The Class Menagerie

Jane sat her coffee cup down. 'Oh?'

, 'No, the real favor is, I want you to hang around

the rest of the time. To attend with me.'

'Go to your class reunion! You've lost your mind. I didn't even go to my own!'

'Yes, but I remember why. You said you'd only been at the school you graduated from for six months and you never knew the people and—'

'I hate the way you remember everything I tell you. I probably didn't add this remark at the time: even if I'd known them intimately, I wouldn't have gone'. I hate the concept of class reunions. Everybody dieting like mad, getting face-lifts and having family pictures taken to show off. I've known people who spent the better part of a year before a reunion getting a fake life together to show off.'

'But you don't have to fake anything for this. You didn't know them.'

'Why in the world would you want me to go to your reunion?'

'Well, Jane, it's this way — I was terribly shy in high school—'

Jane laughed. 'Try another one. You're about as shy as Attila the Hun.'

Shelley's eyebrows went up. 'You didn't know me then. I was hideously shy. Almost phobic.'

'Shelley, this is like being told that the Pope used to be an arms dealer. It won't fly. You can't possibly expect me to believe this of a woman who has the entire school board, city council, and neighborhood jumping through hoops.'

Shelley preened a 'little. 'Not exactly through hoops.'

'So, even if you were shy, what has it got to do with the reunion? You're not a fading violet anymore.'

'I think that's 'shrinking' violet. If you're going to speak in cliches, you ought to get them right.'

'Don't be snappish with me. I've got the upper hand for a change,' Jane said with a grin.

Shelley took a delicate sip of her coffee while she mentally marshaled her forces. 'Jane, if you've never been to a reunion, this will seem strange to you. But when I went to my tenth, I went striding in with complete confidence and was suddenly overcome by the person I used to be. It's as if someone pressed a button and I dropped through the floor into a time warp — ten years fell away as if they'd never happened and I was that same stammering twerp I used to be.'

'You're kidding!'

'And I'm afraid it'll happen again. I need you there, Jane, to constantly remind me what a bossy bitch I really am.'

'You mean, what a confident, liberated woman you are.'

Shelley nodded. 'Whatever. Anyway, if you're there helping Edgar and Gordon, it's a perfect excuse to sort of hang around. And you can be my 'date' for the other school stuff, the picnic and the dance.'

'Why isn't Paul your date? Husbands are said to be good for that sort of thing.'

'Paul's out of town. Out of the country, as a matter of fact, and I think it's because of this thing. He went to the tenth with me and hated it so much that he gave me that sapphire tennis bracelet on the condition that I never mention the word reunion to him again.', 'It was that bad?'

'No! No, not really, but he was coming down with the flu and felt miserable and it colored his whole memory. It wasn't really bad, he's just remembering it through a haze of decongestants.'

'I'll bet.'

'I'll loan you the bracelet anytime you want if you'll do this for me.'

Jane waved this away. 'I wouldn't trust myself to wear something that expensive. Why are they called tennis bracelets anyway? You'd have to be crazy to wear something like that on a tennis court. If you got hot and sweaty, it could fly right off—'

'Jane!'

'Sorry. Let me see what's on next week.' She rose and went to the calendar over the kitchen phone. 'I've got grade school car pool mornings, Back-to-School night on Thursday. I could probably trade for afternoon car pools, but it would be a two-for-one deal. Nobody wants mornings. But for my very best friend who is going to trade me for a fabulous favor, to be named later—'

'How fabulous?' Shelley asked.

'Fabulous in direct ratio to the horribleness of the reunion.'

'It won't be horrible,' Shelley said. 'In fact, it might be kind of fun.'

'Wanna bet? So, what's this club called?'

Shelley squirmed. 'You don't want to know.'

'More horrible confessions? Come on. Devastate me!'

Shelley mumbled into her coffee cup. 'The Ewe Lambs.'

'Ewe Lambs?' Jane shrieked with delight.

'It wasn't our fault! The football team was the Rams and the club was formed ten years before I was even in high school.'

'And I'll bet you had cute stuff like, 'Do ewe solemnly swear to uphold and protect the woolly principles…' ' Jane was laughing too hard to finish.

Shelley drew herself up. 'Nice women don't snort like that when they're talking, Jane.'

'You'll have to warn Edgar off serving mutton,' Jane said, and went off into another laughing fit. 'I wonder if any of your club members are 'on the lamb.''

Shelley looked to heaven for guidance.

On Tuesday afternoon the week the reunion was to start, Jane went to the Francisco mansion with Shelley to meet Edgar North and familiarize herself with the layout of the house and her responsibilities. '

The house had a definitely Gothic look. The three-acre lot was surrounded by a tall filigree iron fence, freshly painted with glossy black paint. 'It looks like'an English mental institution from the turn of the century,' Jane commented to Shelley as they passed through the gates. The mansion was truly a mansion, with turrets, towers, and misguided bits of iron railings around the roof edges and dormers. Tall pines and oaks, showing scars of recent cosmetic trimming, still darkened the overall gloomy aspect, which was not helped by the fact that a dank fall drizzle was falling. j J

'I've seen this place from the road, but I've never been in here,' Jane said. 'I thought it was abandoned!'

'The Francisco family moved out the year Ted died and it was vacant until Edgar and Gordon bought it last January,' Shelley replied as she wheeled her van into a parking spot by the carriage house behind the main house.!'

'So Ted died,' Jane mused.

Shelley looked at her, perplexed, then said, 'Sorry. I'm in my reunion mode. I forgot you haven't always lived in this neighborhood.'

II

'Who the hell is Ted? The resident ghost?'

'Dear God! I hope not! I'll tell you about it later. There's Edgar waving at us.'

They got out of the car and went to the back door. A cherubic man in his early fifties with thinning red hair, a hint of potbelly, and a huge smile was holding the storm door open to them. 'Ghastly weather, isn't it? I hope it clears up for your guests. Come in, ladies,' he said, beaming.

Jane stepped into the kitchen and came to a dead stop. Nothing could have been more in contrast to the outer aspect of the house. The kitchen was huge, brightly lighted, and seemed to hum with warmth and welcome. Gleaming copper pans, ladles, strainers, and baskets were hung from the soffit around the room. A big kitchen table by the windows was draped in a bright calico fabric that matched the ruffled curtains next to it. White tile counters reflected the bright lighting; a huge, bleached butcher block workstation was in the center of the room. The most gigantic refrigerator Jane had ever seen dominated the far end of the room and white, glass-fronted cabinets held arrays of china and sparkling crystal. There was a quarry tile floor with colorful rag rugs placed anywhere a person might stand for a few moments.

'Mr. North, this is the kitchen of my dreams!' Jane said reverently. 'Heaven looks just like this.'

'Darling, it's Edgar. Mr. North is my father in Cleveland. And I'm glad you like it. I'm rather pleased myself.'

'You could store a small northern country in that refrigerator. But this is a bed and breakfast. Surely-'