Thugs and Kisses (2 page)

“Damn, Grey, didn’t know you were that old.” Steele appeared to be calculating something. He finally said, “I was … what … about eight years old then.” He paused for what I’m sure he thought was dramatic effect. “Were you an actual flower child? Did you trip the light fantastic to Joplin and Morrison? Do any streakin’? Heh, heh, heh.”

My future with Woobie was looking more like being sentenced to death row.

When he didn’t get a rise out of me, due to an amazing amount of self-control on my part, Steele gave a
humph
and started to leave. Partway out the door, he stopped and turned back around.

“Don’t forget, Grey, I’ll be out of town the beginning of next week.”

“Where ya goin’?” Kelsey asked eagerly. “And how long can we count on you being gone?”

Steele gave her a chilly smile. “If you’re a good girl, Cavendish, maybe I won’t come back.” Then he strode down the hall to join Fran.

“Why,” I asked Kelsey, as I retrieved my purse from a file drawer in preparation for lunch, “do men always make promises they never intend to keep?”

Whoa! was my immediate reaction as I walked into my thirtieth high-school reunion. My palms grew clammy. My legs threatened to buckle.
Please, please, please tell me I’m hallucinating.

As soon as we entered the hotel ballroom, my eyes were assaulted by an explosion of soft blue and seafoam green crepe paper. The ballroom was decked out in an exact replica of our senior prom—20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—right down to the real fish tanks positioned throughout the room and the
blub-blub-blubbing
of waterlogged air bubbles piped in over the sound system. I didn’t know which would happen to me first—passing out from shock or wetting myself; maybe the two would happen simultaneously. Talk about multi-tasking.

The invitation to the reunion had only said that the reunion committee was cooking up a big surprise. Some surprise. My heart rate increased notably. If I had known in advance that one of the worst nights of my life was going to be revisited, I would not have come. Needless to say, my prom night had not been warm, fuzzy, or romantic, although I must admit, it could have been worse. After all, I hadn’t been doused in pig’s blood like Stephen King’s
Carrie
. Yet it was definitely not one of those evenings I discussed wistfully with middle-aged girlfriends over a glass of wine. Nor was there any decaying corsage lovingly pressed into a scrapbook anywhere in my house. I had attended the prom, true, but it was one of those memories I’ve spent thirty years trying to erase, like a magnet continuously passed over a hard drive.

My thoughts of bolting were disrupted by a commotion near the entrance. I turned toward the noise to see Donny Oliver entering the ballroom on the shoulders of several former members of the football team. He was waving and cheering, making his way through the fake sea creatures and his former classmates like a conquering hero returning from war.

I couldn’t move. My feet felt encased in cement blocks instead of my new black suede pumps. Donny Oliver was the very worst of my high-school memories—the bogeyman in a quarterback uniform. I watched warily as he slid to the floor from the shoulders of his high-school comrades and started shaking hands. Someone handed him a beer. Someone else gave him a cigar. I half expected Donny to announce he was running for public office.

I prayed for early senility.

“Odelia?” I heard a female voice tentatively ask. “Odelia Grey, is that really you?”

I turned toward the melodic and kind-sounding voice to find a woman looking at me with happy curiosity. She was of medium height, with bobbed dark hair and a long, lean face with deep crow’s feet nestled around the eyes. She beamed at me, displaying a mouth of slightly crowded teeth.

“Johnette? Johnette Spencer?” I inquired, answering her question with a question. She nodded enthusiastically, and we hugged.

Johnette Spencer had been in most of my classes during our four years in high school. She had been tragically shy, painfully thin, and sported thick, black-rimmed glasses. Over the years, we had eaten lunch together often. Like me, she had been a loner, not belonging to any specific clique.

The glasses had been replaced by contacts, or maybe laser surgery—who knew these days. But Johnette was still thin and bony. She had not succumbed over the years to middle-age spread and a losing battle with the bulge. Glancing around at many of our former classmates, I comforted myself with the knowledge that I hadn’t really been the fattest kid in my class, merely a woman ahead of her time.

