Auld Lang Syne (2 page)

I was surprised by Joanie’s admission of pre-reunion nerves.
 
Mindy, Ariel and Joanie had ruled the class of 1978 in true dominatrix fashion, not that the term would have occurred to me at the time. In the 1950s they would have been perky cheerleaders with football hero boyfriends, elected to the courts at both the junior and senior proms.
 
In 1978 they had been the too-cool-for-school set, skipping classes and smoking weed in the parking lot, supremely disinterested in the rest of us except as potential victims. Tonight they were lean, stylishly dressed and fresh from the salon where Joanie and Ariel were apparently employed, ready to make the rest of us feel like frumps once again. What could possibly undermine such boundless self-esteem?

I stared after them curiously as Ariel and Joanie wobbled over to join Mindy. The three of them stood, surveying the crowd like a pack of she-wolves scouting a herd of antelope; but instead of cowering, as they surely would have thirty-five years ago, the majority of other alums gazed back unfazed.
Standoff.

As if he sensed the sudden chill, the DJ redoubled his efforts to restore the upbeat mood he had worked so hard to create. Soon Yvonne
Elliman’s
“If I Can’t Have You” blasted forth.

“What did these mean girls do to their, as you say, victims?” Armando wanted to know as several couples returned to the dance floor. I’d had enough discoing for the time being and led the way to an empty table.

“Oh, you know, harassment stuff, what they call bullying these days. Mostly they just picked on their victims verbally, found a weak spot and went for the jugular.” I nodded at Patricia Connelly, sitting with a friend I didn’t recognize at a table across from us. In high school Pat had been president of the Future Nurses of America Club, and from chatting with her earlier in the evening, I knew she had pursued her career goal successfully. She currently headed the cardiac care nursing unit at John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington. She was fit and
trim
these days, but in high school she had struggled with her weight.

“Patty was never more than pleasingly plump, but the three witches over there hung the nickname Fatty Patty on her and wouldn’t let up.” I grimaced in remembered sympathy. “The poor girl actually developed a stammer. That’s the kind of thing that can drive an insecure teenager off the rails, and let’s face
it,
most of us are pretty shaky esteem-wise at that age. Pat started seeing a therapist and turned out to be sturdy enough to get over it, but others weren’t as lucky, I’m afraid.”

“In that case, since there is no one here who is happy to see them, it is indeed surprising that they would choose to return. Why did they, do you suppose?” Armando wondered.

I thought about it, watching the three women scanning the crowd while exchanging tipsy snipes and giggles. At least, Ariel and Mindy did. Joanie seemed less into it, even a bit uncomfortable.
 
For the most part the rest of the alums ignored them, but I noted a few stony faces and resentful glares. I could see that Harold King was among the less than charmed. Harold had been a gawky teenager, complete with thick spectacles and perpetually untied sneakers. He had spent most of his years at BHS trying to make
himself
invisible and usually succeeded. His shyness—and to be honest, our own self-involvement—had probably been why most of his classmates were unaware of his first class mind, not that we would have cared one way or the other. Years later we learned that he’d graduated at the top of his class from Stanford School of Business and proceeded to make a fortune in the dot-com boom of the ‘90s. Living well is the best revenge, I thought now, but in 1978 Harold had been the butt of one of Mindy’s particularly cruel jokes.

Well aware of Harold’s impossible crush on her, she had played up to him shamelessly for weeks while her cohorts watched and snickered. In a particularly sadistic move, she invited Harold to be her date for the Sadie Hawkins Day dance. Of course, she stood him up. When he arrived at this very gym, believing he must have misunderstood where he was supposed to meet her, he was greeted by the hoots and jeers of Mindy and about half of the student body who lay in wait for him.

To his credit Harold now eyed Mindy coolly for a few seconds, then turned his back on her to invite the lady next to him to dance. As they blended into the crowd and began moving to the music, I was tickled to note that while money might not buy everything, it had obviously allowed Harold to purchase the beautifully cut suit he was wearing and some very successful dance instruction. He could really bust a move. Mindy and Joanie noticed, too. Joanie, in particular, paid close attention.

“Perhaps they regret their former actions and have come here to speak with their victims and make amends,” Armando continued to speculate.

I rolled my eyes at my husband, whose ceaselessly charitable outlook on the human race could be exasperating. “From what they’ve had to say so far, I think we can toss out that theory,” I scoffed. “More likely, they showed up to make everybody uncomfortable, just like they did in their glory days, and to some extent, they seem to be doing it.”

Armando waved expansively at the tables filled with laughing classmates and the couples enjoying themselves on the dance floor. “For a moment or two, but not any longer,” he pointed out. “Life goes on, does it not?”

I was pleased to see that he was right. More than that, I understood what he meant but did not say. Armando and I both had decades of living behind us, including previous marriages, children, complicated careers, illness, injury, and losses of all sorts. Yet here we were, enjoying each other and the music and looking forward to the years ahead of us. He covered my hand on the table with his, and I gave him my warmest smile.

“Shall we have another dance?” I invited, but his eyes had strayed from my face to look over my shoulder.

“I think now is not the right moment,
Cara
. Unless I am very much mistaken, you are about to become reacquainted with your Mitchell.”

I turned around to discover he was right.

Despite my earlier misgivings, I was delighted to find that meeting Mitch again after all these years was no more unsettling than seeing the rest of my former classmates had been. After exchanging a brief hug and a grin, we introduced our respective spouses and settled easily into a round of “remember when.” I was especially glad to see that Mitch had married Agnes
Gagliardi
, also a Brewster graduate but a year younger than Mitch and I. Although I had heard rumors of their romance years ago, they hadn’t been confirmed until tonight.

