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Chapter 1
Piper
Therearelotsofthings I’ll do for my friends without protest: holding hair back in a club bathroom while they puke, serving as a designated driver, and boob-taping plunging necklines come to mind. Helping with the high school reunion I don’t even plan to attend is not one of those things.
“Comeon,” Carla whines, leaning against my door frame in a huff. “You know they’re going to ask about design and no one that’s RSVPed is creativeat all.”
“I guess it’s better to know you’re being used from the get-go,” I say dryly, looking at her in the reflection of my vanity mirror. She’s dressed to impress, as much as she can for a windy Texas morning, in a stylish jacket with a pair of dark jeans and white pointed snakeskin boots she doesn't get to wear often. They’re her favorite, I know, but they don’t really pair well with scrubs.
“They won’t use you.” She crosses her arms, blowing a piece of freshly highlighted, straight auburn hair from her pale eyes. “Just your talents.” She smirks and meets my eyes in the mirror, running her fingers along the neckline of the top she’s wearing under the jacket. It’s studded with short, black spikes, matching the dark silk of the bodice. One of my designs. “Come on, just this one meeting. You can show up, look hot, let the rest of them see what they were missing ten years ago, and call it a day. Just hear Jackie out.”
I narrow my eyes at her.
Jackie. She has to bring Jackie into this.
Jackie is one of the sweetest people on the planet. Ten years after graduation, I still get an annual “Merry Christmas!” text from her with a little Bitmoji. Even her gangbusters career in neuroscience hasn’t stopped her from continuing the same “love everyone” attitude she’d had all those years ago. She was nice to me, when lots of people weren’t.
“Please, Piper,” she whines again. I close my eyes and take a ragged breath, trying to weigh my options.
I haven’t seen most of these people in a decade. I moved away from our suburban hellhole to avoid running into anyone from high school a long time ago. Especially now, years later, when I’d gone off the deep end and somehow doggy-paddled my way back to the shallows, the last thing I need is to go grocery shopping and run into someone who tormented me.
ButJackie. Jackie is kind, and when Carla told me weeks ago she was heading up the reunion, as class president and valedictorian, I wasn’t surprised. I just didn’t think I’d be asked to tag along. Truthfully, my plan had been to say I was going, and then bow out at the last minute, claiming some lingerie-schilling emergency at work.
Still in the darkness of my closed eyes, I try to imagine the girl I was back then. Too tall, still wearing heels nearly every day. Too curvy, foregoing yoga pants and Ed Hardy tee shirts for blazers and blouses I’d altered myself. Loud. Nerdy. Too much, I was told.
When I open my eyes, I stare at my reflection. The same blue irises stare back at me. Those haven’t changed. But everything else has. The dyed, fire engine red hair was replaced with shiny, well-conditioned, dark curls that have grown more in the last few years than in the last decade. Sobriety and a regular diet will do that. While my face was still full, it had yo-yoed so much with depression induced weight-loss, and then weight-gain, that my body had finally settled on a happy medium of looking healthy. I traded my thick glasses for contacts, my drugstore makeup for high-end (ish), and had even stopped biting my nails after years of therapy and bitter nail polish.
My gaze flits down to the framed photo on the vanity in front of me. A different woman than either one on my mind smiles back. Gaunt. Tired. The floral dress hanging off her frame matches the bouquet in her hand; arms flung over the man in front of her, seated firmly in a wheelchair, a Kansas City Royals blanket thrown over his lap to cover his too-thin legs. He smiles too, but it’s just as worn as hers. Tie askew. Face roughly shaven. But yet, they’re happy.
You’re not that woman anymore.
I feel like a car that had all of the exterior panels replaced. The repair job hid a once-broken, still somehow functioning engine that had been refurbished piece-by-piece.
I look at Carla again in the reflection. She can sense my hesitation, and brings her hands in front of her, pleading.
“I’ll take you for fro-yo after the show tonight.”
“You’ve resorted to bribery, I see.” She smiles at my snipe, knowing she’s extorted my weakness for sugar. “Must really not want to face Kyle alone.” Her smile falters a bit, and I realize I may have gone too far, teasing about her decade-long crush on my neighbor growing up. “Fine.” I sigh, shaking my head. “I’ll go.”
“Really?” My roommate claps and gives a little jump, before faltering in her boots and catching herself in the doorframe just in time for Bex, my tiny, black Brussels Griffon to saunter her way into the room, pink, sparkly collar jingling. “We can kill time before the show at the Shops or something.” I roll my eyes, turning back to my reflection in the mirror. Always an opportunity to participate in a little retail therapy when Carla's involved.
As she walks back toward her room doing a little happy dance, I get to work on my makeup, wondering what I’ve just gotten myself into. “Give me twenty minutes and we can head that way," I call after her.
When we walk into the cafe an hour later, Carla makes a bee-line toward the back, and I see where she’s headed - a long, low table, with a booth on one side and low chairs on the other. There are open spots on the booth and in the uncomfortable, narrowly braced metal chairs that go with the farmhouse aesthetic of the cafe, Rooster Ranch. This place wasn’t here when we went to Southwest High School, but the tables are now littered with what looks like students from the very place we graduated. Carla clearly suggested it for the meeting. The vibe matches her farmhouse chic bedroom, and she looks fresh from a night out now, but that woman lives in scrubs under a frilly duvet.
My roommate squeals as she gets closer to the table, and everyone stands so I’m able to get a good look at who's here.
From the seats stand three women and a man. The man I immediately recognize as Kyle, who pulls me into a quick side hug - I ran into him last Thanksgiving as we both left our parents’ houses, his arms laden with to-go containers as he made his way to what looked like a food service job, based on his outfit. According to my mother, the neighborhood gossip, Kyle only moved out because his parents made him, and he still lived just a few miles away working his latest job in a series of short stints. Long gone were his days of being the bad boy loner that Carla had lusted after, but she still manages not to make googly eyes at him over the girl she’s hugging.
When they separate, I realize that it’s Fallon, one of Carla’s best friends from high school. They were in theater together, and while Carla was always the shining star, Fallon, with her long, blonde hair and girl-next-door smile, was a close second. She came over to the apartment when she was in town from Oklahoma City, where she manages a children’s theater with her husband. She pulls me into a hug behind Carla, holding me at arms length and looking over the a-line dress I’d thrown on, a personal favorite, with pearls studding the collar and sleeves.
“You look fabulous, as always.” I give Fallon a wide grin at her sincere tone.
Kyle gives Carla the same awkward side hug. The other woman I can’t place at first, but when Carla says “Hey, Jess!” recognition hits me. Jessica Alverado.
Being off social media for years has its pros and cons.
Pros:
