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“Who is that?” she asked the empty space.
Dust motes drifted in the light from the bare bulb.
She tucked the knife block under an eave, then shifted over a box of books to completely obscure the space. She was ducking back toward the ladder when she saw the gilt-edged volume that said West Knoll Class of 2005: Ten-Year Reunion. Picking it up, she smeared her hand across the dusty surface, then hauled it back downstairs.
Fifteen minutes later, she was in bed, holding the newly cleaned book in her hands. She looked at the clock. Midnight to the minute.
Heart pounding, she opened the cover, thinking of all her classmates. They’d all had varied and not necessarily joyful experiences when they’d gathered for their reunion, five years ago.
It had been a very hard time for Delta.
But now things were so much worse.
PART THREE
The Reunion
Chapter 9
West Knoll High School Class of 2005
Ten-Year Reunion
Zora teetered a bit unsteadily on her four-inch silver heels. She’d always been the shortest of the Five Firsts, even shorter than Bailey, and it made her feel a tad insecure. She hadn’t seen much of any of them since high school, apart from that short time she and Delta had shared an apartment, when Zora’s parents had still been footing the bill for her housing and tuition. Boy, how things changed. Luckily, she’d found Max, who’d fallen madly in love with her in that blur time of her parents’ divorce when they’d sold the house, split their assets, and taken their respective bank accounts with them, neither of them all that eager to share with their daughter. Zora, unfortunately, hadn’t realized the funds were going to dry up so quickly, so she’d allowed Delta reduced rent, and the two of them had navigated their first year living together while taking community college classes. Delta had chosen basic courses in business, and Zora had taken drama. Neither of them had been particularly thrilled with their choices. Zora just wanted to be famous and skip all the drudgery, and a small part of her kind of thought maybe her dad would pay her way in somehow, but, uh, no. Dad had skipped off with a new girlfriend, and Mom had moved to Bend, purchased a condo, and gleefully become a ski bunny, not that she knew how to ski, but she sure knew how to hang around a ski lodge and wear close-fitting ski gear. She’d landed a doctor who was on ski patrol, and they moved in together right away. Neither of Zora’s parents seemed to quite remember they had a daughter who was barely eighteen and making it on her own.
Zora had been reeling that year and was glad that Delta had her own issues, namely Tanner Stahd. Delta was determined to save that relationship, come hell or high water. Zora could have told her it might not be worth the effort. She herself had engaged in a serious make-out session with Tanner once. She would have gone all the way, exce
pt he didn’t have a condom, and one thing about Tanner Stahd, he wasn’t going to let an unwanted pregnancy get in the way of his ambitions, at least that time. So they’d done a lot of kissing and rubbing and sucking, damn near everything except complete sex, and . . . it had been great and on the pool table where Amanda later had her own make-out session and more with him. Zora would have liked to really rank on Amanda and Tanner about that. It was all she could do to downplay their hot sex as just a few kisses, but she knew that if she told the truth, Tanner would rat her out as well, and she preferred that to remain a secret.
But that was all ten years ago now. Ten years. It didn’t seem possible, and yet Zora and Max had been married six. Max had worked for his dad at Pilsber Construction at first, and things had been pretty good, but then the company had gone broke during the recession, and there were lawsuits abounding against “Piss-poor Construction,” as it was dubbed, which prompted Zora to go back to her maiden name, DeMarco. So Max had taken a job as a foreman for another, bigger construction business, and they’d managed to hang on to the small house they’d bought in West Knoll. It wasn’t the dream life Zora had envisioned, but it was okay. She’d wanted to move to Portland, even nearby Laurelton, a bigger city, but the house had been a good buy, even before the recession; though it hadn’t been anywhere near the same league as the Forsythes’ estate, it was located in a part of West Knoll that had at one time been rows of cottages, which had turned into hot, hot, hot properties before the bottom dropped out of the real estate market, so they’d done okay . . . for a while, until they were forced to sell anyway.
Now that property was undoubtedly worth a small fortune. She and Max had sold it when the market was recovering and moved into a rented condo. They were currently holding on to their cash and seeing what the market would do next. Unfortunately, prices were increasing every year. If they didn’t buy soon, they might be priced out completely.
God, she hated worrying about money.
She looked in her bathroom mirror, touched the back of her upswept hair with a sparkling rhinestone comb. Her dress was black. Plain. She couldn’t afford to buy something sleek and silky and colorful. Maybe red, or a rich blue, like cobalt or cerulean. Not only were she and Max saving money for another house, but there was the cost of those IVF treatments. Man, those were expensive! Zora had been sure she could have a baby without any problem, and to realize it wasn’t happening had surprised and upset her. When a year went by, and then three, and four and five, she grew desperate. Max had said they could never afford the treatments, and only in the last year had she gotten him to finally open the purse strings and give it a try. But zippo. No luck. Nada. She blamed him for their problems, but the doctor couldn’t say for sure what the holdup was. The woman’s suggestion: for Zora to relax and try not to think about it so much. Great. What a plan. That was just sooooo easy.
And how much did that advice cost?
When she’d heard that Delta and Tanner had a perfect little boy, that they’d named him Owen and Tanner called him “O,” she’d smiled and smiled and smiled until she thought her face would break. So cute! she’d raved. So perfect! So happy for them.
So the life she should have had.
Again she recalled fooling around with Tanner on the pool table. How she wished she could rewind history and have made love to him. Maybe she would’ve gotten pregnant, and then she’d be the one married to the doctor now, not Delta, and she’d have a baby who was . . . ten years old now? They’d have money and a family and everything.
But . . . it was Amanda who’d hooked up with Tanner and gotten pregnant in those days, a case of a broken condom, according to her. Bullshit. Knowing Amanda, Zora believed Amanda had maybe sabotaged the prophylactic. Zora could just see Amanda sticking a wee, teensy hole in the latex tip and then carrying the condom around with her, waiting for an opportunity to pretend she was all prepared. Of course, it had happened on Zora’s pool table . . . where she and Tanner had engaged in heavy petting just a few weeks earlier . . . which really sucked. But Amanda was relentless. She would do whatever was necessary to get what she wanted, and in those days, she’d wanted Tanner. In her single-minded purposefulness, she and Tanner were a lot alike.
But Amanda’s pregnancy hadn’t lasted. Miscarriage, she’d said. Unless it had been an elaborate lie that was going to be found out. Didn’t matter anymore. Delta won in the end, and she and Tanner eloped. He’d just gotten into med school in Arizona, and Delta ran away with him and helped support him. She never finished her college degree, but she’d taken enough business classes to work as a bookkeeper, which helped them get by until he was in his residency. His dad had actually started the health clinic in West Knoll before Tanner was fully graduated, and Tanner joined in the business as soon as he could as the resident “Dr. Oz”—just before that whole “additive” business that scared everybody shitless. Lead? Seriously? Anyway, the upshot was that Tanner’s dad’s health supplement company had suffered a hard hit. Dr. Stahd Senior couldn’t catch a break. But then Tanner took over the clinic from him and brought it back to glory, and everything worked out for Delta and him, and they had baby Owen.
She’d seen pictures of him on Facebook. Gorgeous little boy.
It all made Zora’s stomach hurt.
Especially since Max was . . . not living up to what she needed in a partner.
She slid on some lip gloss with the tip of her little finger, wiped off the excess on a tissue, then went in search of her husband.
She found him lounging in front of the television in the same sweatshirt and jeans he’d been in all day.
