Heart-Shaped Box (Claire Montrose Series) (6 page)

Because her birthday fell five days before the cutoff for enrollment, she had been the youngest in every class. How Claire had longed to be older - or to at least look older - when she was in high school! It had been embarrassing, being the last to be able to get a learner’s permit and then a driver’s license. Senior year, some of her friends were getting into bars with fake ID, but Claire didn’t even bother exploring the option, not when she was seventeen and looked several years younger. Once when she was 18, she had gone on with a date to a movie. The old dragon lady taking tickets had asked her how old she was. Confused, Claire had inquired if the movie were R-rated. It turned out that the movie was PG - and that the ticket taker thought Claire qualified for the under-12 discounted children’s ticket. That had been her first and last date with that particular guy.

But now she was finally all grown up, a woman with actually curves instead of an awkward stork wearing men’s shrink to fit Levis, sized 26-36. Maybe now she could even pass for sexy. She tried out a ‘come-hither look,’ but in the mirror she appeared simply to be a woman in search of her bifocals. Had she moved from being too young to being too old, skipping over the vital middle part of being just right?

And then she saw it. The beginnings of a huge pimple threatening to erupt just below her mouth. How could she show up at her twentieth high school reunion with a zit the size of a slice of pepperoni decorating her chin? She turned on the shower. Maybe she could steam it out.

Under the warmth of the shower’s spray, Claire closed her eyes and began softly singing as much as she could remember from
My Sharona
. Which wasn’t much. She remembered lying sprawled on a blanket in the park with Logan the spring of their junior year. They had listened to a giant boom box, and she had nodded in agreement when he told her that The Knack was destined to be as big as the Beatles. That was back when the radio still played music for Logan, although a few months later all he seemed to hear from it were voices that told him he was stupid and deserved to die. Once she had ripped the batteries from the back and held them out to him in her shaking hand, but he had screamed that the radio was still broadcasting, that the voices were still talking about him.

Lost in memories, she didn’t hear the bathroom door opening. She only lifted her head from the spray when two strong hands gripped her shoulders. Claire gasped. Dante pushed aside the dripping rope of her hair to kiss her nape. She tried to turn to kiss him, but he held her fast as he nuzzled her. Forgetting all about how she looked, Claire closed her eyes and gave herself up to his attentions.

Afterward, they sprawled on the bed. Claire propped herself on her elbows to look at Dante. He was half asleep, his eyes closed, a faint smile curving below his strong nose. It wasn’t easy, maintaining a relationship while living in cities three thousand miles apart. They had developed their own rituals to stay in touch. They e-mailed, they sent each other bizarre post cards, they called. When they had phone fights, they worked to resolve them as quickly as possible -- and they never hung up on each other. Living apart, the phone was their lifeline.

Once or twice a week, they planned ‘dinner dates.’ They set up a time, each cooked a nice dinner, and then they got on the phone and ate together. (It helped that Claire didn’t mind eating at five p.m., while Dante, a native New Yorker, thought eight p.m. was just the right time to sit down to dinner.)

Whenever they finally did reunite, they eased back into it. They had learned not to book surprise romantic weekend getaways or shower each other with dozens of long-stemmed roses. Instead, they were more likely to go out for lunch at a neighborhood restaurant or to take a walk - anything where they could just talk. It was way too much pressure to be ‘on’ all of a sudden when they hadn’t seen each other for a month or more.

Even though Claire had really wanted Dante to be by her side for this reunion, she hoped he wouldn’t be too bored. For anyone who hadn’t gone to Minor High twenty years ago, it was sure to be a dull weekend.

AWAWEGO

Chapter Five

Just outside the Hoe-Down Room was a folding table covered with a line of shoeboxes. Sitting behind the table was Belinda Brophy.
She looked basically the same as she had in high school, just a little more tired and a little more plump. The name badge applied to her black leather jacket read “Belinda Brophy-Muller” and showed a picture of the younger Belinda, her hair crimped by a curling iron. Today’s Belinda had a fuss-free perm. “Well, hello, Claire Montrose,” Belinda said, her hands poised above the shoeboxes, which were labeled with different stretches of the alphabet. “So what’s your married name now?”