Johnette continued beaming her high-watt smile. “Well, it’s Johnette Morales now. Has been for quite some time. Twenty-seven years, to be exact.”

Johnette tugged on the shirt sleeve of the man standing behind her, urging him to come forward. He looked vaguely familiar. I tried to subtract three decades. He was bald, just under six feet tall, and built like a weightlifter gone slightly to seed. Football and the name Victor Morales came to mind.

“Of course,” I said to Johnette, still trying to shake off the initial shock of the reunion theme and Donny’s entrance. “You married Victor. I remember hearing about that.”

“Funny how things work out,” she said. “Victor and I hardly knew each other in high school. It wasn’t until college that we became friends and eventually fell in love.” Johnette blushed. Victor smiled broadly.

Victor Morales had been on the football team. He had been a quiet boy, not given to rowdiness like so many of the guys on the various sports teams. He had been popular but not stuck-up. His only flaw, I recalled as I stood looking at him and his wife, had been his friendship with Donny Oliver, big man on campus and school bully. Nice boys like Victor had circled around Donny like moths to a flame because of Donny’s prowess on the football field. Under Donny’s influence in high school, Victor would never have dated a wallflower like Johnette. Yes, funny how things work out.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Johnette said, sweeping her hand in an expansive gesture as if spreading pixie dust over the room.

“Swell,” I responded in a voice cold enough to keep the ice caps from melting.

“But it’s just like our senior prom, Odelia,” she said with enthusiasm. “Remember?” Suddenly, it was Johnette who remembered. Her smile vanished and she reddened. Victor studied the wall behind me.

Remembering my manners and eager to change the subject, I indicated my date and introduced him. “Johnette, Victor, this is Dev Frye.”

Devin Frye is a homicide detective in Newport Beach. I met him when he was assigned to the murder investigation of my friend Sophie London a couple of years ago. He has curly blond hair flecked with gray and compelling blue eyes. He also stands well over six feet tall and is built like a moose on steroids. Dev is a football team all by himself and makes me feel downright petite despite my size 20 body. The two men shook hands amiably.

Johnette quickly surveyed Dev, then looked to me with an eager smile. “So, is it Odelia Frye now?”

Taken aback, I shot a glance at Dev. He was blushing and studying, or pretending to study, a five-foot-long cardboard sea horse that dangled near his head. A thought came to mind, and I glanced down at Dev’s left hand. Sure enough. Dev, a widower of just a couple years, still wore his wedding band. Johnette had made a natural assumption.

“No,” I answered with a slight chuckle. “Dev and I are just good friends.”

Johnette looked at the two of us with suspicion, and her face lost some of its friendliness. Victor, on the other hand, looked at us with renewed interest.

“Oh look, there’s Sally Kipman,” Johnette said with forced cheer. She tugged at Victor. “Let’s go say hello.” And with a slight nod, they were gone.

“That went well,” I said to Dev.

Dev bent down so his mouth was near my ear. “So what happened at your prom?”

“Nothing.”

“Give me a break, Odelia. I’m a cop. ‘
Nothing’
doesn’t make people
that
uncomfortable.”

“Nothing, Dev, really; just childish pranks long forgotten.” I aimed my eyes at Dev’s wedding ring and shamelessly used it to get his attention off my senior prom. “I think Johnette thinks you’re married … and I’m not.”

I scanned the crowd in the direction Johnette and Victor had headed. Sure enough, there was Sally Kipman, another personal annoyance from my past. This was turning out to be a reunion of my worst nightmares. A glance at my watch told me we had only been here seventeen minutes. That was long enough to bond with old schoolmates, wasn’t it? After all, the fiftieth reunion was just twenty years away. Why do it all in one night?

I turned to Dev. He had stopped scrutinizing the sea horse and was now staring sheepishly down at his shoes, no doubt wishing he had worn sneakers so he could make a quick getaway should the need arise. I sighed and gave him a small, warm smile. It was hard to believe this very same man could make a hardened criminal shake in his socks.

