The Girl From Home: A Thriller (6 page)

The M&Ms, as Michelle and Melissa called themselves, now live within five minutes of each other in Boca Raton. They're both stay-at-home moms, even though the youngest of their children is in high school, which leaves a lot of time for them to have lunch, shop, and go to the gym together. One of those lifelong friendships straight out of a multiplex rom-com, Jackie thinks.

“I can't believe that you and Rick never left East Carlisle,” Melissa says.

“Yeah,” Michelle chimes in. “It must be so strange to go to the same places where we used to hang out as kids.”

“Have you driven down Route Eighteen?” Barbara laughs. “I doubt that there are five stores still around from back then.”

“The mall's still there,” Michelle points out. “Remember, Jacqueline, when we'd go into the dressing room of . . . what was the name of that store with the really short skirts? And we'd stuff the miniskirts into our bras and then walk out like we were Dolly Parton or something?”

“G&S,” Melissa says.

“Right, G&S,” Michelle says.

Jackie recalls precisely this dynamic from over two decades ago, and hated it then. The M&Ms finishing each other's thoughts, as if combined they might have a normal-size brain, and Barbara trying to drive a wedge between them and Jackie, so she could protect her position as Jackie's best friend.

“It's actually very nice,” Jackie says. “Living in the same town you grew up in, I mean. There are still a lot of teachers around from our time, and there's something—I don't know what the word is, gratifying, maybe?—to see your kids doing the same things you were doing. Our youngest, Emma, she's a gymnast over at the Weider school, and Robert plays quarterback for the Bears.”

“I bet that makes Rick happy,” Barbara says.

There's something about Barbara's tone that Jackie finds unsettling. A familiarity that shouldn't be there. Jackie's often wondered whether Barbara slept with Rick, maybe when they were in college and she and Rick were on one of their many breaks. Maybe in high school, for all Jackie trusted either of them.

“Out of all of us,” Melissa says, “I think Jacqueline's life is the closest to what I would have imagined in high school.”

It's about as bad an indictment as Jackie can imagine, even though she can certainly see why Melissa would have planned this for Jackie twenty-five years ago.

You'll marry Ricky and live
in a house on Farmington Lake, and you'll have a boy and a girl, and the boy will be a football player, and the girl will be beautiful.

How much did Jackie not want that to be the way her life turned out? And yet, maybe she protested too much. She didn't have to move back to East Carlisle after college. She could have turned down Rick's marriage proposal and gone on to graduate school, like she'd originally planned.

She had never imagined the price she'd pay for her insecurity would be so unbearably high. A life of abject fear with no end in sight.

*  *  *

Alex Miller is the first person Jonathan encounters whom he was actually friendly with in high school. They weren't in the same core social circle but in the same general sphere of high school life at least: smart boys with ambition. Alex had done all right for himself too. A couple of years back, Jonathan ran into Mitch Glassman at a restaurant in SoHo, and Mitch mentioned that Alex Miller was a partner at Cromwell Altman, a top-tier New York City law firm.

Alex is looking good, which gives Jonathan a boost that he might not be as run-down as the others he's scanned from a distance. Alex's hair remains full, albeit half-gray now, and he doesn't seem to be a completely different shape than he was in high school.

In the time it takes Jonathan to approach, Alex has been joined by Stephen Hirshman, who was a world-class geek in high school. The years have not been kind to Hirshman. A bean pole with a huge Jewfro back in the day, he's now swung in the opposite direction, close to three hundred pounds and bald as a cue ball.

“Finally, men in suits,” Jonathan says.

Alex chuckles. “Yeah, really. Did an e-mail go out that everyone was supposed to dress like teenagers?”

“Only among the guys,” Hirshman says. “The girls seem to have gone all out. Some social scientist should make a study about why the female of the species preserves itself so much better. Look over there—Jacqueline Lawson and the Cliquesters. I swear, it's like time has stood still for them.”

Cliquesters
, Jonathan repeats in his head. He hasn't heard that term in twenty-five years.

