Most Likely To Die. Lisa Jackson

friends had hung out. Though twenty years had passed and the once-red plastic booths had been re-covered in a green faux leather, not much else had changed. The walls were still covered with pictures of softball, basketball, and Little League teams Ricardo’s had sponsored over the years, and the aromas of baking bread, tangy marinara sauce, and garlic still emanated from a kitchen hidden behind the main counter.

      She saw the cluster of tables pushed together in one corner near the fireplace. Several women were already seated, and Kris felt a tightening in her gut as she recognized Haylie Swanson and Mandy Kim. Mandy’s dark hair was shorter and her face had rounded, but Haylie looked as if she hadn’t aged or changed one bit since high school. A trim black woman sat near Aurora, probably DeLynn Vaughn, and the other two women…Geez, they looked familiar, but who…oh, God, the heavyset one was Martina Perez and the other woman looked a lot like April Wright, whose mouse-brown hair had become sun streaked, her glasses long gone, her crooked teeth now capped and white.

      Strewn over the tabletops were yearbooks, binders, a legal pad, yellowed copies of the school newspaper, class lists and the like. The women were talking, laughing and sipping either beer, wine, or Diet Coke.

      Aurora looked up as Kristen wended her way to the tables. “Kris!” Aurora smiled widely and waved her over. “About time.”

      “Sorry I’m late. Issues at home.”

      “Tell me about it,” DeLynn Vaughn said, rolling her large brown eyes. “I’ve got seven-year-old twins…One might have to be held back, while his sister will be moved on to second grade. I get it, I really do. I’m a teacher, for God’s sake! But that doesn’t make it any easier. Oh, I don’t want to think about it right now.” She flashed a friendly smile. “How have you been, Kris? You’re a big-time reporter for the Clarion, right?”

      “Editor,” Aurora corrected.

      Kristen shook her head and slid into the empty chair between DeLynn and Aurora. “Associate editor. Not so big-time. You work there long enough, they figure they have to give you a title of some kind.”

      “Sure, that’s how it works. They pass out promotions with no thought to talent,” DeLynn said dryly and Kristen smiled despite herself, only to glance up and find Haylie, sober as a judge, staring at her.

      Great, Kristen thought. Some things never change. “Hi, Haylie,” she greeted her, deciding to break the ice. “Geez, I haven’t seen you since graduation.”

      “You find that odd?” Haylie asked, fingering the stem of an untouched wineglass.

      “A little.”

      “I guess we’re all just too busy,” Martina said with a shrug. “Jobs, husbands or boyfriends, kids—”

      “Yeah, that’s it,” Haylie muttered with a trace of bitterness.

      “So…” Kristen dragged out her laptop and switched it on. “Let’s get to it. Thankfully, Aurora’s done a lot of the preliminary work, but I couldn’t bribe her into taking on the job.”

      Several of the women chuckled. But not Haylie.

      “You earned it,” Aurora said.

      “Don’t remind me. Now, let’s see what we’ve got.”

      What they had was plenty. Aurora and Martina had already started searching the Internet, using Web sites like Classmates.com to collect as many e-mail and regular mail addresses as they could, all of which were merged into a database. Mandy had elected to put together a booklet of bios of the classmates and DeLynn had contacted the current principal of the school to come up with possible dates for the reunion. They had agreed to make Friday night of the reunion weekend “classmates only” and decided to use Ricardo’s as the venue. Husbands and significant others would be invited to a dinner/dance on Saturday night at the school.

      So much like the Valentine’s Day dance twenty years ago, Kristen thought, but held back any objections as everyone else seemed excited about the idea.

      “You know, I don’t know why we haven’t had a reunion before,” Mandy chirped.

      “Yeah, we should have done this after ten years…or maybe even five,” April agreed.

      “That’s such a load of crap.” Haylie’s voice was a dash of cold water. The skin on her cheekbones tightened as she slid her gaze over all the women. “And we all know why.”

      Everyone grew silent; even the piped-in music and ambient surrounding conversations seemed to fade.

      “It’s because of Jake Marcott,” Haylie stated. “I told myself that if I came to this, I was going to say exactly what I thought, and I figured that we’d all pretend that what happened to Jake and to Ian was all forgotten. Well, it’s not.”

      Kristen said, “I don’t think this is the time to discuss Jake.”

      “Yeah, of course not. It never is. Why don’t we pretend it didn’t happen? We’ll all be as fake as we were the last year of high school.”

      “Haylie, not now,” Kristen said, uncomfortable in her newfound role as the leader of this group.

      “Then when, Kris? When?” she asked. “Ian and Jake have been dead twenty years! Longer than they were alive! Don’t you think we should at least acknowledge them?”

      “At the reunion?”

      “Here! Now!” She was visibly shaking, her wine slopping over the rim of her glass.

      “Later.”

      “It is later!”

      “Oh, no!” April glanced up as another woman headed their way. Kristen’s heart dropped as she recognized Bella Marcott, Jake’s sister.

      “Cool it, Haylie,” Aurora said, but Haylie, already incensed and fueled by a couple of glasses of Merlot, turned angry eyes on Bella.

      “Something wrong?” Bella asked, then made a sound of acknowledgment. “You were talking about Jake, right?” Before anyone could answer, she skewered Haylie with a look. “And you’re upset because you still believe he killed your boyfriend.”

      “His name was Ian. He wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was someone’s brother and someone’s son. And he was a person. Ian Powers.” Red-faced, tears sheening in her eyes, Haylie stood abruptly, knocking over her wine in the process. The crimson liquid ran like blood. She barely noticed as April and Martina started mopping up the oozing stain with their napkins. “He would have been thirty-nine right now, like some of us. But he never had the chance to go to college or hold a job or get married or have kids, and the damned shame of it is no one but his family remembers him.”

      One napkin soaked, another still wicking up the wine, April said, “We get it, Haylie, okay? We’re all sorry about Ian.”

      “No one really is.” She sniffed loudly and backed away from the table, colliding with a chair. “I knew this was a mistake,” she said. “I should never have come.”

      “Oh, Haylie, come on.” Aurora, always the peacemaker, reached for Haylie’s arm. “Let it go.”

      “I’ll never ‘let it go.’” Haylie snagged her purse from the floor and took off through the surrounding tables, half running toward the door.

      “Should someone go after her?” Bella asked, turning to watch Haylie disappear into the night.

      “I will.” Kristen was already on her feet. “She shouldn’t be driving.”

      “What a drama queen,” April muttered under her breath. “She’s fine. Barely touched her wine.”

      “I’m sorry, Bella,” Aurora said, motioning Jake’s sister into the chair recently vacated by Haylie. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything she said.”

      Bella arched an eyebrow, and in that instant she looked so much like her dead brother that Kristen’s blood chilled.