“You didn’t miss anything,” I assured him. “Since your group wasn’t there, the rest of us scarfed down an early-bird meal and packed it in for the night.” I gave them the abridged version of who we were and where we came from. “I was back in my room by seven.”
The sidewalk had emptied as guests reached the windmill and spread out over the grounds to take their photos. I checked my watch. “If we want photos, we’d better do it now before Charlotte starts herding us back to the bus.”
“How does a woman with such a foul disposition get hired as a tour director?” Mary Lou asked as we hurried to catch up with the other guests.
“By lying on her personality test,” joked Mike. “She probably claimed she had one.”
“She reminds me of Paula Peavey.” Mary Lou lowered her voice. “Remember what a sourpuss she was all through school? She’d as soon bite your head off as look at you.”
“She’s standing right over there,” said Mike. “Why don’t you ask her if she’s changed?”
“I’m not going anywhere near her. She was just too hateful for words.”
“Why was she so hateful?” I asked as I paused to snap a quick shot.
“I don’t know why.” Mary Lou lowered her voice another decibel. “She just was. Her favorite pastime was making people cry, which she did on a daily basis. I’ll never forgive her for some of the hurtful things she said to me.”
“C’mon, hon,” Mike cajoled. “That was fifty years ago. Let it go.”
“You let it go!”
“So what did she say that has any bearing on who you are today?”
“I might not be able to recall exactly what she said, but I remember how it made me feel.” Her tone grew prickly. “And it’ll remain with me until I die.”
“One of the mean girls, huh?” I asked. We’d had mean girls in my high school. They’d squeeze around the same table in the cafeteria and gaze with disdain at the rest of the student population, sniggering importantly as they called us dorks and losers. They usually spent their high school years on academic probation, campaigned to be elected Corn Queen at Homecoming, and married guys whose main goal in life was to buy a three-quarter-ton pickup with a built-in beer cooler and move to the Big City, like Muscatine or Dubuque.
“Mean?” Mary Lou’s eyes drained of humor. “Dogs can be mean. Paula fit into a whole other category. She was pathologically mean. Serial killer mean.”
I froze in place. Like I needed to hear that. “Which one is Paula?” I asked, my voice cracking midsentence.
“Sweetheart,” Mike admonished. “You’re scaring Emily.” He handed me his camera. “Would you mind taking a picture of us in front of the windmill?”
I framed the shot and clicked. “So if the two of you had such bad experiences in high school, why did you sign up for the reunion?”
A funny look passed between them before Mike shrugged. “Old-fashioned curiosity, I guess.”
“And not all my experiences were bad,” confessed Mary Lou. “I joined a lot of activities and had lots of friends. In fact, my high school years would have been fantastic if I could have found a way to avoid Paula, but she sat behind me in every single class, so it was pretty much a death sentence.”
“Time’s up!” yelled Charlotte. She did the hand clapping thing again for emphasis. “Back to the bus! We’re on a schedule. Quickie quickie!”
“See that guy in the light blue University of Maine sweatshirt?” Mike asked me as people started heading for the sidewalk. “He was the class clown. What a character. Always had a clever comeback for everything. He was the only guy who fit into every social strata. Popular kids. Unpopular kids. Who doesn’t want to hang out with the guy who makes you laugh? I guess laughter is the universal equalizer.”
“And see the couple holding hands and making moon eyes at each other? The guy is wearing a St. Francis Xavier letter jacket.” Mary Lou pointed them out discreetly. “He was the football quarterback and she was the head cheerleader. We were all so envious of them. They had everything we didn’t have. Good looks. Athletic ability. Popularity. We would have sold our souls to be them.”
My eyes widened. The man was bald, had no neck, and was built like a side-by-side refrigerator. The woman was equally large, with a helmet of dyed black hair teased into a bouffant with pink bows clipped above each temple. A health specialist might advise him to lose the weight. A beauty specialist would advise her to lose the bows.
“They married right out of high school,” Mary Lou continued. “It was the second biggest social event of the year.”
Which prompted me to ask, “What was the first?”
“The wedding of the basketball captain and the girl who was elected class president four years in a row,” said Mike. “Football was popular in Bangor, but basketball was king. And the girl hailed from one of Bangor’s ‘elite’ families, so everyone who was anyone received an invitation.”
Mary Lou chuckled. “There was a big flap between the two girls about wedding dates, churches, and reception halls. I can’t remember the details, but all of us ‘outies’ would get together to giggle about the latest earth-shattering news in the dueling divas drama.”
“Outies?” I regarded her oddly. “You belonged to a club for students with protruding bellybuttons?”
She and Mike fell against each other with laughter. “Outies,” she repeated. “Students outside the inner circle, as opposed to ‘innies,’ the ones who wield all the power. The ‘in’ crowd. You probably called it something else when you were in school.”
“Speak of the devil,” Mike said under his breath, wrapping his arm around his wife to form a close semicircle around me.
A man and woman brushed by them on the walkway—he, tall and well-dressed, she, petite and well-kept. They projected an air of prosperity, as if they’d be more comfortable riding in a Lincoln than in a Dodge, more satisfied eating at the country club than at a restaurant, more relaxed living in a mansion than in a townhouse. They strolled hand in hand, their fingers intertwined tightly, as if by clinging to each other, they could keep all their good fortune to themselves. Their nametags proclaimed them Gary and Sheila Bouchard.
“Looks like they’ve fared well,” I commented when they’d passed.
“Not half as well as Laura LaPierre,” said Mary Lou in a voice that oozed disbelief. “She looks thirty years younger than everyone else. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. We used to be such good friends, but you know how it goes. You lose touch. Have you seen her, Mike?”
“How could I miss her?” Then to me, “If you think my graduation picture doesn’t look like me, wait’ll you get a load of Laura’s. She used to be so drab and shy that the ‘innies’ poked fun of her by nicknaming her Minnie Mouse, which was only one of their many put-downs. Now she looks like the mouse that roared. I wouldn’t mind getting the name of her plastic surgeon.”
There was only one woman among the dispersing crowd whom I’d classify as drop-dead gorgeous, and that was a shapely blonde wearing skinny jeans and a form-fitting jacket that accented her small waist and impressive bustline. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail. Her only accessories appeared to be small pearl earrings and a thousand-watt smile that caused her face to glow with healthy exuberance. She was chatting up a couple of other guests, her hands flying in wide, animated gestures. “If you’re talking about the blonde with the ponytail, not only is she pretty. She looks really friendly. And extroverted.” In fact, besides Mike and Mary Lou, she was the only person in the Maine contingent who was smiling.
“That’s Laura. Do you suppose she’s had a chemical peel or a facelift?” Mary Lou wondered aloud as she ran her fingertips over her own jaw line. “She’s lived in California for years, with access to all the plastic surgeons of the stars. God, she really does look good.”