayed. Which begged the question, why? How well had she ever known Danny Buckner?

  “Whoa!” Leigh Ann shrugged her arm free from Jennifer’s grasp and straightened her dress. “Get a hold of yourself! Come on now, deep breaths. You can do it.” As though she were Bela Karoyli coaching Kerri Strugg through that last great vault at the summer Olympics in Atlanta. Kerri had done it and done it perfectly, but at a price.

  “You know what, Leigh Ann? That’s the good thing about being a grown-up. Some things you don’t have to do.”

  She slipped through the doors, leaving Leigh Ann and high school behind, to find herself alone in the silence of a hallway, staring at the same gray tile floor, institutional cream walls, and metal lockers, now painted a deep forest green, that she had wrestled with for four years.

  If she walked straight down the hallway and took a right at the stairwell, she should come to the front of the building. If she were lucky, the doors would be unlocked. She could slip out and go back around to the parking lot where she could wait for Leigh Ann. After all, how long could she be? Three, four hours, maybe?

  Or she could call Sam. Wonderful, sensible, good-hearted Sam. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d helped her out of a difficult situation.

  Her footsteps echoed in the emptiness as she started down the corridor.

  “Jennifer...”

  She stopped in mid-step, her breath leaving her, and every nerve in her body suddenly alert. It’d been a lot of years since she’d heard that voice.

  Chapter 5

  Jennifer turned. Danny still looked darned good, even close up. Even in his sports coat and tie. She’d only seen him dressed up once before—that dreadful night. He was older now, with deep lines around his eyes and mouth, but still nice. And taller. He’d added another inch or two since they’d both been eighteen. Either that or she’d forgotten.

  “I was hoping I’d find you.” He covered the distance between them, and she dropped her gaze. She sensed him looking at her while the maturity and self-assurance she’d spent years developing dissolved as though they had existed. She searched for something—maybe a trapdoor—on the gray tile at her feet.

  Her heart rumbled in her chest as he caught her index finger with his fist. Slowly, reluctantly, she looked up into his eyes and...

  And nothing. She felt nothing, except a sweet echo of innocent affection. Her breathing calmed, her heart fell into its regular rhythm, and her adrenaline ebbed. Whatever hold Danny Buckner had had over her for the past twelve years vanished as suddenly as it had descended upon her young self.

  She pulled her hand away. “So, Danny, how are you?”

  He squinted at her, raising one eyebrow in the process. “Did you get my note?”

  “Sure enough. But you seem to have the wrong impression about me. I don’t know anything about being a private detective. I only write about that stuff.”

  “What do you mean you write about it?”

  “Well, yeah. As in mystery novels.”

  “No kidding.” He looked impressed and a little less sure of himself. “So what name do you write under?”

  Darn. She’d known this would happen. As soon as she told someone she wrote, that person would assume she was published. She couldn’t very well tell Danny she had finished so many novels with no hint of publication on the horizon.

  “I’m not that far along in the process.” The truth, at least.

  “Oh.” His smile returned, and she could feel some of his confidence return with it.

  “What was it you were so anxious to tell me?”

  “You do know a private detective.” It was as much a question as a statement.

  She nodded. Johnny Zeeman was a boozer with an eye for women and a soft heart he kept well hidden. But he did have a shingle and a license that made him, despite his flaws, a bona fide private investigator. And not a bad one at that.

  “Are you still working with him?”

  “Not exactly, but I do see him occasionally. He had me out on the firing range a few weeks ago. He insisted I get a gun and a permit. Can you imagine me armed?”

  “It’s a scary thought,” he confessed.

  “Do you need a P.I.?”

  He offered a wry smile and pushed the curl off his forehead, but it immediately bounced back. Some things refused to change.