He shook his head slowly. “I should have told them I was a widower. Or at least taken off my ring.”

“Why?” I asked. “It’s no one’s business who you are.” I guided him over to the registration table, where more former classmates waited to hand us our name tags.

My official boyfriend, Greg Stevens, was supposed to accompany me to the reunion. But a few days ago, he woke up with a cold that turned nastier with each day. Greg’s illness gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, I was worried about him being ill. But on the other, it gave me an excuse not to attend the reunion. Why he had to be his usual gallant self and insist on my going anyway, I’ll never know. He had suggested that I take Zee, but instead, at the last moment, I changed my mind and asked Dev Frye to be my escort. There was no way in hell I was going to go to this clambake alone or without a proper date.

Dev and I made our way into the main seating area and snagged ourselves a couple of chairs at one of the tables set for ten. Several chairs had napkins on them, letting all newcomers know they were already taken. After placing napkins on two chairs, Dev disappeared into the crowd to wrangle us a couple of drinks while I blazed a trail to the ladies’ room.

I had checked my black eye—not a bad cover-up job, if I do say so—and was reapplying a fresh coat of lipstick when Johnette Spencer, now Morales, came into the large restroom. She looked quickly down when she saw me and started for a stall, but stopped short before entering. She just stood there, frozen. I watched her slim back reflected in the mirror in front of me. It seemed like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

As teenagers, we had been good friends, and I had spent a lot of time with her. Many afternoons after school we had studied together at her house while her mother, in true June Cleaver form, plied us with Cokes and snacks. When I was sixteen, my own mother abandoned me and disappeared, and I went to live with my father and stepmother. Johnette and I had become especially close during that turbulent time in my life. It bothered me now that a possible misunderstanding had tainted what should have been a happy renewal of friendship. It bothered me that she had been so quick to judge. And it bothered me that I had been so quick to cut her off about the prom. After all, our senior prom had been a happy night for many people. I just wasn’t one of them.

Without preamble, I explained Dev. “Dev’s a recent widower. His wife died of cancer.”

Johnette glanced quickly over her shoulder, catching my eye in the mirror. “Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. About his wife, I mean.”

She turned her face back to the stall, but instead of entering, she abruptly turned on her heel like a soldier doing an about-face.

“Odelia,” she began, still speaking softly. “I’m also sorry about being so rude out there. And I’m very sorry I brought up the prom.” She took a couple of steps toward me. I glanced down and noticed that she was wringing her hands slightly. “I really am so very glad to see you.”

“It’s okay, Johnette,” I told her. “I’m very happy to see you, too. And the prom is ancient history—really.” Before another heartbeat passed, I took a step toward her and reached out my arms for a hug, not so much because I wanted to, but because instinct told me she needed a hug—badly. And she did. She fell into my arms, burying her small frame into my ample bulk. I could feel her shoulders slightly shaking. When we parted, I saw that she was weeping.

“It’s okay, Johnette,” I assured her again. “No harm done.”

“It’s not that, Odelia.” She started to cry in earnest.

There was a small sitting area just inside the ladies’ room door with a small padded bench. Grabbing some tissues from a dispenser, I handed them to Johnette and steered her toward the bench.

“What’s the matter, Johnette?”

She looked down at the tissue that was quickly being mangled in her grasp. I had one arm around her shoulders and could feel her take a deep, lung-expanding breath before answering.

“Victor’s having an affair.”

Now it was my turn to give a soft “Oh.”

“That’s why I was so upset when I saw you with that man. I thought he was married and you were cheating with him.” She looked up at me. “Stupid, isn’t it? You having a fling with a married man?”

Her remark confused me. I didn’t know whether she thought that highly of my ethics or if she thought I couldn’t find a man with whom to have an affair. But this wasn’t about me.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Are you sure Victor’s having an affair?”

She nodded. “I followed him one afternoon. He was supposed to be playing golf, but instead he went to some woman’s house.” She started weeping again. “Oh, Odelia, she was young—and very pretty.” She blew her nose. “I saw them embrace.”