Dante leaned forward before Claire could answer. “She decided to keep the Montrose.”

“
How - modern!” Belinda simpered, distracted by Dante’s proximity. She handed over Claire’s nametag and they moved away.

Claire pasted on her nametag, all the while complaining to Dante. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I’m afraid people are going to spend all night asking me about my occupation, my marital status and how many kids I have.”

“
Just let me know if it makes you change your mind,” Dante answered. He had talked about marriage, and even about kids, but Claire was undecided. She had long ago determined that if and when she ever did marry it would be forever - and part of her still doubted that Dante would always want her.

She put her hand on one of the double doors to the Hoe-Down Room, but didn’t push it open. It seemed to faintly vibrate from the noise inside. “Go on,” Dante urged into her ear. “I’m right here with you.” He reached out and swung open one of the doors.

The noise of conversation and laughter, mingled with the sound of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” spilled out into the hall. At first, it was overwhelming. Claire guessed there were over one hundred people in the room, gathered in knots, or sitting at small glass-topped tables underneath the glassy-eyed stare of stuffed animal heads. The largest group was congregated in front of the bar, where a harried bartender was pouring drinks with both hands. A crumpled straw cowboy hat was tilted back on his head and he wore fringed Ultrasuede chaps over his jeans.

Dante and Claire found an empty table at the edge of the room. At first, Claire didn’t recognize anyone. But then in a process similar to entering a darkened room, her eyes began to adjust to the changes twenty years had wrought. In general, the women seemed to have held up better than the men. The women all had their hair, for one thing, while a good portion of the men had receding hairlines, or had gone completely bald or turned gray. A lot of the guys had gained weight, too, ballooning past the point of recognition, including one guy in an orange tank top that made his stomach look like a pumpkin. He was staggering from group to group, shouting, “Party!” and pumping his fist in the air.

“
Let me guess.” Dante pointed at a blonde, slender woman who was flitting from table to table, blowing air kisses, tossing her newly gilded locks, and smiling so hard it looked as if her teeth were in danger of bursting through her cheeks. “A cheerleader?”

“
Bingo. Cindy Weaver. Or I guess she’s Cindy Sanchez now. Head cheerleader and prom queen. She never much cared for us little people. I was a weird kid in high school. I literally walked around school with my nose in a book. One time I was going down the hall and someone stuck out their foot and tripped me. I don’t know for sure that it was Cindy, but I’ll never forget looking up and seeing her standing there laughing at me.”

“
Did you know her in grade school, too?”

“
She moved into the district in third grade. Everybody thought she was glamorous. Her mom used to set her hair every night on sponge rollers. I thought she looked like a fairy princess. By fifth grade, she was wearing pantyhose and a bra, when the rest of us were still in white knee-highs and undershirts.

They watched as Cindy squealed and lunged for another woman, who managed to hold her at arm’s length. “That’s Maria Markgraf that Cindy is hugging. She was a cheerleader, too, but she wasn’t nearly as mean as Cindy.” Judging by the way she was dressed, Maria had become a well-paid executive. One of the few women in the room not clad in denim, she wore an open-necked cream-colored silk blouse under a camel-colored gabardine pantsuit. It wasn’t exactly “Western wear” but it was elegant. Her thick auburn hair was pulled back into a French twist. She settled back in her chair and exchanged a smile with the woman next to her. Claire said, “That woman with all the freckles, the one sitting next to Maria, is Sunny Engelbreit. Sunny was part of the horsey set, which meant her family had a lot more money than we did, but she was always pretty nice to me.”

A waitress wearing a tan Ultrasuede dress cut past them. A black feather dangled from the headband that held back her straight light brown hair. Balanced on the palm of her hand was a round tray filled edge-to-edge with glasses. Dante raised two fingers, but the waitress was too harried to notice them.