“Okay,” Hirshman says excitedly, “this definitely falls under the category that there is no karmic justice in the world, but I heard that Jacqueline married that douche bag Ricky Williams. The prom queen and the quarterback of the football team. Clichés are clichés for a reason, I guess.”

Alex is apparently uninterested in high school classmates who never gave him the time of day, so he asks Hirshman, “What's your post-ECHS life been like, Stephen? You went to MIT, right? If I had to guess, I'd bet you hit it big with a tech start-up.”

“I wish,” Hirshman says with a nervous laugh. “No such luck. Sometimes I think I'm the only guy who got a computer degree from MIT in 1995 who
isn't
a millionaire. But I had the foresight to turn down a job at Microsoft because I didn't feel like moving to Seattle. And so instead of being retired at thirty and now spending my time running my own charitable foundation, I was just canned from the place where I've worked for the last twenty years.”

Jonathan tuned out of this discussion the moment he caught sight of Jacqueline Lawson. She was still breathtakingly beautiful, that was for damn sure. Dark shoulder-length hair, not that frosted dye so many women in their forties go to; and the same sparkling emerald eyes he remembered so vividly from a quarter century ago still shimmered from across the room. She must also work out every day, as she seemed tight in all the right places.

Every boy in ECHS had a thing for Jacqueline Lawson. Jonathan sure as hell did. How many nights did he spend alone in his bedroom fantasizing about her?

I want what I want
, he thinks to himself.

“Stephen,” calls out a heavyset woman with short, spiky gray hair. Jonathan can't place her from high school, although that didn't necessarily mean that they weren't classmates. He hasn't recognized most of the attendees tonight.

Hirshman does the introductions. “This is my wife, Allison. Allison, this is Johnny Caine and Alex Miller, two really good guys.”

“Hi,” she says, but obviously is uninterested in them. “Stephen, the sitter just called. Max is throwing up. We need to go.”

“He'll be fine, Allison. He probably just has a stomach bug. There's nothing we're going to be able to do for him at home, and we just got here.”

“Can I speak to you about this privately?” Allison says in a way that makes clear that
no
is not a possible answer.

“Good talking to you guys,” Hirshman says, sighing. “If we stick around, I'll try to catch up with you later.”

“My God. Poor bastard,” Jonathan says after Hirshman's wife yanks him away. “How about you, Alex. Do you have an equally lovely wife at home?”

Alex laughs. “Well, without comparing the two, the answer is yes, I'm married. Elizabeth is home with our children tonight. A boy and a girl. Charlotte's eleven, and Owen is about to turn five. And you?”

“Married, no kids. My wife—perhaps wisely—suggested that I'd have more fun if I relived my not-so-glory days without her.”

There's a sudden awkward silence, the small talk having run its course, before Alex says, “I hope I'm not talking out of school, Johnny,” and then, realizing the play on words, he quickly adds, “which of course I'm not, because I'm talking
in
school. But . . . I know a little of what's going on with you . . . This obviously isn't the time or the place and, believe me, I'm not pitching for business, but . . . I always liked and respected you, at least back when we actually knew each other . . . and so if you need someone to talk to . . . Well, the truth is that I've kind of been there a little bit myself, and I offer my friendship with the added benefit of the attorney-client privilege.”

Jonathan feels like he's been caught naked. He hadn't expected anyone at the reunion to know anything about his life other than what he bothered telling them.

Alex reaches into his suit jacket pocket and pulls out a business card. Jonathan glances at the firm name.

“Peikes Selva & Schwarz?” Jonathan says. “I thought you were at Cromwell Altman.”

“I was, but I've been at Peikes for the last couple of years. Long story, but like I said, it gives me some frame of reference for what you're going through.”

“Thanks,” Jonathan says. “Do you mind? I need to make a call. But I do appreciate the offer, Alex. Truly and seriously.”

*  *  *

Jackie pries herself away from her supposed best-friends-forever under the guise that she needs to call home and check on the kids. As she walks out of the gym, she spies Rick whispering to Diana Matarazzo. He looks barely able to keep his tongue in his mouth. Jackie can't make out what either one of them is saying, but she knows her husband well enough to surmise that she'd be disgusted if she heard two words of it.