“I was totally infatuated with this guy for more than two years,” Agnes confided to me after we hugged and Armando excused himself to get us all more punch, “but I had to wait until you were out of the picture to activate my master plan. I guess I have Mindy
Marchelewski
to thank for that, huh?” she twitted Mitch, who had the grace to look abashed.

“Just how did you intend to mastermind our break-up?” I wanted to know.

“I’m not proud of it, but I planted a bug in Mindy’s ear that you might be a little too prim and proper for a red-blooded American boy like Mitch, and she did the rest. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that, Kate. I’ve felt bad about it for years, as my priest can attest. I actually tried to look you up to apologize, but I didn’t know what your married name was, and you were never in any of the class newsletters. Anyway, after that I got myself accepted to Middlebury College, where I’m sure you remember Mitch matriculated in the fall of ’78, and stalked him relentlessly from the minute I set foot on campus. The poor guy never stood a chance,” she grinned, and Mitch grinned back.

“We’ve been together ever since,” he confirmed, looking not at all unhappy with his lot. “Four kids, seven grandchildren and an eighth one due any minute.” I couldn’t help but gasp.
 
“Oh, yeah,” he kidded me. “We Polish folk are a fertile lot. You had a lucky escape, Kate.”

I glanced at Agnes, but she was visibly unperturbed, her smile steady. “Have you seen Mindy tonight, by the way, Kate? I looked around a little, but I didn’t see her or those other two beasts she used to hang out with.”

“Not for a while, now that you mention it. Maybe they took the collective hint and left,” I shrugged.

Agnes turned to Armando, who had distributed cups of fresh punch and now sat drumming his fingers on the table top in time to the music. “I’ll bet you’re a good dancer,” she observed. “Care to treat this granny lady to a dance or two and leave these old flames to catch up in peace? Something tells me they won’t miss us a bit,” she added serenely.

Armando all but leapt to his feet, clearly undisturbed by my reunion with a former boyfriend, and soon the two new acquaintances had insinuated themselves into the dense crowd on the dance floor.

“Why do I get the feeling that our spouses aren’t the jealous type?” I wondered aloud.

“It figures Aggie wouldn’t miss a chance like this. She’s a much better dancer than I am.” Mitch chuckled, looking after his wife fondly.

“Oh, you weren’t so bad, as I recall,” I reassured him, and we were soon giggling like the teenagers we no longer were as we swapped reminiscences. Our conversation was so diverting that before we knew it, twenty minutes had flown by. We returned to the present only when Armando and Agnes arrived back at the table, flushed with their exertions. The DJ announced the closing number, and we all groaned. Where had the evening gone?

The song was Donna Summer’s “Last Dance.”
Had to be.
As the lights dimmed, a tradition for the final selection of the evening, the four of us returned to the dance floor. I wrapped my arms around Armando’s neck and congratulated myself on my luck. The choices I had made over the past three-plus decades, good and bad, had gotten me here, and here was a good place to be. A few couples away, Aggie winked at me over Mitch’s shoulder. I knew she felt the same way.

The song ended all too soon. The lights came back up, and we reluctantly made our way toward the coatroom, promising everyone we encountered to stay in touch.

“Of course, we won’t do it,” I whispered to Armando, waving at yet another former classmate, “but at least I passed out all my business cards.” I’d pressed one into the hands of nearly everyone with whom I’d spoken throughout the evening.

“There is always your fiftieth reunion to look forward to,” he joked a bit wistfully. “At least you had this opportunity to see everyone together once again. I will not be as fortunate.”

Since most of his classmates still lived in Colombia, I knew he was right. Not for the first time, I reflected on how difficult it must be to be uprooted at an early age and transplanted in a new country, an entirely different culture where you couldn’t even speak the language. I squeezed his hand in sympathy.

Predictably, the line into the coatroom was endless. I caught sight of a small women’s room and decided to make a stop there before the long, cold ride home. “Be right back,” I told Armando and hurried over before every other woman in line got the same idea. As I started to push the door open, it flew inward, and Joanie Haines stumbled out, her face ashen.

“Are you all right?” I asked after regaining my balance.

“Mindy … I don’t know.” Joanie flapped a hand behind her, and Ariel lurched into the corridor.
 

“In there,” was all she managed to
get
out before her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell in a dead faint at my feet.

After half an hour the paramedics paused in their efforts to revive Mindy
Marchelewski
and removed her draped body to a waiting ambulance for the trip to William Backus Hospital, where we all sensed the news would not be good. A hypodermic syringe had been found on the floor beside her in the women’s room, which seemed to indicate some kind of overdose. At least that was the scuttlebutt. Whether the overdose had been accidental or intentional was anyone’s guess.

I sat on the lowest tier of bleachers with Mitch, Agnes and several others.
 
Armando came toward me, his face a mask of Latino stoicism. He was carrying paper cups of what I fervently hoped was hot coffee for the four of us. I was trembling all over, and I knew that as soon as I unclenched my jaw, my teeth would start chattering. Gently, he placed a steaming cup in my hand and urged it toward my lips.

“Drink,” he said. I did as I was told and felt the hot, sugary liquid jolt me back to life. I gave him a shaky smile.
 
“It is now official. You have become that Mrs. Fletcher person who trips over bodies wherever she goes. One wonders why she continues to be invited anywhere,” he mused.

I had often wondered the same thing but forbore to comment. I took another restorative sip as Armando offered coffee to Agnes and Mitch.
 
We had been forbidden to leave before showing IDs and leaving contact information with the police officer who was questioning Ariel and Joanie in a corner of the lobby. At this moment, it was hard to believe that either of them had ever been capable of intimidation. Over the rim of my mug I watched officer turn away from the two women and shamble in our direction.