Dante turned the gesture into a point and indicated a thin man wearing a fringed leather jacket so elaborate that a single cow must have died for the fringe alone. “Wait a minute - that guy over there looks like Richard Crane. The computer guy.” A dozen people were crowded around Richard’s table, shaking the man’s hand and slapping him on the back as he awkwardly held court. Even sitting down, he looked stork-like and gawky.

“
Yeah. That’s Dick. I guess I should say Richard now. Minor’s one real claim to fame.” Richard glanced up for a minute, and his gaze caught Claire’s. He gave her a little wave, and Claire was surprised to feel her face flush. Was she no better than the rest of them, willing to fawn over him now that he was rich and famous?

“
Wow! I didn’t know you knew the guy who owned Simplex!”

“
I didn’t really know him. No one really knew Dick - I mean, Richard. He always hid behind his camera. He was on the yearbook staff. Everyone used to make fun of him because he walked around with a pocket protector stuck in his shirt and a calculator hooked on his belt. You always read that he’s got such a reputation as a loner - but I just think he never had a chance in high school to develop any social skills.”

Dante scanned the room. “So which of these people
were
you friends with in high school? Besides that woman who called you Warty, I mean.”

Claire managed to keep a neutral expression on her face while she reminded herself to kill Jessica. “Since I had to work after school, I didn’t have a lot of close friends.” She spent a few minutes locating the current versions of people from the group she used to each lunch with. Claire nodded in the direction of a dark-haired woman wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck. “That’s Rebecca Brody. She’s really slimmed down since high school.” Next, Claire pointed at a tall, plain-faced woman who wore her hair carelessly pinned back. “And that’s Rachel Munroe. Even though her father was a doctor, they didn’t have any money. He mostly treated migrant workers’ children in a free clinic.”

She scanned the crowd for a few more seconds. “That woman over in the corner, the blonde passing around the pictures - that’s Nina Lisac. She was Rebecca’s best friend. She got pregnant when we were still in high school and got married before we even graduated. It was kind of a Minor thing to do.”

Dante endeavored again to catch the waitress’s eye, but failed. “I think I’ll have to go to the bar if I want something to drink. What would you like?”

“
Could you get me a glass of red wine, please?” She watched him go, smiling to herself as more than one woman turned her head to follow his path.

“
Claire.” She started as a man’s voice murmured in her ear. A hand cupped her shoulder. “You look good.”

She turned in her chair, her heart already beating a bit faster because of the surprise of his touch and his voice.

At first, her old boyfriend Jim looked the same, just a little more weathered. His wavy light brown hair had thinned a bit, but the heart-shaped face was the same, as were the heart-stopping pair of green eyes. Why was it, Claire wondered, that crinkles around men’s eyes were sexy, but that crinkles around women’s eyes only fed a billion dollar face cream industry? Unlike a lot of Claire’s other male classmates, at least Jim hadn’t picked up a paunch along the way. His weathered Levis fit him like a dream, and his green short-sleeved polo shirt showed off well-muscled, tanned arms.

There was a moment where she could have gotten up and hugged him, but it passed. Instead she offered him her hand, and he shook it, a little awkwardly.

“
So what have you been doing with yourself, Jim?”

He looked away from her as he pulled out one of the free chairs. Straddling it, he set his long-necked beer bottle on the table. “I’m working for the local beer distributor.”

“
In sales?” She imagined him talking store owners into stocking new varieties of beer, enticing them with free posters of scantily clad women dancing around giant beer bottles.

“
Actually, I make deliveries. I like to say it combines the two things I like most. Beer and travel. Plus, there’s always the employee discount.”

Jim laughed, but Claire thought he seemed embarrassed. He used to talk about doing something exotic after he graduated, but really, what had life ever offered him? Even graduating from high school had been exotic for his family. His dad had never been in the picture. His mom had been a waitress, with no aspirations beyond making it to her next cigarette break. Claire flashed on a memory of Jim’s mother’s white Famolare shoes, worn with heavy duty support hose that had made her legs look like plastic.