  “Maybe. Do you remember the night of—”

  “Hey, hey, hey! Danny boy! So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

  Danny turned, and Al Carpenter, a big, burly guy in a tan jacket, crushed Danny’s fingers in a fierce grip, slapped his shoulder hard with his other hand, and pulled him into one of those quasi-hug, buddy greetings that guys do. Strange, since she’d seen them standing together just minutes before.

  Al gave Jennifer a none-too-friendly once-over.

  The two men broke apart, but the newcomer continued to hold onto Danny’s hand in a possessive shake. “Thought you’d run out on us there for a minute.”

  Danny shook his head, his face flushed. “Never happen. I was just talking to Jennifer here. You remember Jennifer?”

  Jennifer studied Al’s face, wondering why she was experiencing such a strong feeling of deja vu, when, suddenly, it all flooded back. The face, the pounding on the car window, the untimely interruption. It was him. Danny’s buddy. The guy who had come after him on prom night.

  “Can’t say that I do,” Al said, letting go of Danny and offering his hand to Jennifer.

  Reluctantly, she took it. “And you are...” If he wouldn’t acknowledge her, she’d be darned if she would acknowledge him. He’d been a big jock with a big mouth who didn’t concede any girl’s existence who wasn’t on the cheerleading or pom squad.

  “Al Carpenter, attorney at law.” He dug in his coat pocket and handed her a card with his picture on it along with the address and phone number of his office. “You ever get yourself into a legal situation, you give me a call.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” she told him.

  “Good. I’ve got to steal Danny boy here away for a little while. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

  Mind? She was irritated as heck, not that this guy was taking Danny away, but that this whole situation had such an annoyingly familiar feel to it.

  Danny shot her a solemn look. “I’ll find you later. I promise.”

  She knew all about Danny’s promises.

  “You going to be around for a while?” he added.

  “Not too long. Got a late date,” she told him.

  Danny opened his mouth, but Al had his shoulders in a stranglehold and was already leading him away.

  Jennifer slipped back through the door and into the reunion. She had to find Leigh Ann. Danny Buckner didn’t need her, whether he knew it or not, and she didn’t intend to give him, or his friends, one more minute of her time.

  Chapter 6

  Leigh Ann, sipping ginger ale and still searching the crowd, was surrounded by a gaggle of
quasi-familiar, giggly women. A semicircle of men was keeping a discreet distance, observing the group while nursing their drinks and making small talk. The husbands. The ones who hadn’t attended Riverside High School.

  Jennifer went straight for Leigh Ann, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her away from the group. “Let’s go.”

  Leigh Ann struggled back, out of her grasp. “Are you at it again? What’s with you tonight, Jennifer? You seem fixated on dragging me around by the elbow.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” Jennifer assured her in measured, no-nonsense tones.

  “Why are you so upset? What the heck did Danny say to you? I saw him follow you into the hall. You want I should set him straight?”

  Leigh Ann glanced over toward the foot of the stage, and Jennifer looked, too. Sheena was playing her part well, entertaining former cheerleaders and star jocks, slinging her glass about, laughing, and looking for all the world like the woman who had conquered all.

  “I’m not ready for this, Leigh Ann. I may never be ready for this. For a brief moment out there in the hall with Danny, I...” Jennifer hung her head. “...I reverted.”

  “What? Don’t tell me that slime ball made a move on you. Did he try to kiss you?”

  She stared in disbelief at Leigh Ann, who made tiny fists and rose up on her toes, bouncing on the balls of her feet, not unlike the Cowardly Lion. One good swat and she’d go down for the count.

  “No kisses. What I mean is that, for a moment, I felt like I was eighteen again.”

  “See there. Now that’s the whole point of these reunions,” Leigh Ann assured her, relaxing and patting Jennifer’s arm while craning her neck to search the crowd once more. “You need to get out more instead of writing all the time, to be around old friends, to let some of that old fun bubble back up.”

  “I don’t want anything bubbling back up, and I certainly don’t want to be eighteen again. Eighteen was not fun for me. I want to go home. There’s not a single person here I have any interest in talking with.”