There's some refuge in the fresh air, although the moment Jackie steps outside, she wishes she had stopped to grab her coat. In the slinky dress she's wearing, she won't last two minutes out here before she begins shaking from the cold. Still, that's two minutes that she doesn't have to be inside with any of them.

She has the overwhelming impulse to scream. Just shout at the top of her lungs how much she hates her life, and everyone and everything in it. But she stifles that thought, fully knowing it's misdirected.

The person she hates is herself. She's to blame for her life, no one else—

“Hey.”

The sound of someone else's presence actually causes Jackie to jump.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just came out here to get away from it for a little bit. But if you did that, too, then I guess my presence defeats the purpose. At least for you.”

Jackie squints. “You're Johnny Caine, right?”

Jonathan smiles. “Jonathan now, but yes. I often wondered if high school royalty knew the names of their loyal subjects.”

She tries to conjure an image of Johnny Caine in high school, but all she can remember is that he was one of the smart kids back when she didn't realize that mattered a lot more in life than being able to throw a tight spiral. From the looks of him, Jackie concludes that Johnny Caine figured out a way to monetize his intelligence. Lawyer, maybe. Or a doctor?

The Cliquesters made it something of a Friday-night activity to rank the hottest guys, usually getting up to twenty before they decided that no one else was worth the effort. Johnny Caine never made the cut. He would now, though.

“That was a very long time ago, you know,” she says.

“It was indeed,” he says. “Twenty-five years, if you believe the banners hanging in the gym. You look cold.” Jonathan takes off his suit jacket. “Is that okay?” he asks, offering it up.

Jackie smiles at him. In a different life, she thinks, she might have ended up with someone like Johnny—no, Jonathan—Caine. Smart. A gentleman. Not an alcoholic, cheating wife abuser.

“Do you mean is my husband going to kick your ass because you kept his wife from freezing to death?”

“I'm less concerned about that than that you'll find me too forward.”

Jackie takes the jacket from Jonathan and wraps it around herself. She can tell it's expensive from the way it slips onto her shoulders.

“No. I appreciate a gesture of chivalry now and then. So are you having fun?”

“Now I am,” he says with a grin. “You should know I made it my mission tonight to say hello to you.”

Jackie can't deny she's flattered. She still gets a lot of male attention, but nowadays it's from Rick's asshole buddies and the occasional guy with a MILF fetish.

“Oh really. And why is that? Did you ever say hello to me in high school?”

“See, that's just it. I was afraid to talk to you in high school, so maybe now we could be friends.”

“Uh-huh. Call me crazy, but I get the sense that I just might be an item on your bucket list. You know. Buy a Porsche. Have sex with the prom queen. That kind of thing.”

Jonathan chuckles. “I guess I shouldn't have worried so much about being too forward.”

“Tell me it's not true,” she says with a smile.

He stares hard at her, no smile on his lips. “It's not true. Sorry if I made you think that.” Then he waits a beat. “But if I'm being totally honest with you, I should probably confess . . . that I already have a very nice car.”

They share a laugh.

“If you want to know the truth, the reason I've accosted you like this is because my father's dying over at Lakeview, and I'm going to be spending some time in East Carlisle. I heard you still live here, and so I thought I should at least come and say hello because I don't know anyone else who still calls East Carlisle home except you and your husband, and he's the guy who gave me wedgies all through middle school, so I thought you were the safer bet to seek out as a potential friend.”

“I'm so sorry to hear about your dad.”

“Thanks. It's tough, but . . . circle of life, I guess. We're at that age when our parents are going to get sick and die. I went through it just last year with my mother. This time, I decided to take some time off from work so I can spend it with him. I figured it's now or never.”

“You poor thing. Your mother, too? My father died . . . oh, it's been more than twenty years now—when I was in college—but I still miss him. My mother is still alive, so I guess I'm lucky there. She lives in Baltimore, but we still see each other a lot. If you don't mind my asking . . . what's wrong with your father?”